History Of A Pleasure Seeker by Richard Mason

It is 1907, and Piet Barot has come to Amsterdam to make his fortune.  He has applied to be the tutor to the ten year old son of the fabulously wealthy Vermeulen-Sickerts family.  Piet is moderately well-educated, can play the piano adequately and can sing.  But his real assets are his looks and his ability to charm.  His mother was a singer before marrying his father, and raised him to have the manners and knowledge that a wealthy young man would have. 

Piet is successful in getting the job, and uses it as a station to improve his lot.  He charms each member of the family.  Maarten is a successful businessman, but one who also made his way to the top and he sees himself in Piet.  The two daughters of the family try to play with Piet as they do their suitors but he is able to avoid that trap and instead become their friend.  The mother, Jacobina, is attracted to Piet, and he plays on that attraction to solidify his position.  Piet is also, after many months, able to free the son from the phobias that have restricted his life.

Mason has created a character that will long remain in the reader's mind, as they try to determine if he is an admirable figure or a scoundrel.  Piet shows flashes of both, along with a steely determination to live life on his own terms and use all his strengths to make his way in the world.  This book is recommended for readers interested in the golden age of Europe and the way the upper class lived.

Gravestone by Travis Thrasher

Can anything be worse than being picked up in your junior year of high school in a big city and plunked down in a small rural town where you’re known as the outsider? That’s Chris Buckley’s predicament. When his parents divorce, he is forced to leave his normal teenage life in Chicago and move to the small Southern town of Solitary in North Carolina. He has no friends, his mother is caught up in her own world of grieving, and Chris is left to his own devices to figure out what his life will be from this point on.

That would be a crushing blow for most teenagers, but Chris has added issues. Solitary is a town full of secrets that can’t be discussed and evil that can’t be hidden. Chris’ girlfriend, the one person he trusted, has supposedly moved away with her family, but Chris knows better. He saw what happened to her one night. Of course, no one in town will believe him. Not his mother, not the school, not the sheriff. He has never been more alone, and now it appears that he is the next one targeted. Can he find out what is occurring in the town, and how to survive it?

Gravestone is the second book in Travis Thrasher’s series, The Solitary Tales. Fans of suspense and horror will enjoy the slow unraveling of the evil that surrounds Chris, and his attempts to discover what is happening before it overwhelms him entirely. The writing is moody and somber, with an insistent pulse of eminent disaster that grows and grows as the reader discovers more of Solitary’s secrets. This book is recommended for horror fans looking for a series that will satisfy their interest in things that go bump in the night.

The Hare With Amber Eyes by Edmund De Waal

In The Hare With Amber Eyes, Edmund De Waal narrates the rise and fall of his maternal family over decades and countries.  His mother was one of the members of the Ephrussi family.  The Ephrussi were Russian grain traders who became wealthy and branched into banking and art collections.  They owned grand mansions and banks in Paris, Vienna and later lived in Japan.

The book starts with the story of the French branch.  Charles Ephrussi was an art collector, dandy and ladies' man, living with the rest of the family in a mansion in Paris and seen in all the best circles.  One of his early collections was a set of 274 netsuke; the Japanese ivory miniatures carved to illustrate animals, daily life memorabilia such as logs or a sheaf of grain, and the inhabitants of the country.  He later gave this stunning collection as a wedding gift to a couple in his family from the Austrian branch, and the netsuke moved to Vienna for their next home.

In Vienna, Viktor and Emmy Ephrussi lived the life of fabulously wealthy Austrians; days filled with social visits and clubs and business relationships; the nights filled with society dinners and balls.  The children of this couple were entranced with the netsuke, which lived in Emmy's dressing room and which the children were allowed to play with as they watched their mother dress for evenings out.  But this fabled existence was shattered by the German invasion and conquer of Austria in World War II.  In a manner of days, the entire Ephrussi fortune was distributed to various German strongholds as the family was forced to sign over everything and finally managed to flee the country.  Imagine the surprise after the war when one of the children returned and found that the netsuke had miraculously survived.

The next home for the collection was in Japan, where they had been created.  Iggie, who had become a fashion designer after fighting with the Americans in the war, settled in Japan and lived there for many decades.  His nephew, Edmund De Waal, visited him there and had a close relationship with him.  De Waal, a potter who lived in England, appreciated the artistry of the netsuke and Iggie left the collection to him.  The netsuke now reside in England with De Waal.

