OPENING LINE:
A white light seeped through the shoji windows and into the room, along with the morning chill.
.
.
Tsukiyama’s sprawling historical fiction title covers Japan before, during and after World War II, yet maintains an intimate tone thanks to richly developed characters. One would expect it to feel like War and Peace in its complexity, with the large time span, several sets of families and multiple interconnecting story lines, but Tsukiyama’s characters and plots are fascinating and clearly drawn. We follow a set of brothers (Hiroshi and Kenji) and sisters (Aki and Haru), whose fates intertwine as they explore the worlds of Noh theatre and sumo wrestling. I never thought I’d have any interest in sumo, but Tsukiyama has a gift for getting the reader invested in the character, and I would have followed Hiroshi’s story with interest no matter his career choice. What stayed with me, though, was not so much the myriad details of these two very different worlds, but a sense of what WWII did to the Japanese civilian population, as they struggled to survive and then rebuild. One character develops significant mental illness, and her suicide is heartbreaking, because the reader has seen her grow from a light-hearted girl to a young woman haunted by what she has lived through. Excellent historical fiction makes us realize our human similarities to people from other times and cultures, growing empathy for the present as well as the past. Tsukiyama is known for popular, often romantic titles- and this is no exception- but she is a writer of skill and taste who broadens readers’ horizons. Actor Stephen Park’s sensitive but unmushy reading strikes just the right note, and the pronunciation of Japanese names and places is refreshingly correct.
Check the BPl catalog for this title: The Street of a Thousand Blossoms
GREAT LINEs:
Mrs. Klapper shifted impatiently beside him.
“Rebeck, pardon an old woman, but are you laying an egg?”
.
.
I first discovered this book as a teenager obsessed with cemeteries- I loved the way cemeteries are a microcosm of their city/country, the myriad stories behind each stone, the melancholic romance and slight morbidity. I found that Peter Beagle loved cemeteries as much as I did, and gobbled down this first novel by our finest living fantasy writer, in which two ghosts fall in love in a cemetery while drifting toward the great forgetting of their mortal lives. It’s always dangerous to love a book so much as an impressionable teen- one’s memories sometimes don’t live up to present day tastes- but I’ve reread this title at least 3 times as an adult, in different decades, and find my fondness for it does not diminish. Laura and Michael are the two ghosts, one ready to leave behind all memories of earthly life and the other constantly grasping for those memories. Their non-ghostly friend Jonathan Rebeck is a gentle soul and failed pharmacist, who lives in a mausoleum and serves as a sort of guide and company for those on their way out of one world and into the next. Mr. Rebeck has a faithful companion in a talking raven who brings him food and news of the world and his life is fairly stable, until he meets the widowed Mrs. Klapper, and feels the siren call of the living. Beagle’s writing is imaginative, lyrical and richly creative. He combines wry humor and aching pathos, without ever becoming sentimental. Many people know Mr. Beagle for his second novel, The Last Unicorn, which deserves its own entry. It’s time to discover (or rediscover) his first novel, written when he was 19.
Check the BPL catalog for this title: A Fine and Private Place
OPENING LINES:
Every life is different from any that has gone before it, and so is every death. The uniqueness of each of us extends even to the way we die.
.
.
“Oh, ugh- what do you want to read that for? How morbid,” is often the reaction I get when I read (and reread) this title. Is it morbid? I would say that in fact Nuland’s sensitive and beautifully written examination of a universal experience is life-affirming and comforting. Nuland was a physician for many years, and taught medicine at Yale. He must have been an excellent professor, for he knows how to communicate difficult, complex information in elegant, digestible servings. He examines the physiological, psychological, spiritual and ethical issues surrounding death, using different scenarios such as heart attack, murder, Alzheimer’s, AIDS, cancer and old age. Researching and analyzing near-death experiences, he presents a picture of death as an experience which seems to be at least neutral, and frequently positive, for the person experiencing it. Some of the scenarios he presents are wrenching and unforgettable, such as the 10 year old child whose mother watches helplessly as a mentally ill homeless person stabs her daughter to death right in front of her. The thorough research and even tone are balanced by Nuland’s compassion and empathy. Remarkably, he avoids sentimentality, a welcome respite from many books on death and dying. Look for the edition which includes Coda: 2010, where Nuland delivers an incisive and critical analysis of our health care system as we approach our ends. “Death belongs to the dying and those who love them,” states Nuland in an eloquent epilogue- and so this book belongs to all of us.
Check the BPL catalog for this title: How We Die
GREAT LINES:
Losing someone you love is akin to a deep physical wound. It will eventually heal but there will always be a scar.
.
.
