Dewey: The Small-town Cat Who Touched the World
Vicki Myron with Bret Witter, 2008
271 pp.
March 2009
Maybe it's the face on the cover that's made so many fall in love with this book, but it could easily be the story, too. How is it not possible not to fall in love with a tiny, defenseless creature dropped down a library book drop in one of the coldest nights of the year?
Like most pets, Dewey makes a difference in the lives of his many owners— library staff and patrons alike—and eventually becoming so famous that he's featured in print and broadcast media around the world. People drive miles across the U.S. for a chance to meet him. Reading his story, it's easy to understand why.
Tender at the Bone
Ruth Reichel, 1998
282 pp.
February 2009
The career of Ruth Reichl, one of the country's top food critics and the editor-in-chief of Gourmetmagazine, was hardly a given. Her mother's idea of culinary elegance was laying out a buffet of mold-encrusted food or leftovers from Horn & Hardart's automat cafeteria in New York City!
In fact, according to her account, Ruth might have followed the career path of a public health inspector. By 9 years of age she was warning guests away from her mother's toxic offerings, particularly worried about "the big eaters" and her favorite people as they neared the buffet, "willing them away from the casserole."
Away
Amy Bloom, 2008
256 pp.
January 2009
It may be the sumptuous cover that makes this book hard to resist, but the inside is delectable, too. Away is the story of Lillian Leyb, a young Russian widow and immigrant, who takes us on a whirlwind cross-country journey. In the process, Lillian discovers America and her place in its vast landscape.
It's the 1920's, and Lillian arrives in New York City from Russia, where a violent tragedy has left her bereft of family and home.
The Syringa Tree
Pamela Gien, 2006
254 pp.
December 2008
Sometimes you fall in love when you least expect it—which is what happened to me on reading the very first pages of this wonderful book.
Imaginative, independent Elizabeth grows up in a white South African family during the final 25 years of apartheid. Only six, she is doted on by loving parents and by a houseful of black servants—especially her nanny Salamina, with whom she's deeply bonded. Through Lizzy's young eyes, we come to see the brutality of the country's racist system.
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
Bill Bryson, 2006
288 pp.
November 2008
It's Bill Bryson, so you know it's funny. And it is—wonderfully. But it's also a gorgeous evocation of the 1950's, those halcyon years that followed the depression and war, when prosperity was spreading among a burgeoning middle class. For many life was sweet.
It was a life in which adults waxed poetically about new refrigerators, nary a tear for the old icebox; in which kids devised their own play, outdoors; and when people, even youngsters, could walk to town.