History Meets the Paranormal NEW AND OF INTEREST

Transcription

Tulsa
event guide
INSIDE!
Book Review
4
5
8
VOLUME 1, ISSUE 8
F R E E
NEW AND OF
INTEREST
C
H
E
C
K
Larf
The only sasquatch in the world...
or is he?
Page 8
Out of Sight, Out of
Time
I
T
Great continuation to the series.
Page 10
The Grey Album:
On the Blackness
of Blackness
O
U
T
Fascinating synthesis of AfricanAmerican culture
Page 11
Triggers
History Meets the Paranormal
By Seth Grahame-Smith
Grand Central Publishing, $21.99, 336 pages
19
June 2012
What do vampires have to do with the
Civil War president? Everything! Seth Grahame-Smith, author of the popular Pride
and Prejudice and Zombies, once again has
intertwined the paranormal with history to
create a horror novel that is both humorous
and historical in nature. The author, who
places himself as a character in this book,
comes into possession of the journals of
Abraham Lincoln, which contain this vital
secret: Lincoln was a vampire hunter. After
a vampire kills his mother, young Abe vows
to dedicate his life to the destruction of the
undead.
The plot is certainly unique enough.
There’s plenty of historical detail, and the
idea that vampires were involved in slavery
(and causing the Civil War) was interesting.
The “photographic evidence” was a particularly nice touch. The writing style can be
a little awkward, as he switches between
a style that feels more like a biographical
commentary and prose that is more what
you would expect from a novel. Readers who
wanted to enjoy Grahame-Smith’s last work
but had a hard time getting through the
See ABRAHAM, cont’d on page 2
The best sci-fi writer has done it
again!
Page 17
Rez Life: An
Indian’s Journey
Through
Reservation Life
Rich in history, strength and perseverance.
Page 18
75 Reviews
INSIDE!
Book Reviews
Thrillers &
Suspense
SNAP IT for additional
book summaries.
Bloodland
By Alan Glynn
Picador, $16.00, 364 pages
Check this out!
When out-of-work
journalist Jimmy Gilroy agrees to write the
biography of the B-list
celebrity who died
three years before in
an accident, he didn’t
realize he’d be dragged
into a conspiracy
spanning three continents. Meanwhile, the
former prime minister of Ireland, a recovering alcoholic supposedly writing his memoirs, falls off the wagon when he sees a news
report about a skeleton found in the woods.
In the U.S.A., a high-powered businessman
waits to hear of his senator (and future U.S.
presidential candidate) brother’s ill-fated
trip to the Sudan.
In the first chapter of Bloodland, the
sheer number of characters to remember
is daunting. Over time, it’s easier to differentiate the characters and eventually, after
many twists and turns, pull the plot threads
together to discover how the story lines fit.
Flawed characters set in the backdrop of
the Great Recession combine with a nonformulaic story to make a fun read for fans of
conspiracy theories and intelligent thrillers.
If you loved Alan Glynn’s novel Winterland,
you will want to pick up this novel.
Reviewed by Kelly Garrett
Capitol Murder
By Phillip Margolin
Harper, $26.99, 352 pages
Check this out!
Over here is a serial killer who breaks
out of custody when
about to be retried for
crimes whose prosecution was tainted
by connection with
an identical case for
which he was mistakenly convicted and is
now considered innocent. He manages to murder his lawyer and
a couple of other people in the process.
Over there is a plot planned and set in
motion by an independent cadre of Muslim terrorists who depend on a mysterious
blonde white guy for their supplies, transportation and access to the enormous football stadium that they intend to blow up
during a hugely important sold-out game.
Somewhere in between we observe the
foibles of a compromised United States senator who will do almost anything to satisfy
the femme fatale who, with her accomplices,
threatens to blackmail him.
The author stitches all this together with
abundant skill, energy and timing. His
stitch pattern includes a bouquet of welldrawn lawyers, law enforcement officials,
and a journalist whose cases and interests
intersect. Brad Miller and Dana Cutler reappear for this third leg of Margolin’s Washington trilogy.
As always, Margolin handles lawyerly
and political matters with the authority of
an insider. The action is hot, the twists inventive, the tension taut.
Reviewed by Phil Jason
anonymous Fairlane — and the bad guys
keep tracking him down as he dispatches
them one after another, sometimes having a
philosophical dialogue beforehand. Nothing
coheres in this brutish universe as Driver
tries to get to the source of all this hired help
trying to shut him down.
“Do the dots connect?” asks Manny,
Driver’s old friend. “Could all be random.”
That’s the essence of the Sallis universe,
where loners like Driver can only labor like
Sisyphus endlessly and unavailing for eternity battling the “unapprehended forces.”
Reviewed by Phil Semler
The Technologists: A Novel
By Matthew Pearl
Random House,
$26.00, 496 pages
Check this out!
Boston is under
siege. Boats in the
harbor have crashed
into each other,
leaving the wharf in
shambles, and glass
has melted from
the windows in the
business district.
The country is just
getting back on its
feet after the Civil War, and now Bostonians
fear that the Industrial Revolution and technology have gone too far.
Driven
By James Sallis
Poisoned Pen Press,
$19.95, 148 pages
Check this out!
Drive, the 2005
ne o -noi r -re ve n ge vendetta classic, was
made into a 2011
movie with Hollywood hunk Ryan
Gosling. Sallis didn’t
write the screenplay.
The film had many changes, not all bad, but
that’s the movies — it was a visual homage
to the ‘60s Steve McQueen — not Sallis’ literary homage to the ‘50s pulp.
Seven years later, the now 32 Driver is
back in Driven, living in Phoenix. On the
first page of this lean, terse, brutal sequel,
he and his fiancée Elsa go for a walk(!). Elsa
is dead and the two assassins are dead by
Driver’s hands. The mob has shown up, apparently to kill him.
As our fifth largest city, it’s difficult to
write about Phoenix’s mean streets, since
presumably they’re so hot and wide to walk.
But Sallis captures the strangely featureless
artificial city. Driver gets a new ride — an
Tulsa Book Review • June 2012 • 2
M.I.T. is in its infancy, just about to graduate their first class, and still struggling for
acceptance. The problem is that most still
don’t understand what the institute is trying to achieve and, in turn, fear the students
and are ready to blame them for everything.
The class of ‘68 has to investigate the horrifying disasters without letting the general
public know what they are up to. They also
have to do it before more people die and
their cherished institute turns into a grand
failure.
With characters drawn from actual students, many twists and turns, and a fully
painted portrait of Boston in 1868, The
Technologists is a thrill ride from start to
finish that will leave you wanting to learn
more about the beginnings of M.I.T. and
that time period. Very few historical fiction
mysteries leave you as informed and entertained at the same time like this will.
Reviewed by Gwen Stackler
ABRAHAM, cont’d from page 1
prose will find this book a good substitute.
On the other hand, historical/Lincoln enthusiasts will enjoy this much more if they
realize that the book is tongue-in-cheek
and really shouldn’t be taken seriously. (PS:
The movie version of this book debuts June
22 in theaters across the nation.)
Reviewed by Alyssa Feller
Visit
TulsaLibrary.org
to request
a copy.
Tulsa
Book Review
Tulsa City-County Library
400 Civic Center
Tulsa, Oklahoma 74103
Ph. (918) 549-7323
EDITOR IN CHIEF
Ross Rojek
[email protected]
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
Jackie Hill
Tulsa City-County Library
[email protected]
GRAPHIC DESIGN/LAYOUT
Lisa Rodgers
[email protected]
COPY EDITORS
Lori Freeze
Diane Jinson
Lori Miller
Robyn Oxborrow
Holly Scudero
Kim Winterheimer
EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS
Elizabeth Tropp
Shanyn Day
Christopher Hayden
Missy McEwen
Derek Erickson
James Rasmussen
Audrey Curtis
WEBSITE
TulsaBookReview.com
DISTRIBUTED BY
Urban Tulsa Weekly
The Tulsa Book Review is published
monthly by 1776 Productions, LLC.
The opinions expressed in these pages are those of the individual writers and do not necessarily reflect the
views of the Tulsa Book Review or
1776 Productions advertisers. All images
are copyrighted by their respective copyright holders.
All words ©2012,
LLC.
1776 Productions,
IN THIS ISSUE
Thrillers & Suspense...............2
Mystery...................................4
Biography & Memoir...............5
Cookbooks...............................6
Picture Books..........................8
Teen Scene.............................10
Romance................................11
Popular Culture.....................11
Kids’ Books............................12
Tween Reads.........................12
Fiction...................................14
FROM
THE
PUBLISHER
Summer is upon us and Tulsa CityCounty Library’s Summer Reading
Program is in full swing! In fact, our
program is the most successful program of its kind in the state — with
one in four participants in Oklahoma
residing in Tulsa County. While you
may be watching the Summer Olympians collecting their medals in London
on TV, a young one in your life could
be earning their own medal for completing the library’s Summer Reading Program. With more than 800
free events happening at our libraries this summer, they’ll have a lot of
fun participating. However, you may
not want to tell them research shows
children who participate in programs
like this do better in school when
they return in fall. Let’s agree to keep
this little secret to ourselves. Agreed?
Whether you want to read about an
axe-wielding, vampire-hunting president before the summer blockbuster
movie premieres, find a good romance
book from our new Tulsa Book Review
romance section, or bring the entire
family to the library for a free program or book-hunting trip, the Tulsa
City-County Library has something
unique for you. We’ll plan to see you
at the library soon.
Best regards,
Nature & Science...................16
Science Fiction....................... 17
Gary Shaffer
Tulsa City-County Library CEO
Fantasy.................................. 17 Com ing Up!
History & Current Events......18
Summer of Love.....................20
Share your family’s heritage with future generations by researching your roots and creating a family tree. Join the Genealogy Center
in July at its annual Family History Month
series featuring programs for new genealogy
researchers as well as lifetime enthusiasts.
For a schedule of events, see the July Event
Guide.
Book Reviews
Mystery
book summaries.
The Limpopo Academy of Private
Detection: No. 1 Ladies’ Detective
Agency, Book 13
By Alexander McCall Smith
Pantheon, $24.95, 272 pages
Check this out!
After a dozen bestselling novels of the
No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series set
in Botswana, author
Alexander
McCall
Smith and his heroine,
private detective Precious Ramotswe, are
as deft as ever in The
Limpopo Academy of
Private Detection — navigating subtle plot
twists and turns, digging up clues to mysteries large and small, and reminding readers of the powers of observation and of the
written word.
All the usual suspects in Mma Ramotswe’s mystery microcosm are back, including Grace Makutsi, associate detective and
newlywed; Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, husband
and proprietor of Tlokweng Road Speedy
Motors; and Sylvia Potokwane, friend and
indomitable matron of the orphan farm.
This time out, Smith opens the door to a
new character his leading lady knows well
but has never met: Clovis Andersen, fictional author of The Principles of Private Detection and unexpected visitor to Botswana.
From the opening of the agency in the first
novel of the series, the lady detectives have
followed Andersen’s written instructions
almost to the letter. When he shows up at
their doorstep, thousands of miles from his
own gumshoe stomping grounds of Muncie,
Indiana, Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi are rendered nearly speechless (a very rare
event). Now, with their mentor truly on the
case, the ladies get a firsthand lesson in unraveling the secrets that reveal a trail of corruption — and ultimately Andersen reveals
a secret of his own…
The academy’s prime suspects are a rude
contractor (who happens to be building
Mma Makutsi’s dream house), a shady car
“salesman” (who frames one of Mr. J.L.B.
Matekoni’s young mechanics) and an unscrupulous businessman/benefactor (who
raises a red flag when he fires Mma Potokwane from the orphan farm). Extracting
evidence from well-placed sources like a disgruntled manicurist, a tender-hearted secretary and an honest carpenter, the detectives leave no stone (or construction brick)
unturned in their search for truth, justice
and the traditional Botswana ways.
My copies of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective
Agency novels are almost as well thumbed
as Mma Ramotswe’s copy of The Principles
of Private Detection. I find myself gulping
each new novel for the first read, then going
back to savor them as Mma Ramotswe does
her many daily cups of red bush tea. The
entrance of Clovis Andersen into the latest
episode was a charmer for me. Andersen’s
astonishment that his book on private detection has become a guiding work for Mma
Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi — let alone
that anyone outside Muncie has ever heard
of it — seems like the perfect inside joke
from Smith, whose books are anticipated
and beloved by millions of readers around
the world.
Reviewed by Deborah Lee Rose
The Skeleton Picnic: A J.D.
Books Mystery
By Michael Norman
Poisoned Pen Press,
$24.95, 250 pages
Check this out!
