Nonfiction Suggestion for February 2010

Stones Into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan by Greg Mortensen

Summary from book jacket

In this dramatic first-person narrative, Greg Mortenson picks up where Three Cups of Tea left off in 2003, recounting his relentless, ongoing efforts to establish schools for girls in Afghanistan; his extensive work in Azad Kashmir and Pakistan after a massive earthquake hit the region in 2005; and the unique ways he has built relationships with Islamic clerics, militia commanders, and tribal leaders even as he was dodging shootouts with feuding Afghan warlords and surviving an eight-day armed abduction by the Taliban. He shares for the first time his broader vision to promote peace through education and literacy, as well as touching on military matters, Islam, and women-all woven together with the many rich personal stories of the people who have been involved in this remarkable two-decade humanitarian effort.

Since the 2006 publication of Three Cups of Tea, Mortenson has traveled across the U.S. and the world to share his vision with hundreds of thousands of people. He has met with heads of state, top military officials, and leading politicians who all seek his advice and insight. The continued phenomenal success of Three Cups of Tea proves that there is an eager and committed audience for Mortenson's work and message.

Classic Suggestion February 2010

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Summary from Book Description

Since its first publication in 1890, Oscar Wilde's only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, has remained the subject of critical controversy. Acclaimed by some as an instructive moral tale, it has been denounced by others for its implicit immorality. After having his portrait painted, Dorian Gray is captivated by his own beauty. Tempted by his world-weary friend, decadent friend Lord Henry Wotton, he wished to stay young forever and pledges his very soul to keep his good looks. As Dorian's slide into crime and cruelty progresses, he stays magically youthful, while his beautiful portrait changes, revealing the hideous corruption of moral decay. Set in fin-de-siécle London, the novel traces a path from the studio of painter Basil Howard to the opium dens of the East End.

Biography of Oscar Wilde

Book Discussion Guide

Full text of Novel

Best in Books February 2010

New England White by Stephen Carter

This is Stephen Carter’s, a Yale Law Professor, second fiction book and the winner of both the 2008 (BCALA)Black Caucus of the American Library Association Literary Award for fiction and the Booklist Editors’ Choice for Best Fiction Books: 2007. The reader is quickly pulled into the Carlyle family's life in suburban New Enland, Elm Harbor. Lemaster Carlyle, the new college president, and his wife Julia stumble across the body of a murdered colleague along the side of a remote road after their SUV hits ice and lands in the ditch on a snowy night. The seemingly idyllic life in their academic world is full of secret pasts, the complexities of race and politics in modern America and the difficulties of raising a large family.

Reviews have likened Carter’s style to John Grisham and Scott Turow. This swift-paced mystery is full of major and minor characters with story settings ranging from New England to Paris.


Kirkus Starred Review

A high-profile murder unsettles a New England college town in this eventful second novel from Carter (Law/Yale; The Emperor of Ocean Park, 2002, etc.).Economics professor and tireless lothario Kellen Zant, a charismatic black academic celebrity whose romantic conquests acknowledge no limits, is found dead on a remote back road. Suspicion falls among Zant's former lovers and their mates, his colleagues and the wealthy clients who shelled out big bucks for his advice—and even the (unnamed) college's president Lemaster Carlyle and his wife Julia (herself one of Zant's former paramours). The Carlyles were minor figures in Carter's debut novel, The Emperor of Ocean Park, but they occupy center stage in this beefy, neatly constructed melodrama, which distributes clues and juggles suspects with Grisham-like energy and efficiency. We're briskly introduced to the insular little world of the campus, a racially and ethnically mixed utopia whose sleek occupants nevertheless have secrets aplenty to conceal. And Carter expands the novel's scope with impressive assurance, as Zant's murder is connected to another (ostensibly accidental) death; the surpassingly odd behavior of the Carlyles' teenaged daughter Vanessa (who torches her dad's Mercedes for no discernible reason); and the 30-year-old murder of a white woman student (with which Vanessa has become obsessed), shock waves from which may reach as far as the White House—presently occupied by Lemaster's former college roommate. The embattled Julia Carlyle, a busy mother of four who's also dean of the college's divinity school, is obliged to perform some fairly intricate detective work of her own, as persons of interest and their histories glimpsed in old mirrors (a crucial clue) prove to be nearer than they appear. An overload of exposition and a truckload of involved characters aside, this is a virtually irresistible—and highly intelligent- thriller. Carter strikes again. (Kirkus Reviews, June 1, 2007)

