Reading suggestions from Newton library staff and patrons

I read this as a book club selection.  Given its plot line, it’s not one I would have chosen to read. Nevertheless, I did find it well written and quite a page turner as I got to care about the two main characters and was interested in seeing how things turned out for them. Told from the perspective of five year old Jack, the plot echoes some of the ordeal of Jaycee Lee Dugard.

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RATING: * * * A good read
Reviewed by: kh

Rankin lives in Edinburgh, Scotland which is also the setting for this novel featuring Detective Malcolm Fox. Fox’s division is the Complaints, the group that  investigates accusations about fellow police officers. His latest assignment is to investigate Detective Jamie Breck. Breck, fast rising through the ranks, has been fingered for possible involvement in child porn activities. However, circumstances are not what they appear to be on the surface and Fox finds himself being investigated as he unravels the strands of this case. I listened to the book on CD and the Scottish narrator gives an excellent reading, portraying the different characters.

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RATING: * * * * Very, very good
Reviewed by: kh

“Miss Read” books are one of my guilty pleasures. Dora J. Saint, Miss Read’s real name, just died at the ripe old age of 98 on April 7 at her home in Shefford Woodlands, in Berkshire, England. Her books, numbering over 30, include the Fairacre series and the Thrush Green series, both set in rural English villages of the mid 20th century. The villagers, school children and their families, teachers, the vicar, the doctor and his wife, retired folks and their relatives, ecounter life’s problems but all are solved by the last page. In The School at Thrush Green, two teachers retire and one of them gets a cat. It doesn’t sound too exciting to say the least, but I find these stories calming and funny and as addictive as a box of chocolates. I listened to this title on audio cd.

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RATING: * * * * Very, very good
Reviewed by: kh

Duhigg, an investigative reporter for the New York Times, presents an interesting exploration of this subject. Lots of information on how habit patterns work in the brain and suggestions on how to change them in our personal lives. Also a section on the habits of companies and organizations like Alcoa, Starbucks, Target and the London underground subway system, which shows how crises led them to make sweeping changes.

He finishes with two stories, of a murderer and a compulsive gambler who were and were not found responsible for their actions. A last story is told of how Duhigg successfully kicked an afternoon break chocolate chip cookie habit by applying his knowledge of habits.

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RATING: * * * * Very, very good
Reviewed by: kh

A dual biography of Edith Minturn Stokes and her husband Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes, Manhattanites of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Wealthy, but aware that fortune also has responsibilities to society, their story is fascinating. Edith was the model for the giant statue of the Republic by Daniel Chester French which was exhibited at the World’s Columbian Exhibition in Chicago, 1891-1893. Newton, as he was known, was the author of the monumental six volume “The Iconography of Manhattan Island” which you may see in the Rare book collection of the Boston Public Library or online at: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/digital/collections/cul/texts/ldpd_5800727_002/
We also learn about their dual portrait painted during their honeymoon in London by John Singer Sargent which you may view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

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RATING: * * * * Very, very good
Reviewed by: kh

The author did a remarkable job with this book. Researching and writing for 10 years, Skloot incorporates the 20th century stories of African American society and the migration from the rural South to urban areas as reflected in the Lacks family, medicine and its treatment of black and white patients, and the medical research which was made possible by the Hela cells originally cultured from cancerous tissue taken from Henrietta Lacks and grown in George Gey’s tissue culture research laboratory at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. In addition, Rebecca interviewed and helped Henrietta’s family learn about the life of their mother and grandmother who had died when her own children were very young, and the contribution the Hela cell line has made to medical research in such areas as the polio vaccine, HIV, human genetics and the development of chemotherapy drugs.

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RATING: * * * * Very, very good
Reviewed by: kh

Really a biography of grandmother Lily Casey Smith, but written in the first person with her grandmother as the narrator, this book is filled with fascinating stories of life in the American West in the first half of the 20th century. Through the book’s short chapters of family stories, I got a real sense of the kind of smart, no-nonsense, hard working woman Lily must have been. Born on a ranch to a delicate mother who was unsuited to frontier life and a father whose handicaps did not stop him from becoming a successful quarter horse breeder and trainer, Lily in these stories shines as a rancher, teacher, horse trainer and darn good poker player who would not have suffered fools gladly. I really enjoyed her story, told by granddaughter Jeannette, also the author of her parents’ story, The Glass Castle.