Skeleton
Picnic
by Michael Norman
is the second in the
Ranger J.D. book series, and sets us in a
small town in South
Utah where the local interest in pot hunting
leads a local couple into danger. When they
disappear out in the desert and their home
is burglarized, the Ranger is on the case, but
it’s not long before he’s bumping into conflicts of interest and the political influence
of certain families. Such are the problems
in small communities where family ties and
social arrangements lead to rules being bent
slightly out of shape.
This is a classy police procedural with
odd outbreaks of sundry violence and gunfire as our hero slowly uncovers evidence
to suggest who may be responsible for the
burglary. Now, if he were to assume the burglary and the disappearance are committed
by the same people, he might be making
progress. It’s written in a simple and direct
form, cutting quickly to the chase and never
letting up in the pace until we arrive breathless at the end. It’s well worth picking up if
you like looking over the hero’s shoulder as
he navigates through the investigation and
tries to prove his theories correct.
Reviewed by David Marshall
MYSTERIES/THRILLERS
COMING SOON
TO TULSA CITY-COUNTY LIBRARY
Search the library’s catalog at http://tulsalibrary.org to reserve your copies now.
A Teeny Bit of Trouble
By Michael Lee West
This follow-up to Gone With a Handsomer
Man finds Charleston pastry chef Teeny
Templeton witnessing a murder that reveals
that her boyfriend Coop O’Malley may be the
father of the victim’s 10-year-old daughter.
Running the Maze
By Jack Coughlin
When her military doctor brother dies from
a suspicious bridge collapse moments after
sending her a photo from his cell phone, a
Coast Guard sniper struggles to solve the
mystery by investigating the photo and
enlisting the aid of a special operations team
that subsequently discovers an al-Qaeda plot.
Hush Now, Don’t You Cry
By Rhys Bowen
The latest entry in the Anthony Award and
Agatha Award-winning series finds a newly
married Molly and her NYPD captain husband
reluctantly honeymooning in 1904 Newport
at the estate of an ambitious Tammany
Hall politician whose subsequent murder
challenges Molly’s resolve to avoid sleuthing.
Play Nice
By Gemma Halliday
Faking her death and haunted by her past
as an assassin, Anya is tracked down by her
enemies and unexpectedly partners with
hired gun Nick, who wonders who he can
trust while investigating Anya’s past and
the people behind a second hit attempt.
The Whole Lie
By Steve Ulfelder
Conway Sax’s new garage and his
committed relationship with Charlene
are threatened by the reappearance of
former flame Savannah Kane, who claims
her 6-year-old son was fathered by a
billionaire candidate for political office.
Havana Requiem
By Paul Goldstein
Losing his successful law firm and marriage
to pride and alcohol, litigator Michael
Seeley slowly recovers his reputation only
to risk everything by accepting a case
from an aging musician who with six other
composers seeks to reclaim copyrights
to culturally famous Cuban songs.
Book Reviews
Biography &
Memoir
book summaries.
Carly’s Voice: Breaking Through Autism
By Arthur Fleischmann
Touchstone, $24.00, 386 pages
Check this out!
If I had my way,
Carly’s Voice would
be required reading
for all — particularly
those touched by the
enigma of autism.
Carly’s Voice tells the
awe-inspiring story
of Carly Fleischmann
and her family as
they navigate their way through the world
of her severe autism. Arthur Fleischmann
does the reader — and the autistic community at large — a huge favor by refusing to
sugar coat anything. We get to witness the
destruction, unmanageability, tears and
screams of the family firsthand and without
a censor. The result is a truly profound journey into the mind of this powerfully courageous young woman.
Carly has severe autism. She cannot
speak at all. Her ticks, tantrums, spasms
and self-stimulating behaviors leave the
home in total chaos. Like most autistics, she
will not make eye contact, shuns attempts at
physical affections, and appears lost in her
own world and completely unreachable. But,
like most teens, she is boy-crazy, coy, sarcastic at times and amazingly adept at deploying guilt traps as needed. This dichotomy
is stunning. The young woman who seems
so far away, so lost in her own world and a
complete stranger to normalcy, actually is
totally on top of the ball. And, we get to witness this through her writings.
Through her writing, Carly invites us into
her private world. She takes the time to explain her movements and tantrums. She explains, at length, many of the mysteries of
autism — including what it feels like to suffer from it. How do autistic’s see the world?
Carly gives us a view. What she manages to
convey — even with her delayed cognitive
development — is nothing short of amazing, as well as vastly useful for parents, educators and the public at large.
Carly’s Voice changed the way I see the autistic world and I feel strongly she will have
the same effect on you. Carly, you’re a brave
young woman. Thank you for coming out of
your world to educate ours.
Reviewed by Elizabeth Raymond
House of Stone: A Memoir of Home,
Family and a Lost Middle East
By Anthony Shadid
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $26.00
336 pages
Check this out!
Foreign correspondent
Anthony Shadid died in
Syria days before the publication of House of Stone, the
tribute to his heritage. An
experienced war reporter,
posted to the Middle East to
cover the fighting, he died off
the battlefield, an accidental
death that leaves the book and the tales it
tells more poignant. Twin themes crisscross
the pages: the restoration of the stone house
built by his forebears in a Lebanese village
and the story of his family’s emigration to
the United States.
It is a metaphor symbolizing the successive tragedies that have befallen the region
since before the Ottoman Empire led to
Lebanon’s birth. For Shadid, the tragedies
culminated in a destructive Israeli attack
shortly before he started to implement
his dream. And it is the story of migrants,
young wide-eyed relatives fleeing their
homeland, hoping to be absorbed into a new
world.
Nostalgic? Indeed, but with a hard, unsentimental core. Shadid employs the locals
who jerk him around with the same regularity as Peter Mayle’s Provence laborers,
but he persists in the same way, befriending them as his only option to see the work
completed.
The separate narrative about relatives
who paved the way for him in Oklahoma describes the culture they brought with them
to their new, wholly different urban world.
House of Stone is a worthy legacy.
Reviewed by Jane Manaster
retired early to marry Lord
Cavendish and did not
have Fred’s film career.
This biography traces their
Omaha beginnings to
hobnobbing with royalty in
London and beyond.
It is important to read
past the opening chapters and find the rhythm in the author’s
allusions and quotations. Don’t judge her
early; she does tell a good story about the
entertainers. The author also obviously researched everything surrounding the period theatrics. At first distracting, the reader
soon appreciates the exhaustive research
that captures the heady time period of stage
lights and after-hours Charlestons. After all,
this is the pair who began the modern musical performance and perfected it with
their charm and talent. This book is a
fun read, particularly for theater students and Astaire fans.
Reviewed by Julia McMichael
Making Piece: A Memoir of Love,
Loss and Pie
By Beth M. Howard
Harlequin, $24.95, 311 pages
Check this out!
Everyone deals with challenges and loss
in their own unique way. Some people drown
their sorrows in alcohol, others numb the
pain with drugs. For Beth Howard, pie was
the healer.
The Astaires: Fred & Adele
By Kathleen Riley
Oxford University Press, $27.95, 241 pages
Check this out!
Here’s my prejudice: I can watch old
movies of Fred Astaire’s effortless dancing
all day long, not to mention his wonderful
songs — many written expressly for him.
But at least I’m not alone. Even classically
trained dancers like Mikhail Baryshnikov
worship at the Astaire altar. He is grace
personified. I knew less about his stage
dancing partner and sister, Adele, who
Making Piece: A Memoir of Love, Loss
and Pie is Beth’s journey. It’s a love story,
a chronicle of surviving the unexpected
death of her husband, and finding the way
to work through her grief and guilt.
Pie had always been a part of Beth’s life,
even before she was born. Banana cream pie
brought her parents together. She learned
how to make apple pie from a retired merchant marine pastry
chef. She charmed
a number of eligible
bachelors with homemade pie, and eventually her pie-making
skills landed her a
job in Malibu, Calif.,
making pies for Hollywood stars.
Pie ultimately took Beth cross-country
where she met other pie lovers, and in her
travels it became clear that these fellow pie
makers used pie in similar ways to overcome
personal tragedies and challenges.
I really enjoyed this book. Beth’s wit and
frank open writing felt like sitting at a table
with a dear friend, sharing stories and eating pie. Or at least my mouth was watering
for all the delicious pies she described. At
the end of the book, after Beth comes full
circle with her healing, she shares many
of the recipes for those pies she made and
shared with people she met on her journey.
Reviewed by Laura Friedkin
Book Reviews
Cookbooks
book summaries.
Allergy-Friendly Food for Families: 120
Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free, Nut-Free, EggFree and Soy-Free Recipes Everyone
Will Love
By the Editors of Kiwi Magazine
Andrews McMeel Publishing
$24.99, 240 pages
Check this out!
A llerg y - Fr iend ly
Food for Families is a
great addition to any
parent’s shelf. Even
if your family doesn’t
struggle with allergies, this cookbook
has a beautiful array of natural foods. The
120 nutritious recipes bring together lots of
different foods, flavors and colors. Although
there are not photos for each recipe, the photographs are wonderfully styled. The pages
have color-coded tab-like elements, which
provide an at-a-glance view of a recipe. If it
is gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free
or soy-free, the recipe will indicate it with
the various colored tabs. The recipes are divided into breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert,
snacks and parties. Examples of the recipes
are: blueberry corncakes, meat loaf muffins,
chicken potpie, chocolate toasties, carrot
fries and polenta mini pizzas.
Besides the great recipes, the editors provide sections explaining how to create an
allergy-free pantry, an introduction to the
“-free” life. Most helpfully, the index lists
recipes by allergies. Interspersed throughout the book are pages explaining how to
teach your children to cook, for example,
breading, juicing and zesting, or rolling pizza dough. This is a go-to cookbook, whether
dealing with allergy challenges or not.
Reviewed by Elizabeth Humphrey
Cooking Light Way to Cook: Grilling
By the Editors of Cooking Light Magazine
Oxmoor House, $24.95, 320 pages
Check this out!
You’ll have a tough
job finding a better,
more cook-friendly
cookbook on grilling
than Way to Cook:
Grilling. If you are on a
diet, this is the perfect
book for you. If diet is of no concern to you,
you can substitute regular ingredients for
the low-fat versions. Recipes are excellent,
written in step-by-step format, easily accessible for even the most novice cooks. Photo
illustrations provide visual aids both for
cooking steps and the final results. Many
of the full-page photos have arrows labeling
ingredients and brief informative descriptions. Every recipe has detailed per-serving
nutritional information and brief yet useful
headnotes. In addition, many equally practical and informative tables and sidebars
labeled Kitchen How-To are also included.
Recipe ingredients, with a few exceptions,
are available in any supermarket. Recipes
are layed out with the cook in mind in order
to avoid flipping pages. Photo illustrations
are beautiful to look at and a great help in
cooking. Recipes range from grilling standards through the more complex international creations. The separate subject and
recipe indexes are excellent.
Reviewed by George Erdosh
Cowgirl Chef: Texas Cooking With a
French Accent
By Ellise Pierce
Running Press, $25.00, 324 pages
Check this out!
Not only can this
lady cook, she can
write! Her background
and obvious expertise
as an author make this
fine cookbook not only
attractive and original,
but a positive delight to
read.
This is an expatriate’s tale of struggling with another language, a climate radically different from her
native Texas, and foodstuffs deceptively diverging from those she first learned to cook
with — leaner beef, butter that behaves
differently, but also sea salt of a particular
origin that does more than salt should be
able to do, a wondrous variety of cheeses.
In attempting to assuage her homesickness
by recreating flavors from home, Pierce has
succeeded in creating a composite culinary
culture. She shares it with extraordinarily
clear and nonfussy instructions.
Smokin’ Tortilla Soup is not just “put this
in that and do this to it”; it coordinates with
the home manufacture of tortillas, in a place
where they otherwise would not exist. Asparagus and Avocado Soup starts with the
growers, their business survival, history
and a graphic few lines about cutting your
own spears from the earth.
Ellise Pierce offers more than a hundred
nicely served recipes, with humor, gusto and
an obvious love of food as side dishes.
Reviewed by David Lloyd Sutton
Gluten-Free Vegan Comfort Food: 125
Simple and Satisfying Recipes, From
“Mac and Cheese” to
Chocolate Cupcakes
By Susan O’Brien
Da Capo Lifelong Books, $18.00, 226 pages
Check this out!
Allergen-free cooks rejoice! This book is
stuffed with easy-to-prepare, traditional
comfort foods — with the not-so-traditional adjustment of using all gluten-free and
vegan
ingredients.
