At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson

One of the most appealing qualities a person can possess is curiosity, and Bill Bryson has it by the bucketful. Which of course, makes him one of the most delightful and insightful writers around. Not only is Mr. Bryson insatiably curious, but he draws us in through his enthusiasm, his wit, and the pure beauty of his writing. Not since discovering P.G. Wodehouse during my freshman year of high school have I laughed out loud simply at the way a writer rubbed two words together.

In his latest outing, Mr. Bryson has given us the entire history of private life, without ever leaving the 150 year old rectory he calls home located in Norfolk, England. Moving from room to room in his house and discussing the contents, the development of its purpose, the architecture, the servants, the lighting, the furnishings, and the people who used the room, we learn about the development of the heart of a people: the homes of the people who live there.

One of the gifts of the book is its many small segues. One never knows where Bill Bryson will take you, but it’s always an amazing ride. One such example is the Nursery. The discussion of the nursery involves a look at infant mortality, child labor laws, domestic missionary work and the reforms of the Poor Laws, children’s place in society (even the wealthy ones), public schools and Charles Darwin.

And then there is the humor. In a typical passage describing Clergymen who made significant contributions to history, Bryson writes:

"In Dorset, the perkily named Octavius Pickard-Cambridge became the world’s leading authority on spiders while his contemporary the Reverend William Shepherd wrote a history of dirty jokes. John Clayton of Yorkshire gave the first practical demonstration of gas lighting. The Reverend George Garrett, of Manchester, invented the submarine. Adam Buddle, a botanist vicar in Essex, was the eponymous inspiration for the flowering buddleia. The Revered John Mackenzie Bacon of Berkshire was a pioneering hot air balloonist and the father of aerial photography. Sabine Baring-Gould wrote the hymn “Onward, Christian Solders” and, more unexpectedly, the first novel to feature a werewolf. The Revered Robert Stephen Hawker of Cornwall wrote poetry of distinction and was much admired by Longfellow and Tennyson, though he slightly alarmed his parishioners by wearing a pink fez and passing much of his life under the powerfully serene influence of opium."

If The New York Review of Books had a Sexiest Man Alive issue, Bill Bryson would be on the cover every year.

Many readers are familiar with Bill Bryson through his earlier works: A Walk in the Woods, In a Sunburned Country, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid. For them, a new book by Bryson is always a cause for celebration. A chance to spend a few hours in the company of this charming guide is an opportunity to be savored.

Publisher: Doubleday (October 5, 2010)
ISBN-13: 978-0767919388

Buy This Book:  http://doubleday.knopfdoubleday.com/

A Small Death in the Great Glen by A.D. Scott

A Small Death in the Great Glen is the debut title by A.D. Scott, and I am eagerly awaiting the follow up to be released next summer. The story is set in the Highlands of Scotland in 1956. It’s already intriguing from an American point of view: the accents, the atmosphere, and the customs. Then we have a great cast of characters, many of them working at the weekly gazette of the small village all of them live in: Joanne Ross, the battered wife; McAllister, editor and keeper of secrets; Rob Mclean, eager young investigative reporter; Travelers; runaway Polish exiles; expatriate Italians; priests and policemen; gossips; and rogue politicians.

Of equal weight, are time and place. The setting is so beautifully detailed and lovingly drawn that it is a character in itself: the gray stones of the village, the vast sweeps of the glens. And a small village in Scotland in post war 50’s: the missing young men, the damaged ones that returned, the dour conservatism, the importance of music, the sly Celtic charm.

When a small boy is murdered, the staff of the paper becomes involved in an investigation to uncover the murderer, each for his own reasons. Ancient superstitions and modern prejudices as well as greed and corruption all interfere with finding the truth. But along the way, the characters, especially Joanne and McAllister, find out what they are made of, and what is critically important to them. Their pasts, their present, and what they want from the future finally become clear as they work to right the wrong done to a small boy.

Ms. Scott creates a colorful, fascinating world and a suspenseful story. Richly developed characters, and a tautly plotted adventure make this novel hard to put down. I am anxiously awaiting the next installment in the series (and I do hope it’s a series). Ms. Scott is to be congratulated. I find it difficult to believe this is a debut novel. It has the feel of a very seasoned writer. I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next.

Publisher: Atria; Original edition (August 3, 2010)
ISBN-10: 1439154937
ISBN-13: 978-1439154939

The Whisperers by John Connolly

Charlie Parker is one of my favorite characters. Mysterious and melancholy, he is surrounded by violence, yet not violent himself. Otherworldly, and haunted by his past, he can be funny and irreverent.  His friends are both lethal and loyal.