De Waal has written a splendid history of his family, using art to tie together the generations and the various branches of this illustrious family in various countries.  The chapter in which the family is made destitute by the Nazis brings home the horror of that time in a way that dry history books cannot.  This book is recommended for art lovers, for history lovers, and for anyone interested in a marvelous read.

GIVEAWAY!!!! KAMA SUTRA BY VATSYAYANA

Here's a great idea for Booksie's Blog readers.  Why not make this Valentine's Day a memorable one with a copy of the new edition of the Kama Sutra, released by Penguin Classics.

From the publisher:

True to the original, this new Penguin Classics edition of the Kama Sutra offers a cultured guide to life, love, relationships and pleasure.  Little is known about Vatsyayana, who is reputed to have composed the book 'while observing a celibate's life in full meditations'  In Sanskrit the word "kama" means desire, especially for sensual pleasure, and its proper pursuit was considered an essential part of a young, urban gentleman's well-rounded education.

Giveaway Rules


1. The giveaway starts Wednesday, February 1st and ends Friday, February 13th, 2012.

2. There is one copy of the book to be given away. The winner must live in the United States or Canada, sorry!

3. For one entry, leave your email in a comment.

4. For additional entries, be or become a follower of Booksie's Blog post the giveaway on Twitter or Facebook with a link in your comment.

5. Entries without valid email addresses will not be entered. The winner will be chosen by a random number generator.

That's all!  Good luck and Booksie hopes your Valentine's Day is a very happy one indeed!

Eating Smoke by Chris Thrall

Chris Thrall leaves the Royal Marines in his early twenties, sure that he is cut out for bigger things.  He goes to Hong Kong to make his fortune in the security business, but soon finds it falling apart.  He moves from job to job, his engaging personality making it easy to get jobs, but his restless nature making it difficult to keep one.  He soon makes his way to the nightclub world, where he is employed as a doorman. 

This way of life suits him, with nighttime working hours, lots of new faces and above all, the drugs.  Chris has the knack of quickly making friends with almost anyone, and he spends his days in a whirl of socializing and doing drugs.  He becomes addicted to crystal meth.  Although he can see the effects of the drugs on his friends, decrying the depths they fall to, he seems oblivious to his own deterioration. 

As time goes on, he finds it more and more difficult to keep a job, eat, sleep, or maintain a home.  Wandering the streets, living off his friends, he becomes a typical meth addict, but with one terrifying difference.  He gets on the wrong side of one of Hong Kong's fiercest gangs and must now figure out how to save his life, both physically and to wrench himself out of his drug addiction.

Readers will want to not like Chris.  He blithely moves through life, never finding anything that goes deeper than an inch, taking drugs, moving from job to job, friend to friend.  Yet, somehow, the reader is engaged with this man who seems so oblivious yet is so engaging, and soon finds that they are cheering for Thrall to be successful in his attempt to change from an addict with no future.  This book is recommended for those interested in learning about the Hong Kong culture and those interested in tales of redemption.

Swamplandia! by Karen Russell

Things are not going well in Swamplandia!  Once a major tourist draw with hordes of visitors each day, the death of the show's main attraction has put a serious dent in the business.  Even worse, the main attraction was also the mother of the Bigtree family that runs Swamplandia.

Karen Russell's novel is the story of how this family comes to grip with the loss of their mother and the possible ending of the only life they have known; that of the Bigtree family of Swamplandia!.  There are three children.  Ossie, the oldest sister who is sixteen, has never been that involved with the business, being a fey girl who drifts through life.  She becomes entranced with spiritualism and soon convinces herself that she can talk to the dead and that dead boys are perfect boyfriends.  Kiwi, the oldest and only son, has always wanted a 'normal' life on the mainland, and leaves the Swamplandia! island, determined to make it on his own and then figure out how to save the park.  Ava Bigtree is thirteen and the novel's protagonist.  She loves the business and her only dream is to grow up and take over for her mother.

Chief Bigtree, the father, is one of those optimistic people who is sure everything will work out even when he has no plan to make it happen.  He leaves on a mysterious business trip shortly after Kiwi's departure, leaving the girls alone on the island.  Ossie disappears into the swamp, chasing her ghostly love, and Ava soon goes into the swamp to rescue her.  Will this family ever be reunited and made whole?