Those of us wishing to eat gluten-free
for health or allergy
reasons, or vegan for
various purposes, can
finally satisfy some of
those longings we still
have! Dig into some
long-overdue Mac and
Cheese, Mock Tuna
Fish Sandwich Fixin’s,
or indulge in some Pumpkin or Chocolate
Cupcakes. The cookbook starts out with a
discussion of ingredients, replacements and
options for your pantry. Learn to stock a
cupboard that enables you to bake and cook
without gluten or dairy or meat, and refer to
the book for breakfast recipes, snacks and
party treats, traditional American side dishes, delicious and nutritious desserts, and everything in between! An “Everything Else”
section covers a few easily prepared pantry
replacements like a vegan mayonnaise and
a simple pesto sauce. If you’re just starting
out on the trail of allergen-free cooking,
this book is easy to read and the recipes
extremely easy to follow. If you’re a pro at
this, ingredients will be familiar and you
finally can find some recipes for those
treasured family favorites!
Reviewed by Andrea Huehnerhoff
Lonely Planet The World’s Best
Street Food
By Lonely Planet Staff
Lonely Planet, $19.99
224 pages
Check this out!
The aroma of exotic
street foods invariably excites our taste
buds, even the hot
dogs on the path to
the ball game. Lonely
Planet strides across
continents
sharing
the memory of grab-
and-go dishes we sampled (or didn’t dare
try) on our travels. But even the best recipes
and images fail to provoke the same frisson, produced as they are in squeaky clean
kitchens. Part of the allure in eating the unknown in faraway alleys and public squares
is knowing the oil tends to be tastier by reason of repeated use, pans are wiped clean
with dubious cloths, and meat has undeclared provenance.
Despite detractingly more hygienic surroundings, armchair travelers will relish
this cleverly organized book of traditional
foods where facing pages describe the country and origin across from the ingredients,
recipe and how-to. Who will not fly by magic
carpet to try the redolent cevapcici enjoyed
in Croatia, Central Asian samsa, or gözeme
from Turkey where half the pleasure is
watching the cook?
After exploring the recipes, the indexes,
glossary and descriptions of contributing
authors provide a worthy dessert.
Reviewed by Jane Manaster
Pure Beef: An Essential Guide to
Artisan Meat With Recipes for Every
Cut
By Lynne Curry
Running Press, $27.00, 286 pages
Check this out!
We all know how much better grassfed beef is, and want beef that is healthy,
green and safe. Lynne Curry’s Pure Beef
explains a new approach to cooking and
eating meat, or
rather, rediscovering the beef of our
ancestors and understanding why
quality
trumps
quantity in meat
production every
time.
Part education,
part cookbook, Pure Beef breaks down beef
and beef production, from grass to table. It
explains the difference between grain- and
grass-fed meat; the effects of antibiotics and
hormones; the difference between a cow,
steer and bull; the certifications of beef;
how to find it; how to taste it; and, at long
last, how to cook it. Complete with invaluable cut charts and illustrations on how to
cut it, and how not to cook it (since grass-fed
beef cooks far differently from grain-fed),
this book is a gem for anyone interested
in healthy beef. Frugal cooks also will appreciate this book as the author lauds the
value of lesser cuts of meat, even tongue,
and the ever challenging amounts of chuck.
As a beef producer, this reviewer cannot
give higher praise other than saying it’s
something I will recommend to my customers.
Reviewed by Axie Barclay
Book Reviews
Join Tulsa County residents in reading this inspiring novel, which
follows the life of a small-town woman as she reflects on her rural
lifestyle that is giving way to progress in the name of development.
Many of the themes covered in the book mirror the challenges faced
by rural and urban families today.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Wendell Berry, American writer, farmer and advocate for small-scale
agriculture, is the winner of the Tulsa Library Trust’s 2012 Peggy V.
Helmerich Distinguished Author Award. He will be in Tulsa Dec. 7 and
8 to receive the award and give a free public presentation.
Using “Hannah Coulter” as the conversation starter, this year’s One
Book, One Tulsa initiative will focus on food, gardening, health and
sustainability. Visit http://tulsalibrary.org/onebookonetulsa for related
programming. Sponsored by the Tulsa Library Trust and Tulsa World.
The Lodge Cast Iron Cookbook: A
Treasury of Timeless, Delicious Recipes
Edited by Pam Hoenig
Oxmoor House, $24.95, 288 pages
Check this out!
Heartland haute cuisine — cast iron
cookery is as American as apple pie. And
there is a cranberry apple pie in these pages!
Ten by seven and a half inches, nicely
laminated flexible covers and a useable index make this a good kitchen tool. Fine
full-page photographic illustrations make it
difficult to leaf through without salivating,
and vignettes of the culture of ironware and
reminiscences of cast iron artistry intersperse the crisply instructed recipes.
There is concise instruction, including
the precise number of briquettes to put on
a Dutch oven lid to achieve good browning
of biscuits, and recipes range from literally
chef-level enterprises like Pan-Roasted Sea
Bass with Chive-Garlic Compound Butter to
hunter’s food like Tender Venison Roast and
Braised Breast of Grouse.
The bean hole, a
pit roasting method,
and Dutch oven techniques are addressed.
The Lodge Company has a long history,
and has had ample
time to set up collaborations with particular brand names.. That
shows, and not in a negative way. There are
chilies, chowders, corn bread, cobblers, pies,
meat treatments guaranteed to clog arteries so you can die happy, and ways to turn
seafood into ambrosia. I’ll be using this excellent collection of metallic wisdom for decades.
The Pasta Revolution
By the Editors at America’s Test Kitchen
America’s Test Kitchen, $26.95, 336 pages
Check this out!
There are pasta books ... and then there’s
this pasta book. Flip your carbohydrate
dreams upside down and strain them
through this sieve of revolutionary, creative
and also traditional recipes. Can you make
spaghetti without cooking the noodles first?
Can you find a family favorite that’s been
polished and perfected by the scientists at
America’s Test Kitchen? Learn everything
you need to know about this fascinating
dish, in 200 solidly tested recipes that run
the gamut of six-ingredient dishes, wholewheat pasta dishes, sauces, Asian noodles
and dumplings, and a staggering amount
more. Treat your family and guests to Meaty
Lasagna, Potstickers With Scallion Dipping
Sauce, Spring Vegetable Pasta, and stash
your fridge with homemade pestos and
sauces for simple dinners. Don’t just look
for a book that will provide a few recipes —
look for a book that will offer an education
in pasta and
give you the
recipes and
the tools to
flourish the
pot in style!
A me r ic a’s
Test Kitchen
steadily has
cranked out
solid
cookbooks with
thorough research, explanations and instruction, and this book is no exception.
Set your expectations high. You will not be
disappointed!
Reviewed by Andrea Huehnerhoff
Looking for a
New Job?
Get Free Online
Career Assistance With
• Résumé and cover
letter assistance
• Interview practice
• Career advice
FUNDED BY THE
TULSA LIBRARY TRUST.
p and use your library card to access Job Now!
The Kitchen Diva’s Diabetic
Cookbook: 150 Healthy, Delicious
Recipes for Diabetics and Those Who
Dine
With Them
By Angela Shelf Medearis
Andrews McMeel Publishing
$24.99, 272 pages
Check this out!
The Kitchen Diva’s
Diabetic Cookbook offers so much more than
150 recipes for those
with diabetes as it includes good food the
entire family will enjoy. Each of the recipes
adds exchange list values and carbohydrate
choices along with the detailed nutritional
and caloric analysis. From Flavor Infusions
of dips, dressings, sauces and spice mixes,
to Sweet Finishes and Nighttime Nibbles,
Medearis offers seven budget-friendly chapters to prepare healthful, enjoyable meals
all day long. Striking photographs whet the
appetite for these Southern-inspired foods.
The introduction includes a healthy
kitchen guide; lists for stocking the pantry,
refrigerator and freezer; and an explanation
of the nutritional information she provides
with each recipe. Preceding each of the
seven chapters, Medearis adds her personal
touch as she does throughout the book. She
offers guidance to assist in living a healthful
life, serving to affirm her initial statement
on page one.
“While a diabetic diagnosis may
change the way you eat, it shouldn’t impact the pure pleasure of a deliciously
prepared meal,” states the author. Diabetics and their entire family, adults
and children alike, will benefit from the
Kitchen Diva’s thoughtfully and lovingly
prepared diabetic cookbook.
Reviewed by Angie Mangino
Visit TulsaLibrary.org/j o b h
el
for complementary side dishes are also provided. Tips on buying meat, shopping for
produce and streamlining prep time appear
as sidebars, making this book a true kitchen
reference and not just a collection of recipes.
Reviewed by Margo Orlando Littell
F E AT U R I N G
Simple Weeknight Favorites
By Editors at America’s Test Kitchen
Cook’s Illustrated, $26.95, 352 pages
Check this out!
The chefs at America’s Test Kitchen are
known for their relentless, meticulous quest
to create best-of-the-best recipes that aim to
be the final word on,
say, beef stroganoff
or chicken and dumplings. In Simple Weeknight Favorites, that
focus is coupled with
the goal of making
recipes as easy as possible — easy enough
to cook any day of the
week, in a reasonable
amount of time, with ingredients available
at any local supermarket. Make no mistake:
you won’t find cheap shortcuts here. Instead,
recipes are streamlined; no need to use two
pans when one will do, for example.
The 200 recipes compiled in this volume
include basics like Quick Black Bean Soup
and old favorites like roast chicken and pork
chops prepared in exciting new ways. Vegetarians and fans of international cooking
will find plenty to like here as well. Recipes
Cookbooks
Book Reviews
Picture Books
book summaries.
Larf
By Ashley Spires
Kids Can Press, $16.95, 32 pages
Check this out!
Larf is a one-of-akind creature: the only
sasquatch in the world,
or so he thinks. But rumor has it that another
sasquatch will soon be
visiting a nearby village. Is it true? What is
this sasquatch like? Will
he like Larf? Will he be
a vegetarian too, or will
he enjoy gardening? What will he think of
Larf’s pet rabbit? And worst of all — what
if he is actually a she? Larf has his doubts,
but cannot rest until he finds out about this
other sasquatch for himself!
Ashley Spires has created a character that
everyone will adore; Larf is a fun creature
that you can’t help but want to hug, despite
the fact that he’s 7-feet tall. The story is cute,
with many fun details thrown in to entertain readers young and old alike, and Spires’
illustrations are a delight to behold. This is
an adorable picture book that children are
sure to want to read over and over again. A
welcome addition to any book collection.
Reviewed by Holly Scudero
Good Night, Laila Tov
By Laurel Snyder, Jui Ishida (illustrator)
Random House Books for Young Readers
$17.99, 32 pages
Check this out!
This
delightful
story-poem presents
an idyllic JewishAmerican family that
goes off on a brief
camping trip: father,
mother, daughter, son
and dog. The cat stays
home. The author offers passages of simple rhymed couplets, each section rounded
off by a refrain of the title encouraging children to learn the Hebrew phrase for “good
night.” The minivacation divides into three
days: one at the seashore, one in an open
field, and the last in a more heavily wooded
area passed through before driving home.
Join Tulsa City-County Library’s
2012 Children’s Summer
Reading Program
The story balances the excitement and
risks of family camping (gathering berries,
running away from bees, contending with a
storm) against the comforting security
of snuggling together in a tent.
The family is further identified as
Jewish by the presence of a menorah
in the home and by the activity of
planting trees — a reference to the
commandment of “tikkun olam” (repairing the world).
This feel-good book gains much
from its gorgeous illustrations, which
often communicate mood more fully
than the words do.
A PJ Library Book Club selection, this
title and others are available through PJ affiliates to Jewish families otherwise unable
to afford them. The program fosters Jewish
family engagement. Ages 3 and up.
Reviewed by Phil Jason
Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy
Buttons
By Eric Litwin, James Dean (illustrator)
HarperCollins, $16.99, 40 pages
Check this out!
James Dean and
Eric Litwin have done
it again. With Pete
the Cat and His Four
Groovy Buttons, Dean
and Litwin have set
Pete the Cat onto the
groovy track (wearing his favorite shirt)
and set the younger
reader grooving to
a new (free) song. The recorded song is
available online, and don’t be surprised if
everyone starts singing along with Pete.
Pete the Cat’s first books introduced
learning fun to kids by way of songs that
focus on his shoes. In this latest installment, Pete the Cat shows off his mathematical muscles through “My buttons,
my buttons, my four groovy buttons.”
As with his shoes, Pete’s clothes start going through some changes. Each time, the
reader is asked the familiar “Did Pete cry?
Goodness, no!” and then Pete the Cat sings
his button song (not too different from the
color/shoe song.) The reader is prompted
“How many buttons are left?” And with
Through July 28
Earn great prizes and coupons! Attend awesome
free events! Read for the fun of it! Newborns
through fifth-graders may participate.
Visit any library location to get
a summer reading log and
event guide. Learn more at
http://kids.tulsalibrary.org.
this, the answer introduces the young reader to subtraction. As with the original Pete
the Cat book, the pages (and cat) are colorful
and bold ... and fun. Kids will feel more at
ease with subtracting numbers, and Pete is
a groovy guide.
What Little Boys Are Made Of
By Robert Neubecker
Balzer + Bray, $14.99, 32 pages
Check this out!
What are little boys made of? In
this modern retelling of the 19th century nursery rhyme, boys are made of
much more than “frogs and snails and
puppy-dogs’ tails.” Trapped inside on a
rainy day, Neubecker’s little boy uses
his imagination and a few toy props
to become an astronaut in deep space,
an explorer in a wild jungle, a pirate on
the prow of his ship, the star of an intense
soccer match and a knight on the back of a
fierce dragon. Frogs and snails and puppydogs’ tails are too sedate for this energetic
little boy. He’s made of “blast and boom and
uppity zoom!”
The book’s
il lustrations
are as energetic
and vibrant as
the protagonist.
Neubecker presents his imaginary journeys
on
two-page
spreads that teem with life. The animals
in the jungle bare their teeth at the reader;
the pirates on the ship swing and shout
and wave their swords. The reader feels the
motion and the excitement. The book ends
when the little boy shares a snack with his
mother and then snuggles in to read a book
with her. Neubecker’s little boy is made of “a
kiss and a hug, a snuggle and LOVE.”
Reviewed by Tammy McCartney
Night Knight
By Owen Davey
Templar Books, $15.99, 32 pages
Check this out!
Hear ye, hear ye, the tale of a gallant
knight on his latest adventure! Ride through
enchanted forests and cross treacherous
bodies of water,
climb steep and
perilous
mountains, and face
fearsome beasts
with our intrepid
adventurer, as he
embarks on his
latest and quite
possibly
most
important escapade yet: getting ready for
a good night’s sleep. Even knights need to
get their rest!
Owen Davey’s new picture book Night
Knight is sure to please young readers everywhere. While recommended for ages
2 and up, the bright illustrations will be
Book Reviews
loved by even the youngest baby. Older
siblings and adults alike will surely enjoy
reading this book aloud to babies and toddlers. The story is simple, perfect for those
just learning to read. Better yet, parents will
appreciate how this sweet book promotes a
good evening routine, complete with a bath
and freshly brushed teeth. There aren’t really any faults to be found with this book;
what’s not to love? This book would be a fantastic addition to the library of any young
child, and is sure to become a bedtime favorite for many.
Reviewed by Holly Scudero
No Jumping on the Bed!
By Tedd Arnold
Dial Books for Young Readers, $16.99,
32 pages
Check this out!
Walter’s room is
nearly at the top of a
tall apartment building. While he gets
ready for bed, his
father reminds him
there is no jumping on
the bed. He warns that
if Walter keeps it up,
he and his bed might punch right through
the floor and crash into the apartment below. Walter says good night, and in his dark,
quiet room, the only sound is thumping
from above — his neighbor Delbert, jumping on his bed! Walter says, “If Delbert can
jump on his bed, so can I!” So Walter starts
to jump ... and jump ... higher ... and higher.
And then it happens — Walter and his bed
crash through the floor. He lands in Miss
Hattie’s spaghetti, but it is just the beginning. He keeps on crashing through to the
next floor where Mr. Matty lives, along with
Miss Hattie and Walter’s bed going along.
And so it goes. Or is it just a dream?
“
Walter’s bedroom was directly above Miss Hattie’s
dining room. She was quite
surprised when Walter landed
in her spaghetti and meatballs.”
This 25th anniversary edition of Tedd Arnold’s book is updated with all new artwork
in his well-known style. It’s a great edition,
one youngsters will love, because it is silly
and funny and the pictures make it more so.
Reviewed by Rosi Hollinbeck
Picture Books
Magritte’s Marvelous Hat
By D.B. Johnson
Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, $16.99, 32 pages
Check this out!
I like this book because it’s weird, funny,
and makes me think.
The story begins when
the painter Magritte
sees a floating hat in a
window. He tries on the
hat. It floats above his
head. He loved the way
the hat did not pinch his
ears or muss his hair so
he bought it. Magritte
walked home and went
back to his painting. Something about the hat made painting easier. The next day Magritte and his hat played in the
park. Then he went home and painted a picture even better
than the day before. All Magritte wanted to do was paint. But
the hat wanted to play so it bounced out the window without
Magritte. He rushed out to find his hat because he couldn’t
paint without it, but the hat was hiding. Magritte decided to
play the hat’s favorite game, hide-and-seek. Magritte hid but
the hat couldn’t find him. Magritte was home when the hat
flew back in the window and landed on his head. Magritte
floated up in the air! I want a hat like Magritte’s.
I loved the book because of the flying hat! Others should
probably read it because it’s funny and surprising.
10 Hungry Rabbits: Counting &
Color Concepts
By Anita Lobel
Knopf Books for Young Readers
$9.99, 24 pages
Check this out!
In this book, the baby
rabbits are hungry. They
go out to the garden to
pick vegetables. Each
one finds a different
ingredient for momma
rabbit’s special soup.
I enjoyed having my
mommy and daddy read
this book to me. I really
liked all the colors and
had fun counting with
the rabbits. It is one of my favorite books.
Falcon
By Tim Jessell
Random House Books for Young Readers, $17.99, 40 pages
Check this out!
There was a little boy who
wished he wanted to be a falcon. He imagined that he was
a falcon. The falcon’s wings
would slice through the air in
the mountains. He went to a
forest, and he went to the sea.
Then he went to a city, and sat
on a perch and watched all the
birds scatter everywhere. He
went down, and all the people
dashed. The boy saw a falcon
and said, “If only I was a falcon.”
I did like this book. I liked the pictures of the falcon, and I liked the
pictures of the places and the birds. I wish that we were the baby falcons
and Mama and Papa were the mother and father falcons. I would like to
be a falcon because no birds would get in my way. This book made me
think that I was a falcon.
Amelia Bedelia’s First Vote
By Herman Parish, Lynne Avril (illustrator)
Greenwillow Books, $16.99, 32 pages
Check this out!
Amelia Bedelia’s First Vote is
about a little girl, Amelia Bedelia, who always loves to go
to school and have adventures.
She is very kind, but she understands words differently than
what people mean and that’s
what makes her funny. My dad
says that she takes things literally — although taking things
is wrong. She learns about different things at school including elections. One day she runs
into Mr. K, the principal of the school, and he decides to let the students vote on the rules of the school. Some of the voting choices are
ice cream sandwiches for lunch, growing berries in the school garden,
or homework free Wednesdays. The vote ends up in a tie until a letter
appears with a final vote.
I like this book because it’s a nice book about kids and about how
voting works. It’s also funny how Amelia understands or doesn’t understand what people mean. I also like the pictures. This book would be
good for a girl or boy. I think kids 5 years old and older would enjoy it.
A Hen for Izzy Pippik
By Aubrey Davis, Marie Lafrance (illustrator)
Kids Can Press, $16.95, 32 pages
Check this out!
It is about a girl who found a hen and its home said, “A Hen for Izzy Pippik.” She took it home to
her grandpa and her mother. Her grandpa said, “Scrambled?” and her mother said, “Chicken soup.”
But Shaina said, “No, you can’t eat her; this hen belongs to Izzy Pippik!” They made a nest in her
crate, and the hen laid an egg in the night. In a few years, the hens started scrambling in every
direction. They spilled baby biscuits all over the floor. The hens grew, and the girl’s mother took a
broom and tried to shoo them out of the house. The people liked the hens very much because they
brought them good fortune.
I would recommend this book. I really liked how Shaina wanted the hens to go back to Izzy Pippik because they were his hens and how Izzy Pippik sold all the hens back to the people. I liked that
the hen wanted to stay with Shaina because she liked her more than him. I liked the drawings, and I
felt good after I read this story. I thought it was really funny how there were eggs all over everywhere.
Book Reviews
Teen Scene
book summaries.
Destined
By Aprilynne Pike
HarperTeen, $17.99, 320 pages
Check this out!
Destined, the
conclusion
to
the Wings series,
was everything
I hoped for and
more! After Illusions, which I
liked but nothing really happened till the
very end, Destined picks up
and it’s nonstop
action and danger. What I loved about this
is that the humans get a chance to finally
shine! Not that I don’t love Laurel and Tammani (because I do), but I always thought
Chelsea was a bright character that should
have been used more and she finally gets her
chance to shine! I have a new-found respect
and admiration for David as his character
is put through the wringer worse than any
of them and you get to see him grow into a
person I think you will all love by the end.
There is a letter he writes (I won’t say where
or when) that literally tore me to shreds; I
couldn’t believe he had me crying like that.
“
It is time to discover if you
are the hero Laurel has always thought you to be. Will
you join us in defending Avalon?”
The story itself was almost completely
set in Avalon, which was awesome because I
like the land that Aprilynne created. There’s
also more Camelot/Arthurian legend in the
story.
Destined was the perfect way to wrap up
this amazing series!
Reviewed by Jaime Arnold
Fair Coin
By E.C. Myers
Pyr, $16.95, 250 pages
Check this out!
Ephraim lives with his alcoholic mother.
One day, he comes home from school to find
her sitting at the kitchen table, overdosed on
sleeping pills. He rushes her to the hospital
and discovers a boy
who looks just like
him who had died. In
the dead boy’s wallet
Ephraim finds a coin
that when flipped
causes wishes to
come true. Ephraim
thinks his troubles
are over until his
best friend starts to
covet the coin, his
girlfriend starts to hate him and his world
begins to crumble. The rest of the book is
how Ephraim tries to turn everything back
to the way it was before.
I liked this book; it was a Monkey’s Paw
kind of story, which I always enjoy. It showed
the many facets of Ephraim’s character as
he traveled between alternate realities. It
was slightly confusing at first, but later on it
became much easier to understand and I enjoyed the ending. It was a clever plot and an
intriguing premise. I will recommend this
book to others as an engaging sci-fi novel.
Reviewed by Peteson, age 14
Illuminate: A Gilded Wings Novel
By Aimee Agresti
Harcourt Children’s Books, $17.99
528 pages
Check this out!
As the book begins on a frigid January
day, we find high-school student Haven Terra called to the principal’s office. The principal tells her that she and two of her fellow honor students, Dante Dennis and her
best friend, and
Lance, a quiet
boy from her AP
European History class, will
have the privilege of interning
at the soon-toopen Lexington
Hotel.
When
Haven, Dante
and Lance arrive at the hotel,
they meet the
manager, Aurelia
Brown, and her second-in-command, Lucian Grove, both of them tall, elegant and
ridiculously beautiful. As Haven shakes
hands with Lucian, a sharp jolt travels
through her, and she begins to fall in love
with him. But as the story moves forward,
things become increasingly strange. The hotel’s underground nightclub has a blackout
on opening night, a book appears telling Haven to beware all beautiful things, and Haven’s photographs of “The Outfit,” Aurelia’s
personal squad, begin to change, showing
rotting corpses where beautiful people once
stood. What’s going on? You’ll have to read
the book to find out.
I thought it was a bit difficult to truly immerse yourself in the beginning, but as the
story goes on and you invest more time, you
find yourself pulled further and further into
the story. It is an interesting read with more
than its share of plot twists.
Reviewed by Tee, age 13
Out of Sight, Out of Time
By Ally Carter
Hyperion, $16.99, 304 pages
Check this out!
Ally Carter has continued a strong series
with Out of Sight, Out of Time.
This fifth installment in the Gallagher
Girls series begins a few months where the
fourth book left off, only Cammie has no
memory of what happened over the summer. She wakes up in a convent on a mountain, only remembering her vow to leave the
Gallagher Academy to figure out a way to
stop the Circle of Cavan. The rest of the de-
tails — who she talked to, where she went,
where she stayed — are all gone.
The majority of Out of Sight, Out of Time
is spent trying to get those memories back.
By traveling to the places they believe she
went, Cammie and her friends slowly piece
together what happened, bringing us one
step closer to understanding the
Circle and what
their
ultimate
goal is.
Carter does a
great job of developing the mystery of the Circle
while continuing
to progress the
relationships between Cammie
and her friends and family. Readers and
fans of the series will be satisfied with this
installment, though the memory-loss plot
has started to feel a bit overplayed in young
adult literature recently.
Some questions are resolved and some
are left unanswered, leaving room for additional compelling books in the Gallagher
Girls series. This is a solid addition, with
enough depth to keep readers fulfilled until
number six.
Reviewed by Shanyn Day
Join Tulsa City-County Library’s
2012 TEEN AND TWEEN
SUMMER READING PROGRAM
THROUGH JULY 28
Earn great prizes and coupons! Attend awesome free events!
