Sadly, reading time is one of the most expendable, easily removable items on our to do list. When things are extra hectic, when the busy-meter is overflowing, we often surrender our reading time to make room on our schedule for something more important, or at least more immediate.

I found, quite by accident, a way to sneak a little extra reading time into my schedule during the busier seasons in my life.  It started when I found myself at work one day without my customary brown bag lunch and also without a lunching companion.  For some reason, no one likes to go out to eat alone.  There is something demeaning about sitting all alone at a restaurant table, as if it is an admission that you have no friends.

Loathe as I was to go out to lunch by myself, hunger and circumstance conspired against me.  Almost as an afterthought, I grabbed a half-finished book from the bookshelf on the way out of my office.  Normally, I only take about 20 minutes to eat, but this day I spent the full lunch hour away from my desk.  I sat and I read and I enjoyed endless iced tea refills long after I was done eating.

Now, I try to work in a reading lunch once a week.  The stigma of eating alone is gone.  My book and I are happy dining companions with no thought to appearances.  When there is “no time to read”, I just make time.  After all, I’ve always got time to eat.

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Beloved is a Pulitzer Prize-winning historical fiction novel that is possibly Morrison’s greatest piece. The name of the protagonist is a former-slave, Sethe. In her home called 124, she lives with her daughter Denver. She has been living there for 18 years, having run away from a plantation called Sweet Home but still does not feel free. They are haunted by the ghost of Sethe’s baby, who died without a name, but with a tombstone engraved with a solitary word, “Beloved”. Paul D, also a former slave on the plantation that Sethe used to work on, comes to 124 and becomes part of their life. However, he is not the only one who comes to 124; the past that Sethe has tried to forget will not fade; in fact, it manifests itself in the form of a young woman, who calls herself Beloved. Beloved is a captivating tale, and reveals much about the effects of slavery, both on the slaves and those that enslaved them. As its jacket describes, it is “filled with bitter poetry and suspense as taut as a rope.”

Toni Morrison just might be today’s Hemingway. She saw her 79th birthday this past February. I hope that she sees many more birthdays and that Americans recognize this great novelist while she continues to live among us. Her words undoubtedly will live forever.

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I initially did not think that it was going to be a book about automobiles and roads, but, much to my surprise, it was! I suppose that because my dad was “reading” it, that should have been a dead giveaway that the book really was going to be about what the title said it was going to be about, but still, I was pleasantly surprised.

Written by Tom Vanderbilt, Traffic is not only an examination of highway engineering but also an enlightening look at the psychology of human beings behind the steering wheels. For instance, even in the introduction he starts off by writing about the wonders of becoming a late merger rather than an early one. He writes about facts, such as how 12.7 percent of the traffic slowdown after a crash has nothing to do with wreckage blocking lanes, but rather by gawkers, but he also puts his opinion into his work.

This book is remarkably accurate and humorous. It makes you think about how you drive and how solutions that you think of to solve traffic problems, like simply adding another lane, will probably not work. I am surprised that there are not any other books that are truly like this– except a few textbooks. Anyone who has ever driven in traffic will enjoy some aspect of this book; I am sure that you also will learn something as well.

Named Amazon’s best of the month in July 2008, this book is a pleasure to read.

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Brooklyn: A Novel (Colm Toibin)

Set in the 1950s, Brooklyn is the story of Eilis Lacey, a 15-year-old from Enniscorthy, Ireland, who travels to the US after World War II as an immigrant. Sponsored by Father Flood, a priest who travels from Ireland to America and back to help other immigrants find jobs in New York, Eilis left her older sister and mother behind to start a new life in Brooklyn. She has luck finding a job as an employee at a high-end department store, where she meets Tony, an Italian from a big family. But, all of a sudden, Eilis receives bad news from home, forcing her to go back and confront her old life.

Beautiful Creatures (Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl)

On the outside, other teenagers would have been jealous of Ethan Wate’s “perfect” life. But Ethan cannot wait to get out of the town of Gatlin, South Carolina. He is suddenly haunted by dreams of a beautiful woman, a woman he’s never met, until the day Lena Duchannes moves to Gatlin. Lena struggles to keep her life a secre,t but it’s not easy with Ethan wanting to know everything about her. Designed as series of five books, Beautiful Creatures has been optioned by Warner Bros.

