coming soon . . .

reviews of The 10 Year Nap by Meg Wolitzer, Being Perfect by Anna Quindlen, and Born To Run by Christopher McDougall coming soon--all books which I've finished in the last 2 weeks. . . just as soon as I recover from Thanksgiving and holiday decorating/preparation. And yes, these books shed some insight into my personal psyche and struggles. Anna Quindlen would be appalled at my desire to have christmas cards mailed and shopping finished by Dec. 1. I'm cutting myself some slack this year.

best books of 2009

Here are the year's best books, according to The Atlantic Monthly. This magazine is probably my favorite periodical to which we subscribe. There is a little of everything in The Atlantic, and it is excellently written. Top notch. There is always an article in the issue that really makes me think, reflect or question.
Other magazines that make their way into my home are not so loved by me. I subscribe to Real Simple, which ends up always making me feel Real Inadequate. My husband loves The Economist. I only read it when I have insomnia. For me, it's just as effective as an ambien. And because of our extracurricular activities, we get US Lacrosse, Triathlon Life, and Outside magazine.

I always find these types of reviews helpful when selecting books for Christmas presents, so I thought I would share this one with my readers here at book nook.

PS: I am excited that my January book club pick, The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt, is listed. But then again, the gal who picked it doesn't read fluff.

Here's the roll call:

THE CHILDREN’S BOOK: A Novel
By A. S. Byatt
Knopf

Byatt has wrought a richly detailed, decade-spanning, at once Olympian and pointillist masterpiece. To read this gorgeous bolt of fiction is to fully enter a world.

THE THIRD REICH TRILOGY (Concluding With The Third Reich at War)
By Richard J. Evans
Penguin

Evans’s cool, crisply argued three-volume chronicle will be for a generation the definitive general history of Nazi Germany in English.

IT’S BEGINNING TO HURT: Stories
By James Lasdun
FSG

This collection of short stories illuminates the everyday agonies of the mind, its anxieties, obsessions, doubts, and yearnings. Lasdun pins each observation to the page with grace and exactitude.

MRS. WOOLF AND THE SERVANTS: An Intimate History of Domestic Life in Bloomsbury
By Alison Light
Bloomsbury

In her elegant, sparkling book, Light marries social and literary criticism as she probes the deeply intimate, often sordid, always fraught relationship between women servants and their female employers.


The Runners Up

TOO MUCH HAPPINESS: Stories
By Alice Munro
Knopf

Dominion from Sea to Sea
Bruce Cumings
Yale

The Art Instinct
Denis Dutton
BLOOMSBURY

The Hundred Years War, vol 3
Jonathan Sumption
Johns Hopkins

The Hindus
Wendt Doniger
Penguin Press

Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic
Gordon Wood
Oxford

The New Old World
Perry Anderson
VERSO

The Thirty Years War
Peter H. Wilson
Harvard

This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly
Carmen M. Reinhart and Keneth Rogoff
Princeton

Florence Nightingale
Mark Bostidge
FSG

Flannery: A Life
Brad Gooch
Little Brown

Samuel Johnson: A Biography
Peter Martin
Harvard

In the Kitchen
Monica Ali
Scribner

Reading Dance
ed. Robert Gottlieb
Pantheon

Words in the Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell
ed. Thomas Travisano and Saskia Hamilton
FSG

Charles Dickens
Michael Slater
Yale

Wolf Hall
Hilary Mantel
Henry Holt

The Arabs
Eugene Rogan
Basic

Northern Arts: The Breakthrough of Scandinavian Literature and Art, from Ibsen to Bergman
Arnold Weinstein
Princeton

The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth: A Life
Frances Wilson
Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Three Victories and a Defeat: The Rise and Fall of the First British Empire
Brendan Simms
Basic

Collected Stories
Lydia Davis
FSG

Number The Stars

I first learned about Lois Lowry's Number The Stars this year when I was helping a student with the novel this fall. It is a beautiful story about 10 year old Annemarie Johansen, a Danish schoolgirl, who is swept up into the Resistance during the German occupation. This historical fiction novel does a great job of presenting the heroism of the Danish people, and Annemarie, during a period of terror in Denmark. The story is quick paced and exciting, the characters are well developed, and there is a sense of hope at the end of the story. The book does not gloss over the atrocities committed at the hands of the Nazis, but it is not the focus of the story. The author provides a postscript that explains the historical facts for the reader. It is written on a high 4th or 5th grade level. I would definitely suggest reading this before reading The Diary of Anne Frank, which is more appropriate for a middle schooler, in my opinion.

And so my post leads me to my daughter and her 5th grade book report assignment. In 3rd grade she tried reading The Diary of Anne Frank. Her teacher at that time would not let her check it out of the school library! She read instead a juvenile biography of Anne Frank. It's just not the same thing. I remember reading Diary when I was 13 and just stunned that she was discovered and shot. It was so very hard to fathom.