Author Web site: Stephen Carter

Book Discussion Questions

Mistress of the Vatican: The True Story of Olimpia Maidalchini: The Secret Female Pope

By Eleanor Herman


READING GUIDE:

http://harpercollins.com/author/authorExtra.aspx?isbn13=9780061245558&displayType=readingGuide


A story combining religion, wealth, sex, class, and power typically makes for a tantalizing read. Herman (Sex with the Queen: 900 Years of Vile Kings, Virile Lovers, and Passionate Politics) does not disappoint with her account of Olimpia Maidalchini’s incredible life and rise to power in 17th-century Italy. As the sister-in-law of Pope Innocent X, Olimpia was his closest adviser, would-be lover, and indisputably the authority behind the robes, which earned her the title of papessa, or lady pope. Olimpia’s legacy was a scandal for the Church, and a good deal was written about her during and after her time. With this immensely readable and compelling book, Herman has reopened the Maidalchini file and presents a very detailed historical account of a real woman who strove to overcome male domination and live her own life. An expert on—and descendant of—European royal families, she skillfully uses letters, diaries, newssheets of the time, and biographies to tell this personal tale, set during unforgiving times. Highly recommended for public and academic libraries.– The Library Journal
The New York Times Book Review wrote that Eleanor writes “enlightening social history that is great fun to read.”
The Boston Globe wrote, “Herman’s writing sparkles off the pages.”

The Washington Post called Eleanor Herman “A lot more fun than Danielle Steel or Dan Brown.”
Herman (Sex with the Queen, 2006, etc.) does her royal best with the fantastic story of a tax collector’s daughter from Viterbo who finagled her way into a position of power at the Vatican... Herman nimbly navigates centuries of foggy papal history, providing plenty of gossip and slander about flagrant nepotism and other pontifical sins. She casts Olimpia’s story appropriately enough in soap-opera terms, making her feisty protagonist resemble a 17th-century Scarlett O’Hara.The incredible life of a formidable woman, fetchingly told.
– Kirkus Reviews



Seventeenth Century RomeCatholic Beliefs of the Seventeenth CenturyJews in RomeCarnivalPasquinoHousehold Management of a Noble FamilyNunsCardinals, Princes of the ChurchNepotismThe Bubonic PlagueThe Papal FuneralThe Conclave



USE THIS WEBSITE:
www.mistressofthevatican.com/world.htm


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

www.mistressofthevatican.com/author.htm

Popular Fiction and Bestsellers Suggestion for February 2010

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

Review

The rediscovery and rejuvenation of Richard Yates's 1961 novel Revolutionary Road is due in large part to its continuing emotional and moral resonance for an early 21st-century readership. April and Frank Wheeler are a young, ostensibly thriving couple living with their two children in a prosperous Connecticut suburb in the mid-1950s. However, like the characters in John Updike's similarly themed Couples, the self-assured exterior masks a creeping frustration at their inability to feel fulfilled in their relationships or careers. Frank is mired in a well-paying but boring office job and April is a housewife still mourning the demise of her hoped-for acting career. Determined to identify themselves as superior to the mediocre sprawl of suburbanites who surround them, they decide to move to France where they will be better able to develop their true artistic sensibilities, free of the consumerist demands of capitalist America. As their relationship deteriorates into an endless cycle of squabbling, jealousy and recriminations, their trip and their dreams of self-fulfillment are thrown into jeopardy.

Yates's incisive, moving, and often very funny prose weaves a tale that is at once a fascinating period piece and a prescient anticipation of the way we live now. Many of the cultural motifs seem quaintly dated--the early-evening cocktails, Frank's illicit lunch breaks with his secretary, the way Frank isn't averse to knocking April around when she speaks out of turn--and yet the quiet desperation at thwarted dreams reverberates as much now as it did years ago. Like F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, this novel conveys, with brilliant erudition, the exacting cost of chasing the American dream. --Jane Morris, Amazon.co.uk