Be warned: this is a three-hankie book. At age 14, both of the author’s parents were diagnosed with cancer. Her mother died when Smith was 18 and a freshman in college; her father died when she was 25. What’s remarkable is the lack of self-pity and clear-eyed analysis of her own grief, which will resonate with anyone who has ever lost a dear one. Smith eventually became a grief counselor with hospice services, and I have no doubt she is an amazing resource for her clients. What makes this memoir different from the many existing “I lost my parents/brother/sister/husband” titles is Smith’s background as a therapist, in conjunction with her personal experience. She divides her story into sections based on Kubler-Ross’s five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance). However, she tells her story in a non-linear fashion that frames grief in the larger concept of survival. So while you watch her engage in substance abuse and abusive relationships, you’re also seeing her as a compassionate, competent individual who has lived through incredible loss and come out the other side, stronger and grateful for the experience. The description of her father’s death is simply put, exquisite prose, unembellished and real. This is the defining story of the author’s life, but I sure hope she writes another book- she is a remarkable writer.
Check the BPL catalog for this title: The Rules of Inheritance
GREAT LINES:
The warm air, the wine, and the melancholy beauty of the night filled me with a delicious sadness. It would always be like this, I thought. The brilliant, friendly island, full of secrets, my family and my animals around me and, for good measure, our friends.
.
.
I think it’s hard to find a more appealing book to read aloud than Gerald Durrell’s accounts of growing up with an eccentric family on the island of Corfu in the 1930s. His two books of memoirs, of which this title is the second (the first being My Family and Other Animals) are a marvelous combination of rich, evocative language and hysterically funny accounts of a family of determined iconoclasts- human, animal and reptile. Durrell later became a famous naturalist, and from birth was fascinated with living things. He collected pets of all sorts, even as a young boy in London, but his passion for animal collecting got a huge shot in the arm when the Durrell family moved to the Greek island of Corfu. It’s hard to say what’s more fun, his accounts of the family (the artsy brother Lawrence, of Alexandria Quartet fame; the gun-toting blowhard brother Leslie; sister Margo, obsessed with fashion and spirituality; their long-suffering mother, who dealt with most situations with remarkable equanimity; and a cast of wonderful Greek characters who become family of choice) or his adventures in the natural world, catching and collecting creatures from octopi and turtles to bats and owls. But the reason I read Durrell aloud to my children is the language: it is sublime. Save for Kipling, there’s no better way to bathe a young ear in beautiful prose and awaken a love of the written and spoken word. The chapter I reread to them most often describes Gerry’s lunch with a crazed gourmand Countess, and the descriptions of food are deliciously over the top. If you didn’t read these as a child or teen, it’s not too late- and indeed, Durrell’s work is intended for an adult audience, but suitable for anyone over 6.
Check the BPL catalog for this title: Birds, Beasts and Relatives
OPENING LINES:
Wolverine River, Alaska, 1920
Mabel had known there would be silence. That was the point, after all.
.
.
Magical realism meets absolute reality in this quiet, lyrical tale of a lonely homesteading couple in Alaska, circa 1920. Mabel and Jack have come to Alaska to leave behind the grief of a miscarriage, their one chance at children that went wrong. One night, they build a child out of snow, adding scarf and mittens. The next day, they see a young girl, wearing those garments, darting behind trees, accompanied by a fox. Gradually they befriend Faina, who bit by bit reveals enough facts about her life so that they are reassured she is in fact human. The reader, however, is never quite sure about Faina, who seems unearthly despite a corporeal presence. Ivey captures the deep silence of forests in snow, the startling power of Alaska’s frenetic growing season, the subtle changes in relationships over long years and heavy losses and the beauty of accepting those we love instead of trying to change them. Mabel is an artist, and Ivey must be, too, for her descriptions revel in color and texture. Fairytale-based but firmly rooted in the beautiful, harsh Alaska environment, Ivey will appeal to readers of Angela Carter, Neil Gaiman and Donna Jo Napoli. This is an excellent title to offer to older teens.
Check the BPL catalog for this title: The Snow Child
GREAT LINES:
Anyone who has ever had the misfortune of seeing a horse bound for slaughter will attest that the animals seem to sense when they are hitting the end of the road. Sometimes, horses react with fear, feet scrambling for purchase on bare wooden floors… other times, they just look haunted, as if they know where they are headed.
.
.
In 1956, Dutch immigrant and WWII survivor Harry de Leyer, now a riding instructor at a private girls school in New York, was looking for a “lesson horse” when he arrived late at a horse auction. The only horses left were the “kills”: horses not purchased now on their way to become dog food and glue. He took a chance on a big, friendly, homely grey gelding, whom his children christened Snowman. Harry’s superior horsemanship skills, kind heart and recognition of the flea-bitten grey’s jumping talents resulted in the biggest Cinderella story in horse show jumping. Snowman won the Triple Crown of jumping, beating European champions and expensive American thoroughbreds. It’s a great story, and one I remember reading in an anthology of horse stories when I was a horse-crazy tween. Letts has done extensive research and interviews, and it shows. Black and white photos throughout are a definite plus. It’s not the most elegant sports writing you’ll ever read, but Letts’ love for horses and the sport shines through. Even though you know how the story will end, the showdown at Madison Square Garden is a real cliffhanger and Snowman’s death? Three hankies. Letts’ analysis of the importance of the horse in American society and the radical changes of that role due to industrialization and urban sprawl provides fascinating and relevant background that helps to explain Snowman’s appeal. Not just for horse lovers!