Crazy For The Storm: A Memoir Of Survival (Norman Ollestad)

As a boy, Norman Ollestad, Jr., was full of adventures, courtesy of his father, Norman Ollestad, Sr. Papa Ollestad always took Little Norm on ski trips, surfing adventures and other outdoor adventures and always left him to care for himself. Tired from their ski trips, Papa Ollestad would give Little Norm the keys to the car to drive them back home. Little Norm yearned for “birthday parties and chocolate cake” but his dad always kept him on his toes.

But this fact proved essential in 1979, when he was in a plane crash in the snowy mountains with his father, his father’s girlfriend and the pilot. He was 11. His father and the pilot instantly died, but he survived along with his father’s girlfriend. And all those “adventures” proved to have a purpose. He used the skills he learned from them to survive and climb down the mountains.

Be sure to run to your nearest bookstore or library to get these books.

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Although English is her second language, Gorokhova is able to use it with such skill. She has a way of describing things and putting words together that reading the book is like reading a long poem with complex but perfect rhythm. Look at how the book opens, these first two paragraphs have so much power, they set everything in place and prepare you for what sweet pain comes in the next 300 pages:

I wish my mother had come from Leningrad, from the world of Pushkin and the tsars, of granite embankments and lace ironwork, of pearly domes buttressing the low sky. Leningrad’s sophistication would have infected her the moment she drew her first breath, and all the curved façades and stately bridges, marinated for more than two centuries in the city’s wet, salty air, would have left a permanent mark of refinement on her soul.

But she didn’t. She came from the provincial town of Ivanovo in central Russia, where chickens lived in the kitchen and a pig squatted under the stairs, where streets were unpaved and houses made from wood. She came from where they lick plates.

If you read this book, you must have a handkerchief near, there are many parts of this book that can make you cry. You will cry because you will feel the author’s pain, you will cry because you will feel the author’s little joys, you will cry because you will see how frail the human soul is, and yet feel how sturdy it is. This book is a gem, you must read it.

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And so it is with some trepidation that I embark upon reading the sixth installment in the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker’s Trilogy.   In the past, the release of a new Hitchhiker’s book is a minor holiday in my home, replete with celebration, the use of iconic references that nobody else gets, and the requisite trip to the bookstore on the day of release in order to ensure that none of my friends can get their hands on the book before I do.

This time, not so much.  I picked up the book at the library the other night.  I’ve only read a few pages so far.  So, what’s the difference?

Douglas Adams died almost nine years ago.  This isn’t some unfinished manuscript that was found in the bottom of a filing cabinet in a disused lavatory concealed by a sign that says “beware the leopard”  (that’s another one of those annoying references that nobody gets).  This is a new book, written by a new author, and I am skeptical.

Not that Eoin “it’s pronounced ‘Owen’” Colfer is a new author in the sense that he’s new to being an author.  He’s actually quite accomplished.  I’ve never read any of the Artemis Fowl books, but I understand they’re excellent, in their own way that is almost, but not quite, completely unlike the way in which The Hitchhiker’ Guide books are excellent.

So, this is my pre-read post on the book.  I’ll dutifully report back with my findings, good or bad, once I’ve given And Another Thing a fair and impartial read.  I hope I love it, but Colfer definitely has an uphill battle ahead of him to win over Adams’ loyal and slightly goofy fanbase.

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Thurston was a significant figure in the Harlem Renaissance and produced much work during this time, partly as a result of her study of anthropology at Barnard College. However, the beginning of the Depression marked the end of freedom in writing, and when Thurston continued to try to publish books that were considered too “free,” she found it more and more difficult to find publishers. In 1937, she managed to publish what is now her most famous novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, but it was highly criticized and quickly disappeared from circulation. Richard Wright, a respected novelist at that time, claimed that it was not “serious fiction … carries no theme, no message, no thought.” Throughout the novel, Thurston uses Black Vernacular English (writing “dem” instead of “them” or “Ah” instead of “I”), and critics believed that this lowered respect for the black community. However, her choice to do so is a theme of the novel, control of language. She switched between Standard Written English and the Black Vernacular to emphasize a search for voice. Is it more important to write “properly” or to capture life realistically?