Readers will love the fresh voice and writing style of Karen Russell.  Ava's spirit is so big it jumps off the page, and the ability to experience life from her young perspective is intriguing.  The characters are memorable, and the reader gets to experience the Florida swamps in all their murky, humid, bug-infested, dangerous appeal.  This book is recommended for all readers, and especially those interested in coming of age stories and those of families finding their way to make a live together.

T-SHIRT GIVEAWAY!!!!!

Just in time for Valentine's Day, Booksie is pleased to announce the giveaway of a Booknerds Are Sexy t-shirt, thanks to the generousity of R.Lynn, who is promoting her new book, Vanity & Valor. R.Lynn is a multi-genre author from Victoria, BC, Canada. She lives there with her hubby and their two four-legged children. She has entered the literary scene with a bang, and recently became one of the first authors to receive a publishing sponsorship.

About The Book

His father’s dying wish was for him to give up racing chariots and focus on being the new Dominus. The problem with that was, all he ever wanted to do was race chariots. When his desires and duty clash he finds himself at the verge of losing everything. She was sold into slavery by her father and purchased by Rome’s champion charioteer. Forced to work in his trigarium with the horses, she learns that women hold little to no value and that a prized racehorse has more rights than she does. When faced with the choice to risk her life and deny her status… will she? Doing so could get both her and her Dominus killed.

Giveaway Rules

1, The giveaway starts Saturday, January 21st and ends Friday, January 27th, 2012.

2. There is one t-shirt, size Large, to be given away. The winner must live in the United States or Canada, sorry!

3. For one entry, leave your email in a comment.

4. For additional entries, be or become a follower of Booksie's Blog post the giveaway on Twitter or Facebook with a link in your comment.

5. Entries without valid email addresses will not be entered. The winner will be chosen by a random number generator.

That's all! Thanks and watch here for Booksie's reivew of Vanity And Valor in the coming weeks.

When She Woke by Hillary Jordan

When she woke, she was red. This is the opening lines from Hilary Jordan's new novel, When She Woke. In this updated version of The Scarlet Letter, those who sin against God and the state wear their shame openly so that all know. Criminals are chemically treated so that their skin shouts their crime, whether yellow, green or red, the most serious.

Hannah's crime? She fell in love with a married man, had an affair, got pregnant and had an abortion. Even worse, she refused to name the man or the name of the doctor who performed the operation. Her sentence? A month in detention, on 24 hour video for all to see, then sixteen years of living with red skin so that her crime was the first thing everyone saw when they saw her. Living as a criminal who could be easily discriminated against, unsafe from those who searched for victims who could not fight back.

Hannah tries desparately to forge a new life for herself. She finds enemies such as a vigilante group who takes punishment of Chromes as their life mission. Friends such as other Chromes and those committed to end this practice and to save those condemed by it. Can she find her way through this new life she is forced to live to ever find happiness again?

Hillary Jordan has created a believable world and a pace that draws the reader along, anxious to discover what will happen next to Hannah. This thought-provoking work will be one that the reader finds hard to forget but instead will think of long after finishing.

How To Be A Best Friend Forever by John Townsend

What is a friend and how can someone bring friends into their lives?  That is the premise of Dr. John Townsend's book, How To Be A Best Friend Forever.  His position is that friends are our second family, those who after we are nurtured in our birth families, help us to finish growing outside that protective environment.  They bring needed diversity of opinion.  Of course, to have a friend, one must be a friend and Townsend covers what makes a great friend and what one must do to have them.

Best friends should not be considered an exclusive title, he suggests, but rather an inclusive category such as best movies or best songs.  An individual needs a variety of best friends, each of whom brings a different viewpoint that allows the rounding out of one's personality.  Nor are best friends better than other friends rather they are those whom an individual feels the most connection with.

In order to be a good friend, several items are required.  One must commit time and effort to building the relationship.  The shared times are currency in a friendship bank that allow withdrawals when that is inevitable.  Friends should make sustained efforts to carve out time for their friends and to be available when they are needed.

