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Hallmarks of a page-turner: 1. A striking premise
2. Suspense
3. Invisible writing
For good measure, toss in some potent personalities twining into ardent connections, and ka-bam. That's one tasty piece of reading. (Available in April)
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Crows and Cards
Short version: Love the cover? Then read the book - the innards don't disappoint. Long version: Take the premise of A Drowned Maiden's Hair, substitute a den of riverboat gamblers for the old-lady spiritualists, and you'll have a taste of the flavor of Crows and Cards. Unlike Maud from DMH, there's no question our hero's a naive, but Zeb stops shy of being a total noodlehead, and he's got spunk to boot. Even if he's mostly a chicken. Complicate things with a blind Indian chief with a gift for visions, a slave with a propensity for burning three meals a day, a medicine show, and an Indian princess, and you've got yourself an adventure Tom Sawyer'd be proud of. Aside: Part of me halfway expected Chilly, with his flimflam schemes and notions of grandeur, to turn out to be the King or the Duke from Huckleberry Finn. No such luck, but it's a fun ride nonetheless. (Available in April)
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The Year the Swallows Came Early
Add this to your list of tough-to-ignore first lines: "We lived in a perfect stucco house, just off the sparkly Pacific, with a lime tree in the backyard and pink and yellow roses gone wild around a picket fence. But that wasn't enough to keep my daddy from going to jail the year I turned eleven." The suspense of what Groovy's daddy's done to land himself in jail lasts for almost 100 pages, until I just about wanted to throttle Groovy's mother - who just so happens to be the one who turned him in in the first place. (Knowing somebody's hoarding details like that will put me over the edge every time - in fiction or real life. Consider yourself warned.) But seeing Groovy's reactions, and how her friends bring her around again more than make up for that when all is said and done. Also, let's hear it for a kid in a novel who wants to be a chef - NOT a writer - when she grows up. And besides all that, if you can resist a book with a protagonist called "Groovy," well, what's the matter with you anyway?
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The Fetch
Here I am, a card-carrying Romanov Fiction Nitpicker. For years I've been studying every accessible cranny of these people's lives right down to their carpeting, which makes me virtually impossible to please when it comes to the myriad details of setting, wardrobe, and personality. It's petty, but just a peek at one misidentified photo can start me off in an imperial snit. And yet this plot (which you can fill yourself in on here) intrigued me enough to squelch my internal flub meter. Also, while the main character, Calder, doesn't recognize the significance of some of the Romanov family scenes he witnesses early on, I sure did, and they gave me the willies - in a good way. Despite my quibbles, I wanted to know what happens - or more precisely, how it happens. Make no mistake, this is purely fantasy, but I don't think I've seen another novel tackle so many aspects of the Romanov/Rasputin mythology, and all without falling back on tired old survival theories. Extra bonus points for working in a role for the oft-forgetten sailor, Nagorny. Sample the first chapter here.
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I cannot tell you how long it's been since I read Make Lemonade or True Believer. However, I can tell you it DOESN'T MATTER. This finale to the trilogy will zoom you right back into LaVaughn's world, and even if you don't remember all the details that came before, you will instantly remember how these characters made you feel. As for what happens? I've heard a reliable rumor that the author is spoiler-sensitive. And holy crap, no wonder. You will find out more about some of these characters than you ever thought to wonder about. (Except for what race they are, of course. Clever author!) So much so, that I'm dying to know if Virginia Euwer Wolff had this plot in mind all along or if it revealed itself to her piecemeal. I'm not sure which would be more impressive. And the cover - what a teaser! (Though you have to see the spine and the flap to know why.)
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Outliers: The Story of Success
Did you know that when I read peppy, engaging non-fiction, the majority of my analytical skills go right out the window? So between closing the book and talking about it, I go review-hunting to see what I might have overlooked. In the case of Outliers, there are some reasonable concerns about anecdotal evidence, lack of counter examples, and the difference between correlation and causation. Fair enough. So maybe Gladwell's ideas about success aren't something you can nail down scientifically. That's a bummer, nevertheless I do think he's onto something about our tendency to mythologize success, particularly how we trim away certain details to make a successful person's life story fit the templates entitled Self Made Man, or Rags to Riches, or Beating the Odds. Some factors of success are out of our control, but some are decidedly within our grasp, and if you ask me, it sure doesn't hurt to be aware of both sides of the equation if you're trying to make a dent in the world.