Read for the fun of it! You must have completed fifth grade to
sign up for the teen and tween summer reading program.
Visit any library location to get a summer reading log and event guide.
Learn more at http://teens.tulsalibrary.org.
Book Reviews
Romance
Popular
Culture
book summaries.
book summaries.
Blame It on Bath: The Truth About the
Duke
By Caroline Linden
Avon, $7.99, 384 pages
Check this out!
Even if this is the middle of a threepart saga, don’t be deterred from reading
it whenever. It stands alone very well. It’s
a marriage-of-convenience plot with a delicious twist: it’s the bride who has the money
and chooses her groom who needs it! She
knows the story, but he doesn’t until late in
the novel, and by then he’s all wrapped up
and unwilling to change a thing. Very neat!
Katherine Howe is a 30-year-old widow
with a beautiful, if shallow, mother who has
convinced the poor girl that no man will
ever love her, so she should marry a wealthy
man. She did that, and he died, leaving her
very wealthy and at the mercy of his grubby
nephew. But once upon a time, a neighboring young man was kind to her and she’s
never forgotten him. When she hears a rumor about him and his two brothers being
in possible financial difficulties, she sets out
to marry him, thus neatly solving the problems of both of them.
Except, of course, the man she marries
is occasionally a bit thick in the head! Gerard de Lacey, the younger son of the Duke
of Durham, finally puts the pieces together
and realizes the worth of the treasure that’s
fallen into his lap. Lovely.
Reviewed by Kelly Ferjutz
The Surrender of Miss Fairbourne
By Madeline Hunter
Jove, $7.99, 344 pages
Check this out!
I’ve been a secret reader of Madeline
Hunter, having read most of the Seduction
series while on extended holiday. This author revels in strong female leads who are
fueled by their dedication to their art or
their ideals. This time around, the titular
character is the newly orphaned daughter
left in charge of a prestigious auction house.
Emma Fairbourne is determined to preserve her family’s business, clinging to the
slim hope that her brother is still alive to
claim his inheritance, despite all reports he
was lost at sea. The man who stands in the
way of her ambitions is her father’s silent
partner, the handsome Earl of Southwaite,
who is determined to sell the business.
Like most good Regency romances, the
book features some solid material that
serves as a backdrop for the romance. In
this case, the issues of smuggling and spying are essential to the intrigue. Hunter also
doesn’t let the occasional historical inaccuracy get in the way of a good story. While
there are some contrived situations which
seem improbable given the time period, all
of this is secondary to the seduction.
If you like your historical romances seasoned with handsome nobles with a dash of
art history on the side, The Surrender of Miss
Fairbourne makes excellent light reading.
Reviewed by Rachel Anne Calabia
The Grey Album: On the Blackness of
Blackness
By Kevin Young
Graywolf Press, $25.00, 463 pages
Check this out!
Long an admirer of Kevin Young’s sly
lyrical poetry, I approached The Grey Album with some trepidation. What could
this poet want to convey to readers that
pushed him to prose? As it turns out,
Young has a great deal to say, all said with
the sharp eye, good humor and honesty
found in his earlier works.
Young has large fish to fry locating the origins of modernism. This requires striking a
careful balance. On the one side, Young must
defend modernism from those who brand it
as cultural imperialism in new clothes. On
the other, he wants
to forcefully assert
the centrality of the
A f r ica n-A mer ica n
contribution at the
origin of the modernist movement. He
locates this contribution in music and
poetry. From Dunbar to Kaufman, and
Armstrong to Jay-Z,
Young marshals an
eclectic range of material in the service of
his argument.
The glue in these essays is the idea of
“storying.” This art of verbal dissimulation
See GREY, cont’d on page 17
Traveling the
Mother Road
this spring?
Download the Guide to
Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives
for diners on this route and
many others.
Book Reviews
Kids’ Books
Tween Reads
book summaries.
A Warmer World
By Caroline Arnold, Jamie Hogan (illustrator)
Charlesbridge, $7.95, 32 pages
Check this out!
A Warmer World is a nonfiction book
about how climate changes are affecting
wildlife all over the world.
It includes stories of animals such as polar bears,
walruses, butterflies, squirrels, mice, krill, penguins
and the arctic fox. It also includes a sad story about one
extinct animal, the golden
toad, which lived in the
cloud forests of Costa Rica
but hasn’t been seen since
1989 because the cloud forest dried up. On each page
the author, Caroline Arnold,
writes about the seasons
and weather changes. She tells about how
animals are moving and even dying because
of the weather changes. She gives informa-
book summaries.
tion about animals in the ocean, arctic and
rain forest.
A Warmer World is a wonderful book.
I recommend this book for kids ages 6-9.
I like how the author organized the book;
she tells about the weather changes on one
page and has a story of the
animal that lives in that
habitat on the other. This
book would also be good for
people to read who always
pollute the earth because
they could learn from it. I
think this book is good for
elementary schools that are
studying animals and their
habitats. I learned that it
isn’t always other people’s
fault that animals are hurt,
sometimes it’s the weather.
Reviewed by Hunter - age 9
Kids
Book Review
thousands of book titles,
find author events, listen to
author interviews
searchable database
Chomp
By Carl Hiaasen
Knopf Books for Young Readers, $16.99
304 pages
Check this out!
Wahoo Cray, an
animal
wrangler’s
son, has been trying
to help his father ever
since a frozen iguana
gave him a concussion. While Wahoo
is helpful and goodtempered, his father
is the opposite — fiery and stubborn. When
he accepts a job as the animal wrangler for
a reality TV show, the so-called survivalist,
Derek Badger, turns out to be a spoiled brat
of a celebrity whose television scenes are
completely phony — the smallest things,
down to the mud on Derek’s boots, are fake.
To add to things, a girl called Tuna shows up
and needs help hiding from her father, who
has given her a black eye. As the three of
them travel with Derek Badger’s crew to the
Everglades, they discover more about each
other, and the quirky adventure begins!
I really liked this book; it was exciting
and funny, the characters were all hilarious,
believable and intriguing in their own ways.
It made me laugh, and yes, I would recommend this to any tween who likes humor,
survival, animals and adventure.
Reviewed by Erica, age 11
Cold Cereal
By Adam Rex
Balzer + Bray, $16.99, 432 pages
Check this out!
Scottish
(Scott,
for short) Play Doe is
friends with Erno and
Emily Utz, who are
supposed to be twins.
Scott’s father, John
Doe, is an actor whose
nickname is Reggie
Dwight. Scott has migraines (a headache
that makes you see
and hear unusual things) and sees a rabbitman and a unicat while biking to school. On
the first day of school, he takes a field trip
to the Goodco Cereal Factory. When he’s
there he “accidentally” picks up a leprechaun
who wants to be called Mick. Erno and Emily get puzzles from their foster parent Mr.
Wilson and compete against each other to
get a prize; Emily wins and lets Erno win
on their birthday month. They both meet a
man named Merle Lynn (Merlin). Emily has
been taking Milk-7 (a medicine that makes
you really smart) for 10 years. Someone
finds a rabbit-man whose name is Harvey
and lets him stay at his home. Mick and
Harvey’s magic is almost gone. It was a very
good book!
Reviewed by Camille, age 9
Cloaked
By Alex Flinn
HarperTeen, $9.99, 341 pages
Check this out!
Cloaked is the story about a simple shoe
repairman, Johnny, who longs for
adventure in his
life. His dream
comes true when
a famous princess shows up
and sends him
on a journey
to find her lost
brother. The only
catch is that he’s
a frog!
“
Until last week, I didn’t
know there were witches,
or enchanted foxes or talking
swans.”
This fabulously written book references
many unique, and sometimes unfamiliar,
fairy tales such as “The Elves and the Shoemaker” and “The Golden Bird.” It is especially good for fans of the Harry Potter series
and of the book Island of the Aunts.
Reviewed by Jeanette, age 17
Fake Mustache: Or, How Jodie O’Rodeo
and Her Wonder Horse (and Some
Nerdy Kid) Saved the U.S. Presidential
Election From a Mad Genius Criminal
Mastermind
By Tom Angleberger
Amulet Books, $13.95, 208 pages
Check this out!
It all started on Casper’s birthday. Casper
had been saving up for the No. seven handlebar mustache at Sven’s Fair Priced Store,
but needed 10 more dollars, so he made
his friend Lenny give him the 10 dollars
since Lenny gave Casper such a bad pres-
Wonder
By R.J. Palacio
Knopf Books for Young Readers, $15.99
320 pages
Check this out!
This amazing book,
written by R.J. Palacio,
is about a 10-year-old
boy named August. August isn’t just an ordinary boy; he has facial
deformities. Just by his
appearance, everyone
thinks he is just a weird
boy, but once everyone
gets to know him, he is
just like any other boy,
but even cooler! Auggie, his nickname, has been homeschooled
for most of his life. His parents think it is
time for him to make his own friends and
go to a local school. Auggie is, of course, selfconscious about his looks and he has no idea
what school is like! But with the help of a
great principal, caring friend and a loving
family, Auggie learns many life lessons.
I got hooked reading Wonder once I got
to know the characters. The author really
makes you feel a meaningful connection to
Auggie and the other kids. My favorite part
was when Olivia, Auggie’s older sister, talks
about the way she lives with Auggie. This
is my favorite part because I can relate to
Olivia better than anyone else in the story.
We have similar social issues. Also because
when Auggie talks about his life, you feel so
bad for him and do not even think about his
sister. But when Olivia talks, she says that
Auggie gets all the attention and she has to
teach herself to be patient and understanding. You think of the story in a different
way. Wonder makes you realize that you
shouldn’t judge someone by their appearance; it’s about their personality and who
they actually are.
Reviewed by Naomi, age 11
Promise the Night
By Michaela MacColl
Chronicle Books, $16.99, 264 pages
Check this out!
Promise the Night
is an outstanding,
historical
fiction
novel. Based on her
childhood,
Beryl
Markham was the
first woman to fly
nonstop and solo
across the Atlantic
Ocean from England
to America, against
the prevailing winds.
Markham made her
historic flight in 1936. Packed with action,
Promise the Night will captivate any preteen who loves history. Born in England in
1902, Beryl Clutterbuck, at the age of two,
moves to a ranch in British East Africa, now
known as Kenya. The book begins when
Beryl is now 10 years old, and she helps her
father take care of the horses on his
sprawling ranch. Beryl is nothing like
a proper English girl; she is feisty and
strong-willed. She runs and jumps
with the boys of the Nandi, an African tribe.
Beryl is a likable character: she
befriends a Nandi boy and shows
her bravery by going on a lion hunt.
Anyone who has big dreams will be
inspired by this book because Beryl’s
spirit is never broken. Learning what
might have made Beryl want “to fly
over the valley, like an eagle” is an exciting adventure not to be missed.
Reviewed by Zachary, age 11
blocked off for other mall visitors. There is a
small stage with a microphone and 10 chairs
for the trainers like Grace. Grace’s father was
killed in a car accident and Grace meets one
of the boys who was in the car that hit her
father. She tries to get him to talk about the
accident, but instead of telling her he goes
and tells the police, confessing everything.
Another part of the story is that Regan’s
high school best friend Sheena tries
to steal jewelry from their home. After Regan finds out, her and Sheena’s
friendship is over for good.
I liked this book a lot because I
thought it had really good context and
really good writing. I also liked it because I thought the author did a very
good job explaining the characters and
what the characters were feeling. This
book is a very good example of what
some people can feel like when someone in your life dies and how it’s very
sad when someone dies. I recommend this
book to anyone who loves a good story about
friendship and love.
Reviewed by Safiya, age 10
Got
Homework?
Get Free Online
• Real, expert tutors
• Help with all
core subjects
• Available from your
home, school or
library computer
THIS SERVICE IS FUNDED BY
THE TULSA LIBRARY TRUST AND
KJRH 2 WORKS FOR YOU.
elp
ent. But that mustache
changed
everything. After
Casper got the
mustache, he decided to get a manabout-town suit to
look more like an
adult. Lenny decided to go home
after that.
His
parents
were watching the news and Lenny saw
Casper! Casper had been caught robbing
a bank and had stolen millions of dollars!
Lenny went to Casper’s house to see if it was
true. When Lenny went to Casper’s room,
he couldn’t even open the door because his
room was filled with money bags. Casper really had robbed the bank!
This is a great book with many exciting
twists and turns. I would definintely recommend this book to 10-year-olds and up.
Reviewed by Perri, age 12
and use your library card to access Homework Help Now!
Tween Reads
Book Reviews
Visit TulsaLibrary.org/hom e w o r
kh
SATURDAY, JUNE 30 • 9 A.M.-NOON
SUMMER READERS, join us at the Tulsa Zoo for a special midsummer
celebration! Learn all about nocturnal animals, visit the new Helmerich
Sea Lion Cove and enjoy other fun activities. Children and teens who
show their summer reading logs or sign up for the Summer Reading
Program will receive free admission to the zoo that day. Summer reading
completion prizes will be available at the Tulsa Zoo.