Another item that is required is the commitment to be vulnerable, to let the friend see you as you are, to know your strengths and weaknesses, your faults and your best characteristics.  Without this vulnerability, there is not a best friend relationship but a strong acquaintanceship one.  Finally, truth is an absolute necessity; the truth to reveal yourself honestly, and the truth to tell your friend what they may not want to hear but need to.

Dr. Townsend is a psychologist, speaker and leadership coach.  He has a daily radio show and has authored several other bestselling books.  His advice is succinct and written in an approachable manner.  This book is recommended for those interested in bringing another resource into their lives, and those interested in nurturing and sustaining the friendships they already have.

Remarkable Creatures by Sean Carroll

In Remarkable Creatures, Sean Carroll takes the reader on a lively tour of the discoveries in evolution, biology, genetics, archeology, geology and scientific dating that have revolutionized the thinking about how man appeared on earth and changed over the years.  Carroll is a professor of molecular biology and genetics and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the University of Wisconsin, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

The book is structured in three areas.  The first talks of the beginnings of the theory of evolution with chapters on Darwin and on Alfred Wallace (Amazon explorations) and Henry Walter Bates.  The second group of chapters discusses the role of fossils and the lengths and privations taken to obtain them, as well as the conclusions reached from them.  The final group of chapters talks about the human evolution from the cradle of life in Africa to the Neanderthal chapter and the scientists such as Leakey who pioneered this work.  It ends with the new role that molecular biology is playing with providing more exact dates when various life forms existed and the genetic relationships between various forms.

This book is recommended for curious readers who want to know more about how we know what we know.  It is an overview of the area and highlights the various scientists who advanced knowledge, providing a look at the human side of their lives as well as the scientific discoveries they made.  The privations and enthusiasm these individuals displayed as well as the total focus they had on their life work is an amazing characteristic that all shared.  Carroll has done an excellent job in explaining the overall theories of life without drowning in the details, providing enough information for those who want to delve more deeply. 

From The Memoirs Of A Non-Enemy Combatant by Alex Gilvarry

Prepare to be charmed.  From the moment, Boyet Hernandez hits New York City from his native Philippines in 2002, his exuberance and talent starts to propel him to the top of the fashion world.  He comes with nothing but determination to make it in the only world he cares about.  Several years later, he has his own line (B)oy, magazine spreads and an American girlfriend.  He has it all, or so it seems, until the knock comes in the middle of the night and he is hustled off to a military prison.  His crime?  Fashion terrorist.

It seems that his main financial backer, a Canadian Muslim who believed in him and invested the money to get Boy his start, has been arrested as a smuggler with terrorist ties, and a stash of enough fertilizer to make many bombs.  There is the Indian gangster who tries to blackmail Boy--pay up or he will turn Boy in as a known associate of the smuggler.  His American girlfriend turns their love affair into an off-Broadway play about falling in love with a terrorist.  Even his publicist is a mark against him.  An Irishman whose family changed their name from McLaden to Laden to escape the prejudice against the Irish a century ago, Ben Laden has come full circle and this gay Irish man has lost most of his customers who don't want to be associated with someone whose name sounds so much like Bin Laden.

A travesty of justice, no doubt.  Boy is left in a prison cell under isolation, his only human contact guards and interrogators.  But then, but then.  Under the torrent of Boy's words, his exuberant explanation for everything, a worm of doubt starts to build in the reader's minds.  Is he as innocent as it seems, or is there a kernel of truth to be uncovered?

Alex Gilvarry has created a memorable character in Boy.  His exploration of the immigrant mind and the New York fashion scene is fascinating.  Readers will walk away from the experience of reading From The Memoirs Of A Non-Enemy Combatant with many questions about what is correct when a country is dealing with terrorism and to what lengths we are willing to go to protect ourselves.  This book is recommended for readers interested in fresh writing, great characters and writing that makes them question their positions.

Men And Dogs by Katie Crouch

The defining moment of Hannah's life was the disappearance of her father.  Her father, a hero whose medical skills saved the life of a child in front of her.  Her father, who disdained convention and made life interesting.  Her father, who went out in a boat when Hannah was eleven and never returned.

Everyone agreed that he must have drowned, but without a body, Hannah refuses to believe this is true.  She grows up and becomes successful, but still checks out older men on the street of every town she goes to, hoping against hope that she will see the face of her father.  She refuses to believe that any other man won't also leave her so she spends her time leaving them first, or making them leave her by her bad behavior.

