SHS BEST BOOKS OF
by Sherry Neimann
October 03, 2008
Seneca High School’s
Best Books of 2007-2008
“What Teachers & Staff Are Reading”
Wild Fire, by Nelson DeMille. Submitted by: Chris Jackson.
As reviewed by: Publishers Weekly
New York City police detective– turned–terrorist hunter John Corey and his FBI agent wife, Kate, head to the Adirondacks to investigate the murder of a fellow agent and, not coincidentally, to stop a right-wing madman from nuking two major American cities and starting World War III. In previous adventures, Corey has been a welcome reminder of the wise-cracking hard-boiled heroes of yore. Here he dances close enough to the edge of self-parody that a narrator unfamiliar with the earlier novels might have been tempted to employ the kind of insouciant smart-aleck approach that would have turned the character into a cartoon figure and flatlined the book's suspense. As Brick states in a 20-minute chat with the author, he's been a longtime DeMille fan and past narrator of two Corey adventures. Brick sees past the character's wisecracks, tempering his brags and brays with a humanizing hint of self-doubt, suggesting that purpose and simmering anger lurk beneath the glib nonsense. He's equally adept at catching the villain's upper class arrogance and Kate's controlled, no-nonsense approach to life. He can switch attitudes and voices in a split second. Brick turns the talky book into an entertaining and effective full-cast comedy-drama. Simultaneous release with the Warner hardcover (Reviews, Sept. 11) (Nov.)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information
Nineteen Minutes,by Jodi Picoult. Submitted by: Kim Sedlock.
As reviewed by: Publishers Weekly
Bestseller Picoult (My Sister's Keeper) takes on another contemporary hot-button issue in her brilliantly told new thriller, about a high school shooting. Peter Houghton, an alienated teen who has been bullied for years by the popular crowd, brings weapons to his high school in Sterling, N.H., one day and opens fire, killing 10 people. Flashbacks reveal how bullying caused Peter to retreat into a world of violent computer games. Alex Cormier, the judge assigned to Peter's case, tries to maintain her objectivity as she struggles to understand her daughter, Josie, one of the surviving witnesses of the shooting. The author's insights into her characters' deep-seated emotions brings this ripped-from-the-headlines read chillingly alive. (Mar.)
Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen. Submitted by: Sherry Neimann.
As reviewed by: Publishers Weekly
With its spotlight on elephants, Gruen's romantic page-turner hinges on the human-animal bonds that drove her debut and its sequel (Riding Lessons and Flying Changes)-but without the mass appeal that horses hold. The novel, told in flashback by nonagenarian Jacob Jankowski, recounts the wild and wonderful period he spent with the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth, a traveling circus he joined during the Great Depression. When 23-year-old Jankowski learns that his parents have been killed in a car crash, leaving him penniless, he drops out of Cornell veterinary school and parlays his expertise with animals into a job with the circus, where he cares for a menagerie of exotic creatures, including an elephant who only responds to Polish commands. He also falls in love with Marlena, one of the show's star performers-a romance complicated by Marlena's husband, the unbalanced, sadistic circus boss who beats both his wife and the animals Jankowski cares for. Despite her often clich d prose and the predictability of the story's ending, Gruen skillfully humanizes the midgets, drunks, rubes and freaks who populate her book. (May 26) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Audacity of Hope, by Barack Obama. Submitted by: Jeff Maierhofer.
As reviewed by: Publishers Weekly
Obama reads his own words with the conviction and strength that listeners would expect from the Ilinois Democratic senator. The audacity of his hope echoes in each sentence he speaks as he lays the groundwork for reclaiming the values and inner strength that makes the United States so grand. While Obama is a great public speaker, those same skills could be overwhelming within the confines of an audiobook. Listeners will rejoice that he does not turn this reading opportunity into a six-hour speech. Instead, his cadence, speed and tone work to bring the listener from point to point, building inspiration through provocative thought rather than intense voice and personal charisma. Political inclinations will determine whether Obama's solutions or intentions are valued or disregarded. However, in his sincerest moments, he seizes hold of the problems plaguing the nation while criticizing both sides' failure to grasp the actual problem and to become bogged down in petty politics. He emphasizes the complexity of politics in a pluralist country spread out over millions of square miles. But even in his exploration of the political landscape, he does not hesitate to admit to his own limitations within the system. Simultaneous release with the Crown hardcover (Reviews, Oct. 2). (Nov.)
Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls. Submitted by: Nichole Olson.