Alice Walker located Thurston’s grave in 1973, and published an essay in 1975, entitled “In Search of Zora Neale Hurston” that sparked the more current and consistent interest in Hurston that never seemed to exist in her own lifetime. Will great authors ever be recognized before they are on their deathbeds? It doesn’t seem to happen very often. Today, Their Eyes Were Watching God deservedly has found its way onto several esteemed literary canons. A book once in and out of circulation, difficult to acquire for 30-some-odd years, finally found its home. Walker marked her grave fittingly: “A Genius of the South.”

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Jill Lauren has written a book that addresses the issues of learning differently.  That’s Like Me! shares the stories of people for whom school was difficult.  She shares not only their struggles, but more importantly, their triumphs.  As children read this book, they will realize that they aren’t alone, that other people have grappled with learning and succeeded.

As you read this book, you will learn about people of differing ages and with different educational struggles who have found success.  From a sixth grader who is a talented soccer player to a veterinarian to a trapeze artist who performs in circuses around the world, you will learn about each person’s struggles and how each found his or her strength.

Just as the title says, children will read this book and declare, “That’s like me!”  In addition to realizing that they aren’t the only ones who struggle in such a manner, they will see that success can and will happen.

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She thought that her life had gone to shambles. As every day went by in the hospital Cami thought that she was going to end up in a wheelchair, that her husband was going to leave her, that she was going to lose her job, and more. Then, one day, she was given an uncommon prescription from a friend, an African medicine woman named Mbali Creazzo. Mbali Creazzo told her to give away 29 gifts in 29 days.  “By giving,” Mbali told her, “you are focusing on what you have to offer others, inviting more abundance into your life.” These gifts did not have to cost a lot; they could be anything.  For instance, the gift could be a Kleenex for a crying friend, a painted rock, or a phone call. However, the requirement was that the gifts had to be both authentic and mindful and at least one had to be something she felt was scarce in her life.

29 Gifts is a memoir of those 29 days in Cami’s life. It is the unforgettable story about embracing the natural process of giving and receiving. It is a passionate account of all of the days of her journey and how she was healed. Through this process, Cami was able to start walking without a cane, and she developed a website. She started an effort to have people spread the gift of gifting–such as organizing groups of people to hand out flowers on the street.

This book also includes personal essays from other people in the world who tried this form of “medicine” and whose lives changed for the better by giving to people. The book carries a very powerful message and meaning to it that entrances you. You cannot help but want to give as much as you can to the world as you read through the pages.

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Let The Great World Spin (Colum McCann)

Award-winning novelist Colum McCann has released his best novel yet. Let The Great World Spin is about New York City and its people in the 1970s. Corrigan is a radical and young Irish monk, who lives among prostitutes in the Bronx. Mothers gather to grieve for their sons who died in Vietnam. Tillie, a grandmother at 38, continues to play tricks with her teenage daughter to provide for her family and assess her self-worth. These and other stories make up the world of Let the Great World Spin. Read how McCann will unravel all of them.

Strength In What Remains (Tracy Kidder)

Strength In What Remains recounts the amazing story of Deogracias and his escape from massive ethnic violence in Burundi, only to end up escaping from genocide in Rwanda. He finally escapes to New York City, where he is given a new lease on life. In this book, Kidder shows us what happened to Deo in the past and how he has coped with the memories until the present day. He perseveres in America, struggling through sleepless nights, little money and even little English. He pushes through and reaches Columbia University, a medical degree and American citizenship. Today, he goes back to Burundi and offers all the help he can give, which Kidder also has successfully recounted in the book.

Wolf Hall (Hilary Mantell)

Many novels and books have been written about Henry VIII and his many wives. But few have been written about Henry VIII’s closest adviser, Thomas Cromwell. In Wolf Hall, Mantel tells the story of  Thomas Cromwell, who does not meddle in Henry VIII’s personal affairs and only is concerned about the future of a free England. Combining fiction and fact, Wolf Hall shows us a great story about Thomas Cromwell and how he was able to influence the events that led to the creation of the Church of England.

More books next time!

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