John, her husband, has just reached his limit with Hannah and her drinking and infidelity.  Hannah goes home to Charleston to try to put her life back together.  She spends her days talking with her brother Palmer, her mother and stepfather and her high school boyfriend.  Can she solve the mystery of why her father left her behind?

Katie Crouch has written a compelling tale of how women's lives are shaped by their experiences with their fathers.  Hannah cannot heal and have a successful relationship until she puts her first relationship into focus.  Women readers will see themselves in Hannah's longing for her father, and men will discover how important they are in creating strong, independent women.  This book is recommended for readers of modern fiction and who are interested in family relationships and how secrets can tie up lives for many years.

Midnight Fugue by Reginald Hill

Superintendent Dalziel is back from his recuperation.  Caught in a terrorist blast, he spent time in a coma and the local criminals as well as his men thought he was a goner.  Now, he is ready to come back, but is he the same Dalziel that has held sway and created terror for so many years before the blast?

The day starts with a good-looking blonde asking for his help.  Seven years ago, Gina Wolfe's husband disappeared without a trace.  He was a police officer suspected of being corrupt when he disappeared.  Now, someone is trying to make Gina think that he is still alive and ready to come back.  She goes to Dalziel for help. 

Dalziel is willing to help, but also has other matters to consider.  His second in command, Pascoe, seems to have taken to being the man in charge a bit too easily and he shows signs of not wanting to give up the power now that Dalziel is ready to come back.  Dalziel sees other worrying signs; a suspicion from his peers that he is not fully recovered, that perhaps it's time for the king to be dethroned.  There are also others who seem interested in what happened to Alex Wolfe.  There's the local hot-shot reporter.  An up-and-coming politician seems involved somehow, or perhaps it's just his father, a local gangster now gone respectable.  Can Dalziel find Wolfe or what has happened to him before another tragedy occurs?

Fans of the Dalziel-Pascoe series will be grateful for another chance to visit with this team of detectives.  Reginald Hill has opened the door into the world of these Yorkshire detectives.  Readers are comfortable visiting this world and eager to return whenever there is a new adventure to read.  This book is recommended for readers who enjoy suspense and intricate plotting.  Hill is a master at the top of his form and always a pleasure to read.

The Mother-Daughter Show by Natalie Wexler

It's just after the holidays, so that means it's time for a honored tradition at Barton Friends School.  Every year, the mothers of the senior girls put on a singing, dancing show honoring their daughters with fun songs and humorous skits to show their love.  As those familiar with this environment might imagine, competition is fierce to put on the best show possible and outshine the shows that came before.

Natalie Wexler's The Mother Daughter Show tracks the creation of this year's extravaganza through the lives of three mothers.  Barb is the perfect wife and mother.  She is married to a high-powered attorney and spends her life serving on various committees at the school, always ready to give of her time and energy, and a shoo-in for the coveted service award this year.  Susan has a career where she facilitates cooperation and team building so she is a natural match for the organizational job.  She can organize any task and build consensus and it's just coincidence that consensus always seems to be built around her opinions.  Amanda has spent her time being an old-fashioned mom, making a house, being there for her kids, but before marriage she had dreams of being a songwriter and performer.  Obviously she should write the show.

While all is perfect on the surface, there are tensions underneath.  Barb spends her time caught between her aging mother's needs and the dramas of her willful daughter, who has just announced that she wouldn't be going to college afterall, but instead moving out to live with her tattooed, disreputable rock musician boyfriend.  Susan's family is starting to show signs of revolt against her perfectly organized homelife where every choice they make turns out to be what Susan wanted.  Amanda now has to find a job with college looming for her daughter, and after a twenty-year hiatus, that isn't going to be easy.

Natalie Wexler has written a humorous, lively book with characters that every woman will recognize.  She deftly lays out the conflicts that face all women; whether to work outside the home or stay home and make the family the prime focus; the fine line between being interested in the children's lives and overwhelming them; the struggle to keep love alive with husbands of many years, and the fierce tug of obligations between children and aging parents.  Readers will sympathize and cheer for the characters, and find much to relate with in their own lives.  This book is recommended for women readers, but all readers will enjoy it.