As reviewed by: Publishers Weekly
Freelance writer Walls doesn't pull her punches. She opens her memoir by describing looking out the window of her taxi, wondering if she's "overdressed for the evening" and spotting her mother on the sidewalk, "rooting through a Dumpster." Walls's parents-just two of the unforgettable characters in this excellent, unusual book-were a matched pair of eccentrics, and raising four children didn't conventionalize either of them. Her father was a self-taught man, a would-be inventor who could stay longer at a poker table than at most jobs and had "a little bit of a drinking situation," as her mother put it. With a fantastic storytelling knack, Walls describes her artist mom's great gift for rationalizing. Apartment walls so thin they heard all their neighbors? What a bonus-they'd "pick up a little Spanish without even studying." Why feed their pets? They'd be helping them "by not allowing them to become dependent." While Walls's father's version of Christmas presents-walking each child into the Arizona desert at night and letting each one claim a star-was delightful, he wasn't so dear when he stole the kids' hard-earned savings to go on a bender. The Walls children learned to support themselves, eating out of trashcans at school or painting their skin so the holes in their pants didn't show. Buck-toothed Jeannette even tried making her own braces when she heard what orthodontia cost. One by one, each child escaped to New York City. Still, it wasn't long before their parents appeared on their doorsteps. "Why not?" Mom said. "Being homeless is an adventure." Agent, Jennifer Rudolph Walsh. (Apr.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Federal Bodysnatchers and the New Guinea Virus: Tales of Parasites, People, and Politics, by Robert Desowitz. Submitted by: Andy Jackson.
From the Publisher
Twenty years ago the world slept, confident that biomedical science would protect it from devastating plagues. Our wake-up call sounded at the outbreak of the AIDS epidemic. Then came more unfamiliar pathogens in its wake, such as the West Nile virus. Meanwhile, the neglected diseases of the third world, including malaria and African sleeping sickness, festered—their victims salvageable only by unaffordable, patent-protected drugs. Robert S. Desowitz traces the histories of these diseases and the issues we must confront—the morality and legality of patent laws, the effect of global warming on epidemics, public support for the commercial biochemical industry, the growing dissociation of clinicians and public health professionals, and the terrifying shadow of bioterrorism.
Playing for Pizza, by John Grisham. Submitted by: Mary Martin.
As reviewed by: Publishers Weekly
Christopher Evan Welch kicks and scores with his engaging narration of Grisham's charming tale of touchdowns and tortellini. Rick Dockery, a 28-year-old third-string NFL quarterback, is playing for the Cleveland Browns. In the final minutes of a decisive game, Rick is brought off the bench to disastrous results. The Browns lose the game and a chance at going to the Super Bowl. After he is unceremoniously dumped by the team, the quarterback agrees to play for a small but tenacious team called the Parma Panthers-whose playing field is in Parma, Italy. Welch perfectly captures the tone for this humorous and often touching fish-out-of-water story. Welch brings the listener along with Rick, as the young quarterback painfully adjusts to the strange new world he's thrust into. He brings to life Rick's discovery of Italy, with all its history and colorful characters. Especially delicious are the descriptions of the rich Italian foods that Rick and his teammates seem to constantly consume. By the end of the book, listeners will be seeking out the nearest Italian trattoria. Simultaneous release with the Doubleday hardcover (Reviews, Sept. 24). (Oct.)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information
The Lovely Bones,by Alice Sebold. Submitted by: Mary Martin.
As reviewed by: New Yorker
Sebold takes an enormous risk in her wonderfully strange début novel: her narrator, Susie Salmon, is dead -- murdered at the age of fourteen by a disturbed neighbor -- and speaks from the vantage of Heaven. Such is the author's skill that from the first page this premise seems utterly believable. Susie's voice has all the inflections of a smart teen-ager's, by turns inquisitive, sarcastic, and wistful; unplacated by Heaven, she watches as her family falls apart and her friends resume their lives without her. Sebold slips easily from the ordinary pleasures of a suburban childhood (cutting class; the first kiss) to moments of eerie beauty (a cloud of souls, "all of them clamoring at once inside the air"). If in the end she reaches too far, the book remains a stunning achievement.
Nickled and Dimed: On Not Getting by in America,by Barbara Ehrenreich. Submitted by: Jenna Maierhofer.
New York Times Book Review - Dorothy Gallagher
We have Barbara Ehrenreich to thank for bringing us the news of America's working poor so clearly and directly, and conveying with it a deep moral outrage and a finely textured sense of lives as lived. As Michael Harrington was, she is now our premier reporter of the underside of capitalism.
Reviving Ophelia, by Mary Pipher. Submitted by: Jenna Maierhofer.
As reviewed by: Publishers Weekly
From her work as a psychotherapist for adolescent females, Pipher here posits and persuasively argues her thesis that today's teenaged girls are coming of age in ``a girl-poisoning culture.'' Backed by anecdotal evidence and research findings, she suggests that, despite the advances of feminism, young women continue to be victims of abuse, self-mutilation (e.g., anorexia), consumerism and media pressure to conform to others' ideals. With sympathy and focus she cites case histories to illustrate the struggles required of adolescent girls to maintain a sense of themselves among the mixed messages they receive from society, their schools and, often, their families. Pipher offers concrete suggestions for ways by which girls can build and maintain a strong sense of self, e.g., keeping a diary, observing their social context as an anthropologist might, distinguishing between thoughts and feelings. Pipher is an eloquent advocate. Psychotherapy Book Club selection; BOMC and QPB alternates. (Apr.)
