THE FREE ADVICE BOOKLIST
(This is a compilation of lists organized by most recent followed by earlier shows)

From December 11, 2008

LISSA MARTIN'S LIST

Fiction
Christopher Buckley-Supreme Courtship
Sharon Kay Penman-Devil's Brood
Selden Edwards-The Little Book
Katherine Neville-The Fire
William P. Young-The Shack

Nonfiction
History
Ira Stoll-Samuel Adams: A Life
Russell Shorto-Descartes' Bones: A Skeletal History of the conflict Between Faith & Reason
Thomas J. Craughwell-Stealing Lincoln's Body
Robert Edsel-Rescuing Da Vinci: Hitler & the Nazies Stole Europe's Great Art, America & Her Allies Recovered It

Misc.
Waiter-Waiter Rant: Thanks for the Tip-Confessions of a Cynical Waiter
Marion Bataille-ABC3D

Linguistics
David Wolman-Righting the Mother Tongue: From Olde English to Email, the Tangled Story of English Spelling

Travel
Eric Weiner-The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World

Science
Richard A Muller-Physics for Future Presidents: The Science Behind the Headlines

Children
JK Rowling-The Tales of Beedle the Bard
Jimmy Liao (tr. Sarah L Thomson)-The Blue Stone: A Journey Through Life
David Macaulay-The Way We Work: Getting to Know the Amazing Human Body
Vivienne Flesher-Alfred's Nose

BILL WORTMAN'S LIST

FICTION
Buckley, Christopher. Supreme Courtship. New York : Twelve, 2008. Very funny political satire.
Carey, Peter. His Illegal Self. New York: Knopf, 2008. Vivid story set in early 1970s about 7-year old boy stolen (not kidnapped) by a young radical woman (think Weathermen) who flees with him to, eventually, Queensland, Australia (Peter Carey's home country), where she becomes trapped among "feral Hippies." Multiple perspectives, fast-paced plot with twists, believable characters and dialogue, nightmarish world.

Galchen, Rivka. Atmospheric Disturbances. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008. The narrator, 51-year old psychiatrist in New York City, suddenly in December is convinced the woman who claims to be his wife is an imposter, and from this rather Kafka-esque premise, Galchen develops an intriguing, funny, and ultimately positive novel involving fictional meteorological society, an even crazier patient involved in a cabal to control weather, adventures in Argentina and Patagonia, and true love.

Le Carre, John. A Most Wanted Man. New York: 2008. A complex of spy and security agencies from Germany, Great Britain, and the US pursue a possible Islamic terrorist in Germany, but in Le Carre's world it is these agencies that are the villain; the novel's intense ending also comments directly and deeply on our world views.

Luongo, Margaret. If the Heart Is Lean: Stories. Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press, 2008. Effective and affecting stories about young-ish women threatened buy failure, loneliness, men. Margaret Luongo is an Assistant Professor in Miami 's English Department.

O'Neill, Joseph. Netherland. New York: Pantheon, 2008. Set in post 9/11 New York City involving a Dutch banker, a Trinidadian entrepreneur (possibly crazy and criminal), and a cricket motif by an expatriate Irishman, this interesting novel is reminiscent of Saul Bellow's garrulous characters and of F. Scott Fitzgerald's open, wondering, and fairly non-judgmental observer Nick Carraway of The Great Gatsby.

Proulx, Annie. Fine Just the Way It Is: Wyoming Stories 3. New York: Scribner, 2008. Another set of stories set in Wyoming by author of "Brokeback Mountain" and The Shipping News, that are vivid, place-centered, and grim: the losers and lost come to no good end. One story, "Tits-Up in a Ditch," is perhaps as powerful a summary of the individual human misery resulting from our war in Iraq as we'll have.

Robinson, Marilynne. Home. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008. Two grown children of a retired Presbyterian minister in small-town Iowa have returned to live at home, however temporary, and think and talk (and talk some more) about the meaning of their lives, of sin and failure, hope and goodness, with reference to their father's orthodox, deeply considered beliefs and their own lives, her "failed" affair with a married man, his "scurrility." Set in the 1950s.

Rushdie, Salmon. The Enchantress of Florence. New York: Random House, 2008. Vivid characters, fine writing (lots of sentences to underline or copy out), and very interesting linking of lives in Florence (Italy) and the Mogul empire of India in the late 1500s, but I never really understood its plot (if there was one) or theme.

Winton, Tim. Breath. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008. A coming of age novel, from perspective of a middle aged man living on Australia's west coast whose life has never regained the intensity of his teen age years of swimming, surfing, and sex. "Breath" refers to swimmers and surfers able to hold their breath for two minutes or more.

Three that I hope to read soon:
Ma Jian. Beijing Coma. Trans. Flora Drew. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008.
Morrison, Toni. A Mercy. New York: Knopf, 2008.
Roth, Philip. Indignation. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2008.

It's been a prolific year for long-established writers who have Nobel, Booker, and Pulitzer Prizes galore: Peter Carey, Carolyn Chute, Amitov Ghosh, P. D. James, John Le Carre, Annie Proulx, Marilynne Robinson, Philip Roth, Salmon Rushdie, Neal Stephenson, John Updike, Tim Winton.
Nobelists: J. M. Coetzee (Diary of a Bad Year), Doris Lessing (Alfred and Emily), Toni Morrison (A Mercy), Jose Saramago (Death with Interruptions

POETRY
Kleinzahler, August. Sleeping It Off in Rapid City: Poems New and Selected. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008.
Olds, Sharon. One Secret Thing. New York: Knopf, 2008. Most recent volume by established, accessible poet.

Ryan, Kay. The Niagara River. New York: Grove Press, 2005. The most recent book by new Library of Congress Poet Laureate; it consists of short poems.

NON-FICTION
Feiffer, Jules. Explainers. Seattle: Fantagraphics, 2008. Relive the late 50s early 60s, the Cold War, Eisenhower/Kennedy/Nixon/Johnson, Civil rights//Vietnam, Organization Man/Mom-ism, Age of Anxiety/Death of God/, and the search for love, understanding, and meaningful relations between men and women, children and parents, through Feiffer's weekly cartoon strips in this first of four volumes of Feiffer's Village Voice cartoons.

Gosling, Sam. Snoop: What Your Stuff Says about You. New York: Basic Books, 2008. This psychologist at the University of Texas specializes in "snoopology," the analysis of the stuff in our bedrooms and bathrooms, kitchens and living rooms, websites and cubicles and how it reveals our personalities, our degree of openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. A little heavy on the methodology but this separates it from a mere magazine article and overcomes oversimplification.

Gumprecht, Blake. The American College Town. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2008. Perhaps uniquely American (European cities pre-dated their colleges & universities), towns that grew up around, dependent upon, and integral with colleges or universities (such as Oxford, Ohio) seem to have their own sociology, which Gumprecht elucidates (or so I am hoping once I get a chance to read it).