Booksie's Best of 2011

It's always difficult to pick out the best books of an entire year.  So much of enjoyment of a book depends on whether it is in the reader's preferred genre, their mood at the time, and the background they bring to the book, which influences how the book resonates with them.  That being said, here are my favorites of 2011 in no particular order:

Nonfiction

1.  Take Good Care Of The Garden And The Dogs, Heather Lende
2.  Savage City, T.J. English
3.  Grand Pursuit, Sylvia Nasar
4.  Triumph Of The City, Edward Glaeser

Fiction

1.  The Oracle Of Stamboul, Michael David Lukas
2.  Inherent Vice, Thomas Pnychen
3.  Jamrach's Menagerie, Carol Birch
4.  The Woodcutter, Reginald Hill
5.  The Swan Thieves, Elizabeth Kastova
6.  The Summer Of The Bear, Bella Pollan
7.  Ten Thousand Saints, Eleanor Henderson
8.  Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away, Christine Watson
9.  The Keeper Of Lost Causes, Jussi Adler-Olsen
10.  Doc, Mary Doria Russell
11. A Small Hotel, Robert Olen Butler
12. A Man Of Parts, David Lodge
13.  Luka And The Fire Of Life, Salmon Rushdie
14.  The Tranformation Of Barthlomew Fortuno, Ellen Bryson
15.  Stone's Fall, Iain Pear

My favorite book for 2011 was a debut fantasy by R.T. Kaelin.  It is a rare delight to read a book and instantly realise that a new star is being born.  I believe Kaelin will be a name in fantasy to rival Sanderson, Jordan, Donaldson and Martin.  The Booksie Best Book of 2011 goes to:

Progeny by R. T. Kaelin

Brightwing by Sullivan Lee

Edgar Battle is not having a good day.  Following a prison bus break, he and his brother, Mallory are on the run.  The problem is that Mallory is a sociopath and the body toll keeps rising.  Now the biggest manhunt in Florida for many years has the brothers right in its headlights.  They need to change cars and they need to do it now.

Coming up on a woman with a stranded car on a backroad, they quickly take her hostage.  Nothing they haven't done before, but this time things don't go as planned.  They have kidnapped Lucy Brightwing.  Lucy is the sole survivor of the Tequesta Indian tribe.  She is in the process of buying enough land to create her own reservation, but that kind of dream takes lots of money.  Lucy is on her way home from a jewelry heist and has millions of dollars worth of jewels hidden in her car.  She decides that the easiest thing to do is to take these two men to her home deep in the swamps where she will have the upper hand.

Lucy is right.  The Battle brothers stomp around the swamp like a bull in a china shop, totally out of their element.  Lucy quickly loses her fear of them and starts to teach Edgar how to survive using the old Indian techniques.  In the meantime, the unthinkable happens.  Captor and captive become lovers and both realise that they have found what they have been searching for their entire lives.

But life doesn't just let dreams come true, especially when lots of laws have been broken.  Can Lucy and Edgar figure out a way to be together without worrying about the long arm of the law?

Sullivan Lee has written a quirky crime novel with engaging characters.  Against all odds, readers start to have sympathy for Lucy and Edgar, and by the end of the book are hoping they can find a way to live their dreams.  Along the way, the reader learns about the Everglades ecosystem, and the techniques the Indians used to survive in this hostile environment.  This book is recommended for suspense readers.

The Transformation Of Barthlomew Fortuno by Ellen Bryson

The Transformation Of Barthlomew Fortuno takes the reader inside the lives of the men and women who made up P.T. Barnum's 'Curiosities'.  Barthlomew is The Thinnest Man Alive; there is Martina the Fat Lady, Ricardo the Rubber Man, Emma and Alley the giants and many others.  As the book opens, a new act has arrived; Iall, a gorgeous woman with flowing red hair and a flowing beard to match.

Barthlomew is instantly entranced.  He is determined to win Iall's heart.  But there are many obstacles in his way.  Barnum is not interested in his acts falling in love, and furthermore, seems to be interested in Iall himself.  Mrs. Barnum, who controls the pursestrings, is interested in moving Iall to a new location where her husband will not be tempted.  Barthlomew must decide if he is willing to take on his employers, on whom he depends for his livelihood, in order to win his heart's desire.

