Featured Selections

On the Road: The Original Scroll

by Jack Kerouac
General Fiction
Penguin Classics
Paperback
$17.00

We dug Jack Kerouac’s On the Road the first time through. But that was fifty years ago and we were twenty and it was the 60’s. As noted in last month’s notes, our interest was renewed by the new novel, Manana Means Heaven by Tim Z. Hernandez that chronicles a fictional account of Kerouac’s “Mexican Girl.” So, we got a copy of On the Road: The Original Scroll – the 300-plus-page unexpurgated 2007 version of the 120-foot-long scroll of tracing paper on which (as Capote cattily said) Kerouac “typed” (rather than “wrote”) uninterrupted for three weeks. The book is similarly printed as one long paragraph, single-spaced and nothing is left out including the real names of the characters – Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsburg, William Burroughs, etc. Well, we are not twenty anymore and it was a long slog. But, we didn’t put it down and we dug it!

Endangered

by Eliot Schrefer
Young Adult
Scholastic Press
Hardcover, 272 pages
$17.99

The bonobo is a great ape that, along with its cousin the chimpanzee, is the closest extant relative to humans. They inhabit the forests and swamps south of the Congo River and are known for their relative peacefulness. Ironic and interesting, then, that this story is set in the midst of a violent and brutal civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Sophie, the mixed-race daughter of an estranged American father and Congolese mother, visits her mother’s Bonobo sanctuary deep in the forest. On the way she, herself, acquires an abused and orphaned young bonobo, Otto, and they bond like super-glue. Her mom heads out on a field trip and the rag-tag rebels arrive with machetes and firearms. She and Otto escape and embark on a harrowing trek to find mom. There is a lot in here about bonobos and about the legacy of human dysfunction and terror left by King Leopold and his European colonial counterparts. In another life we visited the orangutan sanctuaries in Sumatra and Borneo and experienced first-hand the awful tension between serving the needs of destitute humans and those of endangered primates. This book won the Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award for Children's Literature for 2013 and was a finalist for the 2012 National Book Award.

My Life With the Green and Gold

by Jessie Garcia
Sports
Wisconsin Historical Press
Paperback, 240 pages
$18.95

OK, Packers fans! Here are two new, fun and interesting books for your Packer bookshelf. Jesse Garcia was an unlikely voice of the Packers – she is a woman, a minority and, as a Madison East High cheerleader, she didn’t have a clue about the game. She grew into it and juggled her life as a traveling sportscaster and mother. She reported three Packer Super Bowls and did the coach’s Monday shows with both Holmgren and McCarthy. It’s a personal story loaded with grace and humor.

Packers Pride

by Leroy Butler
Sports
Triumph Books
Hardcover, 352 pages
$25.95

LeRoy Butler invented the Lambeau Leap! ‘Nuf said! He played defensive back for the Pack for twelve years and was named to four Pro-Bowls as well as the NFL’s 1990’s All-Decade Team. Reischel has covered the Packers for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel since 2001 and has written several books on the team. This book is a compilation of short pieces sharing the stories of several dozen players, coaches and executives who have been key figures for the team over the years. Great for the bedside as there is no particular order or sequence and you can dive in anywhere for a few minutes and relive some great memories. There is a touching Foreward by Packer great Willie Davis. Nice, upbeat book!

Countdown

by Alan Weisman
Sustainability
Little, Brown & Co.
Hardcover, 528 pages
$28.00

Ah…denial! That favorite comfort zone of humankind! Weisman makes it hard to stay there with this no-punches-pulled examination of the state and apparent future of our habitat. Overpopulation and overconsumption provide the deadly synergy of this meticulously researched survey of our prospects. In a way it is a “prequel” to his fascinating best seller, The World Without Us, which describes the likely aftermath of the disappearance of homo sapiens from the earth and the fate of the works and detritus that we leave behind. His fieldwork takes us from Palestine to the Great Wall and from Utah to Teheran and beyond where he interviews and travels with experts, activists and the local populace. He got the chops of his reverence for nature here in the Great Lakes region and his hometown of Minneapolis. Compelling. Sobering.

Soup & Bread Cookbook

by Beatrice Ojakangas
Food/Cooking
Rodale Books
Paperback, 320 pages
$23.99

Beatrice Ojakangas has written some of the most popular midwest cookbooks out there. The Soup & Bread Cookbook is no exception! This broad collection of soups, broths, bisques, and chowders ranges from summer coolers and hearty, warming stews to smooth, creamy soups and fiery broths. And the bread recipes alone could fill a cookbook. Loaves, buns, sticks, and flatbreads are just a few. Organized by season and complemented by stunning photographs, this is ideal for anyone who takes comfort in the essential pleasures of a bowl of soup and warm bread.
 