Book Discussion Questions

Beth's Pick January 2010

Wolf Totum
By Rong Jiang

Wolf Totem depicts the dying culture of the Mongols-the ancestors of the Mongol hordes who at one time terrorized the world-and the parallel extinction of the animal they believe to be sacred: the fierce and otherworldly Mongolian wolf Published under a pen name, Wolf Totem was a phenomenon in China, breaking all sales records there and earning the distinction of being the second most read book after Mao's little red book. There has been much international excitement too-to date, rights have been sold in thirteen countries. Wolf Totem is set in 1960s China-the time of the Great Leap Forward, on the eve of the Cultural Revolution. Searching for spirituality, Beijing intellectual Chen Zhen travels to the pristine grasslands of Inner Mongolia to live among the nomadic Mongols-a proud, brave, and ancient race of people who coexist in perfect harmony with their unspeakably beautiful but cruel natural surroundings. Their philosophy of maintaining a balance with nature is the ground stone of their religion, a kind of cult of the wolf. The fierce wolves that haunt the steppes of the unforgiving grassland searching for food are locked with the nomads in a profoundly spiritual battle for survival-a life-and-death dance that has gone on between them for thousands of years. The Mongols believe that the wolf is a great and worthy foe that they are divinely instructed to contend with, but also to worship and to learn from. Chen's own encounters with the otherworldly wolves awake a latent primitive instinct in him, and his fascination with them blossoms into obsession, then reverence. After many years, the peace is shattered with the arrival of Chen's kinfolk, Han Chinese, sent from the cities to bring modernity to the grasslands. They immediately launch a campaign to exterminate the wolves, sending the balance that has been maintained with religious dedication for thousands of years into a spiral leading to extinction-first the wolves, then the Mongol culture, finally the land. As a result of the eradication of the wolves, rats become a plague and wild sheep graze until the meadows turn to dust. Mongolian dust storms glide over Beijing, sometimes blocking out the moon. Part period epic, part fable for modern days, Wolf Totem is a stinging social commentary on the dangers of China's overaccelerated economic growth as well as a fascinating immersion into the heart of Chinese culture.

Customer Comment from Amazon:

The first-person novel is built on the author's own experience during the Cultural Revolution in China. It's an exceptional read for the story line alone - a young Han Chinese man capturing and raising a Mongolian wolf and through it coming to understand and love the people of inner Mongolia. His view may be romanticized, but it is so well-written that even in translation its unique Chinese lyricism is impressive. Moments of drama and humor intertwine with symbolism of the wolf to tell not just the protagonist's story, but that of the difficult but appealing life of the people he comes to understand and love. The underlying message about the changes in the region and their impact on the environment and a way of life are strongly portrayed.

Awards and Critical Acclaim:

Despite Jiang's stated refusal to attend any awards ceremonies or participate in any publicity activities, Wolf Totem has received more than 10 literary prizes, as well as other recognitions, including:[4]
Named as one of the "Ten Best Chinese-language Books of 2004" by international newsweekly Yazhou Zhoukan[11]
Nominee for the 2nd "21st Century Ding Jun Semiannual Literary Prize" in 2005[12]
Recipient of the first Man Asian Literary Prize, November 2007[13]
[From Wikipedia]

About the Author from Amazon
Jiang Rong was born in Beijing in 1946. In 1967, he joined the first wave of intellectuals who moved to the countryside as volunteers, living with nomadic communities on the Chinese border of Inner and Outer Mongolia for eleven years. Following his return to Beijing, Jiang embarked on postgraduate studies in economics and political science and assumed an academic position at a Beijing university. Now retired, he lives in Beijing with his wife. Wolf Totem is his first novel. Howard Goldblatt is the foremost translator of modern and contemporary Chinese literature in the West. He has published English translations of more than thirty novels and story collections by writers from China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. He has also authored and edited half a dozen books on Chinese literature. He is a winner of the Translation of the Year Award given by the American Translators Association. The founding editor of the journal Modern Chinese Literature, he has written for The Washington Post, The Times1 of London, Time magazine, World Literature Today, and The Los Angeles Times. He is currently a professor at the University of Notre Dame.

Additional Review here:

http://chinaperspectives.revues.org/document4825.html

January 2010 Nonfiction Book Suggestion

Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street by Michael Davis

Sesame Street is the longest-running-and arguably most beloved- children's television program ever created. Today, it reaches some six million preschoolers weekly in the United States and countless others in 140 countries around the world. Street Gang is the compelling, comical, and inspiring story of a media masterpiece and pop-culture landmark. Television reporter and columnist Michael Davis-with the complete participation of Joan Ganz Cooney, one of the show's founders-unveils the idealistic personalities, decades of social and cultural change, stories of compassion and personal sacrifice, and miraculous efforts of writers, producers, directors, and puppeteers that together transformed an empty soundstage into the most recognizable block of real estate in television history. -book jacket description