Majd, Hooman. The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern Iran. New York: Doubleday, 2008.

Some Non-Fiction I Hope to Read:
Paolantonio, Sal. How Football Explains America. Chicago: Triumph Books, 2008.
Vanderbilt, Tom. Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us). New York: Knopf, 2008.

Waxman, Sharon. Loot: The Battle Over the Stolen Treasures of the Ancient World. New York: Times Books, 2008.

THREE BOOKS ON THE ECONOMY
Phillips, Kevin. Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism.

Reich, Robert. Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life.

Friedman, Thomas L. Hot, Flat and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution and How It Can Renew America.

Kevin Phillips argues that private debt from housing bubble and debt-leveraged buying by individuals and institutions (NOT public debt), incomprehensible financial instruments and a belief in or favoring of financing over manufacturing in U.S. economy, and U.S. dependency on both imported oil and imported manufactured goods has created "bad money," an economy that is bad the country and is responsible for the current economic condition. He writes in a hyperventilated style but readers can skim through his book.

Robert Reich, former high administration official in the Clinton Administration, argues that capitalism is distinct from democracy, especially globally integrated "supercapitalism," and that to correct obvious negative effects or results of this "supercapitalism" (wages, job insecurity, health insurance, climate change and environmental degradation, "crassness & coarseness of much contemporary culture," and "loss of Main Streets and their surrounding communities," etc.) we citizens must re-activate democracy. Rather than agitating against corporations, and especially rather than treating them anthropomorphically as "people," we should improve public and government oversight and laws to "level playing fields" and insure that there are clear, obvious practices that must be avoided or achieved. Perhaps Reich's most radical idea is that corporations are not people; therefore, abolish the corporate income tax (tax owners, that is shareholders) and prosecute managers for misdeeds. If his ideas work, then businesses prosper in a capitalistic environment and government works for the common good.

Thomas Friedman, in another bestselling book following The World Is Flat, sees tremendous opportunity for the U.S. to revitalize itself through its traditional strengths-technological innovation, business entrepreneurship, motivated, capable, and productive workforce-by applying these to a new "green economy." Echoing Phillips's concern about the relative decline of manufacturing (now only 12-13% of the Gross National Product in contrast to the financial sector's 20-21%) and Reich's positive view of capitalism and an effective democracy, he identifies a large and new field of operation.

LANGUAGE, BOOKS, READING
Abley, Mark. The Prodigal Tongue: Dispatches from the Future of English. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2008.

Blount, Roy, Jr. Alphabet Juice: The Energies, Gists, and Spirits of Letters, Words, and Combinations Thereof; Their Roots, Bones, Innards, Piths, Pips, and Secret Parts, Tinctures, Tonics, and Essences; with Examples of Their Usage Foul and Savory. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008. NYTBR 11/156/08.

Brewer, Charlotte. Treasure-House of the Language: The Living OED. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.

Hitchings, Henry. The Secret Life of Words: How English Became English. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008.

Mark Abley writes about groups or cultures and their use of English (Los Angeles, Black Americans, Asians, Hispanics/Latinos/Chicanos, youth, the Internet); Henry Hitchings writes about the rich, varied, changing vocabulary-the words-of English;

Charlotte Brewer about the OED which, rich and authoritative as it is, is as much a creation of lexicographers as it is a record of the language.

Finally, Roy Blount is genuinely funny and intelligent and I can't wait to read his response to our language.

LISTENER RECOMMENDATIONS

From Jane Flueckiger:

This morning when Susan Stamberg mentioned some books with small town settings, I wondered whether she would name these. Since she didn't,
I'll have to! In another vein, I heartily concur with her
recommendation of "The Cellist of Sarajevo."

Two books that would make great gifts are "Jim the Boy" and "The Blue Star" by Tony Early, a Vanderbilt English professor. The setting is rural North Carolina. In "The Blue Star" (2008) Jim Glass is in his senior year of high school, it's 1941, the war is beginning, Jim falls in love. The NY Times says "Jim lives in a beautifully evoked state of suspended animation." But there are dark undercurrents and
life moves forward, does not remain suspended. "Jim the Boy" (2000) is Jim at age 10, coming to an understanding of his place in a much bigger world than he has previously grasped. The characters in these books could be described as folksy and quaint but I do not find them saccharine. What happens in their lives certainly is not all sweetness and light. In addition to giving us good stories, Tony Earley describes beautifully the town, the mountains, the natural surroundings that are part of Jim's life.

From Gail Moeller:

I’d recommend anything written by David McCullough, but especially John Adams. I’d like to start a movement making it required reading for every high school student. Not only beautifully written and entertaining reading, it provides insight into the founding of the United States that goes beyond anything I’ve ever read because it sketches out the personalities of the various players on stage during the formative years.

From May 22, 2008

BILL WORTMAN'S LIST

FICTION

"Literary Fiction"
Chip Kidd. The Learners. New York: Scribner, 2008.
Jhumpa Lahiri. Unaccustomed Earth. New York: Knopf, 2008.
Richard Price. Lush Life. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008.
John Edgar Wideman. Fanon. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2008.

"Popular Fiction"
Nevada Barr. Winter Study. New York: Putnam, 2008,
Andrea Camilleri. The Snack Thief. New York: Penguin, 2005.
John Grisham. The Appeal. New York: Doubleday, 2008.

NON-FICTION: BIOGRAPHY, HISTORY, IDEAS, SCIENCE, SOCIETY
Natalie Angier. The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2007. New in paperback. 2008.
Thomas L. Friedman. The World Is Fat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century. Updated & expanded ed. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007.
Marc D. Hauser. Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong. New York: HarperCollins, 2006.
Tony Horowitz. Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World. New York: Henry Holt, 2008.
George Johnson. The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008.
Michael Pollan. In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto. New York: Penguin, 2007.
Mary Roach. Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex. New York: Norton, 2008.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. Journals, 1952-2000 . Ed. Andrew Schlesinger and Stephen Schlesinger. New York: Penguin Press, 2007.
Kurt Vonnegut. Armageddon in Retrospect, and Other New and Unpublished Writings on War and Peace. New York: Putnam, 2008.
Steven Waldman. Founding Faith: Providence, Politics, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America. New York: Random House, 2008.
Sheila Weller. Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon-and the Journey of a Generation. New York: Atria, 2008.

POETRY
Frank O'Hara. Selected Poems. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008.
John Ashbery. Notes from the Air: Selected Later Poems. New York: Ecco/HarperCollins, 2008.

