June 4, 2010
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime
By Mark Haddon
Recommended by Sandy
Mark Haddon’s bitterly funny debut novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, is a murder mystery of sorts–one told by an autistic version of Adrian Mole. Fifteen-year-old Christopher John Francis Boone is mathematically gifted and socially hopeless, raised in a working-class home by parents who can barely cope with their child’s quirks. He takes everything that he sees (or is told) at face value, and is unable to sort out the strange behavior of his elders and peers.
Late one night, Christopher comes across his neighbor’s poodle, Wellington, impaled on a garden fork. Wellington’s owner finds him cradling her dead dog in his arms, and has him arrested. After spending a night in jail, Christopher resolves–against the objection of his father and neighbors–to discover just who has murdered Wellington. He is encouraged by Siobhan, a social worker at his school, to write a book about his investigations, and the result–quirkily illustrated, with each chapter given its own prime number–is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
Haddon’s novel is a startling performance. This is the sort of book that could turn condescending, or exploitative, or overly sentimental, or grossly tasteless very easily, but Haddon navigates those dangers with a sureness of touch that is extremely rare among first-time novelists. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is original, clever, and genuinely moving: this one is a must-read. –Jack Illingworth, Amazon.ca –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
by Milan Kundera
Recommended by Debbie
Novel by Milan Kundera, first published in 1984 in an English translation and in a French translation as L’Insoutenable Legerete de l’etre. In 1985 the work was published in the original Czech as Nesnesitelna lehkost byti, but it was banned in Czechoslovakia until 1989. Set against the background of Czechoslovakia in the 1960s, the novel concerns a young Czech physician who substitutes a series of erotic adventures over which he thinks he can maintain control for becoming involved in his country’s politics, where he feels he can have no power or freedom. Inevitably, he is drawn into Czechoslovakia’s political unrest. In a parallel vein, he is forced to choose among the women with whom he is involved.
The Secret
By Rhonda Byrne
Recommended by Debbie
Fragments of a Great Secret have been found in the oral traditions, in literature, in religions and philosophies throughout the centuries. For the first time, all the pieces of The Secret come together in an incredible revelation that will be life-transforming for all who experience it.
In this book, you’ll learn how to use The Secret in every aspect of your life — money, health, relationships, happiness, and in every interaction you have in the world. You’ll begin to understand the hidden, untapped power that’s within you, and this revelation can bring joy to every aspect of your life.
The Secret contains wisdom from modern-day teachers — men and women who have used it to achieve health, wealth, and happiness. By applying the knowledge of The Secret, they bring to light compelling stories of eradicating disease, acquiring massive wealth, overcoming obstacles, and achieving what many would regard as impossible.
Nigella Bites: From Family Meals to Elegant Dinners–Easy, Delectable Recipes for Any Occasion
By Nigella Lawson
Recommended by Debbie
Nigella Bites–the title is taken from Nigella Lawson’s Style Network cooking show of the same name–is the third book from British Vogue food editor and New York Times food columnist Nigella Lawson, a force of nature all her own. Her other books include How to Eat and How to Be a Domestic Goddess. Fans of the TV show will find all these easy-to-follow recipes familiar, and the book is even designed with pages for note taking at the end of each section.
Nigella Bites is divided into chapters that include “All-Day Breakfast,” “Comfort Food,” “TV Dinners,” “Party Girl,” “Rainy Days,” “Trashy,” “Legacy,” “Suppertime,” “Slow-Cooked Weekend,” and “Templefood.” “Templefood” refers to the “body as a temple,” and Lawson shares what she calls “restorative” recipes, like the raw egg and brandy hangover cure called Prairie Oyster. Hot and Sour Soup and Gingery Hot Duck Salad are also present and accounted for.
It’s all self-referential. Lawson (her chapter introductions are printed in 26-point type for the hard of seeing) holds nothing back about what she likes, how she overindulges, how she works her lifestyle into the kitchen and onto the table. It’s encouragement by example, with a practical twist. You aren’t going to spend hours in the kitchen midweek. That’s a reward you save for the weekend. But there’s plenty of deliciousness to be had midweek as well, and Lawson’s there to help you along your way.
No More Dead Dogs
By Gorman Korman
Recommended by Sandy
Here’s one for every reader weary of being assigned novels in which the dog dies. For expressing his true views of Old Shep, My Pal, eighth-grade football hero Wallace Wallace earns a detention that takes him off the team and plunks him down in the auditorium, where his almost equally stubborn English teacher is directing a theatrical version of–you guessed it. To the delight of some cast members, but the loud outrage of Drama Club President, Rachel Turner, Wallace Wallace makes a few suggestions to punch up the production; by the end, it’s a rock musical and the (stuffed) pooch actually pulls through. At least, that’s the plan. Briskly stirring in complications and snappy dialog, Korman adds mystery to the fun with an unknown saboteur, caps the wildly popular play with an explosive (literally) climax, and finishes with Rachel and Wallace Wallace finally realizing that they were made for each other. Except for Old Shep, everyone, even the teacher, comes out a winner.
Hurry Down Sunshine
By Michael Greenberg
Recommended by Debbie
Michael Greenberg’s spare, unflinching memoir begins with a bang: “On July 5, 1996, my daughter was struck mad.” Hurry Down Sunshine chronicles the summer when fifteen-year-old Sally experienced her first full-blown manic episode—an event that in a “single stroke” changed her identity and, by extension, that of her entire family. Simply told and beautifully written, Greenberg’s memoir shines a stark light on mental illness, painting a vivid picture of a brain and body under siege—mania as a separate living thing squatting within the patient. As a writer who lives “so much in his head,” Greenberg is particularly anguished by his daughter’s fractured psyche, and his honesty about being both sickened and fascinated by his daughter’s condition is breathtaking: “During the worst moments, I think of her as my disease—the disease I must bear…I am intoxicated with Sally’s madness in both senses of the word: inebriated and poisoned.” So desperate is he to understand her, that he relentlessly researches mental illness (the book is peppered with fascinating insights into drug therapy and anecdotes about writers who struggled with madness), and even goes so far as to sample a full dose of his daughter’s medication. Startling, heart-wrenching, and yet unwaveringly unsentimental, Hurry Down Sunshine is an unforgettable story of a young girl’s descent into madness, told through the eyes of a harried and helpless father trying desperately to bring her back.
Moby Dick
By Herman Melville
Recommended by Ted
In his great whaling epic Melville roamed both the seas, and the secret places of men’s minds. In the alternate playfulness and ferocity of the great white whale he found the perfect metaphor within which to develope his views on life, death and God.