Check the BPL catalog for this title: The Eighty-Dollar Champion
GREAT LINES:
Music makes us humans rich. It is the revelation of the divine. It takes us to paradise.
.
.
Alice Herz-Sommer, born 1903 in Prague, is the oldest living Holocaust survivor. She is also an extraordinary pianist and teacher, whose skills were exploited by the Nazis to give concerts for prisoners at the Theresienstadt concentration camp where she and her family were imprisoned. Holocaust memoirs abound, but what makes Alice’s story unique is her unquenchable zest for and delight in life, and her fierce devotion to protecting her only child from the harsh realities of camp existence. Also unusual in many Holocaust memoirs, Alice’s life post-Liberation occupies nearly a third of the book, as she attempts to re-establish a life for herself and her son (her husband and mother died in the camps), first unsuccessfully in Prague before moving to Israel and finally London, where she now lives. There are many exceptional and unexpected turns to Alice’s life, but musicians in general and pianists in particular will love the section in which many of Chopin’s horrendously difficult and beautiful Etudes are analyzed for their musical content and how it reflects the events of Alice’s life at the time. 16 pages of photographs show Alice’s family, friends and career highlights but the most touching images in the book are a series of 4 photographs of Alice at age 102, listening to music in her home in Hampstead. She is thoughtfully and actively engaged with the music. The final photo shows her leaning back, hands on her cheeks, eyes closed, and a brilliant smile of rapturous delight. Inspirational to pianists, certainly, but it’s an unforgettable and uplifting story that will engage many.
Check the BPL catalog for this title: Alice’s Piano
GREAT LINES:
I have lived in Middle-earth, and so have you; and it matters to us, or you would not be reading this book, and I would not be writing this essay. All these years since Tolkien died, and yet he still reveals the world, the wide and wild world, to us.
.
.
Even if you haven’t read what the BBC called “the most popular work of fiction of the 20th century”, this book of short essays by fantasy and science fiction writers helps to explain the power of a work of fiction to change a person’s life. The offerings range from humorous (a woman named Galadriel in a power suit) to profound (the author’s musings on immortality upon the birth of his son), to thoughtful (a woman sees a blossom in the Alps, and is reminded of elanor, the tiny but significant flower of Galadriel’s garden) with plenty of wonderfully dated memories of 1960’s afternoons in paperback book stores. These are meditations not just on Middle Earth but reflections on mortality, friendship, love, virtue, war, loyalty, power, good and evil, and duty. Nor are they literary essays, but personal accounts from successful authors musing on their very first reading of the Lord of the Rings, and how it changed their lives and writing. A “comfort” read for Tolkien fans, who will then be inspired to take another trip to Middle Earth themselves.
Check the BPL Catalog for this title: Meditations on Middle Earth
OPENING LINES:
A little square of ravioli is like a secret. You look at the outside and see the neatly crimped dough, puffed up in the center with a lovely pillow of something mysterious inside…Before you bite into it, all is unknown and much is still possible.
.
.
Schenone’s previous title (A Thousand Years Over a Hot Stove) no doubt had something to do with her quest for her own family’s history through an iconic food. What elevates this memoir is the lyrical writing and honest accounts of family estrangements. Without blaming anyone, Schenone describes the various schisms that have occurred in her extended family, and seeks to bridge them through immersion in the fine art of ravioli making. It’s fascinating to see how her great-grandmother coped with the lack of indigenous Genovese foods in Hoboken, New Jersey, using Philadelphia brand cream cheese in the silver foil package instead of the fresh tangy prescinseua of her Italian village, and Gold Medal flour instead the more finely ground Italian pasta flour (or chestnut flour). As Schenone tries again and again to discover and replicate her family’s ravioli recipes, she travels to Italy for research, eventually bringing her husband and two young sons to experience the very different pace of life, vales and mores of Liguria. Schenone realizes early on that it’s not just ravioli she’s making (or trying to make), and an especially interesting discussion with a pair of evolutionary biologists looks into the idea that perhaps certain foods are genetically tied to us because of our ancestry. There are recipes in the back, though after reading about what hard work it is to make these delicious filled pasta squares, I doubt many readers are going to try them! Not just for foodies, this thoughtful and well-researched title will also appeal to those interested in genealogy and American history.
Check the BPL catalog for this title: The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken