Twisted Head: An Italian-American Memoir, by Carl Capotorto

The author, The “Sopranos’” Little Paulie, tells the funny, poignant story of growing up in the Bronx in the 1970’s as he struggled against his overbearing father to become his own person.

RATING: * * * A good read
Reviewed by: kh

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Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World, by Vicki Myron, with Bret Witter

Vicki Myron is passionate about libraries, about Iowa, about the town of Spencer, and especially about Dewey, the cat who ran the Spencer Public Library.  Each of her passions have a story and all intertwine to explain how Dewey, a tiny, dirty abandoned kitten rescued from a library book drop, repays his humans by the wrapping his heart around a librarian, a library, a town, and yes, eventually the world. You see the profound effect one special cat had on each person who entered the library, both staff and patrons, and some who never came through its doors.

Understanding Spencer is key to understanding Dewey’s place in it.  I’ve rarely seen such a deep sense of place described in so few pages. You come to care not only for Dewey, but for his library and his town and his people. You think I’m exaggerating by calling the library his library, Spencer his town, the people as his people?  Read the book and you will understand.  We owe Vicki Myron a debt of gratitude for giving Dewey to us–again.

Soon to come:  the movie version starring Meryl Streep.

And for more, there’s Dewey’s webpage and Facebook page.

RATING: * * * * Very, very good
Reviewed by: veagenlib

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What the World Eats, by Peter Menzel

Photos and short essays showing 25 families from 21 countries around the world surrounded by what for them is a typical week’s worth of food. This would be a great discussion book for a family, especially this time of year as we have wonderful meals with our loved ones and consider all that we have to be thankful for.

RATING: * * * * Very, very good
Reviewed by: KH

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The FDR books Obama reads

What’s on President-elect Obama’s nightstand?  When he mentioned reading a new book about Franklin Roosevelt in a recent “60 Minutes” interview, everyone wondered what he meant.  The New York Times has the full investigative results here.  

For the record, the library owns all the books mentioned in the Times article, sometimes also in large print, paperback, and/or audio.

The Ten-Year Nap, by Meg Wolitzer

Lately I’ve been reading historical fiction with a darker twist, books with Holocaust themes, and depressing memoirs of family dysfunction for my book group.  So I found it tough to care about or like the main characters in this book–a group of well-off but dissatisfied women lost on the mommy track in Manhattan.  “Stop whining!,” I wanted to yell at them. 

Nonetheless, if you’re in the mood for some smartly-written domestic fiction and a quick read, Wolitzer’s humor is dead-on, and she has a lot of insightful things to say about the day-to-day life of being a parent, and how having more choices doesn’t necessarily make our lives clearer or happier.

An excerpt and an interview with Terry Gross on NPR’s “Fresh Air” can be found here.

RATING: * * * A good read
Reviewed by: stc

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Brother, I’m Dying, by Edwidge Danticat

Edwidge Danticat was four years old when her parents immigrated to America, leaving her in Haiti for eight years in the care of her aunt and uncle Joseph, her “second father.”  This memoir–which weaves the history of Danticat’s family with the political history of Haiti–is a loving tribute to these two “fathers,” and their lives in the troubled times of Haiti that led one to leave and another, until the tragic end of his life, to stay.  And as one reviewer commented on Amazon.com, although her uncle Joseph–a Baptist minister and speaker–lost his voice to cancer and his life in U.S. custody, in writing this book Danticat does her part to give both back.

Robin Miles is the reader for the audiobook version (which won several awards), and beautifully captures the accents, the love, the sadness, and the harrowing nature of the story.  Despite the dramatic nature of the events, and her closeness to the people involved, I found Danticat’s prose here to feel more detached than in some of her fiction.  Hearing the book, the emotions came through loud and clear.

An interview with Edwidge Danticat about her uncle’s detention is here, and a “60 Minutes” interview on the same subject is here.

RATING: **** Very, very good
Reviewed by: stc

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The Pages in Between: A Holocaust Legacy of Two Families, One Home, by Erin Einhorn

Erin Einhorn’s mother Irena was born in Poland in 1942, and hidden by a Catholic family during the Holocaust.  Irena’s mother died in Auschwitz, but her father survived, reunited with his daughter, remarried, and moved to America.  Meanwhile, the family’s property near Krakow was left for the rescuing Polish family to live in, manage, and rent–but the details weren’t clear to either party.

Years later, the author (a newspaper reporter) returns to Poland, hoping to learn more about the place where her family lived, and to thank those who rescued her mother.   But instead of the happy reunion she envisions, what results is a lengthy, complicated dispute over the property.  And she realizes that “[s]ixty years later, the virtues of right and wrong were not as clear as they had been, and gestures in one generation were not necessarily destined to have an effect on the next.”

Part family memoir, part Holocaust history, part genealogy, part examination of current Polish fascination with a romanticized Jewish culture; altogether this is a fascinating book. 

Erin Einhorn’s 2002 interview with Ira Glass (about her time in Poland) on NPR’s “This American Life” is here, and a Q&A with the author is here.

RATING:  **** Very, very good
Reviewed by: stc

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The Cellist of Sarajevo, by Steven Galloway

During the seige of Sarajevo in 1992, 22 people were killed in a bread line; afterward, cellist Vedran Smailovic played at the spot for 22 days.  Inspired by this event, and told from alternating points of view, Galloway’s novel tells the story of four Sarajevo residents who hear the music, and, in different ways, facing various challenges, try to retain their decency and normalcy in a city that is anything but normal.  A powerful story focusing not on the politics of war but on its randomness, and illustrating how ordinary choices are never ordinary in wartime.

RATING: **** Very, very good
Reviewed by: stc

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The German Bride, by Joanna Hershon

To quote Mary Doria Russell on the book jacket, this is “an immigrant tale and a Western, without the Lower East side or cowboys.”  Living in 1860’s Berlin and haunted by unhappiness, Eva Frank tries to escape to a new life by marrying a Jewish merchant and returning back with him to Santa Fe.  But the harsh newness of the West only deepens her sadness, children don’t come, and her husband–unlike his hardworking brother–loves liquor and gambling more than family life.  The characters and Western landscape are beautifully described, and the dust, heat, and sense of isolation Eva feels are palpable.

RATING: * * * * Very, very good
Reviewed by:stc

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