LISSA MARTIN'S LIST

History
" Marcus Tanner-Raven King: Matthias Corvinus & the Fate of His Lost Library
" Tony Horwitz-A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World
" David Levering Lewis-God's Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570-1215

Fiction
" Alison Weir-The Lady Elizabeth
" Christopher Buckley-Boomsday
" Sophie Kinsella-Remember Me?
" Janet Evanovich-Fearless Fourteen

Children's
"Mark Teague-LaRue for Mayor
" Shel Silverstein-Don't Bump the Glump!: And other Fantasies
" Stephanie Meyer-Breaking Dawn (Twilight Saga #4)

Local Interest
"Marilyn Jeffers Walters-Badge on My Collar: A Chronicle of Courageous Canines
" Tom Romano-ZigZag: A Life of Reading and Writing, Teaching and Learning

Science & Math
" Andrew Hodges-One to Nine: The Inner Life of Numbers
" Henry Petroski-The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance

From January 10, 2008:

LISSA MARTIN'S LIST

Science and Math
" Vanishing World: The Endangered Artic-Mireilla De La Lez (Photographer) Fredrik Granath (Text)
" Perfect Figures: The Lore of Numbers and How We Learned to Count-Bunn Crumpacker
" Kitchen Mysteries: Revealing the Science of Cooking-Herve This
" Extreme Nature-Mark Carwardine

Children and Young Adult
" Duck for President-Doreen Cronin
" Vote-Eileen Christelow
" The Inside-Outside Book of Libraries-Julie Cummins (Author) Roxie Munro (Illustrator)
" Seeing Redd (Looking Glass Wars)-Frank Beddor
" Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian-Sherman Alexie

General Non-Fiction
" Shakespeare: The World as Stage-Bill Bryson
" Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey: Desserts for the Serious Sweet Tooth-Jill O'Connor

Fiction
" World Without End-Ken Follett
" Uncommon Reader-Alan Bennett
" Painter of Battles-Arturo Perez-Reverte
" People of the Book-Geraldine Brooks
" Homecoming-Bernhard Schlink
" Gods Behaving Badly-Marie Phillips

BILL WORTMAN'S LIST

Non-Fiction

Books and Reading
Bayard, Pierre. How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read. Trans. Jeffrey Mehlman. New York: Bloomsbury, 2007.
Gomez, Jeff. Print Is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.

Election Year Reading
Ellis, Joseph J. American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic. New York: Knopf, 2007.
Reich, Robert. Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life. Kopf, 2007. .
Schlesinger, Arthur, Jr. Journals: 1952-2000. New York: Penguin, 2007. Edited for publication by AS's sons. AS circled around and within the centers of political power for three or four decades and this reports what he saw and thought; not, perhaps, so analytical or reportorial as, for example, Theodore White's "Making of the President" books, but nevertheless one record of people and events of the last half century.
Wills, Garry. Head and Heart: American Christianities. New York: Penguin Press, 2007.
Cordery, Stacy A. Alice : Alice Roosevelt Longworth, from White House Princess to Washington Power Broker. New York: Viking, 2007.

Music and Art
Ross, Alex. The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2007.
Sacks, Oliver. Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain. New York: Knopf, 2007.
John Richardson. Life of Picasso. 3 vols. New York: Knopf, 1990-2007. Most recent covering 1918-1973, just published.

Fiction
National Book Award fiction
Johnson, Denis. Tree of Smoke. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2007. National Book Award 2007.

Three Nobel Prize Novelists' recent or forthcoming books:
Lessing, Doris.. Mara and Dann: An Adventure (1999); The Story of General Dann and Mara's Daughter, Griot and the SnowDog (2005); The Golden Notebook (1962); Collected African Stories (1973; 1951, 1953); Children of Violence (Martha Quest, A Proper Marriage, A Ripple from the Story, Landlocked, The Four Gated City); The Doris Lessing Reader (1988); The Cleft (London: Fourth Estate, 2007).
Gordimer, Nadine. Beethoven Was One-Sixteenth Black: And Other Stories New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007.
Coetzee, J. M. Diary of a Bad Year. New York: Viking, 2008.

An Eventual Nobelist:
Roth, Philip. Exit Ghost. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2007. Last of Roth's Zuckerman novels, Zuckerman being a writer and apparent alter-ego, so it's a novel about creative people. See also:
Philip Roth. Zuckerman Bound: A Trilogy and Epilogue 1979-1985. New York: Library of America, 2007. The ghost writer -- Zuckerman unbound -- The anatomy lesson -- The Prague orgy.

Translations
Tolstoy, Leo. War and Peace. One of several recent re-translations of classic fiction-Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Proust, Cervantes, Dante, Epic of Gilgamesh, Knut Hamsun, Dumas the elder, that renew these books for contemporary readers. Fairly high on the bestseller lists, not perhaps surprising as it is a book we all have resolved to read at one time or another.
Vargas Llosa, Mario. The Bad Girl. Trans. Edith Grossman. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2007. NYTBR 10/14/07.

Golden Oldies
Library of American Jack Kerouac (Road Novels 1957-1960: On the Road, the Dharma Bums, The Subterraneans, Tristessa, Lonesome Traveler, and from the Journals 1949-1954 (New York: Library of America, 2007). From On the Road: " . . . the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue center light pop and everybody goes 'Awww!'" (7)

Poetry
Alice Notley. In the Pines. New York: Penguin, 2007.
Robert Haas. Time and Materials: Poems, 1997-2005. New York: Ecco/HarperCollins, 2007.
Breytenbach, Breyten. Windcatcher: New and Selected Poems, 1964-2006. Orlando : Harcourt, 2007.

LISTENER RECOMMENDATIONS

"Ray from Millville" suggested "Rat" by Jerry Langton and "A History of the World in Six Glasses by Tom Standage.

"Joe from Raleigh, Indiana" is on a "personal crusade" to promote the works of Ohio native Louis Bromfield, including: "The Rains Came," "Night in Bombay," "Out of the Earth," "Pleasant Valley," "Malabar Farm" and others.

"Loretta from Kettering" recommends "The Journals of Leo Lehrman," "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell" and "The Letters of Noel Coward"

From July 19, 2007:

LISSA MARTIN'S LIST

Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions That Changed the World 1940-1941 by Ian Kershaw

King, Kaiser, Tsar: Three Royal Cousins Who Led the World to War by Catrine Clay

Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians #01) by Rick Riordan

The Religion by Tim Willocks
Lean Mean Thirteen by Janet Evanovice

What's a Cook to Do?: An Illustrated Guide to 484 Essential Tools, Tips, Techniques & Tricks by James Peterson

Mary Jo's Cuisine by Mary Jo McMillin

Plato & the Platypus by Thomas Cathcart

BILL WORTMAN'S LIST

Books for Summer Reading:
Relax and Let Your Mind Wander Widely

NONFICTION

Literary

Jack Lynch. Becoming Shakespeare: The Unlikely Afterlife that Turned a Provincial Playwright into the Bard. Walker, 2007. July. PW 4/9/2007, 45. Over 300 years Shakespeare moved-in readers and literary professions' eyes-from talented playwright and theater shareholder to transcendent demigod; along the way was almost forgotten, criticized for profane and sloppy work; rewritten/forged/ bowdlerized; revered; glorified. Probably useful overview of how he was received, produced, thought about up to the mid-19th century. See also these other recent books about Shakespeare in British and American culture.

