The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

I’m not a huge baseball fan. I mean, I like to have a beer and eat a hot dog as much as the next person (potentially a little more, even) but in terms of watching the game… eh. I realize this is a little un-American to say, but our nation’s pastime can get kind of boring. At least, that’s what I thought until I read Chad Harbach’s debut novel, The Art of Fielding.

Henry Skrimshander was heading nowhere. Literally, he wasn’t going anywhere – born and raised in a mid-sized town in South Dakota, it was looking like he’d be there for a while, until the day that his summer baseball team played against (and lost to) Mike Schwartz’s team. This was the summer after high school had ended for Henry, and he was thinking of settling in at the local community college for a few years, until… what? All he’d ever wanted to do with life was play baseball.

Mike Schwartz, rising sophomore and catcher for the Westish College Harpooners, knew raw talent when he saw it, and see it he did. Suddenly, Henry was on his way to play college ball for Westish, leaving behind a life of working in his father’s metalworking shop or taking classes in bookkeeping to cobble together a career.

Once at Westish, the Harpooners become Henry’s life. Between his jock-friendly classes, team practices, his bench warmer roommate Owen, and Mike’s training regimen, Henry is immersed in baseball, and he thrives in it. By junior year, the recruiters are already hanging on the fences at Harpooners games, waiting to see if Henry can break his hero Aparicio Rodriguez’s record of most consecutive errorless games by a shortstop. As the pressure begins to mount, Henry begins to fail.

It starts with a bad throw made worse by a little bit of wind, and goes downhill from there. Harbach follows Henry’s descent into depression as his confidence is broken and his playing deteriorates rapidly. As the life that Henry has been working towards starts slipping through his fingers, he pulls away from Mike and all that he has held important.

The story is told through a variety of characters, each filling in different holes of the story as it goes forward. Henry, Mike, Owen, Westish College’s President Guert Affenlight, and his estranged daughter Pella, all make up the narrative voice of the story. This was a delightful debut novel. If Harbach can make me care about baseball, I’d like to see more of what he can do.”

Find and reserve this book in our catalog.

Bringing Up Bebe: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting by Pamela Druckerman

Okay, yes, this is sort of a parenting book, and perhaps not the type of book that you’d generally just pick up off the shelf, but it’s a really interesting read, whether or not you’re a parent. (Of course, since I am a parent, that’s easy enough for me to say – I’m game for pretty much anything that might make my kid more awesome.)

Pamela Druckerman was an American journalist living in Paris when she and her British husband started their family. Druckerman was immediately struck by the differences she saw between American and French parenting, and the resulting kids from each of those styles. French kids seemed, in general, to be calmer, less prone to tantrums, and to eat the same meals as everyone else (the concept of the “kids meal” being practically non-existent there.) American kids, on the other hand, are often more outspoken and confident in school, and… um, that might have been the only plus about American kids.

The book really isn’t anti the way we raise our kids in America, however. It shows both the pros and the cons of the French styles, and lets the reader make their own decision about what we might deem “good” or “bad”. Some things I’d steal from the French in a heartbeat (wine list in my hospital room? Well, hello!) and others I’m less inclined to take part in, like what Druckerman refers to as “The Pause,” where French parents wait for up to 15 minutes before tending to their crying infants, to try to understand what they need.

All in all, this was an interesting read, and I learned not only some new techniques I might try when my little one gets older, but also cultural differences between French and American adults that stem from the way we as a society raise our children.

Find and reserve this book in our catalog.

Wonder by R.J. Palacio

Auggie is not your typical fifth grader. Actually, he’s not even a fifth grader, he’s homeschooled. And he’s homeschooled because he has mandibulofacial dystosis which, for those of us not into medical terminology, is a congenital abnormality of the face. Abnormality may be too lightly stating it – Auggie is more than abnormal. His eyes are halfway down his head, and his ears (what he considers to be his worst feature) are squashed, cauliflower like, and in need of hearing aids. He’s had to teach himself to keep his tongue inside of his mouth, and when he eats (slowly, carefully, and only with very small and soft foods) he makes a tremendous mess. This is after a multitude of facial surgeries that have spanned his whole life, however, so he used to be worse off. The doctors didn’t even think he would live.

