Sarah's Key

Holocaust fiction set in France.

Memorial Day

Sheeler, Jim. (2008). Final salute: a story of unfinished lives. New York: Penguin Press.

Beauty and terror of science

Homes, Robert. (2009). The age of wonder : how the romantic generation discovered the beauty and terror of science. New York: Pantheon Books.

"The Age of Wonder" explores the earliest ideas of deep time and space, and the explorers of "dynamic science": an infinite, mysterious Nature waiting to be discovered. Three lives dominate the book: William Herschel, his sister Caroline, and Humphry Davy.

Dylan + Mingus

Their friendship compromised by the belief systems of the racially charged 1970s, Dylan Ebdus and Mungus Rude share a series of misadventures based on their mutual obsession with comic book heroes.

Mixed reviews.

British spies

Conant, Jennet. (2008). The irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British spy ring in wartime Washington. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Conant tells the story of young writer Roald Dahl who is assigned by His Majesty's Government to Washington, D.C. as a diplomat to gather intelligence about America's isolationist circles. In the course of his "spying," he meets or works closely with David Ogilvy, Ian Fleming, and the great spymaster William Stephenson (aka Intrepid).

Conant has written a series of books of historical interest: I've read her Tuxedo Park, and her most recent work is about Julia and Paul Child, A covert affair.

Terror

Booklist: The leads are witty, and the prose is elegant. But readers should prepare to wallow in the book and take it slowly.

Kirkus:  Adding political and financial corruption to uncover, manipulators to expose and a war with Mexico to prevent might make the plot seem too complex, but no loose end is left untied, and only one or two insignificant anachronisms should trouble the most sophisticated reader. An intriguing literary mystery mixing fact and fiction.

Go figure.

Resurrection men

Rankin, Ian. (2003). Resurrection men : an Inspector Rebus novel. Boston : Little, Brown.

Berkeley bohemia

Ed Herny; Shelley Rideout; Katie Wadell. (2008). Berkeley bohemia: artists and visionaries of the early 20th century. Layton, UT: Gibbs Smith.

Senso

Film by Visconti.

The hummingbird's daughter

Urrea, Luis Alberto. (2005). The hummingbird's daughter.New York: Little, Brown.

Success: self-education and the pursuit of passion

Bach, James Marcus. (2009). Secrets of a buccaneer-scholar : how self-education and the pursuit of passion can lead to a lifetime of success . New York: Scribner.

In pale battalions

Goddard, Robert. (1988).  In pale battalions. London ; New York : Bantam Press.

The end of my addiction

Ameisen, Olivier. (2009). The end of my addiction. New York: Sarah Crichton Books/FS&G.


What if there were a cure for addiction--a medication that eradicates the need for a fix? This is the story of Olivier Ameisen, a brilliant physician and cardiologist who developed a profound addiction to alcohol. He broke bones with no memory of falling and nearly lost his kidneys. He gave up his flourishing practice and invested himself in Alcoholics Anonymous and, later, rehab. Nothing worked. So he took his treatment into his own hands.

Silver City

Kirkus: An impressively nuanced reminder not only of the terrible toll of Chinese history, but of how fiction can illuminate it with portraits of individuals caught in its currents.

Found it by serendipity; was looking for John Sayles's eponymous film.

Redbreast

Kirkus: it's well worth sticking with the story; both the hero and the villain are as compelling as the portrayal of Norwegians doing whatever it takes to survive the war and then paying the price.

Moonwalking with Einstein

KP liked it.

Skin deep

Danzy Senna's collection of short stories. Her novels include Caucasia. Times review (Though Senna’s stories address race, class and gender, they never devolve into simple case studies. Rather, her collection offers nuanced portraits of characters confronting anxieties and prejudices that leave them not as free as they would like to be.) last Sunday quoted Langston Hughes's poem, I, Too: I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.

Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--

I, too, am America.

A thousand million

One billion customers : lessons from the front lines of doing business in China

Author:	James McGregor
Publisher:	New York : Free Press, ©2006.
Series:	A Wall Street journal book.

John Mortimer

He wrote Rumpole, which, the very little I know, is not (dare I say it?) my cup of tea. Yet, when I read Mortimer was a real Communist, and a rabid anti-Thatcherite, well, I had to look closely: a British barrister, dramatist, screenwriter and author.

Day out of days

Shepard, Sam. (2010). Day out of days: stories. New York : Alfred A. Knopf.

In a series of tales set mainly in the West, a man is trapped inside a restaurant where an endless loop of Shania Twain songs is playing, an actor recounts his teenage debaucheries with an old friend, and a squabbling family remains oblivious to their Yucatán vacation.

Balso Snall and Miss Lonelyhearts

Pushcart Prize winner

Tower, Wells. Everything ravaged, everything burned. (2009). New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.