This is a lovely book.  There is enough historical detail to transport the reader back to New York City in the 1860's, and it all rings true.  But the novel is about much more than just a nostalgic look backward.  It forces the reader to think about the different types of control in each person's life.  The acts are controlled by their physical characteristics and by the determination of others to make money from their differences.  Some of the acts like Barthlomew and Martina have made themselves into curiosities by controlling themselves; in Barthlomew's case by controlling the small amount he eats and in Martina's by controlling the enormous amounts she consumes.  There is the question about free will and how much an individual truly is in control of their own life.  This book is recommended for all readers.  Those who read it will ponder the questions raised long after the last page is finished.  This is Bryson's debut novel, and readers will eagerly await her next one.

The Sense Of An Ending by Julian Barnes

Tony Webster is an average man.  We read of his life growing up, and his circle of friends.  His most striking friend was Adrian, a brilliant student who the other boys never quite felt they knew.  We read of his first love, Veronica, and how that worked out.  We read how Tony felt when he and Veronica broke up and he later finds out that she and Adrian are now a couple. 

The book then skips ahead forty years.  Tony is now retired, having put in his years at an average job.  He is divorced and still sees his ex-wife for lunches, no great hate or love there.  He has one child he sees occasionally, and grandchildren he is more or less a stranger to.  Average, average, average, Tony's whole life has been about getting by without making waves.

Then a surprise bequest causes Tony to reevaluate his entire life.  He looks back at his schoolboy days, his college years and his marriage.  One piece of information after another opens the floodgates of memory, and he remembers conversations and actions that he has long forgotten, but that now reframe his life in a different light.  He tracks down old acquaintances and friends, until he uncovers a startling secret--one that makes him wonder what his life has been about and how his life has affected that of others.

The Sense Of An Ending won the 2011 Man Booker prize for literature.  It is a gem of a book, short but thought-provoking.  This is Julian Barnes at the top of his form, effortlessly shaking the snow-globe of memories to rearrange the outcome of events in myriad ways.  He forces the reader to examine what place memories play in our lives, and to question how accurate our memories are.  This thought-provoking novel is recommended for all readers interested in examining the human condition, and the ways we find to make it through life. 

Blink Of An Eye by William S. Cohen

The unthinkable, unspeakable has happened.  A nuclear explosion has destroyed an American city.  Thousands of American lives are lost.  Entire blocks of the city are vaporized.

Who could have done such an act?  Further, how will America respond to such an egregious act of terrorism?  The shock and horror quickly turn to demands for revenge and war, even before responsibility for the act is known.  Will the President declare war, and will he do it because it is the right thing to do, or because he is pushed into it politically by rival factions determined to steer the course of the country?

Iran is the first suspect and the one most people instinctively believe is behind the horror.  Other nations start to line up on either the side of America retaliating against Iran or against such action.  Israel has been poised to take action against Iran itself; where will it come down in the balance?  Will the other countries with nuclear weapons stay on the sidelines or use whatever happens as entry for settling old feuds?  Is Iran the true answer or is another country responsible and using Iran as a smokescreen?  What about the domestic groups determined to steer the country towards their vision of how the future should unfold?  Are any of these groups involved?

William S. Cohen has written a heartstopping novel of terror and intrigue. Cohen is a former Secretary of State, serving under President Clinton.  His background and expertise gives the book the immediacy and weight of details known only to a select few; those who daily balance what is best for the country and how America must relate to the myriad needs and desires of other countries, both friends and foes.  This book is recommended for readers who enjoy spy and suspense novels; it is indeed a must-read.

Customers Clients Patrons and Morons by Jim Schulte

In Customers Clients, Patrons and Morons, Jim Schulte narrates his experiences over his working life.  His resume includes working at a sheltered workshop and in various hardware shops.  He covers the range of customer mishaps; misinformation, insistence that they are correct when they are clearly wrong, misusing products in such a way that the product is ruined.  He covers out-of-control children who create chaos, and those customers who are dishonest or out and out unintelligent.

In the second half of this short book, Schulte then flips the tables and discusses his own experiences as a shopper with customer experience.  He discusses both bad experiences and those where the service was superb. 

Readers looking for a quick read that will bring a smile to their face will be pleased with this book.  It details the shopping experience from all sides and may make the reader cringe in acknowledgement as they recognize some of their own characteristics.