Although they’ve tried to protect him from the world since birth, it’s time for Auggie to go to school. With other kids. Who are normal.

Wonder tracks the story of Auggie’s first year of school. Middle school is hard on anyone, but for a kid like Auggie? Yikes. The story rotates between a cast of characters, each retelling the same occurrences, but from their own perspectives. I fell in love with Auggie, his big sister Via, his friend Jack, and the rest of the crew almost immediately.

Sometimes funny, sometimes sad (true story: I cried three times while reading it), this book is a great read. I completed it in a day, and am left wondering what sixth grade will bring (though author Palacio has already said that she’s not planning a sequel.) While officially a kid’s book, I would recommend this for any age.

Find and reserve this book in our catalog.

Earth Unaware by Orson Scott Card

I didn’t discover Ender’s Game until my early 20s, when we found each other and fell in love.  After that, I read the first two sequels in the series (Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide) which I enjoyed, but didn’t want to get sucked into an epically long series (now 14 books long) when there are so many other wonderful books to read. Until, that is, I heard that Orson Scott Card was writing a prequel to my beloved Ender’s Game, covering the time directly before the Formics arrived in our solar system

Earth Unaware follows three separate stories; that of the ship El Cavador, home to a family of Venezualan free-miners, which becomes closely intertwined with the story of a corporate ship captained by Lem Jukes, son of the notorious (and incredibly wealthy) Ukko Jukes of Juke Limited, and finally, that of Wit O’Toole, head of the Mobile Operations Police (MOPs) an “elite international peacekeeping force,” as he seeks new recruits for his team.

When an object is picked up on El Cavador’s radar moving very fast and toward Earth, the residents of the ship know two things; that whatever it is can’t be human, and that it could change the future of human civilization as they know it. Their long-range communication devices are down thanks to a recent skirmish with Lem Jukes’ ship, which is now, ironically, the only one that El Cavador is close enough to spread the news to.

Earth Unaware tracks the actions of both ships as they try to relay word of the alien ship to Earth, and of the MOPS, as they attempt to anticipate the unexpected and to prepare for anything. If you’ve read Ender’s Game, I think you know what’s coming…

Find and reserve this book in our catalog

The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta

Imagine if your whole family disappeared, and you were the only one left. Or maybe it was your best friend who was suddenly gone, or that kid you went to elementary school with, or your mailman. It might have been The Rapture that took them, but there’s no real way to know. They’re gone, and you’re still here. You’re one of the leftovers.

On October 14th, thousands of people suddenly disappeared from earth, leaving their friends, families, and worldly goods behind.  The Sudden Departure, as it came to be known, changed the shape of things across the world – religious groups were sparked, new philosophies and movements ran rampant, and the “survivors” had to learn to cope with losing their loved ones, and also with not being chosen themselves.

Tom Perrotta’s most recent book (named one of the best books of 2011 by NPR, the New York Times, and Kirkus, among others) takes you inside the lives and minds of the Garvey family and portrays the aftermath of the Sudden Departure on each family member. Although the events of October 14th didn’t directly affect the Garveys (parents Laurie and Kevin and their two teenage children, Jill and Tom, are all survivors,) they will never be the same. Laurie joins a cult of silent “watchers,” who are tasked with (silently) reminding those around them of what has happened. Kevin, now effectively a single parent, does his best to care for Jill and her friend Aimee (whose mother is among the missing.) While searching for love and companionship to help ease his pain, Kevin finds Nora, who has lost a husband and two young children – her entire family.

And then there are the kids.  Jill is an “Eyewitness” — she was there when her friend Jen disappeared — and has filled in her sadness with drugs and alcohol and sex. Tim is absent from the rest of the family after dropping out of college and not returning home, but has joined another sort of cult and traveled the country spreading their word. Now unsure about the choices he has made, Tim begins to question what he should do next.

I’ve read some criticism about The Leftovers lacking a real ending, but the way Perrotta closed the book left me feeling hopeful and excited for each character. He doesn’t complete the individual story lines, but shows the direction their new lives are heading.

The only other Perrotta book I’ve read is Little Children , which I also really enjoyed. Next I’ll pick up either Election  or The Abstinence Teacher – any recommendations on which is the better?

