Solace: Finding Your Way Through Grief and Learning to Live Again
by Roberta Temes, PH.D.
Non-Fiction
Book 90

Book Description
There is no more stressful and traumatic experience than coping with the death of a loved one. There are various stages of grief and loss, which often take months or even years for many people to overcome. But with the right guidance, readers can learn to lessen the pain and live happy lives. "Solace" provides soothing comfort and hope for those who are suffering. As an award-winning bereavement expert, Roberta Temes believe all of us experience and process grief in our own way. Here she helps readers through the stages of grief, tells them when they should worry, helps them consider the pros and cons of bereavement groups and counselors, and shows them how to use visualization to help the healing process. Featuring anecdotes drawn from her bereavement practice so readers may learn from the experiences of others who have also gone through and struggled with loss, "Solace" is also filled with comforting affirmations, quotations and words of encouragement. Dealing with loss is never easy, but this book provides a calming companion to help readers through their mourning and begin enjoying life again.

Who Would Have Thought It?
by Maria Amparo Ruiz De Burton
Fiction
Book 89

From Publishers Weekly
The insights into class and race in this clever satire set during and after the Civil War give it a thoroughly contemporary feel. It is even more astounding, then, to learn that it was first published in 1872, and that the author was not even a native English speaker. Burton (The Squatter and the Don) was a Baja California native who married a colonel in the Union Army, and here she combines to good effect both solid insider information and her perspective as an outsider. Dr. Norval returns to New England from a trip west carrying more than luggage. While in an Indian camp, Norval rescued a ten-year-old girl, whose mother was a kidnapped Mexican woman desperate to return Lola to the girl's father. Lola is scorned both by the local gentry, who believe she is either black or Indian, and by the doctor's wife?at least until Dr. Norval reveals that she was accompanied by a lot of gold. When word of her wealth gets out, Lola is treated like a lady as the townspeople begin complex plans to get close to her and her money. The details are exquisite. Burton excels at picking names for these supposedly good Christians, from Mrs. Cackle to the Reverends Hackwell and Hammerhard. In short chapters with titles like "Potations, Plotting and Propriety," Burton details the intricate mess of love and proposals?both honest and contrived. A thorough introduction traces specific themes like the novel's precocious portrayal of women entering the public sphere, and footnotes lend helpful historical background. In the end it is the story that counts, though, and this is a fully entertaining read that stands on its own against much of today's fiction.

About the author
Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton was the first Mexican American woman to write novels in English and the first nineteenth-century California writer to publish a novel in the aftermath of the Mexican-American War. Her first book, Who Would Have Thought It?, tells the story of Lola, a young, orphaned Mexican girl rescued from Indian captors by one Dr. Norval, who returns with Lola to his New England home. Though the townspeople initially shun the interloper, they become transfixed by Lola once word about the gold accompanying her gets out. Through the riveting personal story of a young girl's coming-of-age, Who Would Have Thought It? offers a stunning portrayal of the clash of cultures and communities, and a fresh perspective on Civil War America.

Inherent Vice: A Novel
by Thomas Pynchon
Fiction
Book 88

Book Description
Part noir, part psychedelic romp, all Thomas Pynchon— private eye Doc Sportello comes, occasionally, out of a marijuana haze to watch the end of an era as free love slips away and paranoia creeps in with the L.A. fog

It's been awhile since Doc Sportello has seen his ex-girlfriend. Suddenly out of nowhere she shows up with a story about a plot to kidnap a billionaire land developer whom she just happens to be in love with. Easy for her to say. It's the tail end of the psychedelic sixties in L.A., and Doc knows that "love" is another of those words going around at the moment, like "trip" or "groovy," except that this one usually leads to trouble. Despite which he soon finds himself drawn into a bizarre tangle of motives and passions whose cast of characters includes surfers, hustlers, dopers and rockers, a murderous loan shark, a tenor sax player working undercover, an ex-con with a swastika tattoo and a fondness for Ethel Merman, and a mysterious entity known as the Golden Fang, which may only be a tax dodge set up by some dentists.

In this lively yarn, Thomas Pynchon, working in an unaccustomed genre, provides a classic illustration of the principle that if you can remember the sixties, you weren't there . . . or . . . if you were there, then you . . . or, wait, is it . . .

About the Author
Thomas Pynchon is the author of V., The Crying of Lot 49, Gravity's Rainbow, Slow Learner, a collection of short stories, Vineland, Mason and Dixon, and, most recently, Against the Day. He received the National Book Award for Gravity's Rainbow in 1974.

A Map of Home: A Novel
by Randa Jarrar
Fiction
Book 87

Book Description
Nidali, the rebellious daughter of an Egyptian-Greek mother and a Palestinian father, narrates the story of her childhood in Kuwait, her teenage years in Egypt (to where she and her family fled the 1990 Iraqi invasion), and her family's last flight to Texas. Nidali mixes humor with a sharp, loving portrait of an eccentric middle-class family, and this perspective keeps her buoyant through the hardships she encounters: the humiliation of going through a checkpoint on a visit to her father's home in the West Bank; the fights with her father, who wants her to become a famous professor and stay away from boys; the end of her childhood as Iraq invades Kuwait on her thirteenth birthday; and the scare she gives her family when she runs away from home. Funny, charming, and heartbreaking, A Map of Home is the kind of book Tristram Shandy or Huck Finn would have narrated had they been born Egyptian-Palestinian and female in the 1970s.

