January

Shadow of the Bear: Travels in Vanishing Wilderness by Brian Payton.
Evidence ranging from the earliest cave paintings at Lascaux to the nursery stories we still tell our children, demonstrates the significance of bears in human history, and in the human psyche.  Brian Payton journeys throughout the world in search of the eight remaining bear species in their natural habitats before – as he fears – they all become extinct.  His trips take him from the spectacled bears of the mountains of Peru to the polar bears of Canada, from the giant pandas of China to the Malayan sun bears of Cambodia, from the sloth bears of India to the brown bears of India, the black bears of the western United States, and the cave bears of France.  This is a fine work of narrative nonfiction, sure to please anyone interested in natural history. 

Clementine by Sara Pennypacker.
If you’ve enjoyed spending time with Beverly Cleary’s lively Ramona Quimby (in Beezus and Ramona, among others), you won’t want to miss meeting Sara Pennypacker’s delightful third grader, the eponymous Clementine.  Looking at life through Clementine’s eyes (and in Clementine’s voice) is a guaranteed good time.  You’ll find out about her attempts to be friends with her fourth grade neighbor, the sometimes snooty Margaret, her frequent visits to the school principal’s office for not paying attention in class, her attempts to convince her mother that she needs to stay home from school because she’s suffering from the heartbreak of sore irises, and how she solves the problem of too many pigeons around her apartment building.  Illustrator Marla Frazee captures Clementine’s joie de vivre perfectly.

The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories by Susanna Clarke.
Fans (I am one) of all 780-plus pages of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell, Susanna Clarke’s story of two warring English magicians during the early 19th century, will definitely want to pick up The Ladies of Grace Adieu and spend a diverting several hours revisiting the same world (including many of the same characters) of her best-selling novel.  For those for whom Clarke’s writing is a new discovery, it’s important to know, going in, that in Clarke’s world magic and what is conventionally called reality are only thinly separated. The world of Faerie can be perceived out of the corner of one’s eye, as it were – it’s that close.  Here, in her first collection of short stories, are tales of cunning (and beautiful) witches, merciless owls, the power of embroidery to change the course of history (as Lord Horatio Nelson discovers), and a little known event in the life of Mary, Queen of Scots.  The writing is captivating, the characters charming (if sometimes dangerous), and the notion that perhaps there’s more to the world than what our five senses tell us, is, as Clarke might say (with a smile), simply enchanting.

Museum of the Missing: A History of Art Theft by Simon Houpt.
Did you know that, according to Interpol, over 20,000 works of art – including paintings by Vermeer, Rembrandt, Munch, Picasso, and others – have been stolen, never to be seen again?  Simon Houpt’s entertaining, enlightening, and aptly named history describes daring daytime heists, wartime and archaeological lootings, and various and sundry other devious schemes (one of which involved stealing a two-ton bronze sculpture by Henry Moore) that separated works of art from their rightful owners. The book also includes reproductions of many of the missing works of art; Houpt invites us to consider how glorious would be the museum gallery that contained them all. A perfect choice for art lovers.  

The Inhabited World by David Long.
I’d have thought that a novel narrated by a dead man – a suicide, at that - would, perforce, be desperately sad.  It’s true that David Long’s novel isn’t an entirely happy book, but it has many moments of transcendent joy. A decade after his death, Evan Malloy, still hanging around the house in which he died, attempts to understand the trajectory of his life: his journey from childhood to marriage, to divorce, and the depression that accompanied him every step of the way.  While his deep despair waxed and waned, it never entirely disappeared, finally becoming simply too much for him to live with.  In his words, “Mine was a surmountable despair. I just didn’t. Surmount it.”  As Evan tries to understand his life, he fears for the newest tenant in his old house, a young woman involved in an unhappy relationship, whose own depression is becoming more and more palpable.  Gorgeously written and intensely moving, this is Long’s best work yet.

No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World’s 14 Highest Peaks by Ed Viesturs with David Roberts.
Ed Viesturs describes the circumstances and events that first took him from flat lands of his childhood home in Rockford, Illinois to Seattle, Washington, and then on to the summits of all fourteen of the highest mountains in the world.  All of these 8,000 plus meters-high peaks are in either the Himalaya or the Karakoram mountain ranges in Asia (just think of the frequent flyer miles he must have racked up!) and include Everest, K2, Kangchenjunga, and Annapurna. (According to Everestnews.com, Viesturs belongs to an elite group of thirteen climbers who have reached the summits of these mountains.) Fans of Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air and other accounts of the tragedy that occurred on Everest in 1996 will be especially interested in the part Viesturs played in that event, but any reader with even the tiniest bit of adventure-lust in his or her heart will be stirred and inspired by Viesturs’s accomplishments and the deep respect he has for the mountains he’s conquered. 