Find and reserve this book in the catalog.

The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker

My sister recommended this book to me a while back, and then proceeded to talk about it constantly when I visited her a couple of months ago. Every other sentence out of her mouth was “Gift of Fear this” or “Gift of Fear that,” to the extent that we mocked her relentlessly about her joining the cult of the Gift of Fear.

But then I read it, and drank the Kool-Aid, too. De Becker’s target demographic is women, but really, I think anyone could benefit from his advice, which can be summed up by saying follow your intuition. Maybe 420 pages is a lot to pages to say just that, but de Becker gives concrete examples of situations that can occur (or on the other hand, fizzle out before they even become a situation) by listening to yourself and how you feel about the people who come into your life.

Have you ever felt uncomfortable about someone or something, but reasoned that since you didn’t have any good cause to be wary, you should just go ahead and be nice, or accommodating, or whatever else we’re taught to be? According to de Becker, you should go ahead and distance yourself from this person – your discomfort is reason enough.

Especially interesting to me was how predictive de Becker is of the media’s portrayal of events and the people who commit them. The Gift of Fear was written the year before the Columbine High School massacre, but his profiling of the killers of that and other attacks seems spot on. With the Colorado theater shooting and Sikh temple shooting in Wisconsin still fresh in our minds, this is a worthwhile book for all to read. Although those events may have not been preventable on the days of the attacks, there were probably signs in advance that those around the killers should have seen.

Find and request this book in our catalog.

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

People have been recommending this book to me for the last three years and I have been completely resistant to its charms, mostly because of how it has been described to me – something along the lines of “it’s about a hostage situation, but also about opera.” Bo-ring. Or so I thought.

After having any book recommended to me often enough, I’ll eventually try it, which is how I wound up with a copy of Bel Canto on my nightstand, waiting to be read. The story is loosely based on the Japanese embassy hostage crisis that occurred in Lima, Peru in 1996 when the terrorist group the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement took hundreds of government officials hostage, some for as long as 126 days. In Patchett’s fictionalized retelling, a Japanese businessman, Mr. Hosokawa, visits an undisclosed location in South America for a party honoring his birthday. Although invited in the hopes that he would bring business to the area, Hosokawa’s sole reason for attending is the evening’s entertainment – opera singer Roxane Coss. An avid opera-goer, Hosokawa is enchanted by her voice and jumps at the chance for a semi-private performance.

As Roxane and her accompanist finish their recital, armed terrorists descend upon the party in an attempt to make demands of the President, who was presumed to be in attendance (though was in fact at home, watching his soap opera.) What follows is the story of a group of disparate people from different cultures, speaking different languages, and how they help each other survive, hostages and terrorists alike. Some people might say that music becomes the common language for the characters in this book, but I don’t really think that’s true – it gives people something to do with their days, and something to occupy their minds, but the common language is perhaps time; how much of it they have left, and how to best spend what they do have.

The narrative weaves together different characters’ stories and shows how they build a life together over the several months that the hostage situation lasts. The book ends in much the same way that the Japanese Embassy hostage crisis did (so, sorry if I just ruined it for you) and a brief epilogue gives the reader a glimpse into what life after the event looks like for two couples.

This was my first Ann Patchett novel, and I’ll definitely come back for more.

For another perspective on this book, take a look at Brandy H.’s review of it on our blog two years ago.

Find and reserve this book in our catalog.

The Bellwether Revivals by Benjamin Wood

This book had me at “Part Secret History, part Brideshead Revisited.” The Secret History by Donna Tartt is hands down one of my favorite books – it has the perfect blend of academia, creepy siblings, and the elite. With that kind of review, I immediately snagged an e-galley of Bellwether Revivals, but didn’t get a chance to actually read it until it had hit the shelves of the library and the cover art caught my eye, leading me back to my copy.

Debut novelist Benjamin Wood sets the scene in picturesque Cambridge, moving between the spires and cobbled pathways of King’s College and the lush surrounding countryside that holds the family home of the Bellwethers. The book starts near the end of the story, an ending marked with a cold wind blowing through the grounds of the Bellwether Estate, flashing police lights, and bodies, though we don’t know whose.