For those unfamiliar with Charlie, his back story is this: an ex NYC cop, now a private detective living in Maine. His wife and young daughter were killed some years ago in a gruesome way while he was out getting drunk. Nothing new so far.  Charlie tracked down, and killed the murderer, and discovered a gift for ridding the world of a particular breed of serial killer. Along the way he has acquired the friendship of Angel, a scruffy ex-thief, and Louis, an elegant and deadly hit man, who are partners in crime and in life. The exchanges between Louis and Angel are often hilarious, and occasionally, heartbreakingly sweet. They are unswervingly loyal to Charlie, and their intercession often saves Charlie’s life. Louis’ marksmanship and flair for drama reminds me of Harlan Coben’s Win Lockwood, in the Myron Bolitar series. Recently, Charlie has fallen in love with Rachel, and has had another daughter named Sam. Rachel can’t take the violence that surrounds Charlie and has taken Sam and moved to Vermont, leaving Charlie bereft and alone.

This may seem like typical detective drama so far, but Connolly has added another layer to Charlie’s story. When I say Charlie is haunted by his past, I mean literally haunted. His murdered wife and daughter appear to him and others. And Charlie, through his investigations, comes to understand that he is a little different than other people. We don’t quite know how yet, but the figures he battles aren’t quite human, and he is followed around by characters that aren’t quite human either. One, The Collector, so named because he takes a souvenir from those he rids the world of, sees himself as “ridding the world of evil”, yet one feels as if he will one day be a threat to Charlie, even though they have an uneasy peace for now.

In The Whisperers, Charlie is again battling unseen foes. A group of soldiers has brought antiquities home from Iraq that they are selling to help each other with medical expenses. One of the antiquities is a Pandora-like box that contains a power causing them to commit suicide. "The Collector" ( from a previous  case) makes an appearance, as well as the rather gruesome "Herod". Particularly interesting is the insight into the soldier’s hardships once they returned from Iraq. Tired of empty promises, abandoned by the government they served, the soldiers are forced to band together to survive in a country that has forgotten them, and the promises made to them.  Crimes are committed in the name of compassion, blending the ethcal lines.  iParticularly good was the therapist’s conversation with Charlie about his own Post-Traumatic Stress and the affect it has had on his own life. Connolly  A unique blend of crime fiction and the supernatural, Connolly creates an eerie world and a tormented hero who battles inner and outer demons. 
Publisher: Atria; 1 edition (July 13, 2010)
ISBN-10: 143916519X
ISBN-13: 978-1439165195

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter

One of the great pleasures of this year is discovering a few authors I haven’t read before. Tom Franklin is one of these. I can’t believe I somehow overlooked this writer. He is everything one hopes for in a writer, especially a Southern writer: an unerring ear for dialogue, compassion, a poetic sense of the absurd, and courage. Above all courage. The power of this little book just stunned me.

The story is just heartbreaking. An awkward little boy, dorky and friendless, meets a black boy and they become uneasy friends. Later, the boy lands a date with the sexiest girl in high school. He is the last person to see her alive. Her body is never found and the lonely little boy grows into a lonely man, a pariah in his small, southern town. Treated with so much contempt that he is grateful when a creepy little admirer, who is sure he murdered the girl, starts hanging around Not much of a friend, but a friend.

Now it’s twenty years later, and Larry the loner, and Silas the black man, who is now the local constable, cross paths again when another girl goes missing. And Larry is the first person who is suspected. Betrayal, old secrets, friendship and the simple needs of the human heart are all laid bare as the story of what happened twenty years ago emerges. The story is both brutal and unutterably sad, as a sad as a wasted life. Larry has accepted his lot with such stoicism, the same uncritical acceptance of his father’s sadistic cruelty towards him, or the other children’s unthinking mockery, or Silas’ betrayal. The only innocent in the story is the most harshly treated, as is so often the case in Southern literature.

Tom Franklin is one of the few writers I know that can so perfectly capture a true Southern accent (Rick Bragg anyone?). As a Southerner, I know. And he is dead on. It’s not the Scarlett O’Hara Antebellum Southern. This is true redneck cracker-speak. And it’s essential to these narrow-minded; small-town; easily-led; prejudiced; malevolent hicks. And at the same time, there is great poetry in this book. Franklin creates a perfect sense of time and atmosphere.

Beautifully written, cleverly plotted, Mr. Franklin shows us again why writing is an art, not a science. I highly recommend Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter. The redemption at the conclusion of the book is all the sweeter for the outrage one feels at the harm done Larry. The book has a lot to say about the way we treat those on the outskirts of life, and our prejudices. The message is a good one, and delivered by a master.