Bristol, Michael D. Shakespeare's America, America's Shakespeare (London: Routledge, 1990; PR 2971.U6 B7 1990); Stanley Wells, Shakespeare: For All Time (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003); 2003; Stephen Greenblatt, Will in the World: How Shakespeare became Shakespeare (New York: Norton, 2004).

Seth Lerer. Inventing English: A Portable History of the Language. Columbia University Press, 2007. PE1075 .L47 2007. "Introduction: finding English, finding us -- Caedmon learns to sing : Old English and the origins of poetry -- From Beowulf to Wulfstan : the language of Old English literature -- In this year : the politics of language and the end of Old English -- From kingdom to realm : middle English in a French world -- Lord of this langage : Chaucer's English -- I is an Ille a millere as are ye : Middle English dialects -- The great vowel shift and the changing character of English -- Chancery, Caxton, and the making of English prose -- I do, I will : Shakespeare's English -- A universal hubbub wild : new words and worlds in early modern English -- Visible speech : the Orthoepists and the origins of standard English -- A harmless drudge : Samuel Johnson and the making of the dictionary -- Horrid, hooting stanzas : Lexicography and literature in American English -- Antses in the sugar : dialect and regionalism in American English -- Hello, dude : Mark Twain and the making of the American idiom -- Ready for the funk : African American English and its impact -- Pioneers through an untrodden forest : the Oxford English dictionary and its readers -- Listening to Private Ryan : war and language -- He speaks in your voice : everybody's English."

Updike in Cincinnati: A Literary Performance. Ed. James Schiff. Athens: Ohio Univ. press, 2007. PS 3571.P4 Z926 2007. Contents: Introduction : The writer in public -- Letter to be included as an afterword to the introduction / John Updike -- Zimmer Auditorium reading -- Elliston Room panel : Updike, his critics, and his short fiction -- A conversation at the College Conservatory of Music -- Mercantile Library Reading.

Joan Shelley Rubin. Songs of Ourselves: The Uses of Poetry in America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007. Writes about the one-time widespread interest in poetry in this country, through "newspaper verse" and popular poets such as Robert Service, Elinor Wylie, Robert Frost.

History, Politics, Culture

John Ferling. Almost a Miracle: The American Victory in the War of Independence. Oxford Univ. Press, 2007. June. PW 4/9/2007, 44. E 230.F47 2007 [Out]

Barbara Kingsolver. Animal Vegetable Miracle: A Year of Food Life. HarperCollins, 2007. When Kingsolver and her family move from suburban Arizona to rural Appalachia, they take on a new challenge: to spend a year on a locally produced diet, paying close attention to the provenance of all they consume. "Our highest shopping goal was to get our food from so close to home, we'd know the person who grew it. Often that turned out to be ourselves as we learned to produce what we needed, starting with dirt, seeds, and enough knowledge to muddle through. Or starting with baby animals, and enough sense to refrain from naming them."

John Rob. Brave New War: The Next Stage of Terrorism and the End of Globalization. New York: John Wiley, 2007. Examines the nature of challenges nations face from terrorism as methods of warfare change.

Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff. The Race Beat : The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation. New York : Knopf, 2006. PN 4888.R3 R63 2006. This is the story of how America awakened to its race problem, of how a nation that longed for unity after World War II came instead to see, hear, and learn about the shocking indignities and injustices of racial segregation in the South--and the brutality used to enforce it. It is the story of how the nation's press, after decades of ignoring the problem, came to recognize the importance of the civil rights struggle and turn it into the most significant domestic news event of the twentieth century. Drawing on private correspondence, notes from secret meetings, unpublished articles, and interviews, veteran journalists Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff go behind the headlines and datelines to show how a dedicated cadre of newsmen--first black reporters, then liberal southern editors, then reporters and photographers from the national press and the broadcast media--revealed to a nation its most shameful shortcomings and propelled its citizens to act.-- From publisher description.

Margaret MacMillan. Nixon and Mao: The Week That changed the World. New Yor : Random House, 2007. "This book looks at one of the transformative moments of the twentieth century: In February 1972, Richard Nixon, the first American president ever to visit China, and Mao Tse-tung, the enigmatic Communist dictator, met for an hour in Beijing. Their meeting changed the course of history and ultimately laid the groundwork for today's complex relationship between the countries. That monumental meeting--during what Nixon called "the week that changed the world"--could have been brought about only by powerful leaders: Nixon, a great strategist and a flawed human being, and Mao, willful and ruthless; assisted by two brilliant and complex statesmen, Henry Kissinger and Chou En-lai. And behind them lay the complex history of two great and equally confident civilizations: China, ancient and contemptuous yet fearful of barbarians beyond the Middle Kingdom, and the United States, forward-looking and confident, seeing itself as the beacon for the world."

Marc Freedman. Encore: Finding Work That Matters I the Second Half of Life. New York: Public Affairs, 2007. Adv speaks highly of it: "Get ready for the biggest transformation of work in American since the Women's Movement."

Science and Technology

Wiseman, Allen. The World without Us. New York: St. Martin's, 2007. After 2 days, subways would be flooded; after 2 years, streets would dave in; after 4 years, buildings would crumble; after 500 years, NYCity would be a forest. Adv NYTimes 7/8/07)

Akiko Busch. Nine Ways to Cross a River: Midstream Reflection on Swimming and Getting from Here to There. About swimming across nine rivers, with history and comment on each: Hudson, Delaware, Susquehanna, Ohio, Mississippi, Cheat, Connecticut, Monongahela, Current. Bloomsbury, 2007 July. PW 4/9/2007, 39.

Gino Segré. Faust in Copenhagen: A Struggle for the Soul of Physics. Viking, 2007 June 18. PW 4/9/2007, 45. About annual meetings of European physicists in Copenhagen at home of Nils Bohr, 1929-WWII, esp. 1932, with skit about classical atomic theory vs. quantum mechanics; Segre brings "scientists and their ideas to vivid life."

FICTION

Michael Chabon. Yiddish Policemen's Union: A Novel. HarperCollins, 2007. Also wrote Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay and The Mysteries of Pittsburgh. Set in Anchorage, Alaska. Favorably reviewed, great title. PS 3553.H15 Y54 2007 [out]

Don DeLillo. Falling Man. Simon & Schuser, June 2007. PS 3554.E4425 F36 2007 [out] DeLillo's the author of many well-received, important novels, from White Noise to Underworld. About 9/11. We have some 400 books about 9/11, including a dozen novels by Hugh Nissenson, Ken Kalfus, Jay McInery, Richard Price, Paul West, Martha McFee, Julia Glass, Frederic Beigbeder (French), Lynn Sharon Schwartz, [Motherless Brooklyn], and others.

Nathan Englander. The Ministry of Special Cases. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007. PS 3555.N424 M56 2007

Richard Flanagan. The Unknown Terrorist. Grove, May 2007. [Ordered 7/07] Australian novelist, with several other novels, notably Gould's Book of Fish, Death of a River Guide, Sound of One Hand Clapping.

William Gibson. Spook Country. New York: Putnam, August 2007. Favorably reviewed science fiction by a master who wrote Neuromancer, etc.

Gunter Grass. Peeling the Onion. Trans. Michael Henry Heim. New York: Harcourt, 2007. PT 2613.R338Z4613. Memoir by a major European (German) artist, intellectual, and cultural critic; he revealed here for the first time that he had been in the German army at the end of World War II, a confession that set off considerable debate pro and con about Grass's integrity.

Xiaolu Guo. A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers. London: Chatto & Windus, 2007. PR 9450.9.G86 C66 2007. Great title.

Khaled Hosseini. A Thousand Splendid Suns. Riverhead, 2007. PS 3608.O832 T46 2007. [Out] Also wrote Kite Runner.

Elmore Leonard. Up in Honey's Room. New York: William Morrow, 2007. PS 3562.E55 U6 2007. Another great job from Leonard as he closes out career.

Penelope Lively. Consequences. New York: Viking, 2007. PR 6062.I89 C58 2007b Major British writer, author of Moon Tiger (Booker Prize) and others, about the presence of the past in our present lives.

Cormac McCarthy. The Road. Dystopian novel, equal parts powerful love-driven odyssey and detailed survivalist handbook. A quick read. PS 3563.C337 R63 2006

Ian McEwan. On Chesil Beach. New York: Doubleday, 2007. PR 6063.C4 O6 2007

Thomas Pynchon. Against the Day. New York: Penguin, 2006. V-e-r-y l-o-n-g (1082 pp.), rather confusing, but definitely worth the time and effort (especially for Pynchon fans): so many books are reviewed as "reminiscent of Pynchon," so read the real thing.

Ian Rankin. The Naming of the Dead. New York : Little, Brown, 2006. PR 6068.A57 N36 2007. Scottish crime writer, main character is John Rebus a police inspector in Edinburgh

Helen Simpson. Constitutional: Stories. London: Jonathan Cape, 2005. PR 6069.I4226 C66 2005

Martin Cruz Smith. Stalin's Ghost. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2007. I still remember the powerful opening of Gorky Park and keep looking for more of same, and have been usually rewarded. Favorably reviewed.

POETRY COLLECTIONS

David Walker, ed., American Alphabets: 25 Contemporary Poets. Oberlin: Oberlin College Press, 2006. PS 615 .A396 2006
Mark Strand, ed. Great Poems of the Twentieth Century. New York: W. W. Norton, 2005. PN 6101 .A163 2005. International collection; one poem from each poet; poets included include: Auden, Bishop, Eliot, Frost, Marianne Moore, Ogden Nash, Stevens, Richard Wilbur, Williams,
Listen to the Mockingbird: American Folksongs and Popular Music Lyrics of the 19th Century. Ed. Douglas Messerli. Los Angeles: Green Integer, 2005. Stephen Foster, James Allen Bland . Spirituals, songs of faith (Shall We Gather at the River, Simple Gifts), Civil War songs, patriotic and sentimental, (Tenting Tonight, ) and many, many partially familiar songs. No music, but we can probably sing along in our minds with most of these. Minstrel songs and others rich in ethnic and racial stereotypes.

From February 15, 2007

BILL WORTMAN'S LIST

NOVELS
Colson Whitehead. Apex Hides the Hurt. New York: Doubleday : 2006.
Chimamanda Adichie. Half of a Yellow Sun. New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2006 [Nigerian writer]
Michael Thomas. Man Gone Down. New York: Black Cat/Grove, 2007. First novel favorably reviewed in the NYTBR 2/4/07.
Zadie Smith. On Beauty. New York: Penguin, 2006. PR 6069 .M59 O58 2006
Sharon Draper. Copper Sun. New York: Atheneum, 2006. (for teen readers)

POETRY
Harryette Mullen. Recyclopedia. St. Paul: Graywolf, 2006.

NON-FICTION - Adult
Wangari Maathai. The Green Belt Movement: Sharing the Approach and the Experience. SB 435.6.K4 M33 2003.
---. Unbowed. New York: Knopf, 2006. [memoir]

Harriet Washington. Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present. New York: Doubleday, 2006.

Herbert Kohl. She Would Not Be Moved: How We Tell the Story of Rosa Parks and
the Montgomery Bus Boycott. New York : New Pres, 2005.

John Hope Franklin. Mirror to America: the Autobiography of John Hope Franklin. New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005.

Branch Taylor. At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68. New York : Simon & Schuster, 2006.

Young Adult
Thomas Brothers. Louis Armstrong's New Orleans. New York: W. W. Norton, 2007. M 419.A75 B78 2006 (for teen readers)

Ann Bausum. Freedom Riders: John Lewis and Jim Zwerg on the Front Lines of the Civil Rights Movement. Washington: National Geographic Society, 2005. (for teen readers and older)

LISSA MARTIN'S LIST

Titles of interest for African American History Month
" Escape on the Pearl: Ther Heroic Bid for Freedom on the Underground Railroad Mary Kay Ricks
" From Midnight to Dawn: The Last Tracks of the Underground Railroad Jacqueline Tobin and Hettie Jones
" Freedom is not Enough: The Opening of the American Workplace Nancy MacLean
" Campus CEO: The Student Entrepreneur's Guide to Launching a Multimillion-Dollar Business Randal Pinkett

African American Childrens Titles
" Bronzeville Boys and Girls Gwendolyn Brooks (Author) Faith Ringgold (Illustrator)
" The Harlem Hellfighters: When Pride Met Courage Walter Dean Myers and Bill Miles
" York's Adventures with Lewis and Clark: An African-American's Part in the Great Expedition Rhoda Blumberg

Childrens Books of Interest
" 1607: A New Look at Jamestown Karen Lange and Ira Block
" Terrible Storm Carol Otis Hurst (Author) S.D. Schindler (Illustrator)
" Sally's Snow Adventure Stephen Huneck (Author and Illustrator)

New Fiction
" Mistress of the Art of Death Arian Franklin
" Alexandria Link Steve Berry
" Heart-Shaped Box Joe Hill

LISTENER SUGGESTIONS

From listener Ken Grabach, of Oxford:

A group of books I have been reading might be of interest to fans of the
HBO series, Rome.

_Imperium, by Robert Harris. This covers the beginning of the career of the politician and statesman, Cicero. It is narrated by his secretary,
the slave Tiro, who invented shorthand stenography. This is in the mold of Alan Drury's or Gore Vidal's novels about Washington.