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RATING: * * * * Very, very good
Reviewed by: kh

An environmental novel based in the Channel Islands off Santa Barbara, California pits National Park Service biologist Alma Boyd Takesue against Dave LaJoy, a businessman and animal rights activist.  Takesue oversees the Park Service’s efforts to eradicate invasive species, such as rats and pigs, from the islands; LaJoy responds with reckless protests that result in disastrous consequences.

Both have a past connection to the islands, and both want to save animals, but their results don’t always match their motives.  While none of the characters are particularly likeable, the questions raised by their actions are interesting, including the central one:  what’s invasive and what’s natural?

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Rating:  **** Very, very good
Reviewed by:  stc

The author blends her family’s story with a look at all aspects of the diamond industry in the United States and abroad. There are chapters on historical and contemporary diamond mining, “blood diamonds” and the efforts to reform mining in Africa, the use of diamonds in science, the efforts to manufacture diamonds inthe lab and how the cutting of diamonds is changing with the use of lasers. Her father is a veteran jeweler in New York City’s 47th Street Diamond District so we get the insider’s viewpoint on one of the major centers of the industry. I listened to the book on CD which was read by the author.

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RATING: * * * A good read
Reviewed by: kh

Moonlight Mile is the sixth and possibly the last in Lehane’s Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro mystery series. Set in the Boston area, this novel revisits the plot of Gone, Baby, Gone featuring a now teenaged Amanda McCready, who has not had a happy life since being returned to her mother by Kenzie and Gennaro twelve years before. I listened to the book on CD and found reader Jonathan Davis’s attempt at capturing a Boston accent less that successful. The plot, dealing with questions of moral right and wrong, but with plenty of action, moves right along and wraps up at the real trailer park in West Roxbury where a friend of mine used to store his camper. The Massachusetts settings add an extra dimension for us locals.

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RATING: * * * A good read
Reviewed by: kh

Winchester, the author of “The Professor and the Madman” on the making of the Oxford English Dictionary, goes back to a slightly earlier time in English history for this story of William Smith and the part his discoveries had in founding geology as an accepted field of scientific study. The son of a village blacksmith, William experienced class discrimination and plagiarism of his work by various aristocratic snobs. However, he persisted against the odds and created the first geological map of Britain among other accomplishments. Winchester paints a vivid picture of the intellectual times of the late 18th and early 19th centuries and how scientific thought developed. Some sections of the book on the geology of England I found repetitious and sleep inducing, but overall, it introduced me to an interesting facet of science history that I knew nothing about.

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RATING: * * * A good read
Reviewed by: kh

This novel is set in present day Bombay with a plot revolving around the relationship between an upper middle class Parsi housewife, Sera, and her domestic servant, 65 year old, illiterate Bhima, who has worked for Sera’s family for more than 20 years. Their lives are entwined yet there is a huge gap, “the space between” them that is unbreachable. The writing is clear and the characters well developed, unfortunately all the male characters are pretty reprehensible and poor Bhima, and to a lesser extent, Sera, are dealt so many bad hands by fate that I found the novel way too sad.

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RATING: * * OK
Reviewed by: kh

Kay has created a sprawling fantasy novel based on the 8th century Tang Dynasty of China. It centers around Shen Tai, second son of a general. Tai has spent the last two years honoring the memory of his late father by burying the bones of the dead from both sides at the battlefield site of one of his father’s last great battles. He receives a gift of unimaginable scope from a princess to thank him for his efforts. This gift of 250 Sardian horses leads him into a web of intrigue which could cost him his life. I listened to the book on cd, and the narrator, Simon Vance, was excellent.

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RATING: * * * A good read
Reviewed by: kh

Originally published in 1968, this title was one of the inspirations for the  ”Upstairs Downstairs” and “Downton Abbey” TV series. The author was a kitchen maid and cook beginning in the 1920′s when she was 15. She had to leave school at that age as her family could not afford to support her any longer. There are lots of stories about how kitchen work was done 80-plus years ago in homes with domestic servants as well as her take on the class system in Britain; the poor looked down on as less worthy people by the upper classes with little chance of rising “above their station in life.” Definitely not the “good old days.”

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RATING: * * * A good read
Reviewed by: kh

Set during the 2008 financial meltdown, Vonnegut, a financial professional and fourth cousin to Kurt, has written a suspense thriller centering on Wall Street’s hedge fund industry. The protagonist, Jimmy Cusack, and his wife garnered my sympathy but all the other characters were unappealing to various degrees. There is a fast paced ending that leaves you rooting for the good guys. The whole plot made a lot more sense after I reread the first few chapters.

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RATING: * * OK
Reviewed by: kh