Publisher: William Morrow (October 5, 2010)
IBSN-13: 978-0060594664

Buy This Book http://www.harpercollins.com/authors/19243/Tom_Franklin/index.aspx

FAITHFUL PLACE By Tana French

It’s hard for me to put my finger on one thing that sets Tana French’s novels apart from others of the “police procedural” genre. It’s a combination of a lot of things: less CSI-like detail, and a lot more psychological insight; a moving back story with quirky, touching relationships; flawed protagonists; an exquisite eye for detail; and a fast, punchy writing style that builds suspense quickly and holds there. She gives us superb plotting, and as an American, I’m just knocked out by the dialogue.

Is that enough superlatives for you? It’s honestly hard to get them all in. Tana French burst onto the scene with THE WOODS in 2007 for which she won the Edgar Award. She followed that with THE LIKENESS in 2008. which was selected by Salon.com as the Best Book of the Year. And the list of awards goes on. As it should.

Ms. French’s books are linked by characters working for the Dublin Murder squad. FAITHFUL PLACE focuses on Frank Mackey, who readers will remember as Cassie Maddox’s mentor in THE LIKENESS. Frank works in Undercover, which makes the case more fascinating, because this book is almost all psychological, without any of the forensic elements of most murder investigations. Frank also has to protect his undercover status throughout, so he is the shadow investigator, never having official status on the case. He works behind the scenes for a number of reasons.

Twenty-two years ago Frank was to meet his love, Rosie Daly, to leave Ireland behind and start a new life in England. Rosie did not show up, leaving instead a note, asking him to understand why she needed to go. Frank waited the night, then started walking, and never looked back. Now he gets a call from his sister telling him that Rosie’s suitcase has been found behind the chimney in a derelict house at the top of Faithful Place, the street he grew up on. It looks like Rosie may not have left for England after all. Frank is once again in the middle of the family, the neighborhood, and the life he promised himself never to return to. Even worse, now his daughter is involved, and may be in danger herself.

Frank is a wounded soul…bitter about Rosie’s desertion, ashamed of his origins, furious at his father’s drunken brutality, and at war with his brother Shay. He does care for his other siblings, particularly his sister Jackie, and younger brother Kevin. He has an awkwardly sweet relationship with his ex-wife, and one of the most adorable father-daughter relationships I’ve ever read. He is isolated from his fellow cops by the nature of his job, and well, by his nature. It’s the tangle of all these relationship that are the heart of the story of what happened to Rosie Daly.

FAITHFUL PLACE is one of those books you will not want to put down once you have started in, so schedule your reading for a nice restful weekend. Or better yet, buy all three books and take them to the beach with you. Bring lots and lots of sunscreen.

Publisher: Viking Adult (July 13, 2010)

ISBN-13: 978-0670021871
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CAPTIVITY by Deborah Noyes

Captivity is one of those books that you find maybe once, or if you are lucky, twice a year. A haunting story, exquisite writing, compelling characters, and a really interesting plot question. In this case, did the Fox sisters have a gift, or was it a hoax?

The story centers around a true incident in western New York in 1848: two sisters, Maggie and Kate Fox claimed that the dead were trying to communicate with them through poltergeist activity and “rapping”. A dig in their basement turns up the body of a peddler who had died years before, as predicted by the girls. A move to Rochester, to their older sister Leah’s home (and management) soon turns them into a sensation, and creates the birth of the American Spiritualist movement. Despite a number of grueling and humiliating tests, the sisters are never revealed as frauds.

The middle sister, Maggie, is bold, fresh, and extremely likable. She strikes up a friendship of sorts with a local recluse, Clara Gill, and through their friendship the story unfolds. The sister’s story is told going forward, Clara’s is told in flashbacks.

Clara was living in London some twenty-odd years ago, illustrating a naturalist catalog with sketches of animals when she fell deeply in love with the “beast keeper” of the London Tower’s Menagerie. Will Cross is absolutely charming, and irresistible for a carefully brought up young Victorian lady: unsuitable, of course, full of poetry, life, and laughter. He is self-educated, and as exotic as the animals he loves. Their love story is as tender and awkward as every first love and every bit as moving. Anyone who has ever loved and lost can understand Clara’s withdrawal from the world when in ends terribly.