About the author
Randa Jarrar is a novelist, short story writer, and translator. Her critically acclaimed debut novel, A Map of Home, won the 2009 Arab American Book Award, as well as the Hopwood and Geoffrey James Gosling Awards at the University of Michigan, where she received her MFA. The novel will also be published in Taiwan, Germany, Israel, China, and Italy. Randa grew up in Kuwait and Egypt, and moved to the US after the first Gulf War. At the age of 13, she enrolled in 10th grade, and went on to attend Sarah Lawrence College at 16. Two years later, she became a single mom, and by the age of 22, she had a Masters' degree, a four- year-old, and a desire to write a novel. She began A Map of Home at the age of 23, writing the bulk of it in a trailer in small-town Texas. Jarrar's short story, You Are A 14-Year-Old Arab Chick Who Just Moved to Texas, won the Million Writers Award and has been widely anthologized. Her other award-winning short stories have appeared in the Oxford American, Ploughshares, Hunger Mountain, and Duck and Herring, as well as online and in numerous anthologies. She is also a translator of Arabic fiction, and her publications include Hassan Daoud's novel The Year of the Revolutionary New Breadmaking Machine. She currently lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and is working on a collection of stories and a new novel, about a young single mother and her magical prophet son.

Trust Me: A Novel
by Peter Leonard
Fiction
Book 86

Book Description
Peter Leonard showed remarkable maturity for a first-time novelist in his debut novel Quiver. In Trust Me, he reaches for new heights as he crafts a classic noir thriller loaded with double- and triple-crosses.

The first mistake Karen Delaney made was entrusting $300,000 to her boyfriend, Samir, the head of an illegal bookmaking operation. The second was breaking up with him---because Samir holds a $300,000 grudge. A few months later, Karen sees a way to get her money back when two thieves break into her house in the middle of the night. She proposes a scheme to steal Samir's safe, but Karen soon realizes she's in way over her head as things begin to spin out of control.

Trust Me moves at breakneck speed through the affluent suburbs of Detroit and Chicago as Karen is pursued by O'Clair, an ex-con/ex-cop who works for Samir and wants the money for his own retirement; by Ricky, Samir's nephew, who sees the money as a way to pay off his own escalating gambling debts; by the thieves who've been double-crossed; and by two ruthless hit men who view the money as their stake in the American dream.

With relentless suspense, striking characters, and plot twists that will leave you white-knuckled, Trust Me marks the continuation of a powerful new voice in crime fiction and more than delivers on the promise of Peter Leonard's talent.

About the Author
PETER LEONARD lives in Birmingham, Michigan. His first novel, Quiver, received wide-spread critical acclaim.

The Brides Farewell: A Novel
by Meg Rosoff
Fiction
Book 85

Book Description
A young woman runs away from home and finds love in the most unexpected place
In Meg Rosoff's fourth novel, a young woman in 1850s rural England runs away from home on horseback the day she's to marry her childhood sweetheart. Pell is from a poor preacher's family and she's watched her mother suffer for years under the burden of caring for an ever-increasing number of children. Pell yearns to escape the inevitable repetition of such a life.

She understands horses better than people and sets off for Salisbury Fair, where horse trading takes place, in the hope of finding work and buying herself some time. But as she rides farther away from home, Pell's feelings for her parents, her siblings, and her fiance surprise her with their strength and alter the course of her travels. And her journey leads her to find love where she least expects it.

Rosoff's magical voice and her novel's ethereal setting will thrill her passionate longtime fans and garner her new ones.

About the author
Meg Rosoff is the author of the internationally bestselling novel How I Live Now, as well as Just in Case, which won the Carnegie Medal, and What I Was.

Homer & Langley: A Novel
by E. L. Doctorow
Fiction
Book 84

Book Description
From Ragtime and Billy Bathgate to The Book of Daniel, World's Fair, and The March, the novels of E. L. Doctorow comprise one of the most substantive achievements of modern American fiction. Now, with Homer & Langley, this master novelist has once again created an unforgettable work.

Homer and Langley Collyer are brothers-the one blind and deeply intuitive, the other damaged into madness, or perhaps greatness, by mustard gas in the Great War. They live as recluses in their once grand Fifth Avenue mansion, scavenging the city streets for things they think they can use, hoarding the daily newspapers as research for Langley's proposed dateless newspaper whose reportage will be as prophecy. Yet the epic events of the century play out in the lives of the two brothers-wars, political movements, technological advances-and even though they want nothing more than to shut out the world, history seems to pass through their cluttered house in the persons of immigrants, prostitutes, society women, government agents, gangsters, jazz musicians . . . and their housebound lives are fraught with odyssean peril as they struggle to survive and create meaning for themselves.