The Goldfinch

by Donna Tartt
General Fiction
Little Brown & Co.
Hardcover, 784 pages
$30.00

We love an author who takes time and care to perfect her art. Donna Tartt roared onto the literary scene in 1992 with her internationally bestselling psychological thriller The Secret History. While her plot and characters were compelling, elegantly drawn and deeply textured, it was her absolutely stunning use of the English language that thrilled many readers. An agonizingly long 11 years later she published her second novel, The Little Friend, which turned out to be a disappointment to many. Quel dommage! How could this happen to such a gifted writer? Now, ten years later, Tartt has brought us The Goldfinch.  With great relief, we can say that the Donna Tartt, who wrote The Secret History, has been returned to earth by the aliens who had abducted her. Described by many as Dickensian, The Goldfinch is a masterful, sprawling, character-driven drama. Tartt’s uncanny ability with language is evident throughout in her settings, descriptions, characters and insights. She manages to make even the most mundane activities interesting and alive in the reader’s mind. We are happy to wait as long as it takes for her next book!

Gigi and Her Girl

by Kathy Brandt
Children's
Hardcover, 32 pages
$16.99

Those who have visited our store and fallen in love with our miniature husky, Kia, will fall in love with this book. Inspired by the real life antics of the author’s daughter and her beloved dog, Gigi, the story is told from the alternating points-of-view of the little girl and her dog. They don’t quite see things the same way! Ay, there’s the rub! The author has also done the beautiful illustrations that accompany the rhyming text.

The Luminaries

by Eleanor Catton
General Fiction
Little Brown & Company
Hardcover, 848 pages
$27.00

Twelve men meet at the Crown Hotel in Hokitika, New Zealand, in January, 1866. A thirteenth, Walter Moody, an educated man from Edinburgh who has come here to find his fortune in gold, walks in. As it unfolds, the interlocking stories and shifting narrative perspectives of the twelve--now thirteen--men bring forth a mystery that all are trying to solve, including Walter Moody, who has just gotten off the Godspeed ship with secrets of his own that intertwine with the others' concerns. Primarily, The Luminaries is an action-adventure, sprawling detective story, superbly plotted, where the Crown Hotel men try to solve it, while sharing secrets and shame of their own.

The layout of the book is stellar: the spheres of the skies and its astrological charts. One doesn't need to understand the principles and mathematics of astrology, but it is evident that knowledge of this pseudoscience would add to the reading experience, as it provides the structure and frame of the book. The characters' traits can be found in their individual sun signs (such as the duality of a Gemini). The drawings of charts add to the mood, and the chapters get successively shorter after the long Crown chapter. The cover of the book illustrates the phases of the moon, from full moon to sliver, alluding to the waning narrative lengths as the story progresses.

Author Eleanor Catton is only 28 years old and has just won the 2013 Man Booker Prize for this masterfully told story! At over 800 pages, this is a hefty read, but Catton's descriptions and characters are bound to hold your attention.

Mrs. Poe

by Lynn Cullen
General Fiction
Gallery Books
Hardcover, 336 pages
$26.00

It's 1845. The Raven has just been published and is widely adored. Frances Osgood is a struggling poet and has just been rejected by her publisher again. He tells her to come up with something similar to Poe's writing, but for women. She is skeptical. Frances then has the opportunity to meet Mr. Poe. She certainly didn't mean to fall in love with this man. She was married to a philandering husband and he to his first cousin half his age. Over two years we experience this troubled relationship with them. The characters and the relationships in this novel are more complex than one would imagine. This novel, which most certainly fiction, is well researched and we learn a lot about Edgar Allen Poe (known to his wife as Eddie). A very well written, entertaining read.

That is Not a Good Idea!

by Mo Willems
Childrens
Balzer & Bray
Hardcover, 48 pages
$17.99

That Is Not a Good Idea! is a hilarious, interactive picture book from bestselling author and illustrator Mo Willems, the creator of books like Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, the Knuffle Bunny series, the Elephant and Piggie series, and many others.
 
Inspired by the evil villains and innocent damsels of silent movies, Willems tells the tale of a hungry fox who invites a plump goose to dinner. As with the beloved Pigeon books, kids will be calling out the signature refrain and begging for repeated readings. The funny details in the colorful illustrations by three-time Caldecott Honoree Mo Willems will bring nonstop laughter to story time.

Manana Means Heaven

by Tim Z. Hernandez
General Fiction
University of Arizona Press
Hardcover, 240 pages
$24.95

There is a photo of a pair of gristled, knotty hands holding a copy of this book.  They belong to the 92-year-old Bea Franco who was “Terry,” Jack Kerouac’s On the Road “Mexican Girl.”  They met on a bus in Bakersfield, California in 1947 – a Chicana migrant worker and a college boy – and carried on a 15-day love affair. That much is true. This novel develops a context around that truth based upon Kerouac’s writings; letters and cards from Bea in the Kerouac archives in the New York Public Library; and the author’s encounter with the elderly Bea and her family. Together with a fertile imagination this makes an interesting addition to Kerouac lore. As fate would have it Bea Franco passed away on August 15^th, 2013 at the age of 92 just before the book was released.