So I was excited to read Number The Stars and recommend it to S. She chose it for her book report. And for her assignment, instead of making a poster or a diorama, she created a website. My husband actually taught her how to use Microsoft Publisher, and I did everything I could to not get involved. I have a terrible time with her when it comes to h.w. I usually end up getting frustrated and yelling at her, and she falls apart and cries or storms off and poor old Dad has to intervene. Yes, the teenage years are very close indeed and it won't be pretty. Here's a link to her book report

the classics

clasic: noun. an author or a literary work of the first rank, esp. one of demonstrably enduring quality.

Charlotte's Web, by E.B. White is such a book. Oh how I love this heart-warming story. It truly stands the test of time. I am currently reading it out loud with 4th graders at school, and they are really enjoying it. The language is delightful and perfectly challenging for a 4th grader. I have one boy who adores saying, "Salutations!" to me when he sees me. The other boy in my group is more interested in the blood-thirsty aspects of the novel. ("How do they kill the pig? Will there be lots of blood??") There truly is a universal appeal to children with this book. I asked my son if he had read it or not because I kind of remember him talking about it before, and he said that yes indeed his pre-k teacher had read the whole novel to the class (boy do I love Ms. McC) but he would LOVE TO HEAR IT AGAIN. So here we go, my umpteenth time reading this book and it seems as fresh as ever. Next up, I think I'll read Trumpet Of The Swan, another childhood favorite of mine.

More Local Authors!

I am reading this sweet book to my son before bed. It's my second reading of it; Sophie read it when she was in 3rd grade. Nancy Ruth Patterson is a local author and teacher, and Sophie was lucky enough to do a writing workshop with her a few summers back. Ms.Patterson is a delightful woman who also teaches children's literature through UVA at our Higher Ed Center. Like Mrs. Dickinson the previous post, she attends my church and I have always had in the back of my mind submitting a draft to her of the children's book I long to write, but never seem to start.

The Winner's Walk is on a 4th-5th grade level and is perfect for either a boy or a girl who empathizes with animals or who has ever felt insecure about his/her talents. In this story, 9 year old Case feels like he can never win any kind of award, unlike his star-studded and talented family. He tries his hand at a talent show, a science fair, and a horse show, to no avail. Then he finds a dog, and this dog turns out to be quite special. And suddenly Case is "training" the dog to do some pretty amazing things. Eventually it is discovered that the lost dog is a service dog and Case has to make the difficult choice of doing what is best for the dog and putting putting someone else's needs (a disabled child in want of an assistance dog) before own. It's a tear jerker!

My book club is reading this for November. It was written by local author and artist Barbara M. Dickinson. 6 of the 10 women in my book club attend the same Episcopal church with Mrs. Dickinson, myself included. One member was cooking with Barbara for a Sunday evening event, and they discussed her writing. Shortly thereafter this book appeared on my door step.

It is the second in a series about Rose McNess, a self-styled tour leader at Wynfield Farms, a retirement community in Virginia. In this book, she arranges a trip to London for about a dozen residents and adventure follows. For her "senior citizens", unexpected romance and excitement show up during their trip abroad. It is a quaint little book, and I would recommend it for a grandmother on your Christmas list. It reminded me of my dear late grandmother Rosalie. It will transport you to an innocent time of travel without worry of shoe bombers. It might also make you want to start partaking in afternoon tea.

We invited Barbara to our book club meeting next Thursday. I'm sure it will be delightful to meet her and hear about her travels. I hope she isn't appalled at the amount of wine we generally consume. While Rose McNess enjoyed a glass of sherry from time to time at her London hotel, she always kept it to one.

Hi, it's me Sophie. I am going to talk about 3 American Girl books I bought this fall. I bought them because they are guides, and you can always refer back to them. With a normal book, you read it and you are done. The first one I bought was The Body Book for Girls. My friend had this one first, and I wanted one too because I couldn't memorize hers. It has lots of good information that you might never hear about unless you read it, like how to get gum out of your hair with peanut butter. It tells you how to take care of your skin, and tons of things the nurse or your mom doesn't tell you.

I really like The Smart Girl's Guide to Sticky Situations. They tell you how to solve school related or personal problems. And also really embarassing problems like if you throw up at school or your sister reads your diary. I don't have a sister, but I have a brother. He might read my diary. I learned how not to fall off a horse and what to do if your best friend moves to Australia or someplace far away.


The last book I recommend for girls 9-12 is What Would You Do?: Quizzes About Real-Life Problems. It was fun how everything was a quiz. You can take surveys and figure out what you would do if a problem comes up. It gives hints about starting middle school and I am starting middle school next year so it is good for me to read.