Ron's Picks

Wow!  One of my favorite books of the last five years is Black Swan Green, David Mitchell’s story of a 12 year old boy growing up in small town England.  Now he appears with a most different novel, the story of a Dutch clerk assigned to his country’s trading outpost in Nagasaki Japan at the end of the 18th century.  
This story is nothing short of remarkable.  Mitchell captures the essence of the Dutch and Japanese cultures, dancing across a narrowly drawn boundary that is the product of Japan’s staunch refusal to allow any intrusion into its society.  When Jacob De Zoet pushes on that boundary, he unleashes events that are unimaginable.
Mitchell’s writing here is remarkable.  His mastery of both the Dutch and Japanese dialect, and his portrait of the life, smells, sounds and habits of his characters is astounding.  This is a masterpiece.

Wow!  This is a great story, a fantastic novel that is dying to be read.
Elise Blackwell is a wonderful writer, a crisp, elegant, pithy writer.  Listen to this passage:
There is no black on the right side of her closet, the side of her days.  The clothes there are gray, white, blue, green and tan.  On hangers are a purple blouse, a red tee-shirt, and a pair of maroon pants – a gift from Petra she has worn only once.
The left side of her closet is monotonous night: solid black, the attire of performance.  Like a widow in eternal mourning, Suzanne has pairs of black trousers, black skirts, black jackets, and black shirts.  She has a black sweater, long and short-sleeved black dresses, the formal black dresses of the soloist and plain orchestra dresses, black dresses designed to be seen from the opera boxes and those seen to best advantage from the floor…
This one:
Suzanne distributes water glasses, and they take their usual seats around the food.  Adele lifts her glass, leaving behind a wet circle she traces with a fingertip.  She looks at the food, at each of them.  Had they been a household of three, which for a while it seemed they might be, family dinners would have been shaped by sound.  Rising or falling, or stalled, but always sound or its absence.  But Ben and Suzanne’s baby did not arrive, and after Petra and Adele made them a quartet, they worked to make a world defined by sight, touch, smell, taste rather than by sound and not sound.
And this one:
The grief is for Alex, mostly, but it bleeds into the sadness she feels every time music is made and then gone – something real and loud in the air that disappears from all but memory.  Sometimes Suzanne strains to imagine the music still living, playing on in some version of reality not organized by time, all its notes together like colors in black paint or white light.  It might be a place, she thinks now, in which you can love two people without diminishing either.
With this wonderful prose Elise Blackwell tackles a tough subject: fidelity.  Her story asks the question “What do you owe?” to your child, your best friend and her child, to your lover, your husband, yourself, your colleagues, your art.  And she does so while telling a compelling story, a mystery, full of tension and surprise.
This is a story embedded in music.  But you don’t need to love or understand music to love this book.  The characters bring the music alive and make An Unfinished Score sing!

Brady Udall's latest work, The Lonely Polygamist, has been described as Dickensian, a rich evocative character study. A most unusual story of what might be described as the mid-life crisis of a man with four wives and 28 children, Udall skillfully crafts a surprisingly emotional story. Torn by the expectations of his Church, his wives, his children, his peers, Golden Richards fights to keep "it all together," or at least to keep it from failling apart. It is a poignant story about people you come to know intimately. Hearing Brady talk about how he conceived these characters, and this story, will be unforgettable.

Robin Olds Lived the last years of his life in Steamboat, in the mountains he came to love.  But before that he was the quintessential fighter pilot, and Fighter Pilot: the Memoirs of Legendary Ace Robin Olds is his memoir.  He left the pieces of his memoir to his daughter to edit and publish, and she has done so brilliantly, creating the story of a most unusual and dedicated man.  Robin Olds enrolled in West Point in World War II, graduating in time to fly P-51s over Europe, escorting bombers and engaging in air to ground combat.  Twenty years later he went back into combat flight in Vietnam, leading more than 100 missions over North Vietnam.  He was a brilliant flyer and a devoted military commander, a true one of a kind spirit.  That spirit comes through loud and clear in this riveting account of his life.

 

 

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Ron's Past Picks

Twelve year old Tecumseh Sparrow Spivet is a self declared “mappist” – one who captures information through visual representation (my definition!) - who lives on Coppertop Ranch in Divide, Montana. He is the son of a devoted, meticulous, methodical zoologist and beetle scientist (his mother) and a distant, silent rancher. TS has a gift – a precocious scientific mind and the ability to draw. Secretly, his friend and mentor, has submitted TS’s portfolio to the Smithsonian Institute. The book begins with a telephone call from the Director of Smithsonian telling TS, whom he assumes is a University Professor, that TS has won a prestigious award and will be honored at a gala in Washington, DC, two weeks hence. The book is the story of TS’s journey to Washington to claim this award.
There is mystery in the Spivet family and along his way to Washington, TS begins to unravel that mystery. The story is beautifully crafted and cleverly “mapped.” Larsen writes wonderful insight into the workings of the young boy’s mind, the way he sees the world. The book is witty and imaginative and clever.
Readers who enjoyed Special Topics in Calamity Physics will like this book.

This is a must read. Period. We are in the midst of reforming healthcare in the United States, and nowhere, let me repeat, nowhere, will you find a more cogent, simple expose of why we must, and how we can. It’s not that big an investment – maybe 6 hours – but when you’ve finished, you’ll know where you stand, and why. You’ll be able to enter the healthcare debate informed, and influence its outcome. This is a must read.

This is the first of ten books, a mystery series targeted at 4th to 6th graders, each book written by a different author.  It is the story of a brother and sister, with complementary personalities and skills, who seek the secret of their ancient family, a secret that will bring them “power beyond belief” – if they can find the answers to 39 clues.  In the Maze of Bones, Dan and Amy chase the first clue from Boston to Philadelphia to Paris, learning the secrets and puzzles of Benjamin Franklin.

