Mann’s earlier work, 1491: Revelations of America Before Columbus, was published in 2005, and warranted immediate accolades. 1491 combines groundbreaking research, and findings from several fields of study to construct a book that will forever change your perception of the native people of North America, and your reaction to European colonization that all but decimated the native populations everywhere they went. Seeing as most people are familiar with Columbus’s actual voyage to America, and because there is already a book out entitled 1492, Mann’s next installment begins after Columbus and his crew set foot on the North American continent for the first time.

Discoveries regarding the economic, human, and agricultural ramifications of Columbus’s voyage by researchers, archaeologists, historians, and geologists have all been compiled within the dense novel. Mann, however, does not present a book full of dull research and beige sets of facts. Mann uses the information to construct an epic history of all human society that can all be traced back to Christopher Columbus and the establishment of a revolutionary world market known as the Columbian Exchange, and how remnants of that exchange alone can be seen in most locations around the world today.

The Columbian Exchange is based on the idea of “Recreating Pangaea,” or reuniting all of the continents through exploration, settlement, and trade, as they once were 250 million years ago when all continents were one. The economic exchange began with the trade of sugar, silver, slaves, and spices between the Americas and Europe. Later on, even more familiar products like wheat and coffee moved in the opposite direction. Diseases, plants, animal, and even insects traveled along these same routes, marking the very first step toward a shared global economy and experience, much like what we have today.

Some of Mann’s most fascinating points include the discovery that Africans, rather than Europeans, were some of the first immigrants to the Americas, and even beat most of the Europeans across the landmass by years. Even earthworms were brought from the soils of Europe to the New World. Mann expresses that Columbus’s explorations had infinite ramifications and can be traced to events and products on all corners of the globe. Even for non-historians, 1493 provides original insights into Columbus’s initial explorations, as well as the way he shaped human history as we know it.

Laura Hillenbrand

Her next book was Unbroken, the biography of the World War II hero Louis Zamperini, published in 2010. If you haven’t heard of Zamperini, then you’re missing out on quite the story. In his youth, Zamperini (now 95 and an international speaker) was a top runner, with a four-minute mile in his sights and an eighth place finish in the 5k at the 1936 Berlin Olympics under his belt. When the war came around, he enlisted in the Army Air Forces. He survived a crash that stranded three of the eleven aboard the plane on a raft for 47 days at sea. And let’s just say that there’s more to the story, but I’ll let Hillenbrand do the rest of the narration for Zamperini’s truly astounding tale. This is truly a story you don’t want to miss.
Hillenbrand has been living with a debilitating condition known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which caused her to cut her college studies short. She is rarely able to leave her home due to her CFS. When asked by the Washington Post (see the article here) to comment on the irony of writing about such physical feats given her own physical state, Hillenbrand revealed what sets her apart from other authors. Her own physical incapacity gives her the drive to escape intellectually; describing another person’s physical accomplishments is her way of “living vicariously.” So that’s how she became a storyteller of nonfiction like no other before her.

The Giver is the story of Jonas, a young boy living in what is originally presented as a utopian society. Everyone coexists harmoniously, spends the day going about their routines as expected, and even shares their feelings with their family at the dinner table. There is no violence, no pain, and no dissent within the community. As per tradition, when Jonas turns twelve, he and the other twelve-year-olds are assigned a job in the community that they will spend the next several years preparing for and the rest of their life fulfilling. While others receive typical jobs in the community such as Caretaker of the Old, Jonas is given a job that causes an unusual stir in the community, as it is one that is rarely given: Receiver.

Jonas’ training is done by the titular character, the Giver, who reveals a new world to Jonas. He begins transferring long-ago memories to Jonas, letting him in on secrets and knowledge: things like color, emotion, climate – all the things that are regulated and unknown to everyone else. Jonas begins to experience the things the community is kept from (true family, the feeling of a warm summer day), as well as the things the community is protected from (loss, and pain in the form of a blistering sunburn). Eventually, Jonas comes to the realization that the benefit of protecting citizens from the negative things in life does not weigh out the drawback of keeping them from the joys life has to offer.

The Giver has received a lot of praise, but also a lot of criticism because of some of the themes being explored in a children’s book. I’ll admit it’s probably a little advanced for most fifth-graders – I read it on my own when I was about that age, but it was done as a unit when I was in middle school. (Amazon.com describes its reading level as ages twelve and up, which puts a potential reader at the same age as Jonas.)

Towards the end of the novel, Jonas needs to decide: stay and remain oppressed, or leave and live free? What does he decide? What happens to him? The ending is ambiguous, so read it and decide for yourself!

As Singh travels off into the wilderness, she is forced to confront a great deal of her past, her choice to switch from obstetrics to pharmaceuticals, and her decision, at forty, to not have any children. Things are complicated by the fact that Dr. Singh’s lover is Dr. Fox, the deep pockets behind the on-going research, but also someone who the researchers hope to keep in the dark for as long as possible.