And then, as if we had never been a part of that scene, we’re brought back to some previous time, when Oscar, a bookish but working class nurse’s assistant stumbles into the lives of the Bellwethers. Lulled into the college chapel by the melodies of an organ unlike any Oscar has ever heard, he meets Iris Bellwether, sister to the organist, Eden. The Bellwethers exist in a world that Oscar has only glimpsed — one of privilege and academia and, above all, music. The siblings and their small but tight-knit group of friends are similarly intrigued by Oscar’s life in all its job-holding, bill-paying, apartment-dwelling glory.

It is music that brings them together, and music that separates the six. Eden falls deeper and deeper into his own obsessions, believing that his organ gives him the ability to perform miracles. I don’t want to spoil the ending by revealing much more, but as Eden began his downward spiral, I kept thinking back to the opening scene of the book, wondering when and where those bodies would pop back up.

Find and reserve this book in our catalog.

The Year of the Gadfly by Jennifer Miller

When author Jennifer Miller contacted me through Goodreads to recommend that I read her book, she had clearly done her research. She’d seen how much I enjoyed Special Topics in Calamity Physics and figured that her debut novel, The Year of the Gadfly, would be right up my alley. Its part coming-of-age story set at a New England prep school, part mystery that spans 13 years and three perspectives, and all sinister secret societies, gothic architecture, and intrigue.

Iris’s recent loss of her best friend, not to mention being caught by her concerned parents while talking to her imaginary mentor, Edward R. Murrow, land her in a new school in a new town with a new start. Wanting to become a hard-nosed reporter, dedicated to discovering the truth and uncovering injustices in the world, Iris joins the school newspaper, The Oracle. Her pitches for stories are repeatedly rejected in favor of fluff pieces, and Iris begins to nose around into the reasons behind the cover ups and lies that seem so rampant at Mariana Academy.

The history of the school begins to unwind, slowly at first, and then more and more quickly. The story skips between Iris, her biology teacher Jonah Kaplan (a Mariana Academy alum), and Lily Morgan, a classmate of Jonah’s who grew up in the house that Iris’s family now rents. Jonah and Lily’s stories intertwine and skirt around the truth of what happened at Mariana 12 years before, leading to the death (or perhaps suicide?) of Jonah’s brother (and Lily’s boyfriend), Justin.

I don’t want to say much more and spoil anything for you, so pick this up and try it out for yourself. And if you enjoy this one, be sure to take a look at Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl, The Lake of Dead Languages by Carol Goodman and The Secret History by Donna Tartt.

Find and reserve this book in our catalog.

Sybil Exposed: the Extraordinary Story Behind the Famous Multiple Personality Case by Debbie Nathan

I’m of the wrong era to have been obsessed with Sybil and her multiple personalities, and have never read the book or seen the movies, but I always have an interest in reading books about mental health, and this one was recommended highly to me.

I think we all know the basic premise of Sybil: a young woman, while under psychiatric care, manifests some 16 personalities, ranging from Ruthie (a baby) to Peggy Lou (assertive and angry) to The Blonde (an optimistic teen.) The book was released in 1973 and helped popularize the diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder (then called multiple personality disorder.)

Author Debbie Nathan re-examines the famous case under a new lens, and posits that not only was the diagnosis a hoax but that Sybil’s psychoanalyst, Dr. Connie Wilbur, had been searching for a patient with multiple personalities to make her famous. Shirley Ardell Mason (referred to as Sybil in the resulting book and movie in order to protect her identity) was in her 20s when she began seeing Dr. Wilbur, and her condition quickly declined. Although Mason had always had some amount of psychological issues, the 16 personalities that developed over time came about only while under psychological supervision.

Nathan’s research into Mason’s story is extensive, and, although Dr. Wilbur’s case files are sealed, documents from the archives and library of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice are used to support Nathan’s theory. The resulting book tells an alternate history of the still famous story and discredits aspects of the field of psychology, especially as relating to multiple personality disorder. I thoroughly enjoyed this read, and now have plans to go back and read the original book Sybil and then watch the 1976 version of the movie starring Sally Fields.

Find and request this book in our catalog.