9 Squaresby E. K. Prescott
Five Star Publications, 295 pages
I have two problems with the subject. First, I gave a talk at Yale or Princeton once and can’t remember which This shows how alien a Wisconsinite is from the Ivy League. Did you know Yale has six secret societies? Six? If you care, you’ll find this book fascinating. If you don’t, join my secret society of one. Read the rest of this entry ?
by James Dante
Martin Sisters Publishing
300 pages, $16.95
This is a book I had some reservations about reading. I’d spent a year in Korea, 50 years ago, and had pretty much blanked it out. I was on a small military compound about ten miles north of Seoul (not an English language teacher in the city, like James Dante, or the narrator of this book).
But this is much more than a story about living in another country, it is about the relationship between a man and a woman Read the rest of this entry ?
by Spencer Quin
Atria Books
305 pages, $15
Right from the beginning of this series, I though Quin was on to something. A literal-minded narrator, the dog Chet, who tells us more than his human partner knows thus creating real suspense. I love them both, but this is the first book that builds a dramatic arc, that pays off in a terrific finish. There is also a very sophisticated mirroring of Bernie’s relationship with his young son (Bernie is divorced and the son has material things with the ex that make Bernie feel inadequate) and the case, a missing teen-aged girl also of divorced parents. Emotionally this reaches a new level.
Not that we don’t already love Chet: “Bernie grabbed the rubber bone and flung it through the open window. I dove out after the bone, raced across the backyard, snagged it, spun around, and jumped back inside. A new game, and what a game, indoors and outdoors, running and leaping—this one had it all.” I felt worse when, after escaping being captured by the villains, Chet was scheduled to be put down by an animal shelter, than I did later when Bernie was taken prisoner
This is a fully realized novel that will keep you turning pages well into the night (I read it on my Kindle). As much as I enjoyed the previous books, with this one Spencer Quin, Bernie and Chet have arrived. My number one, stranded-on-a-desert-island choice.
Buy directly from Amazon for $11.50. Click: Dog on It: A Chet and Bernie Mystery (Chet and Bernie Mysteries)
by Emily Winslow
255 pages, $26
Publisher: Delacorte Press
A teenage body floating near Cambridge, England. But wait a minute, we are getting the details from an autistic narrator. No that’s just in the first chapter, narrators rotate. As do murders. As do people’s identities. There’s a difference between the mystery of genre and the mystery of mystery. While trying for both, The Start of Everything succeeds only at confusing the reader. Read the rest of this entry ?
by Paul Auster
321 pages, $10.98
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
Paul Auster
I’ve been on and off about this author. I read The New York Trilogy, a few of his other novels and I actually heard him read at the Wisconsin Book Festival a number of years ago. I always thought he got caught up a bit too much in his own games.
Until now. The Book of Illusions probes the mystery of a silent film star/writer/director who disappears. Read the rest of this entry ?
by Lawerence Block
Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Mulholland Books
ISBN-10: 0316127310
Ever start reading a book for one reason and then find out it delivers in a completely unexpected different way? I began this one a little cautiously because it used the twelve step program of AA. Then I remembered that my older brother (now deceased) had belonged to AA for twenty years, without telling any of his relatives and I thought maybe I could learn a little about that secret life. Read the rest of this entry ?
by Augusten Burroughs
St. Martin’s Press, 240 pages
$14.04 (hardcover)
In this honest-to-goodness self-help book Burroughs writes: “We are alone. The truth is, nobody is owed an apology. They are lovely when they happen, but change nothing.
“The truth is, life itself is unfair. Fairness is not among the laws of the universe. Take responsibility for everything that happens to you, even if somebody else is at fault.
“Move forward. Move on. You are alone. You were born alone. You die alone.”
But is that true? I just received a call from my daughter in Florida. I am not alone. She
has a seven-year old autistic son. He is not alone. My parents died fifteen years
ago, yet I still think of them often. They are not alone. And someone is reading this, sharing it with me. Someone I don’t know. Someone who doesn’t know me. We are not
together, but we are not alone.
No, I remember my mother’s last day. She was in the hospital (my sister and brother with their families because mom seemed to be doing OK). My mom said to me, “I know this is crazy, but your father, brother, sister, all the grandkids seem to all be around my bed. Next day my brother called me. She was dead.
But she was not alone.
To buy this directly from Amazon, click the title below:
by James M. Cain
Hard Case Crime Novel
270 pages, 13.44 hardback
It’s easy to skip over this last, and previously unpublished, novel by James M. Cain (best known for Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice Read the rest of this entry ?
by Guy Beck
Huff Publishing Ass./Quill House Publishers
192 pages, paperback $14.99
Picture yourself on a cross-country airplane ride and the guy next to you starts talking. You immediately connect, in a way you seldom do even with family and friends. Before you know it you’ve arrived and you have learned things that will benefit you the rest of your life. Things you will think about late into the night, that will change how you feel about yourself, about others, about death and, yes, about God.
That is how this book will hit you. Not as a trip to California, but a trip to Cancer. It is remarkable. Guy takes us through his challenges, but more important they become ours. Sometimes startling, as when a worker tells Guy concerning his cancer, “You know they (fellow workers who resent Guy’s Christianity) hope to see you fall to pieces.” or “Truth is, they didn’t choose this anymore than we did. So together we need to work to create an environment that will allow our loved ones or friends to be open and honest with us about how this is impacting them.”
And open communication is what we get. Read the rest of this entry ?
by Laura Maylene Walter
BkMk Press
210 pages, paperback $15.95
This book is like…well an old Gershwin tune that has specific, personal memoires attached. Once you read the stories you will never quite be able to get them out of your mind. The title piece recollects places the narrator has lived over her life (and I guarantee you will be doing the same thing). I played my brother’s clarinet, so that story rings uncomfortably true.
Some, like “The Ballad Solemn of Lady Malena” and “The Last Halloween,” are harrowing pieces you want to skip over, but can’t; Read the rest of this entry ?