A biography, _Cicero: the Life and Times of Rome's Greatest Politician_,by Anthony Everitt, a British historian. This gives a good background,
and is highly readable in it's own right.

About the city of Rome.
Christopher Hibbert's _Rome: Biography of a City_ is an excellent read, nicely illustrated and annotated.

An art book recently entered my personal library.
_Rome: Art and Architecture_, edited by Marco Bussagli. Nice coverage of Republican and Imperial Rome as well as the more familiar later periods.

Two books I'm not reading, but fit into the group.
_History of Rome_ by Michael Grant. Grant was a historian of the ancient world, and highly readable. He has often provided me with context for the
series below.

Steven Saylor's fine series of mysteries set in this period, Roma Sub Rosa, feature Gordianus the Finder. The first of the series, _Roman Blood_, gives us an even younger Cicero than Harris's novel does. We see Cicero's first case (yes, he practiced law in the Roman courts), at the fall of the Dictator, Sulla, a few years before _Imperium_.

From Anne Hubler, in Dayton:

My Love Affair with Modern Art ,2006, by Katherine Kuh, critic, leading curator & gallery owner over her 89 years. A very readable series of experiences & insights with the leading personalities of this movement.

From "Chris":

Miami's summer reading book this year was a fantastic read. Ahmed's War, Ahmed's Peace was a great history, both contemporary and ancient of Iraq, which we should all read.

I would also suggest the quick reads that are Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events are light, whitty and engaging. Read them to your kids and read them for yourselves.

My old pick is The Robe by Lloyd C Douglas, a fictional encounter of Christ's Robe, and the early Christian church

From November 2, 2006:


BILL WORTMAN'S LIST

Books I'd Like to Read

Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss. Novel that's just won the British "Mann-Booker Award"
Richard Powers, The Echo Maker. Novel, and very positively reviewed.
John LeCarre. The Mission Song. Novel. Continues his attention to European/Western depredations in Africa
Cormac McCarthy, The Road. Novel. Powerful writer, but brutal.
Margaret Atwood, Moral Disorder. Stories. Surely she's in line for the Nobel Prize sometime soon.
Alice Munro, View from Castle Rock. Stories. Like Atwood, another excellent Canadian writer
Margaret Drabble, The Sea Lady. I haven't seen reviews, but she's usually always thought provoking.

And on good authority, a new novel by
Thomas Pynchon, Against The Day. Pynchon fans, of whom I'm (one in spades), will be excited to know this.

LISSA MARTIN'S LIST

Washington's Spies: The Story of America's First Spy Ring, Alexander Rose
God's War: A New History of the Crusades, Christopher Tyerman
Reduced Shakespeare: The Complete Guide for the Attention-Impaired, Reed Martin & Austin Tichenor
You Can Get Arrested for That: 2 Guys, 25 Dumb Laws, 1 Absurd American Crime Spree, Rich Smith
Green Eggs & Ham Cookbook, Georgeanne Brennan
The Enchanted Dolls' House, Robyn Johnson
The Looking Glass Wars, Frank Beddor
Whoopi's Big Book of Manners, Whoopi Goldberg
Rasputin's Daughter, Robert Alexander

From August 3, 2006:

BILL WORTMAN'S LIST

Some Books I Hope to Read Before the End of Summer

Recent books:
Andrea Barrett. Servants of the Map: Stories. New York: W.W. Norton, 2002.
Bob Dylan. Chronicles. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004- .
Allegra Goodman. Intuition. New York: Dial Press, 2006.
Diane Glancy. The Dance Partner. Lansing: Michigan State Univ. Press, 2005.
George Pelecanos. The Night Gardener. New York: Little, Brown, 2006.
Gary Shteyngart. Absurdistan. New York: Random House, 2006.

Writers over 70:
Nadine Gordimer. Get a Life: Stories. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2005.
---. Loot, and Other Stories. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003.
Elmore Leonard. Mr. Paradise. New York : Morrow, 2004.
David McCullough. 1776. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005.
Toni Morrison. Love. New York : Knopf, 2003.
Philip Roth. Everyman. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006.
John Updike. Terrorist. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006.

Long term interest: James Joyce's Ulysses.

Some other recent or forthcoming books:

Tim Flannery. The weather makers: how man is changing the climate and what it means for life on Earth. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2005. QC981.8.C5 F438 2005
Thomas Kida. Don't believe everything you think : the 6 basic mistakes we make in thinking. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2006. BF441 .K45 2006
Gore Vidal. Clouds and Eclipses: The Collected Stories. New York: Carrol and Graf, 2006. (October)
Colin Tudge. The Tree: A Natural History of What Trees Are. How They Live, and Why They Matter. New York: Crown, 2006. (October)

LISSA MARTIN'S LIST

New this month
Messenger of Truth by Jacqueline Winspear
The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde
Knight of the Black & White by Jack Whyte
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
Journal: the short Life & Mysterious Death of Amy Zoe Mason by Joyce & Kristine Atkinson

Other Books of interest
You Can Get Arrested for That by Rich Smith
Pirateology
Thriller ed by James Patterson
The Last Cato by Matilde Asensi
I'd Kill for That ed by Marcia Talley
Adverbs by Daniel Handler
Spy Wednesday by Steven Sims
Earth: An Intimate History by Richard Fortey
Ruins by Scott Smith

BOOKS MENTIONED BY JOHN HINGSBERGEN

Timeline, Michael Crichton. A group of modern historians travels back in time to feudal France circa 1357 using quantum technology. A fast-paced science fiction thriller.

Pleading Guilty, Scott Turow. A 1993 legal mystery featuring a protagonist on the search for a missing law firm colleague.

Black Order, James Rollins. An adventure story featuring exploration of ancient myth, modern science and the quest for a new Master Race by descendants of the Nazis.

The Expected One, Kathleen McGowan. A supposedly autobiographical religious thriller by a self-proclaimed descendant of a union between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. (John's note: "I haven't read this one yet but, despite my scepticism about the story, I expect another interesting angle on the trend set in place by Daniel Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code.)

FROM OUR LISTENERS

Two recommendations from Rick Colby, of Oxford:

1) Ernst, Carl. _Following Muhammad: Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World_. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2003.

A series of short introductory essays about Islam, its historical background and its contemporary manifestations. A good book for general readers to learn more about this major world religion that has been much in the headlines recently.

2) Pamuk, Orhan. _Snow_. Trans. Maureen Freely. London: Faber and Faber, 2002.

A gripping novel by the award winning Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk (author of "My Name is Red") about a Turkish poet who has been living abroad many years who returns to reconnect with a childhood sweetheart and to investigate why girls in a small Turkish village keep committing suicide.

From Joe Swartz, of Eaton, Ohio:

"If you don't have time to read "Bob Dylan. Chronicles. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004-", check out the audio book. Phenomenal with actor Sean Penn narrating. I'm now listening to Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. Heavy subject matter but very engrossing."