Brilliantly conceived, gorgeously written, this mesmerizing narrative, a free imaginative rendering of the lives of New York's fabled Collyer brothers, is a family story with the resonance of myth, an astonishing masterwork unlike any that have come before from this great writer.

About the Author
E. L. Doctorow's novels include The March, City of God, The Waterworks, Welcome to Hard Times, The Book of Daniel, Ragtime, Loon Lake, Lives of the Poets, World's Fair, and Billy Bathgate. His work has been published in thirty-two languages. Among his honors are the National Book Award, three National Book Critics Circle awards, two PEN/Faulkner awards, the Edith Wharton Citation for Fiction, the William Dean Howells Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the presidentially conferred National Humanities Medal. E. L. Doctorow lives in New York.

Impossible
by Nancy Werlin
Fiction
Book 83

From School Library Journal
Grade 9 Up -- Werlin combines magic, romance, and a family curse in this 21st-century fairy tale based on the ballad "Scarborough Fair." On the night of her prom, Lucy, 17, is raped by her date and becomes pregnant. She decides to keep the child, and she is supported by her foster parents and Zach, her childhood friend whose love for Lucy changes from platonic to romantic as the story progresses. The teen discovers the curse on the women in her family when she reads her birth mother's diary. Lucy is destined for madness at 18 unless she can perform the three impossible tasks described in the song and break the curse of the Elfin Knight. She is determined to rid herself and her unborn child of the curse, and her family and Zach help her as she works to solve the riddles. This unique story flows smoothly and evenly, and the well-drawn characters and subtle hints of magic early on allow readers to enter willingly into the world of fantasy. As in The Rules of Survival (Dial, 2006), Werlin addresses tough topics. Rape, teen pregnancy, and family madness set the story in motion, but the strength of Lucy's character and the love of her family and friends allow her to deal with such difficult matters and take on the impossible. Teens, especially young women, will enjoy this romantic fairy tale with modern trappings.

From Booklist
Date rape, a pregnant teen, and a shotgun wedding (of sorts) -- must be a YA problem novel circa 1985, right? Not really. From a hidden letter, 17-year-old Lucy Scarborough learns "all sorts of melodramatic, ridiculous, but true things" about the circumstances surrounding her rape on prom night, her subsequent pregnancy, and why therapy and her signature pragmatism won't be much help against an ancient fairy's curse. By the Edgar Award-winning novelist whose thrillers include The Rules of Survival (2006), this tale, inspired by the song "Scarborough Fair," showcases the author's finesse at melding genres. Although it's perhaps overly rosy that Lucy's devoted foster parents take the curse in stride, Werlin earns high marks for the tale's graceful interplay between wild magic and contemporary reality -- from the evil fairy lord disguised as a charismatic social worker to the main players' skepticism as they attempt to solve the curse's three archaic puzzles ("We've formed the Fellowship of the Ring when really we should've all just gone on medication"). Meantime, Lucy's marriage to childhood pal Zach, a development unusual in YA fiction but convincing in context, underlies the catapulting suspense with a notion that will be deeply gratifying to many teens: no destiny is unalterable, especially not when faced with tender love magic, "weird and hilarious and sweeter than Lucy ever dreamed," worked by truly mated souls. Grades 7-11. --Jennifer Mattson

Velva Jean Learns to Drive: A Novel
by Jennifer Niven
Fiction
Book 82

Book Reviews
"Niven creates a world long gone, a mountain past where people suffer failure, loss, and betrayal, as well as the strength and joy of connection and deep love. Velva Jean Learns to Drive takes us far into this soaring, emotional country, the place where our best music comes from." -- Robert Morgan, author of Gap Creek

"Velva Jean learns to . . . not only drive, but to soar. This beautifully written coming-of-age story captivated me, and I recommend it to anyone who has ever longed to 'live out there.'" -- Ann B. Ross, author of the bestselling Miss Julia novels

Book Description
Set in Appalachia in the years before World War II, Velva Jean Learns to Drive is a poignant story of a spirited young girl growing up in the gold- mining and moonshining South. Before she dies, Velva Jean's mother urges her to "live out there in the great wide world." Velva Jean dreams of becoming a big-time singer in Nashville until she falls in love with Harley Bright, a handsome juvenile delinquent turned revival preacher. As their tumultuous love story unfolds, Velva Jean must choose between keeping her hard-won home and pursuing her dream of singing in the Grand Ole Opry.

Beyond Success: Redefining the Meaning of Prosperity
by Jeffrey L. Gitterman
Non-Fiction
Book 81

Book Description
Ask those who have achieved what they once thought of as their ultimate dream whether it's related to money, career, family, or relationships and they will most likely tell you that something is still missing. When it comes to success, happiness, and contentment, we surprisingly tend to find more exhilaration in chasing our goals than in attaining them. But what does this mean for those of us who strive for meaning in our lives? We can't just stop trying, can we? Is there any way to truly feel fulfilled? This book provides a down-to-earth process for finding peace and contentment within the real world...and redefines the meaning of success.

Book Review
"...thought-provoking, philosophical discussion of what happiness really is, and what it takes to achieve it...a dialogue that should benefit everyone..."
-- Foreword magazine

Visit Jeffrey L. Gitterman's web site