The Best American Essays 2006 by Lauren Slater, guest editor.
One of the best ways to discover new writers is to settle down with one or more of the books in the ongoing series’ of Best American something or other (you fill in the blank – spiritual writing, poetry, stories, travel writing, etc.)  Year after year, I come away from reading these collections, which are composed of contributions selected by a guest editor who’s a leading practitioner of the genre, with a sense that I’ve read widely and well.  And always, by the time I turn the last page, I’ve compiled a long list of books and authors I want to check out.  This was definitely the case with this collection of 2006 essays edited by Lauren Slater.  I was especially moved by Marjorie Williams’ “A Matter of Life and Death,” (which first appeared in Vanity Fair and later, under the title “Hit By Lightning,” in her collection of essays, The Woman at the Washington Zoo: Writings on Politics, Family, and Fate) her account of her life following a diagnosis of cancer. Lily Tuck’s "Group Grief,” about her experience with a support group following the death of her husband, will hit home with many readers.  On a lighter note, try Michele Morano’s "Grammar Lessons: The Subjunctive Mood,” which will have you considering language and usage in a way you might have simply overlooked before. 

One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer by Nathaniel Fick.
When Classics major Nathaniel Fick applied for Officer Candidate School following his junior year at Dartmouth, it came as a shock to his friends, classmates, and family.  Yet it made perfect sense to Fick.  In One Bullet Away he describes his yearning “to go on a great adventure, to prove myself, to serve my country.”  Almost a year later, following his graduation in 1999, he joined the Marines as a Second Lieutenant and was thrust into the fog of war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Fick uses words like “duty” and “justice,” “courage” and “compassion” without irony.  At the same time, there’s no simple-minded patriotism or political message here.  Fick says, “War for freedom, war for oil, philosophical disputes were a luxury I could not enjoy. War was what I had. We don't vote for it, authorize it, or declare it; we just had to fight it."  Red state or blue state, any reader interested in the experience of an honorable, thoughtful man at war will be engaged by Fick’s story.

The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets by Eva Rice.
Sometimes what we need from a book is simply the means to escape to a world more vivid and Technicolor than ours, where the characters are cleverer, and more dashing, and where events seem much more interesting than those of our own, ordinary, lives. This is a perfect book for such a mood.  Set in post-World War II, London, there’s enough Champagne, references to then American heartthrob Johnnie Ray, and fancy parties to enliven anyone’s fantasy life.  But the real pleasure comes from spending time with the narrator – when Penelope Ferris meets the more worldly and somewhat shocking Charlotte, and is introduced to her Aunt Clare and cousin Henry, Penny’s world is turned upside down – but only in the most lighthearted, delightful, and engaging way.  This is the sort of book in which the plot details themselves matter less than discovering how the characters are going to cope with them. 

Tree Ring Circus by Adam Rex.
This is one of the most colorful and ebullient picture books I’ve read recently.  Adam Rex both wrote and illustrated (in oil paintings that are reminiscent of 19th century circus advertisements) this entertaining account of a tree and the many different animals that have made it their home.  The fun is in the rhythmic narrative, which children will quickly pick up and join in reciting as the pages are turned: “3 chipmunks, 2 sparrows, a whopping big bee, all live in the tree where the seed used to be. A chicken, two blue jays, three squirrels, a clown, a cat who climbed up but can’t find her way down.”  But when a very large elephant appears and tries to join the group--  Disaster!  This is a great choice for bedtime reading and preschool story hours.

Blow the House Down by Robert Baer.
Robert Baer, who worked for the CIA’s Directorate of Information, and whose memoir See No Evil was the basis for the movie Syriana, offers a convoluted, fast-moving narrative of deceit, deception, and bureaucratic ineptitude.  Brought in from the field by his bosses to languish at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, in early 2000, Max Waller uses his time to investigate the death of his mentor a decade and a half before, a search that takes him from one of the world’s hot spots to another, culminating in a discovery that ties directly into the horrific events of September 11, 2001.  If you like your thrillers laced with a large dose of reality, don’t miss this first novel.

War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History: 1500 to Today by Max Boot.
Max Boot’s narrative history is so compulsively readable that as you’re taking in all the information you forget how long it is (454 pages of text, plus an epilogue, notes, and an awesome bibliography that will add years of reading matter to your “to read” list, altogether totaling 624 pages of almost solid text).  Boot describes how technology – specifically technology either designed or adapted for warfare – has had a major impact on human history. In Boot’s view, “technology sets the parameters of the possible,” but doesn’t determine it.  In exploring his thesis, he describes four different periods, and how the war-related technological innovations of each one helped steer history along a particular pathway.  He includes the age of gunpowder (1500-1700), the First Industrial Revolution of the mid-19th century through the start of World War I, the Second Industrial Revolution (1917-1945), and the Information Revolution, from 1970 to the present (with its emphasis on stealth bombers, guided missiles, GPS devices, and the other major weapons systems that played such an important role in both the first and second Gulf Wars). Boot’s book is a must for war buffs, and a good choice for anyone looking for a thought-provoking look at history.