What the Dog Said
By Randi Reisfeld
Bloomsbury Kids, $16.99, 256 pages
Check this out!
This book is about a girl named Grace who
gets a brown and gray mutt (who they later
name Rex) at the pound which she thinks
is talking to her. She is about 12 years old
with curly brown hair;
she has freckles and
hazel eyes. She has a
sister named Regan
who is in high school,
with blond hair and
blue eyes. When they
get Rex, Regan and
Grace’s mom decides
to use Rex as a service
dog to help disabled
people. The setting of the training department is a small grassy area in the mall
Mohawk Park requires a $2 parking fee.
Book Reviews
Fiction
book summaries.
Half-Blood Blues: A Novel
By Esi Edugyan
Picador, $15.00, 336 pages
Check this out!
It’s easy to see why Edugyan’s narrative was a finalist for the prestigious Man
Booker Prize, with its velvety prose — fluid
and hip as jazz. Edugyan’s character Sidney
Griffiths weaves a tale of comradery, betrayal and lost dreams against a vivid backdrop
of Nazi Germany and the post-war rise of
jazz. At the story’s center is a young black
man, Hieronymus Falk, an extraordinarily
gifted jazz trumpeter, and his cohorts, the
Hot-Time Swingers, intent on cutting a record while the black boots Nazis storm the
streets of Berlin. One night, by a fluke, while
Sid stands by helpless,
Falk is taken by the
black boots and disappears to the camps.
Cut to the states, the
inflationary 1990s —
of the original group
only Sid (“on piano”)
and Chip Jones, the
drummer, now in
their 80s, are still
alive. Chip tours the globe in expensive,
handmade suits, his music career launched
in part by the record cut that last night in
Berlin 50 years before, while Sid works in
medical records and lives alone in a tawdry
tenement in Baltimore, bereft of the love of
his life. On the eve of a Berlin jazz festival
and documentary celebrating Hieronymus
Falk, news arrives that sets in motion a
whole new gig.
Reviewed by Zara Raab
History of a Pleasure Seeker
By Richard Mason
Knopf, $25.95, 288 pages
Check this out!
Thankfully for the eager reader, Richard
Mason’s sophomore novel is as erotically
tinged as the title suggests. It surely will
have you lustily turning the pages in hopes
of more goodness. That being said, the
beauty in History of a Pleasure Seeker is the
fact that Mason’s superb writing turns what
could have been a work of sheer erotica into
a discussion of class struggles, friendship,
childhood mental illness and adventure.
The year is 1907. The setting is Amsterdam and the pleasure seeking in question
is the ambitious
young Piet Barol.
After growing up
the son of a university
professor
father and singing
teacher
mother,
Barol sets out for
a better life — or
world
dominion,
if you will. Armed
with his father’s lessons in intellect and
his mother’s teachings in social charm, Piet
Barol always has had a knack for getting
what he wants. And now what he wants is
to move up on the social ladder. His plan:
securing a job as the tutor to the troubled
son of Europe’s leading hotelier.
This he achieves by charming the pants
off the lady of the house (not literally, that
will come later in the book). Despite the
fact that he resides in the servant’s quarters, Barol is sure of his ability to infiltrate
the family. First, he has to win over the
confidence of their only son — a boy with
incredible smarts but even more incredible
internal demons. Young Egbert refuses to
leave the house, won’t eat with the family,
has endless rituals to ward off the voices in
his head and is generally a giant disappointment to his father. Barol’s job lies not so
much in tutoring the boy, but in curing him.
Can he reach the unreachable and save
the boy from himself? Can he rise in the
ranks of the family? What about the lady
of house and him? Will their love affair
cause disaster? What will become of Piet
after disaster forces him to flee the house?
The answers to these questions will keep
you chomping at the bit for more. The ending will not leave you disappointed and the
book will keep you fondly remembering
scenes for weeks. I give this my complete
recommendation.
Reviewed by Elizabeth Raymond
Jezebel
By Irene Nemirovsky
Vintage, $14.95
208 pages
Check this out!
Gladys Eysenach is
beautiful. This is the
fundamental truth
of her life, the fact
around which her actions and thoughts revolve. She is beautiful, with the ability to
bring men to their knees; ensnaring men’s
interest — and then casting it aside — has
been the main purpose of her life and its primary satisfaction, since she was old enough
to understand her power. But Gladys is no
longer young — and she is on trial for the
murder of her younger lover, Bernard Martin. She has admitted her guilt but still must
listen as voices from her past and present
bluntly describe her character. The story of
how Gladys wound up in this tragic position
makes up the bulk of Jezebel, and what is
revealed about her past casts new light on
both her guilt and the criminal accusation
itself.
The protagonist of Jezebel is based on
Nemirovsky’s own mother, whose determination to remain young led her to dress
Nemirovsky in children’s clothes even when
she was a teenager. The strained mother/
daughter relationship, the fear of aging, the
fixation on beauty and sexual power — all of
these are familiar themes for Nemirovsky,
and in Jezebel they come to haunting, uncomfortable life.
Open City: A Novel
By Teju Cole
Random House, $15.00, 259 pages
Check this out!
The narrator of Open City is Julius Olatubosun, a young psychiatrist from Nigeria,
where his German mother settled with his
Nigerian father until he died of TB when
Julius was still a boy. Written in the style
of a diary, Julius relates with quiet emotion and deep intelligence the events of his
life, weaving past and present: his painful
childhood in war-torn Nigeria, his passage
through a brutal military boarding school
and his eventual escape to college in the
Northeast of the United States. The themes
of enslavement and
freedom illume each
episode: when he visits his friend Professor Saito or a prisoner
interred in a detention center for illegal
immigrants with Nadege, who becomes
his girlfriend and then
leaves him; when he thinks, as he often
does, of his patient V., the celebrated scholar
of the eradication of native peoples by the
early European settlers to North America;
when he meets a young Muslim radical in
Belgium, where he goes in search of his lost
grandmother; and perhaps most poignantly,
in his rambling walks through Manhattan,
with its landmarks of earlier tyrannies.
Even here, or especially here, perhaps, one
senses that freedom is as much an inner
state of mind as an outer arrangement to
one’s life.
Reviewed by Zara Raab
Perla
By Carolina De Robertis
Check this out!
Perla is a good girl,
the obedient daughter
of a naval officer and
wealthy socialite in
Argentina. She fiercely loves her father,
but her love comes
at a price. She knows
there are secrets of
which her family
never speaks, “lies” told by others to slander
her father. She knows he played a role in the
loss of the desaparecidos, The Disappeared,
and that there are atrocities in which he
must have taken part. So she mentally cuts
herself in two, burying the disloyal part of
herself that feels shame for her father’s actions and wants answers to her family’s unanswered questions.
Perla maintains this uneasy balance until she starts dating Gabriel, a journalist
who reports on the search for the desaparecidos and the circumstances that led to
their disappearance. He pushes Perla to ask
the questions she has steadfastly refused to
ask. Feeling threatened, she isolates herself
in her family’s home, speaking to no one.
And then the stranger arrives.
Powerful and moving, Perla asks the
question, is it possible to love a monster?
At what cost? Perla’s conflict is visceral and
heart-wrenching, and De Robertis’ poetic
writing offers passages that make the soul
ache. How will Perla, and Argentina, heal
from this painful rift in history?
A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty
By Joshilyn Jackson
Grand Central Publishing, $24.99, 322 pages
Check this out!
Ginny
Slocumb
isn’t fond of God. In
her unhumble opinion, no respectable
deity would allow a
15-year-old to get
pregnant the first
time she had sex, not
to mention letting the
resulting baby, Liza,
repeat the pattern, and then disappear with
her daughter for a couple of years, only returning when she’s too tired and strung out
to stay away. And now Liza’s baby, Mosey,
is turning 15. Liza has had a stroke, which
paralyzed her right side and left her speechless, so she’s no help at keeping a lid on Mosey. And Ginny’s favorite once-upon-a-time
boyfriend has finally left his wife but hasn’t
been in touch. What would ever make Ginny think that God had got her back?
These Slocumb women do not inhabit a
benevolent world. No guardian angels hover over their backyard. They are not spared
the mean and ugly of small-town Christian
folk, who seem to have overlooked that Bible instruction about not judging.
Book Reviews
There is a boatload of secrets and surprises tucked inside this raucous novel. You may
want to shake some love sense into Ginny,
yell at Liza and try to snatch Mosey from
the train wreck her life is trying to become,
but you’ll be glad you met them.
Reviewed by Elizabeth Benford
A Partial History of Lost Causes
By Jennifer DuBois
Dial Press, $26.00, 369 pages
Check this out!
This novel is about
overwhelming loss, to
an almost unbearable
degree: the multitude
of ways one can experience it, how to endure it, how to survive
it and — fleetingly,
elusively — how to
blow past the fear that
loss leaves behind. It is also about love: painful, senseless, quixotic love, with no plan B
or exit strategy.
“
I was full of the narcissism of needing the world
to bend to you, and the petty
outrage that you feel when it
does not.”
To wit: Aleksandr Bezetov, a Russian
chess champion at a startlingly early age,
loser to a computer a decade later, accidental
politician, decides in midlife to run a losing
campaign for president of Russia.
Irina Ellison, American philosophy Ph.D.,
waiting for signs that the brain-destroying
Huntington’s disease that slowly killed her
father to manifest in herself, cuts her ties
with everyone she cares about and goes in
search of Bezetov — one of her father’s heroes — and finds him just in time to participate with the campaign.
How the novel ends is a foregone conclusion and Dubois takes us there, patiently
and methodically, in the overlapping accounts. Her descriptive language is compelling and pervasive. You cannot ignore the
smells and sounds; the damp, the cold, the
fetid, humid air. It’s a tsunami of decaying
sensation, worthy of Dickens and sometimes relentlessly turgid. You may struggle
to accept Dubois’ depiction of the worlds the
protagonists walk in, but it is well worth the
effort.
Reviewed by Elizabeth Benford
Fiction
Boleto
By Alyson Hagy
Check this out!
Alyson Hagy speaks softly. Or readers
might imagine she does, as her latest novel,
Boleto, is a hypnotic whisper, not unlike the
way her main character, Will Testerman,
speaks to his horse.
Early on in the book,
Hagy writes, “He listened to his voice
drift down toward the
ground,” and this image persists throughout the story. The
pacing of the novel is
pitch-perfect with the writing, and the story unfolds in the same way that Testerman
listens to his voice drift.
But the story in and of itself is not slow
or ponderous. Testerman is a young horse
trainer who has already succeeded and
failed many times in his young life. He has
the feeling of a man betting on his last race,
though, in fact, most of his life still lies
ahead of him. Still, when he puts down his
life savings of 12 hundred dollars to buy
a new horse, the sense of risk is palpable.
Testerman takes the horse as far as she will
go, far away from the small Wyoming town
where he grew up and where his parents and
brother still live, chasing his destiny. This
quiet yet powerful novel doesn’t disappoint.
The Coward’s Tale: A Novel
By Vanessa Gebbie
Bloomsbury, $16.00, 384 pages
Check this out!
“Listen with your
ears. I have a story
for them, see?” Ianto
Passchendaele Jenkins, self-proclaimed
coward and professional beggar, tells
stories. Each story
features a different
member of his village and attempts to explain that villager’s
quirks. Why does the carpenter carve wooden feathers? Why is the podiatrist called
Baker Bowen? Why does the window washer
collect silver leaves? The stories don’t seem
to have a common thread until 9-year-old
Laddy Merridew comes to town and starts
asking the beggar questions about himself.
As Ianto reveals his story, it becomes clear
that all the stories are tied together by a single tragedy, a tunnel collapse in the Kindly
Light coal mine.
Gebbie’s skillful storytelling made me
feel as if I were one of the townsfolk begging Ianto to tell a story. With each succes-
sive tale, another character comes to life,
and behaviors that had been isolating and
off-putting are suddenly understood and
loved. Even though the subjects don’t want
their stories to be told, it is these narratives
that bind the town together. Initially the
structure of the book is confusing, but once
Gebbie and Ianto hit their stride, the stories
are captivating. I fell in love with Laddy and
Ianto and found myself cheering them on.
The Legend of Pradeep Mathew
By Shehan Karunatilaka
Check this out!
Question: In fiction, what do you get when
you cross an alcoholic sports journalist with
a quest to find a Sri Lankan sports legend?
Answer: The Legend
of Pradeep Mathew by
Shehan Karunatilaka.