Patchett managed to keep me on the edge of my seat over and over again as she interspersed jungle survival stories of snakes and seventy year old women giving birth with limited medical supplies with Marina’s very personal search for self.

Despite the jungle setting, the main characters in Patchett’s book are strong women – Dr. Singh, who spends most of the book questioning her decisions, and Dr. Swenson, the 73-year-old woman leading the jungle research. Dr. Swenson is a tough character who has the upper hand in the jungle and manages to instill fear in the hearts of pretty much everyone she meets.The two women are strong contrasts to each other, but also play against each other well to illustrate very effectively their strengths and weaknesses.

While there were times I had to hold my breath because the scene was so exciting, there were also times when the book seemed slightly over constructed. Everything in the book seems to illustrate a very important point the author is trying to make, so much so that it sometimes gets a little bit much. Many characters seem to be constructions to fulfill a point, rather than solidly developed characters.

Overall though, I would give A State of Wonder 4/5 stars. It is well worth a read, and it really is strong writing and a fascinating story. Patchett is a gifted writer and one who is well worth giving a test drive.

In Alice in Wonderland, Alice is bored and ends up following a rabbit and falling down a rabbit hole into an alternate universe.  As she runs through Wonderland, she encounters several different obstacles, from a mad tea party, to a game of croquet with the evil queen.

In Through the Looking Glass, Alice is playing with her cats and is curious about what happens on the other side of mirrors.  So she goes to look in one and practically falls through it.  Where she lands is a total opposite universe; before, it was winter and snowing outside, and now it is a gorgeous summer day in a garden.  She eventually comes upon a giant game of chess, and that is what most of the book is about, her playing her way through the giant, life sized chess game.  When she finally grabs the Red Queen, she unknowingly puts the Red King into “checkmate” and is allowed to wake up.

Now, you may be thinking, “This isn’t Alice in Wonderland, I saw the movie and it was nothing like this.”  Well, the newest movie (which came out in 2010) is almost like a third part to the series.  In the movie, Alice is 19 and well,  it is fairly similar to Alice in Wonderland, but in the movie Alice slays the Jabberwocky.  Which didn’t happen in either book.  In Through the Looking Glass,  Alice reads a poem about the Jabberwocky and someone killing it, but never does herself.

Both these fabulous books are by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, most commonly know by his pseudonym Lewis Carroll.  Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was written in 1865, as one book.

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

What this book is really is a memoir of Amy Chua’s experiences raising her daughters. It recounts the parenting tactics that she used to get her daughters to practice the piano. Oddly enough, she also tells about her dogs, which makes the book a little weird. Pretty much all is about the music and the dogs. The other stuff is just background.

The main reason that this has stirred up so many comments is that she relates this style of parenting to a “Chinese parenting style” while, really, it is Amy Chua’s parenting style. This classification has drawn a lot of criticism from Chinese and Asian parents who are adamantly opposed to some of the tactics she used to get her children to practice, such as withholding dinner for an inordinately long period of time.

The book is certainly self-involved and the writing clearly reflects that. It tends to come off as self-centered and selfish at times — like when she refuses to let the children spend time with their grandmother. It also tends to be honest, and she does put herself out there.

This book will certainly insult more than a few parents, especially those of Chinese descent. While there are some good points and maybe a lesson or two to learn, the book is far too self-involved to be a parenting guide. In fact, it is more an example of what not to do as a parent than it is about what to do as a parent.

If you want to see what the controversy is all about, get a copy from the library. Other than the curiosity factor, there really isn’t much reason to add this book to your collection.

As with the 19th-century novel, the book’s eponymous character is orphaned at the age of 10. Gemma travels from Iceland to live with her kind uncle in Scotland. Unfortunately, he dies, and she becomes the ward of an aunt who is anything but pleased to care for the girl. Gemma is sent away to boarding school soon enough as a “working pupil,” where she is to study but is also treated like a servant by the school authorities.

As in Jane Eyre, Gemma has a friend at the school, and the school gets its eventual comeuppance. Her formal education completed, Gemma takes a job as an au pair in the Orkney Islands, where her ward is the disobedient niece of an aloof banker named Hugh Sinclair. It is as this point where, as one reviewer noted,  Livesey’s story differs most clearly from Brontë’s, but also less convincingly so.

Livesey’s ability to write a, well, lively story is undisputed, and lovers of the written word will find plenty to enjoy as she weaves wit, precision, lyricism, and sympathetic insight into the tale. Rather than painting villains and benefactors in pure black and white, the reader is compelled to acknowledge that people sometimes do bad things because of bad things that have happened to them.

Despite being described as “delicate,” Gemma has the will of iron that readers would expect in a heroine like this, allowing the writer to cast her sharp eye on the human consciousness, laying bare every idiosyncrasy that mankind can conjure through writing that is deft and incisive and, in the author’s own words, stealing from (her) own life.