Ophelia Speaks, by Sara Shandler. Submitted by: Jenna Maierhofer.
As reviewed by: Publishers Weekly
Inspired by Mary Pipher's 1994 bestseller Reviving Ophelia, which shed new light on the problems of contemporary female adolescence, Shandler, currently an undergraduate at Wesleyan University, set out to give voice to the real Ophelias, America's teenaged girls — herself included. Just 16 years old when she started this project, Shandler enlisted the help of hundreds of educators, counselors, pastors and administrators to find other girls who wanted to write about the issues most important to them. Ranging from problems with body image and self-mutilation to difficult relationships with parents and other family members, to intense academic pressures, the book is organized by subject and includes entries from dozens of girls across the country. We see girls in distant communities facing similar struggles as they attempt to navigate the pressured and competitive world of adolescence. Judging from the hundreds of contributions Shandler received, the issues these girls raise are weighty ones that our whole society needs be concerned about. Many of the girls write in an intensely personal style, but their concerns should not be written off as diary angst. Shandler has done an admirable job of shaping the disparate pieces into a disturbing mosaic that reveals the seriousness of teenage problems.
The Whistling Season, by Ivan Doig. Submitted by: Kathy Parker.
As reviewed by: Library Journal
Doig, a native of Montana, has been celebrating the natural beauty of his state and depicting the pleasures and challenges of frontier life for many years now in books like This House of Sky and English Creek. Here he returns to Montana to deal with these signature themes once again, with very satisfying results. Set in the early 1900s, this novel is a nostalgic, bittersweet story about a widower, his three sons, and the year these boys spend in a one-room country schoolhouse. The novel begins with the father, Oliver, hiring a widowed housekeeper named Rose from Minneapolis (her advertisement reads "Can't Cook but Doesn't Bite"). She arrives with her unconventional brother, Morrie, in tow. Morrie is something of a scholar, and he soon finds himself pressed into service as a replacement teacher. During the course of the novel, these intriguing and unpredictable characters come together in surprising and uplifting ways. This is an affectionate, heartwarming tale that also celebrates a vanished way of life and laments its passing.
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, by Bill Bryson. Submitted by: Kathy Parker.
As reviewed by: School Library Journal
Adult/High School-The Thunderbolt Kid was "born" in the 1950s when six-year-old Bryson found a mysterious, scratchy green sweater with a satiny thunderbolt across the chest. The jersey bestowed magic powers on the wearer-X-ray vision and the power to zap teachers and babysitters and deflect unwanted kisses from old people. These are the memoirs of that Kid, whose earthly parents were not really half bad-a loving mother who didn't cook and was pathologically forgetful, but shared her love of movies with her youngest child, and a dad who was the "greatest baseball writer that ever lived" and took his son to dugouts and into clubhouses where he met such famous players as Stan Musial and Willie Mays. Simpler times are conveyed with exaggerated humor; the author recalls the middle of the last century in the middle of the country (Des Moines, IA), when cigarettes were good for you, waxy candies were considered delicious, and kids were taught to read with Dick and Jane. Students of the decade's popular culture will marvel at the insular innocence described, even as the world moved toward nuclear weapons and civil unrest. Bryson describes country fairs and fantastic ploys to maneuver into the tent to see the lady stripper, playing hookey, paper routes, church suppers, and more. His reminiscences will entertain a wide audience.-Jackie Gropman, Chantilly Regional Library, Fairfax County, VA Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini. Submitted by: Kathy Parker.
From the Publisher
After
103 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and with
four million copies of The Kite Runner shipped, Khaled
Hosseini returns with a beautiful, riveting, and haunting novel
that confirms his place as one of the most important literary
writers today.
Propelled by the same superb instinct for storytelling that made
The Kite Runner a beloved classic, A Thousand Splendid
Suns is at once an incredible chronicle of thirty years of
Afghan history and a deeply moving story of family, friendship,
faith, and the salvation to be found in love.
Born a generation apart and with very different ideas about love
and family, Mariam and Laila are two women brought jarringly
together by war, by loss and by fate. As they endure the ever
escalating dangers around them-in their home as well as in the
streets of Kabul-they come to form a bond that makes them both
sisters and mother-daughter to each other, and that will ultimately
alter the course not just of their own lives but of the next
generation. With heart-wrenching power and suspense, Hosseini shows
how a woman's love for her family can move her to shocking and
heroic acts of self-sacrifice, and that in the end it is love, or
even the memory of love, that is often the key to survival.
A stunning accomplishment, A Thousand Splendid Suns is a
haunting, heartbreaking, compelling story of an unforgiving time,
an unlikely friendship, and an indestructible love.