From August 3, 2006:

BILL WORTMAN'S LIST

Some Books I Hope to Read Before the End of Summer

Recent books:
Andrea Barrett. Servants of the Map: Stories. New York: W.W. Norton, 2002.
Bob Dylan. Chronicles. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004- .
Allegra Goodman. Intuition. New York: Dial Press, 2006.
Diane Glancy. The Dance Partner. Lansing: Michigan State Univ. Press, 2005.
George Pelecanos. The Night Gardener. New York: Little, Brown, 2006.
Gary Shteyngart. Absurdistan. New York: Random House, 2006.

Writers over 70:
Nadine Gordimer. Get a Life: Stories. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2005.
---. Loot, and Other Stories. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003.
Elmore Leonard. Mr. Paradise. New York : Morrow, 2004.
David McCullough. 1776. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005.
Toni Morrison. Love. New York : Knopf, 2003.
Philip Roth. Everyman. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006.
John Updike. Terrorist. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006.

Long term interest: James Joyce's Ulysses.

Some other recent or forthcoming books:

Tim Flannery. The weather makers: how man is changing the climate and what it means for life on Earth. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2005. QC981.8.C5 F438 2005
Thomas Kida. Don't believe everything you think : the 6 basic mistakes we make in thinking. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2006. BF441 .K45 2006
Gore Vidal. Clouds and Eclipses: The Collected Stories. New York: Carrol and Graf, 2006. (October)
Colin Tudge. The Tree: A Natural History of What Trees Are. How They Live, and Why They Matter. New York: Crown, 2006. (October)

LISSA MARTIN'S LIST

New this month
Messenger of Truth by Jacqueline Winspear
The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde
Knight of the Black & White by Jack Whyte
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
Journal: the short Life & Mysterious Death of Amy Zoe Mason by Joyce & Kristine Atkinson

Other Books of interest
You Can Get Arrested for That by Rich Smith
Pirateology
Thriller ed by James Patterson
The Last Cato by Matilde Asensi
I'd Kill for That ed by Marcia Talley
Adverbs by Daniel Handler
Spy Wednesday by Steven Sims
Earth: An Intimate History by Richard Fortey
Ruins by Scott Smith

BOOKS MENTIONED BY JOHN HINGSBERGEN

Timeline, Michael Crichton. A group of modern historians travels back in time to feudal France circa 1357 using quantum technology. A fast-paced science fiction thriller.

Pleading Guilty, Scott Turow. A 1993 legal mystery featuring a protagonist on the search for a missing law firm colleague.

Black Order, James Rollins. An adventure story featuring exploration of ancient myth, modern science and the quest for a new Master Race by descendants of the Nazis.

The Expected One, Kathleen McGowan. A supposedly autobiographical religious thriller by a self-proclaimed descendant of a union between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. (John's note: "I haven't read this one yet but, despite my scepticism about the story, I expect another interesting angle on the trend set in place by Daniel Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code.)

FROM OUR LISTENERS

Two recommendations from Rick Colby, of Oxford:

1) Ernst, Carl. _Following Muhammad: Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World_. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2003.

A series of short introductory essays about Islam, its historical background and its contemporary manifestations. A good book for general readers to learn more about this major world religion that has been much in the headlines recently.

2) Pamuk, Orhan. _Snow_. Trans. Maureen Freely. London: Faber and Faber, 2002.

A gripping novel by the award winning Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk (author of "My Name is Red") about a Turkish poet who has been living abroad many years who returns to reconnect with a childhood sweetheart and to investigate why girls in a small Turkish village keep committing suicide.

From Joe Swartz, of Eaton, Ohio:

"If you don't have time to read "Bob Dylan. Chronicles. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004-", check out the audio book. Phenomenal with actor Sean Penn narrating. I'm now listening to Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. Heavy subject matter but very engrossing."

From February 23, 2006:

BILL WORTMAN'S LIST

Black History Month Recommendations
(Books I've read or want to read.)

World Writers
Zadie Smith, On Beauty (2005) and White Teeth (2000?). Britain
Abdulrazak Gurnah. Desertion. Bloomsbury, 2005. Tanzania/Britain
Doreen Baingaina. Tropical Fruit: Stories Out of Entebbe. Univ. of Massachuesetts Press, 2005. Uganda
Helen Oyeymi. The Icarus Girl. Bloomsbury, 2005. Nigeria
Nuruddin Farah. Links. New York: Riverhead, 2004. Somali

U S. Fiction
New this spring:
Pearl Cleage. Baby Brother's Blues. One World Ballantine, 2006. (first Essence Book Club selection)
J. California Cooper. Wild Stars Seeking Midnight Suns. Doubleday, 2006.
Jewell Parker Rhodes. Voodoo Season. Atria, 2006.
Colson Whitehead. Apex Hides the Hurt. Doubleday, 2006.

Recent
J. California Cooper. Some People, Some Other Place. New York : Doubleday, 2004.
Tananarive Due. Joplin's Ghost. Atria, 2005.
Percival Everett, A History of the African American People Proposed by Strom Thurmond. 2004. (with James Kincaid). New York: Akashic Books, 2004. Glyph . St. Paul: Graywolf, 1999.
Edward P. Jones. The Known World. New York: Amistad, 2003. (Pulitzer Prize)
Terry McMillan. The Interruption of Everything. Viking, 2005.
Caryl Phillips. Dancing in the Dark. New York : Knopf, 2005. Crossing the River (1993) was Summer Reading selection a year ago.
Jewell Parker Rhodes. Douglass's Women. Atria, 2002. Voodoo Dreams (1993).
Martha Southgate. Third Girl from the Left . Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005.
Colson Whitehead. John Henry Days (2001). The Intuitionist (1999)
John Edgar Wideman. Hoop Dreams.

U S. Poetry
Rita Dove. American Smooth. New York: W. W. Norton, 2004.
Rainbow Darkness: An Anthology of African American Poetry. Ed. Keith Tuma. Oxford: Miami Univ Press, 2003. anthology:
Oxford Anthology of African American Poetry. 2006. PS 591.N4 O97 2006

U S. Non-Fiction Prose
K. Anthony Appiah. Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers. New York: W. W. Norton, 2006.
---. Articles in recent New York Times Magazine and Book Review and in New York Review of Books.
Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee. With Ossie and Ruby. Reissued of earlier publication.
Michael Eric Dyson. Is Bill Cosby Right (or Has the Black Middle Class Lost Its Mind)? Basic, 2005
John Hope Franklin. Mirror to America: The Autobiogrphy of JHF. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005.
Cornell West. Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism. New York: Penguin, 2004.

Oprah Recommendations
Janet Fitch., White Oleander. Little Brown, 1999.
Lalita Tademy. Cane River. Warner Books, 2001.
Haynes, Melinda. Mother of Pearl. Hyperion, 1999.
A. Manette Ansay. Vinegar Hill Avon Books, 1994.
Cleage, Pearl. What looks like crazy on an ordinary day. Avon, 1997.