The author balances
the game of cricket,
the history of Sri Lanka, an enigmatic sixfingered coach and a
warlord. The Legend of
Pradeep Mathew, published as Chinaman
in other countries where it received high
praise, is Karunatilaka’s debut novel that
sets the 64-year-old sportswriter W.G. Karunasena (Wije) and his friend Ari in search
of Pradeep Mathew, a legendary cricket
bowler. Wije, the curmudgeonly protagonist
you will try hard not to want to like, believes
that sports are all that matters.
While this book may not be for everyone,
don’t pass it by even if you are not a cricket
fan (specifically a Sri Lankan cricket fan).
There is a lot to appreciate in this 416-page
book, particularly Karunatilaka’s ability to
inject humor and his steadiness at introducing fact alongside fiction. Wije embarks on
his search for Mathew, who he has seen play
cricket and knows he exists, and Karunatilaka asks his readers to ponder truth and
reality.
The Welcome Committee of Butternut
Creek: A Novel
By Jane Myers Perrine
Faith Words, $14.99, 384 pages
Check this out!
This warmly wise book is the best example of faith-based living. It proves that faith
isn’t something that has to be in your face
all the time in order to bring out the best in
each of us. You’re never so big, so important,
so wonderful that you can’t need — or use
— a helping hand once in a while.
Butternut Creek is a small town in western Texas, where Adam Jordan has been
called as minister of the Christian Church.
It is his first post, and
if not quite still damp
behind the ears, he’s
not far from it, either.
The Welcome Committee is comprised
of two widows, one of
whom — Miss Birdie
— feels that only she
can set the new young
minister on the right
path to benefit their town. It’ll be a struggle,
but in the end, they’ll both win. Along the
way, the church provides sustenance (and
a roof over their heads) to two struggling
families, thus fulfilling its purpose to help
when possible.
Two marriages come out of this charming
book, although neither involves the young
minister. There will be (at least) two more
books in the series, so presumably, eventually the widows will find the right woman
for him. You’ll enjoy their adventures!
Reviewed by Kelly Ferjutz
Three Weeks in December
By Audrey Schulman
Europa Editions, $16.00, 353 pages
Check this out!
At the end of 1899, Jeremy, an engineer,
arrives in British East Africa to oversee a
major railroad-building project. He quickly
finds that two lions are killing the men he’s
bound to protect. Charged with hunting
down these unusually powerful animals,
Jeremy relies on Otombe, an African guide.
As the lions’ killing continues and Jeremy’s
secrets become harder to hide, Jeremy realizes that he’ll experience unbearable loss in
Africa — and find an opportunity for a previously unimaginable new life.
A hundred years later, in the final weeks
of 2000, Max, a brilliant scientist with Asperger’s, is invited to Rwanda to hunt for a
potentially life-changing vine, hidden in
the habitat of a group
of endangered mountain gorillas. Facing a
constant threat from
the violent Kutu tribe
and forced by close
quarters and danger
to overcome her inability to connect
with her colleagues,
Max, like Jeremy, seizes the chance to make
a new version of a life she thought she knew.
Brilliantly written, with exceptional descriptions of Africa, Three Weeks in December is a gripping, unforgettable story of lives
that undergo unexpected changes when
they’re freed from the bounds of home.
Book Reviews
Nature &
Science
book summaries.
Too Big to Know
By David Weinberger
Basic Books, $27.50, 218 pages
Check this out!
In a quest for how
best to harness information for corporate
use and productivity,
Weinberger grapples
with the question,
“Is the Internet making us stupid?” — a
subject raised by
The Atlantic magazine a few years ago.
What
Weinberger
describes is a body
of knowledge without
borders or foundation, spreading at a rate of
3.6 zettabytes per year. There isn’t enough
page space to print the digits of a single
zettabyte.
This consumption of data once restricted
to the elite professionals of any given field
now belongs to us all. Not too long ago,
these elites belonged to exclusive clubs like
the Royal Society and quoted each other in
scientific journals. They kept score on who
had the greatest impact by a complex calculation of what articles were cited most over a
certain period of time. Now their impact factor is dead. The smartest guy in the room is
the network itself. And yet, some businesses
still seem to think the old-fashioned way,
limiting themselves and their opportunities. Weinberger guides us through the new
living maze of data with a sense of humor,
giving us five specific ways to hyperlink this
superabundance to our corporate benefit.
Reviewed by C.D. Quyn
In Pursuit of the Unknown: 17
Equations That Changed the World
By Ian Stewart
Basic Books, $26.99, 342 pages
Check this out!
For the less mathematically inclined,
there’s no greater
stumbling block to
understanding than
the equation. Equations are sentences
in a foreign language,
barely penetrable and
somewhat dishearten-
ing to encounter. But equations are valuable
tools, serving as keys to unlock scientific
mysteries and quantify a strange and often
baffling universe.
Thankfully, Ian Stewart has
penned a book for both sides of the
divide with In Pursuit of the Unknown,
ably bridging the gap between those
daunted and undaunted by the language of equations. From his first
paragraphs explaining how the lowly
equal sign came to be, Stewart explores the origins of 17 equations
that have heralded changes great and
small.
From how Pythagoras helped with
land surveying to how Einstein’s theory of relativity lead to GPS navigation,
from how chaos theory informs space exploration to how a misused equation partly
contributed to the current economic crisis,
Stewart tackles both the math behind them
and the incredible discoveries that have resulted. It’s a fascinatingly grounded glimpse
into how big ideas and innovations emerge
from seemingly small leaps in calculated
logic.
By making some tough concepts truly
accessible, In Pursuit of the Unknown will
hopefully open a few more minds to possibility.
Reviewed by Glenn Dallas
Mindfulness for Beginners: Reclaiming
the Present Moment — and Your Life
By Jon Kabat-Zinn
Sounds True, $20.95, 156 pages
Check this out!
About 10 years ago, I took an eight-week
class at Kaiser Hospital called “Mindfulness.” We read Kabat-Zinn’s Full Catastrophe
Living and learned many methods to deal
with pain outside of regular health care.
The class was inspired by his MindfulnessBased Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center.
I can vouch for this discipline. It can help.
And it is a discipline,
which requires practice. He takes mostly
Eastern philosophy
but makes it palatable for the Westerner
without complicated
vocabulary. It was
Zorba the Greek who
said so much of the time we are in pain in
one way or another — suffering in the face
of what he called “the full catastrophe of
life” — which is nothing less than the human condition itself.
“
Mindfulness is much ado
about what might seem like
almost nothing that turns out
to be just about everything.”
This simple, short book is a beginner’s
book on mindfulness. But make no mistake, it’s a book to get you practicing. It’s not
about good ideas, teachings, wisdom, etc.
“Mindfulness,” the author writes, is learning to “pay attention to purpose in the present moment and nonjudgmentally.”
Written in 40 short chapters, this is
primer for anybody suffering physically and
mentally; anybody living in pain, who would
like to change his or her life.
You read this book and then you begin
formal practice using the guided meditations. That’s all there is to it.
Reviewed by Phil Semler
Princes & Ogres: Integration of
Psyche and Soul
By Don Mordasini
Millennial Mind Publishing, $22.00
241 pages
Check this out!
Princes & Ogres: Integration of Psyche and
Soul is a self-help book written to “…accelerate our personal growth by blending the
best part of modern psychology with ancient spiritual wisdom”.
In Princes & Ogres, Mordasini describes
how perception is the key to understanding the world around us. He differentiates
our perceived reality from reality itself,
and how our reality is shaped by our
perceptions and the
values and beliefs
placed upon what
we perceive. According to Mordasini,
“We need to become
aware of our mind’s
tendency to interpret
reality according to its beliefs; we need to
take full responsibility for projecting our
thoughts onto what is actually taking place
out there.” By understanding these concepts
set forth by Mordasini, he seeks to lead
people to their fullest potential. Mordasini
provides a great deal of discussion about integrating our mind and soul in order to raise
our consciousness and ultimately live more
fulfilling lives. “With discerning wisdom,
we can make better choices in our lives.”
Conceptually and theoretically, Mordasini
provides a narrative across the spectrum of
psychology and spiritually for the general
reader to understand with ease.
For those interested in the mind and
body, Princes & Ogres makes for an interesting read.
Reviewed by Jennifer Ochs
The African-American Resource Center
and Tulsa Library Trust Present
The 2012 Historic
All-Black Town Tour
Commemorating Juneteenth
Join us for our popular daylong tour as we visit Redbird, Muskogee,
Tullahassee and Wybark, as well as Fort Gibson and the Fort Gibson Cemetery.
SATURDAY, JUNE 9
(Bus departs promptly at 7:30 a.m. and returns at 5:30 p.m.; sign in at 7 a.m.)
DEPARTURE AND RETURN LOCATION:
Rudisill Regional Library, 1520 N. Hartford, Tulsa
TICKETS: $35 each (includes two meals). Tickets are nonrefundable.
Youths ages 17 and younger must be accompanied by an adult.
For more information or to
purchase tickets, visit Rudisill
Regional Library or call 918-549-7645.
Book Reviews
action, adventure, humor, battles, romance,
drama and suspense. Zayvion, Nola, Cody,
Stone, the Hounds, Shame, Terric and other
fan favorites are back. Clear your calendar.
Once you start reading, you won’t want to
stop.
Reviewed by Kathryn Franklin
Science
Fiction
book summaries.
Triggers
By Robert J. Sawyer
Ace, $25.95, 340 pages
Check this out!
The United States is under siege by terrorists. While preparations for a counteroffensive are laid, the president is struck down.
As he’s rushed to the nearest hospital for
surgery, a scientist begins an experimental treatment to ease the traumatic memories of a PTSD-afflicted soldier. But when
a bomb destroys the White House and the
ensuing electromagnetic pulse affects the
experiment, it triggers an impossible side
effect: people begin to share the memories
of others — including the president. And
secrets have a way of getting out. ...
I admit, I was a bit dubious when I read
the book jacket teaser of Sawyer’s latest,
Triggers, but I should have known better.
Robert J. Sawyer’s greatest gift always has
been his ability to incorporate the human
element into stories about complex scientific ideas, and Triggers is one of his most
emotional and successful to date.
While the hunt for the person possessing the president’s memories is interesting, it holds a distant second place to the
enthralling exploration of how this accident has linked the lives of these people.
Learning their backstories and watching
the consequences unfold is a genuine treat.
Despite the near-dystopian setting, Triggers
is haunting in its optimism. It was a joy to
read.
Fantasy
book summaries.
Magic Without Mercy: An Allie
Beckstrom Novel
By Devon Monk
Roc, $7.99, 368 pages
Check this out!
Allison Beckstrom has discovered the hard way that magic has
been poisoned. To find the antidote,
she must defy the potentially corrupt Authority (the secret council
that enforces magic’s laws), run
from the police and listen to the
advice of her undead father. The war
between Death, Life, Flux, Faith and Blood
magic is quickly escalating. As thousands
of Portland’s magic users become deathly
ill, Allie and her supporters are the only
ones left who are capable of
defending the innocent and
saving magic. Devon Monk’s
Magic Without Mercy is urban fantasy at its finest.
Readers become invested in
the fate of each character as
they navigate the complex
world Monk has created.
As someone who has read
all eight books, I can confidently say that Monk’s series keeps getting better with
each new installment. If you are looking for
a new series to immerse yourself in, start
with Magic to the Bone, the first Allison
Beckstrom novel. Every book is packed with
Dead Harvest
By Chris Holm
Angry Robot, $7.99, 304 pages
Check this out!
Don’t let the garish
‘70s cover fool you,
while written in a classic smoking gun, hardboiled film noir style,
Dead Harvest by Chris
F. Holm, the first book
in The Collector series,
is completely fresh and
absolutely distracting.
You won’t be able to put it down, and you’ll
want a stiff drink and a smoke to go with it.
“
If I was right, and this girl’s
soul really did hold the fate
of the world in balance, at
least I knew God had a sense
of humor. I mean, shit, he
could’ve sent her a savior with
a clue.”
Sam Thornton, collector of souls, has one
job, collect the souls of the damned. When
he is sent to collect the soul of a young woman who he believes to be innocent, he says
what no collector has ever said, “No.”
Angels, demons, collectors of the dead,
innocents who slaughter their families and
are blessed in divine light, it’s hard to be
sure who’s good and who’s evil in this urban
fantasy and noir-dark crime. Sam is a flawed
and tragic hero who is utterly compelling
and strangely sympathetic. The cast of demons and angels surrounding, and often
chasing, him are equally intriguing in this
solid debut for a thrilling new novelist. Look
forward to this and any other work by this
author.
Reviewed by Axie Barclay
Fair Game: An Alpha and Omega Novel
By Patricia Briggs
Ace, $26.95, 293 pages
Check this out!