I read A Long Way Down one summer while working at a golf course. I’d be sitting by the snack shack, ready to give golfers fuel in the form of hot dogs and beer, and they’d inevitably ask me what I was reading. When they questioned the plot, I always hesitated slightly: “It’s a story about four strangers who meet when they all decide to commit suicide on the same night,” sounds a little deranged, but it’s true. The novel is told in alternating viewpoints of the characters – an 18-year-old girl with a penchant for drama, a single mother of a disabled adult son, a struggling American musician, and a former morning show host shamed by a sex scandal – as they decide to put off their suicides and meet three months later to reconsider.

My first introduction to Hornby was through How to Be Good, a novel I read as an assignment in my introductory literature class freshman year of college. Since I had spent high school being forced to read books I didn’t particularly like (with a few exceptions), I was blown away to be reading material I actually enjoyed for an academic class. How to Be Good explores what it means… to be good. Go figure, huh? It focuses on a family of four’s reaction to the father suddenly enlisting the help of a spiritual leader and renovating his life to reflect “good.” This means giving away his children’s toys, inviting homeless strangers into the home, and other extreme behavior. His wife, a physician, struggles with understanding the actions of her “new” husband and tries to decide for herself what “being good” really is.

Hornby’s books tend to be quick reads with a lot of dialogue – not surprising, considering he writes a lot of screenplays and that his books are frequently adapted into movies. Despite addressing bizarre or extreme behavior some of the time, the characters are given backgrounds that make them feel familiar. When I get a chance (or an e-reader for my upcoming birthday… hint, hint!), I’m going to track down some other Hornby novels to give those a try too!

Night is a complete portrayal of Wiesel’s experiences and survival within the Holocaust. Be warned though, it is written in the first person, which effectively brings the reader into the horrors of the Holocaust as if standing right next to Wiesel in the concentration camps. It is anything but an easy read. The story begins with a short background of Wiesel’s Polish-Jewish roots, as well as his childhood. Wiesel was a particularly intelligent, motivated, and fervently Jewish young man, which is seen in his close relations with his family, community, and the synagogue in the 1940’s. As a teenager, Wiesel writes of being forcibly moved into the Warsaw Ghetto, where he began to feel the horrifying effects of the Nazi regime firsthand. Next are the absolutely agonizing chapters in which Wiesel describes the arduous train ride to Auschwitz concentration camp, and the helplessness of the Jews in the situation.

Upon arrival at Auschwitz, the horrors of selection, the gas chambers, and the crematoria are described in colorful and gut-wrenching detail to the reader. At the Buna Concentration Camp, Wiesel’s descriptions evoke feelings so strong from the reader that it may as well be happening right in front of their own eyes. Imagine watching your family, friends, and innocent children suffer the inhumanity of the camps. Wiesel survived the camps through a series of events that can be attributed to nothing more than “dumb luck.” It is amazing to read his near-death experiences, and then sit in awe at his bravery, strength, and his faith. The spiritual and emotional depth in the book are only two of the reasons why Night has become a modern classic.

Night is not an easy read, emotionally, but takes about 3-4 hours to read the entire work. Although it may not be your first choice, it is an important story that the world must never forget. It remains relevant even today, with the horrific genocides currently occurring in Africa, rivaled only by the events that Wiesel portrays in his memoir. I was required to read it for a Judaism class, but found the lessons in Night applicable to someone of any race, religion, or nationality. Wiesel wrote Night as a reminder of what humanity is capable of, and we must never forget. And although not easy “beach” reading, Night is a classic that is a must-have for any book collection. Also, it can be found for under $10 online and at most bookstores.

In those days, there was no literature addressing the issue of cancer and the threat of death that loomed over the patient, not to mention how those who were left behind should deal with the loss. Recently, I came across A Monster Calls as I wandered through the local bookstore. Written by Patrick Ness and illustrated by Jim Kay, it’s categorized as a children’s book, albeit those aged 12-15 years (it should really be a young adult book, then, shouldn’t it?), but had been shelved in the Horror section.

Ness worked with the notes author Siobhan Dowd made before her premature death in 2007 to spin the tale of Conor, a 9-year-old boy dealing with life after his mother is diagnosed with breast cancer.

Between having breakfast on his own and possessing the ability to bring conversations in school to a dead halt by just coming into view (no one knows what to say to him), Conor must also deal with a monster that has formed from a yew tree in the garden, and who promises Conor that it will get him. Call it a giant, an elemental, or just a talking tree, this monster is different from the one that plagues Conor’s nightmares; it wants the Truth from the boy.

In reading the book, I could see why the employees had shelved it where I’d found it. Like many others who read it, I found A Monster Calls hard going, but also supremely difficult to put down.