U S. Best Selling Fiction (Essence report from dozen Black bookstores)
Eric Jerome Dickey. Genevieve (2005),
Terry McMillan. Bebe Moore Campbell Lolita Files
Zane. Noire. See new Black Expressions Book Club selections.

U S. Crime and Science Fiction
Walter Mosley. Cinamon Kiss, 2005.
Samuel R. Delaney. Hogg, 2004.

Major World Writers
Toni Morrison, Derek Walcott, Wole Soyinka, Alex La Guma, Bessie Head, Chinua Achebe, Amos Tutuola, W. L. R. James, and others.

Reference Books and Review Sources
Companion to African Literature. 2002.
Norton Anthology of African American Literature. 2nd ed., 2004
Oxford Companion to African American Literature. 1997.
World Writers in English. 2004.
Essence. Monthly magazine with useful book section: reviews, recommendations, biographical articles, list of hardback and paperback bestsellers in a dozen or so Blakc bookstores around the country, including Kana's in Columbus.
Also Ebony, Crisis, and Black Scholar.
World Literature Today. Reviews new books from around the world.
Publishers Weekly. Regular news of African American writers, publishing and bookselling, and related issues.

LISSA MARTIN'S LIST

Non Fiction -Civil Rights
Bound for Canaan: The Epic Story of the Underground Railroad, America's First Civil Rights Movement By Fergus M. Bordewich

Mirror to America: The Autobiography of John Hope Franklin
By John Hope Franklin

King of the Cats: The Life & Times of Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.
By Wil Haygood

Cooking
Neo Soul: Taking Soul Food to a Whole 'Nutha Level
By Lindsey William

Miami Connection
In Black & White: the Life of Sammy Davis Jr.
By Wil Haygood

The Haygoods of Columbus: A Family Memoir
By Wil Haygood

Essays
Never drank the kool-aid
By Toure

Childrens
Rosa
By Nikki Giovanni

Sports
Spinning the Glove: The Rise, Fall and Return to Greatness of the Harlem Globetrotters
By Ben Green

FROM OUR LISTENERS

Here's an e-mail from "Tim":

"I wanted to give a plug to a friend of mine and a alumnus of Miami University. Christopher Coake's first book, a collection of short stories titled "We're in Trouble" came out last spring. The stories are a little on the dark side but the writing is superb. One of the stories included in the book was featured in "The Best American Mystery Stories of 2004."

"Reggie" from Dayton recommends Under God by Toby Mack

"Cheryl" from Oxford recommends Rainbow Darkness: An Anthology of African American Poetry published by Miami University Press, 2005

"Katherine" from Morraine called to recommend the fiction of Frank Yerby. Her comments echoed by "Eva" from Franklin.

"Carol" from Hebron, KY called to recommend Ohio: The History of a People by Miami University History Professor, Andrew Cayton, PhD

Thanks to all for your participaton and contributions to the show.

From June 2, 2005:

LISSA MARTIN 'S LIST

- Winter's Tale (Pop-up)-Robert Sabuda
- Friends, Lovers, Chocolate-Alexander McCall Smith
- The City of Falling Angels-John Berendt
- Son of a Witch-Gregory Maguire
- Flush-Carl Hiaasen
- Extreme Ironing-Phil Shaw
- Shroud of the Thwacker-Chris Elliott
- Heavy Words Lightly Thrown-Chris Roberts
- Crack in the Edge of the World-Simon Winchester
- The Historian-Elizabeth Kostova
- The Big Over Easy-Jasper Fford
- Widow of the South-Robert Hicks
- God Created the Integers-Steven Hawking
also - A Briefer History of Time-Hawking

BILL WORTMAN'S LIST

- Chapelle, Francis H. Wellsprings: A Natural History of Bottled Water. Rutgers University Press, 2005.
- Comfort, Nathaniel C. The Tangled Field: Barbara McClintock's Search for the Patterns of Genetic Control. Harvard University Press, 2001.
- Ehrlich, Paul and Ann Ehrlich. Betrayal of Science: How Anti-Environmental Rhetoric Threatens Our Future. QE 195 .E37 1990
- Gould, Stephen J. Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History. QE 770 .G57 1989
- Hawking, Stphen, and Leonard Mlodinow. A Briefer History of Time. Bantam, 2005.
- Huler, Scott. Defining the Wind: the Beaufort Scales and How a Nineteenth-Century Admiral Turned Science into Poetry. Crown, 2004. This rather than a book about hurricanes or storms.
- Jackson, Jerome A. In Search of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker. Smithsonian Books, 2004.

Two other bird books:

- Tim Gallagher. The Grail Bird: Hot on the Trail of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker. Houghton Mifflin, 2005.
- Carl Vornberger. Birds of Central Park. Harry N. Abrams, 2005. Photos and text.
- McElheny, Victor K. Watson and DNA: Making a Scientific Revolution. Perseus, 2003.
- Sagan, Carl. Demon Haunted World: Science As a Candle in the Dark. Q 175 .S215 1995
- Slobodkin, Lawrence B. A Citizen's Guide to Ecology. Oxford Univeristy Press, 2003. QH 451 .S54 2003
- Waldrop,M . Mitchell. Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos. Q 175 .W258 1992
- Winchester, Simon. Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded, August 27, 1883. HarperCollins, 2003. KG says it's the "most dramatic cover to cover popular science book he's ever read."

Listener Suggestions

- "Roy" from Richmond recommended The Smoke Jumper by Nicholas Evans;

- "Mary" from Middletown recommends Becoming Justice Blackmon by Linda Greenhouse;

- "Mike" from Trenton recommends the Baroque Cycle trilogy by Neal Stephenson; also

- Longing for the Harmonies by Frank Wilczek and Betsy Devine; and

- Masks of the Universe by Edward Harrison

From February 17, 2005:

GRANT BARBER'S LIST

Petroleum Man, Stanley Crowley
Johnny Too Bad, John Dufresne
Saturday, Ian McEwan
Pearl, Mary Gordon
Our Ecstatic Days, Steve Erickson
Bartleby and Co., Enrique Vila Matas
Budapest, Chico Baurque
Dr. King's Refrigerator, Charles Johnson
Collected Stories, Carol Shields
Sightseeing, Rattawut Lapcharoensap
New in paperback:
The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Time Traveler's Wife, Audrey Niffenegger
The Death of an Ordinary Man, Glen Duncan
Love, Toni Morrison
The Birth of Venus, Sarah Dunant
A Deaf Artist in Early America: The Worlds of John Brewster, Jr, Harlan Lane
Change Me Into Zeus' Daughter and Fierce by Barbara Robinette Moss
A Sense of the Mysterious, Alan Lightman
Persepolis 2, Marjane Satrapi
Epileptic, David B.

LISSA MARTIN'S LIST

Birds of a Feather--Jacqueline Winspear
Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Le