Book three in the
Alpha and Omega series is as thrilling and
exciting as the series
has led us to expect.
Anna and Charles
travel to the East coast
to become involved in
the investigation of
a serial killer. All is
not well between the
two as Charles has blocked the link that
joins a werewolf with his mate. Anna is hurt
and desperately worried about him, as she
knows he is sorely wounded. Charles, his
father’s enforcer, has had to mete out punishment much more severe since the wolves
have revealed themselves to human society.
Much that would have been cause for correction within the pack must now be dealt with
by Charles and much more severely. Most
see Charles as a cold and unfeeling monster,
but Anna knows the man and the wolf within. Can their relationship survive this new
reality? When they join the investigation,
they quickly learn that all of the victims
have been werewolves, and this changes the
pattern of the search. Can they act quickly
enough to stop the killer and not become
victims themselves? Even if you were not
breathlessly waiting the next installment
(like I was!), read this, and you will be!
Reviewed by Beth Revers
Forerunner
By Andre Norton
Tor, $15.99, 272 pages
Check this out!
Simsa had never known who she was
— an infant rescued from a trash heap to
live in the burrows with her mentor in the
depths of Kuxortal, a city of infinite history. She hid much of who she was, her white
hair in contrast to
her coal-black skin,
the claws she used
for defense. She was
unlike anyone she
had ever met. Discovered, she would
become an item for
trade, not the trader.
Thom had journeyed
to this world to seek
both his lost brother
and the hints of Forerunner remains that
those who hoped to learn from the mistakes
of past empires long sought.
Together they found more than either
could have dreamed, but first they must win
free of the city and across a deadly desert escape those who sought to stop them.
This reprint of grand master Andre Norton’s masterwork still shines as brightly as
at its first printing. It is well worth revisiting
if you are a longtime fan. If this is your first
time, read it — she writes wonderful characters and swift, breathtaking action. Over
100 of her works remain for you to discover.
Reviewed by Beth Revers
GREY, cont’d from page 11
Young sees as central to African-American
survival under slavery and the oppression
which followed emancipation. The evolution
of storying fascinates, particularly as it fuels
literature, music and popular culture. A part
of me was disappointed that Young didn’t
follow his arc to storying’s ethically challenging moments, such as with Robeson.
Yet this does not detract from Young’s central thesis, that African-American culture is
American culture, no limb of a trunk, but a
root which nourishes the whole.
Reviewed by Jordan Magill
Book Reviews
History &
Current
Events
book summaries.
1494: How a Family Feud in Medieval
Spain Divided the World in Half
By Stephen R. Bown
Thomas Dunne Books, $27.99, 304 pages
Check this out!
Stephen Bown illustrates how the papal
bulls decreed by Pope Alexander VI and the
subsequent Treaty of Tordesillas between
Spain and Portugal impacted the political
and cultural shape of the world. It lead to
“the loosening of the monopoly over the
use of the world’s waterways, an increase in
mutual communication and traffic between
people, and the development of universal
laws to guide the relations between nation
states in the international arena.” While
the treaty of 1494
meant to preserve
peace, ultimately it
backfired and the implications had a profound influence on the world; it would make
Portugal rich from “Spiceries,” and Spain
would acquire cargoes of gold and silver
from the Americas.
Bown illustrates the global drama that
played out during European exploration, the
events leading to the treaty, how a stroke of
the pen drew an imaginary line that gave
the Americas to Spain and the Far East to
Portugal thus dividing the world in half.
While admittedly not an expert in the history of Spain and Portugal, Bown presents
a compelling example of general history.
He masterfully illustrates how important
events in history often originate from domestic affairs.
Reviewed by Wendy Iraheta
Scandalous!: 50 Shocking Events You
Should Know About (So You Can
Impress Your Friends)
By Hallie Fryd
Zest Books, $13.99, 221 pages
Check this out!
For as long as there have been celebrities, there has been a public obsession with
scandal. As a society, we’re enthralled by the
failures, shortcomings, misadventures and
criminal wrongdoing of those we’ve
elevated above ourselves, either in entertainment, politics or any other
arena of celebrity.
Scandalous! covers 50 events that
captured the public’s attention over the last century. From
murder and mayhem to bizarre secrets and
shenanigans, it runs the gamut of America’s
seemingly bottomless hunger for celebrity
debauchery and descent from grace.
Fryd briefly summarizes the scandal and
the events that preceded it, including great
detail in a few words, as well as offering brief
tidbits about the aftermath. Her economic
storytelling style hits the high notes and, as
promised in the title, gives the reader just
enough to converse about the subject later.
The only thing missing is a listing of source
materials, in case the reader wants to delve
deeper into a particular scandal.
While most of these cases are common
knowledge, there were a few I hadn’t encountered before, brightening up a wellcrafted collection of tabloid highlights.
Also, I’m genuinely grateful John Bobbitt’s harrowing tale didn’t warrant inclusion. Some news stories deserve to fade
away!
Titanic: The Tragedy That Shook the
World — One Century Later
By Editors of LIFE Magazine
Life, $29.95, 144 pages
Check this out!
Published by LIFE Books, Titanic: The
Tragedy That Shook the World — One Century Later follows the
tradition of LIFE Magazine by telling the
story mainly with photographs. Many were
taken by Frank Brown,
a theology student who
left the ship at Queenstown. There are also
photographs taken af-
ter the rescue as well as reproductions of
telegrams, tickets and menus from the ship.
The book is padded with some photographs
of the Olympic, Titanic’s twin sister, to help
readers form an impression of a luxury liner.
There are even a few eerie photographs of
the wreck of the Titanic on the ocean’s bottom.
Because no one was expecting the Titanic
to sink there are no foreboding photographs
in this book. Mainly, they are photos anyone
on vacation would take: rooms, happy people, crew members at work. That the photographs are so unremarkable makes the book
even more impressive. “Look how normal
life was just one day before the most memorable sea tragedy,” this book says. It is an
incredible look back at the Titanic, not complicated diagrams of the how, why, whens of
the sinking but life as it was supposed to be
on a luxury liner.
Reviewed by Jodi Webb
Rez Life: An Indian’s Journey Through
Reservation Life
By David Treuer
Atlantic Monthly Press, $26.00, 368 pages
Check this out!
Over time and the course of history,
there has been a grim perception of what
life must be like living on the various Indian
reservations in America. That’s not to say
that there isn’t some truth to how the general population perceives this hard life. There
is crime, alcohol and drugs, epic cases of
diabetes and other health problems. There is
extreme poverty. But beneath the grit and
grime, there is also a staunch pride, and a
powerful unflagging spirit to persevere, to
survive.
Author David Treuer, a member of the
Ojibwe of northern Minnesota, presents a
detailed study of Native American reservation life, past and present, mixed with a personal memoir narrative that debunks some
of that negativism.
Treuer’s writing reveals great affection
and reverence, and truths told by someone
who lives the Rez Life.
As someone who
lives in a state that
recognizes at least 29
different tribal nations, I’ve seen firsthand the success and
the tragedy of Native
Americans, in the glittering lights and bells
of casinos and the
ghost-town life poverty of the coastal towns. I’m certain that a
great many of us share the feeling that Native Americans have been dealt a bad hand
and have suffered inequities and
injustices that continue even today.
This is a story that needs to be heard.
Reviewed by Laura Friedkin
The Day in Its Color: Charles Cushman’s
Photographic Journey Through a
Vanishing America
By Eric Sandweiss
Oxford University Press, $39.95, 240 pages
Check this out!
Chronicled in this
classic collection of
Kodakchrome photos
is a pictorial history of
America in the years
between 1938-1969.
The photographs are
spellbinding as they
relate the changing
emotions of the landscape and the inhabitants during this transitory period that
has been forgotten in our current frenetic
technological state. Using a 35mm camera
with the then-new Kodachrome color film,
Charles Cushman, a traveling businessman,
acted as an itinerant photographer, capturing the essence of the country. Moving
across the continent, west to east and north
to south, his images recorded the people,
the neighborhoods, agricultural sites, the
glory of the natural scenery, industrial
production, urban development and suburban life. For the mature, these images
will reawaken memories; for the youthful,
the pictures recall life in the past century.
This series of sensitive photographs have a
patina of thoughtful timelessness that is
lacking in the precise digital reproductions
currently in vogue. Along with artists like
Edward Hopper, this amateur photographer
and his candid collection of color slides filtered through his eyes serve as a hallmark
of social realism.
Reviewed by Aron Row
The First Frontier: The Forgotten
History of Struggle, Savagery and
Endurance in Early America
By Scott Weidensaul
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $30.00
445 pages
Check this out!
Scott Weidensaul
has spent years of research on this invaluable treatise. In offering a most coherent, if
necessarily fragmentary, overview of the
American frontier before it was “America,”
from the 1500s to 1700s, he has performed
a wonderful service. His notes alone, guiding the reader to his sources, comprise 21
pages of fine print!
Ranging from anthropology to politics
and frequently delving into very personal
strivings and sufferings, The First Frontier
deserves to be standard reading in American history courses. Far from the usual
whitewashed pablum offered in our schools
now, Weidensaul makes clear the stew of
misunderstandings,
misapprehensions,
sheer criminality and land hunger that actually composed the evolving frontier of
colonization for over 200 years.
Book Reviews
There are endless small fascinations: the
origin of the word “buck” in the deerskin
trade, the first uses of the terms “white” and
“redskin.” The very common intermarriage
and adoption of native and colonial, the interleaving and interdependence of their living are revelations.
The author has skillfully delivered narrative and storyline from bits and obscure
pieces without injecting himself into the
skein. There is enough humor to make what
could have been a dry work into something
fascinating and fresh to read.
The Lady in Gold: The Extraordinary
Tale of Gustav Klimt’s Masterpiece,
Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer
By Anne-Marie O’Connor
Check this out!
Gustav Klimt’s “Portrait of Adele BlochBauer” is a painting that stays with you.
What will haunt you is the story behind the
painting and the Bloch-Bauer family, from
its creation in Belle Epoque Vienna to how it
landed in New York’s Nueue Galerie in 2006.
History &
Current Events
Vienna was blooming with culture and
mainstream
acceptance of Jewish citizens in 1907 when
the painting was completed. Artists catered
to the emerging upperclass Jews and broke
the accepted boundaries with their styles as
well. The portrait was seen by many of the
pinnacle of fashion and modernism.
Adele herself passed away in 1925 leaving the painting to her husband until his
death, when she wished that it would be
displayed in the Austrian National Gallery.
Then the Nazis came and threw Vienna into
a tailspin that would take decades to recover
from. Anti-Semitism meant that everything
was stripped from the Jews — their art,
their homes, often their lives. Great works
of art were bounced from hiding place to
castles to shows, where they often had their
original titles “Arayanized.” The people were
sent into hiding or death camps. The portrait became the “Lady in Gold,” losing the
Jewish name and celebrating the Austrian
painter Klimt.
The war ended, but the governments kept
the paintings. The heirs were left to battle in
multiple courts to prove ownership, and in
the case of the “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer,” the heirs didn’t get it back until 2006.
The lives lost and the stories that flow from
this one painting will haunt, sadden, anger
and stick with you indefinitely.
Reviewed by Gwen Stackler
Anatomy of Injustice: A Murder Case
Gone Wrong
By Raymond Bonner
Check this out!
In 1982, an elderly
white widow was murdered in a small South
Carolina town. Within days, a semiliterate
and mentally retarded
black man was arrested on flimsy evidence. He was found
guilty and sentenced
to death row. Raymond Bonner, winner of
a Pulitzer Prize, details the twists and turns
of the justice derailed in Anatomy of Injustice: A Murder Case Gone Wrong.
Bonner was once a reporter for The New
York Times, who spent several weeks on assignment looking into capital punishment.
During this reporting, he learned of the
case of Edward Lee Elmore and his sevenday trial and the subsequent appeals and
trials. After Elmore had been on death row
for more than a decade, Diana Holt, a native Texan lawyer, started championing Elmore’s case.
The reader is taken back to the 1980s
South and forward into the legal challenges
that ultimately reveal injustice. An investigative reporter and former lawyer, Bonner’s
well-honed skills are evident as he spends
time painstakingly illustrating the crime,
the community in which the crime took
place, Elmore’s life — in and out of prison —
and Holt’s fervent belief in justice. Anatomy
of Injustice is a fascinating nonfiction read.

History Meets the Paranormal NEW AND OF INTEREST

Transcription

Similar documents

day 4 racing - SRCA Dragstrip

ENGAGEMENT creativity

here - Laffa

Jyl`s Articles Here.

march - Cobblestone Apartments

Riverside Market

Mad Scientists On Wheels

TheDirtboxwailersEPK

here - Laffa