At Night We Walk in Circles

by Daniel Alarcon
General Fiction
Riverhead Hardcover
Hardcover, 384 pages
$27.95

This one resonates with the feel of latter day Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Set in an unnamed Latin American country (Peru, would do) it follows the deteriorating life of young Nelson. He joins a guerilla theatrical group – Diciembre - led by his revolutionary idol, Henry Nunez, and goes on tour. He becomes progressively entangled with the lives and relationships of his fellow actors during performance after performance of The Idiot President. Eventually the pot boils over and a hidden betrayal fuels a chaotic disintegration of the troupe. A meditation on obsession, identity and fate.
 

Burmese Days

by George Orwell
General Fiction
Mariner Books
Paperback, 288 pages
$14.00

Typically the name George Orwell brings to mind his dystopian novels 1984 and Animal Farm, which together by 2009 had sold more copies than any two books by any other 20^th Century author. Those who have delved deeper usually come up with Homage to Catalonia, an account of his experiences in the Spanish Civil War, and Down and Out in Paris and London, the account of his deliberately living the low-life in those European cities in the late 20’s. Buried yet deeper is his novel Burmese Days that portrays the dark and sordid life of colonial society in the waning days of the British Raj. Orwell had spent five years (1922-27) as a police officer in the Indian Imperial Police Force in Burma (now Myanmar). One of his postings was Kathar, a backwater village in the up-country teak forest, which provides the setting for the story. His depiction of the malignant culture of the colonial functionaries and their “burra memsahibs” is alternately humorous and horrifying, but always gripping.

The Golden Spruce

by John Valliant
Reflections on Nature
WW Norton & Co.
Paperback, 288 pages
$16.95

It was known as K’iid K’iyass (Old Tree) by the Haida people of the Queen Charlotte Islands that lie sixty miles off the northern coast of British Columbia. It was sacred to them and was an eco-tourism boon to the local populace of Port Clements. It was over 300-years-old, had brilliant gold needles and a perfectly coniform shape. Through a random mutation the tree lacked 80% of the Sitka Spruce’s normal chlorophyll and lacked the typical haphazard branching. It stood like a gold jewel against the deep green of the virgin coastal forest on the bank of the Yakoun River. There was none other like it in the world. In 1997 a deranged former logger and arriviste eco-activist took a chainsaw to it and left it lying in the river. This book tells the story and tells it very well indeed.

The Book of Killowen

by Erin Hart
Mystery
Scribner
Hardcover, 352 pages
$26.00

What sort of book is worth a man's life? After a year away from working in the field, archaeologist Cormac Maguire and pathologist Nora Gavin are back in the bogs, investigating a ninth-century body found buried in the trunk of a car. They discover that the ancient corpse is not alone. Pinned beneath it is the body of Benedict Kavanagh, missing for mere months and familiar to television viewers as a philosopher who enjoyed destroying his opponents in debate. Both men were viciously murdered, but centuries apart, so how did they end up buried together in the bog?

This novel by Minnesota author, Erin Hart, is rooted in medieval Ireland and rich in the particulars of monastic manuscripts: how “the gallbladders of eels” and cooking down “gallnuts” make inks are just a few examples. All of this history serves the novel’s suspense and adds to the book’s splendor.

Fire Season

by Philip Connors
Reflections on Nature
Ecco Press
Paperback, 272 pages
$14.99

The tragedy of 19 elite firefighters in Arizona set us to thinking about forest fire literature – Kerouac, Snyder, Dillard and Abbey to name a few. Norman MacLean’s Young Men and Fire probably sets the standard and, with its account of the deaths of 17 young smokejumpers, is most relevant to the Arizona catastrophe. In this book, Connors relates his experience of a decade of summers spent high in a fire tower in New Mexico’s Gila National Forest and the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Area. The writing is both lyrical and energetic; observational and introspective; ruminative and polemical. There is a lot of forest husbandry, pyrotechnics, wildlife management, and contented isolation. He’s a former Wall Street Journal reporter. Go figure!

On Paris

by Ernest Hemingway
General Fiction
Hesperus Press
Paperback, 80 pages
$16.95

If Hemingway still attracts you, you can motor through this one in about an hour or so. Written in 1922-23, it is a series of pieces written for the Toronto Star Weekly during his early time as a Paris-based journalist. They range from the catty and mundane to the politically savvy. He derides his contemporary expats as “the scum of Greenwich Village” who serve as flypaper for tourists in search of atmosphere in the Café Rotonde. At the same time, his notes on the policies of M. Poincare in the post WWI years and the lead-up to Nazism are prescient. It’s an eclectic little collection and all Hemingway and all Paris. We love them both!