Captivity is very much the theme here. The animals of the menagerie are captives, of course. Will is a “beast keeper” and she a naturalist. She asks him “does it pain you? To see them here?” “Here with me” he says cheerily, “They might be here anyway. They might be here without me”……”They’re going to be shut up anyway” he explains. the world runs it’s course.” But it is her uncle and his naturalist friends who serve the exotic animals at a dinner designed to raise money to study and collect them. They gobble up the very thing they claim to prize. A point that is not missed by Clara. The freedom of birds too, echoes throughout the book: Maggie’s love gives her a canary in a golden cage when he asks her to give up her “rapping” to marry him. She frees it, and he sends it back, saying that he had caught it again. An interesting touch of metaphor in that this bird is a bit of a fraud. Clara sketches birds repeatedly. Maggie gives Clara a nest with a girls hair ribbon in it. Will’s mentor is a gypsy seller of “nesties”.

Clara is a captive of her love, and her past. She has barely left her room in 22 years despite her father’s quiet appeals to do so. She only starts going out when Maggie enters her life and she becomes curious again. Maggie is a captive of her “gift”, her mercenary family, and her need to better herself. And of her own love when he comes along.

Woven throughout the story is the question of the Fox sisters “gifts”. Do they really communicate with spirits? Is it a hoax? Noyes slyly teases and provokes without giving too much away. Maggie loves to drop hints, and Katie seems to actually be a mystic, while Leah is openly mercenary. And if they are fraudulent, are they giving hope or doing harm? And how to they make the rapping/poltergeist activity happen? These are questions the reader must answer for him/herself. It’s a fascinating puzzle.

I highly recommend Captivity. I knew any book about the Fox sisters would be interesting. To this day the controversy continues as to whether they were fact or fraud. I did not expect the tender love story at the heart of the book. Clara is such a wonderful combination of fragile and strong that you just can’t help caring deeply for her. Deborah Noyes has the ability to make all of this very real with a delicate, ethereal beauty. She perfectly captures mood, description and the poetry of love. A marvelous writer. A marvelous book.

To Buy This Book

Publisher: Unbridled Books; 1 edition (June 1, 2010)

ISBN-13: 978-1936071630

The Frozen Rabbi by Steve Stern

Rabbi Eliezer Ben Zephyr, the Boibiczer Prodigy, is surely one of the most charming characters ever to grace the pages of a book. And the story line of this novel is as delightfully unexpected as its characters.

The story begins when young Bernie Karp of Memphis, TN comes across the body of a rabbi frozen in a block of ice beneath the pot roasts and chickens in his family freezer.

When he asks his father why they have a dead man in their freezer, his father replies that the dead man is a family heirloom: “Some people got taxidermied pets in the attic, we got a frozen rabbi in the basement. It’s a family tradition,”. Completely intrigued, Bernie is delighted when a power outage frees the old tzaddik, and hides him in the rumpus room for several weeks. These weeks are important for each of them. Bernie quickly learns the mystical Rabbi’s secrets, while the Rabbi obsessively watches TV and learns about the modern world. One observation: “ If a man to other men will sell his wife, is not obliged Reb Springer to cleave open his breast and tear out his farkokte heart?”

Through a series of flashbacks, it emerges that the rabbi, who lived in the village of Boibicz in1889, was in the habit of meditating near a small lake. While meditating, the holy man would leave his body and commune with the angels and God. While out of his body one day, a dreadful flood filled the area, and the body of the Rabbi was lost. A few years later, an ice cutter and his son found the Rabbi sleeping peacefully under the ice. His followers, in a flurry of indecision over his mortality, cut the block of ice from the lake and kept it in the local icehouse, run by Bernie’s ancestors.

While the block of ice and Bernie’s family travel through time, war, pograms and countries, always caring for their icebound charge, the modern story continues. The Rabbi, now thoroughly modernized, creates a New House of Enlightenment and almost overnight becomes a spiritual celebrity. Bernie, on the other hand, embraces the Rabbi’s old Jewish mysticism and starts leaving his body, often at inconvenient times. The kids at his school take advantage of this, and take to stuffing him in lockers, etc. until he is befriended by another loner, Lou Ella. Then his out-of-body experiences become inconvenient for another reason: “If you can’t take me with you, at least bring me something back”. The moral dilemma of the book comes from Bernie’s deepening faith as the Rabbi becomes a spiritual con artist. Yet Bernie believes in the old man, despite appearances. And in the end, they are united in a bizarre twist.

Funny’ absurd, and whimsical: of course. Full of Jewish history and traditions: naturally. Moving and often profound: sometime surprisingly. I loved Bernie’s family, and why each took on the care of the terribly inconvenient frozen charge. This is an absolute charmer of a book, and often asks some hard questions of faith. I haven’t read Steve Stern before, and that is an oversight I intend to rectify immediately

To Buy This Book

Publisher: Algonquin Books (May 11, 2010)

ISBN-13: 978-1565126190