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100 Days and 99 Nights
There aren't enough books on this topic, let alone sweet, perky-voiced stories that take on a parent's overseas tour of duty at a level a second grader can digest. It's got to be a fine line, validating young military kids' feelings and worries without scaring the pants off them, and I think Madison pulls it off. Bonus points for the chapter titles, which are taken from Esme's alphabetical menagerie of stuffed animals and function as a subtle countdown from Alvin Aardvark to Zelda Zebra.
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The Tipping Point
Ok fine, I was hoping for some more concrete insights on how books become bestsellers - something that would apply to more than Gladwell's example, The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. Because everybody knows bestseller figures are more interesting than the Hush Puppies revival, right? *whistles innocently* Incidentally, according to Gladwell's definition, I think I may qualify as a Romanov Maven.
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Easily my favorite of Gladwell's books. I am endlessly fascinated by the thought of what my brain is doing behind all its locked doors without my noticing. Heaps of nifty stuff to learn in here about autism, facial expressions, marketing, Pepsi vs. Coke, prejudices & stereotypes, and ER diagnoses, to name a few. Want to discover some of your own subconscious associations? Visit Harvard's Project Implicit and try one of the demos. Just prepare to be creeped out now and then by what you REALLY think.
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Still near the top of my list of Books I Wish I'd Written, for about a bazillion reasons. In the audio edition, the shivery touches of background music appealed to me, especially the sneaky snippets of "O Come All Ye Faithful" at the very end.
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The Bone Magician
Not an ideal book to read in scattered fits and starts (a reading method I totally stink at, even with the most straightforward of stories). There's more than a few point-of-view switches, intersecting plotlines, and a slew of bemusing names to keep track of. Once I sat down and devoted more than a 15 minute stretch to reading it, though, the puzzle drew me in, and now I've just GOT to go back to The Black Book of Secrets to see precisely how these two stories are entangled.
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The Beef Princess of Practical County
Quick, name three contemporary children's novels set on farms that don't revolve around literary spiders or fear of losing the family farm. I sure can't. I also can't think of a story since Munro Leaf's 1936 The Story of Ferdinand that manages to evoke such affection for cattle in general and steers in particular. Point being, there aren't enough stories like this. Check out chapter one here to see what I mean.
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Is there any other novel that better conveys the exquisite wickedness of childhood? This has always been one of my favorite books, but I'm only now realizing how gutsy Louise Fitzhugh was in writing it. She knew as well as J.M. Barrie how heartless kids can be, and didn't flinch from showing them in their natural habitat. As far as I can recall, Harriet gave me first serious lesson in snark. It doesn't seem to be a lesson I've forgotten. Heh.
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The Bear Makers
(Somebody please tell me I'm not the only nitwit who didn't know Hungary was a Communist country. Seems like it might be time for me to have a look at what came AFTER the Russian Revolution...) Even though Kata is too young to be politically aware, even though her family is back together and it's safe to tell people she's Jewish again, there's no escaping the new climate of oppression in her country. Sure, we've all know that Communism is oppressive, but until you sit down with a story like this and see how it affects someone's everyday life, you don't really GET it. This is not a plot-driven story, but the atmosphere is inescapable.
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Mouse Guard: Fall 1152
Confession: I am still learning how to read graphic novels. My default method seems to be a glance at the pictures before focusing on the words. (Fail!) But books like this, with appealing art in panels of varying sizes, help me learn to pay attention to the story the pictures have to tell.
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Freeze Frame
One instant, and Kyle's life freezes. His best friend lies dying on the shed floor, and the gun is in Kyle's hands. Only Kyle can't remember how it happened. No matter how many times he tries to reconstruct the scene in his mind, no matter how many ways he replays his mental footage of that morning at 10:46, nothing. I had a hunch how this was all going to turn out -- and I was wrong. The ride was worth it nonetheless, especially for the relationship that evolves between Kyle and his best friend's kid brother. Also, kudos to Heidi Ayarbe for knowing how much to tell about Mr. Cordoba, and how much to leave to her readers to put together.
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If I Stay