Besides being a well written, fast paced mystery, full of intensity and surprises, this is also a real education about Ben Franklin, his writing, politics and penchant for puzzles.  Not just a good read, a learning read!  And there is more.  Accompanying the book is a set of clue cards that start the reader on an online treasure hunt with real prize money.

Ramona Montoya has returned home from the funeral of a loved one, freshly burdened with the task of raising her seven year old nephew alone. But when she opens the door there to great her is her grandmother, and then her grandfather, both of whom have been dead for many years. Over the next several days, Ramona’s house is gradually taken over by her family, dead and alive, as they shower her with love and attention and stories of her past. And oh yes, they lead her to the journal of her grand uncle, and through it to an understanding of the mysteries of her past and the meaning of her presence.

Collignon wrote this book, one of the Guadulupe series, in 1996, and it has been re-released to accompany the publishing of Madewell Brown this year. It is a real treat that Unbridled Books has brought the series back in print. The Journal of Antonio Montoya is a magical, mystical work in the mold of Toni Morrison’s Beloved. Reading it you realize the constraints of our concept of time and begin to sense the presence of the past and future in our daily existence.

In 1870 more than 40 million buffalo roamed the American plains.  Just ten years later, there were none.  Those who had hunted them, for their fur, their skins, their fat and their meat, were mystified – where had they gone?

American Buffalo is at least three stories.  First, it is the story of the buffalo from the Pleistocene era to today, its evolution, its migration, its relationship to the land.  It is also the story of the relationship between humans and the buffalo, how each people, in its own way, has accorded status to what might otherwise have just been another food source.  And finally, it is the story of the author’s hunt for his own buffalo in the wilds of Alaska, reliving and recreating his own relationship with hunting and those he hunts.  Steve Rinella may be an outdoorsman, but he writes a historical work of reverence.

 

John Wilkes Booth committed the most heinous crime of the 19th Century, but how did he do it, and could he escape Washington?  James Swanson has written a detailed and exciting account of the days leading up to and following Lincoln’s assassination for the young adult reader.  Could Booth stay ahead of the news of the killer on the loose?  Who would help him?  What happened to him?  For the young history buff interested in the Civil War and Lincoln, this is a revealing and thrilling story.

Cesar is a 17 year old gang member living, maybe surviving, in Los Angeles, the son of an absent father, and a mother who is a native Alaskan. His brother has just been sentenced to life imprisonment for murder. Recognizing she must do something to try to save Cesar, his mother moves them back to her home town, Unalakleet, Alaska, a village of maybe 500, surrounded by water, a barren, colorless, place where everybody seems to be a relative.
On his arrival, Cesar is adopted by his cousin Go, who tells him that he’s wrong, he will still be in Unalakleet in a year, that in fact, he will become part of Unalakleet, and Unalakleet will become part of him. What follows is the story of that year, and the deep and mutually important relationship between these two boys, that leads them to become one – “same-same.”
This is Mattox Roesch’s first novel, and it is skillfully written. He draws us into these complex characters and this foreign life and culture, and you get to know them so that you almost know what they are going to do. Without being aware of it, you also feel like you are there with Cesar and Go in the weather, land and sea of Unalakleet, and it becomes a very real place, a place you already know.

This is a great first novel. Readers who liked Black Swan Green and the The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time will like this book.

Set in the depressing white of the long, rural Wisconsin winter of 1908, The Reliable Wife tells a tale of discovered love.  Ralph Truitt has buried himself in work since the loss of his wife and children, and twenty years later seeks the love and companionship he has so defiantly denied himself.  He awaits the arrival of Catherine Land, who has agreed to marry him, sight unseen.  Catherine cannot, will not “live without love or money,” and is prepared to compromise all else.  And she plans to do so, cruelly. 

In this first novel, Robert Goolrick, author of The End of the World as we Know It, weaves a plot that is deep and dark, that peels away all else to reveal the souls of two persons lost in lives of their own doing.  I found myself wanting to know what they would do, and couldn’t put this trim novel down.  It is a good read. 

If you liked Eli Gottlieb’s Now you See Him, or the dark side of Edgar Sawtelle, you will like this book.

On the morning of June 29, 1860, the Kent family, living in the Manor House of Road, England (a five-hour train ride from London) awoke to find four-year-old Saville, the darling of the house, missing.  A desperate search ensued, and later that afternoon, young Saville’s body was discovered in the latrine; he had been brutally murdered.  When after two weeks no murderer had been found and no one had confessed to the crime, Detective-Inspector Jonathan Whicher of the London Police force was dispatched to Road.  This book is the story of his investigation.

Kate Summerscale tells how this crime captivated all England, shone a spotlight on the new and controversial “detective” force that would become known as Scotland Yard, stimulated the emergence of a new genre in writing – the detective novel and ultimately, how the personality of Whicher shaped the personalities of the first English fictional detectives.  Meticulously researched, this account is a fascinating insight English civil life in the mid-19th century.

Readers who enjoyed Devil in the White City will like this book.

I can’t say enough about this first novel by Marisa Pessl. This is the story of Blue’s (yes, that’s her name) senior year in high school, told in the form of a course of study, as she enters her freshman year at Harvard - hence the title. In this year, Blue not only discovers herself, she discovers the secrets of those many years of her childhood and adolescence when year after year she invented a new life in a new town, driven by her college professor father’s annual decision to take a new and temporary teaching position.

It isn’t the story that makes this work special, it is the author’s execution. This novel is deeply funny, elegantly crafted, expertly researched: overall a real tour de force, an unique, one of a kind read. When you finish this book, go back and reread the first chapter. You’ll see what I mean.