Suzanne Berne

The Thanksgiving holiday is a time for sharing, cooking, visiting, reminiscing – all of these and more. What drew me, in part, to this novel by Suzanne Berne is a family dynamic that the characters share, but which I wouldn’t want to see at my own holiday celebrations.

Mixing generations can be a tenuous situation, even for a day. In The Ghost at the Table, the father of the two main characters, sisters Cynthia and Frances, has suffered a stroke, and is on the verge of moving to a nursing home because his younger second wife, Ilse, refuses to take care of him any longer, and is seeking a divorce. At the risk of making the novel sound like a TV drama, I’ll continue, but that’s exactly why I liked this work of realistic fiction – sometimes families are exactly like this. The author weaves the plot without descending to the depths of soap opera.

Frances, the older sister and the Thanksgiving feast hostess, is an interior decorator who prides herself on household order. Cynthia, the novel’s narrator, is single and writes historical fiction for girls. She agrees to fly back east to New England for Thanksgiving only because she can turn her trip into a working holiday: she plans to visit to Mark Twain’s house in Hartford to further her research on the lives of his daughters for her current book. Add to the mix Frances’ two teenage daughters, Sarah and Jane, whose sibling rivalry parallels at times the relationship of their mother and aunt.

As Frances and Cynthia interact, comparisons of lifestyles, possessions, responsibilities, and favoritism inevitably ensue, as do differences in perception of the same childhood events. Watch for a plot twist or two toward the very end of the novel, concerning just those same differences in perception about their mother’s death decades ago.

A supporting cast of characters, including Frances’ husband Walter and assorted guests at Thanksgiving dinner, round out this familial holiday gathering in a story which never sinks to melodrama, in spite of all the entanglements.

Suzanne Berne won the Orange Prize in 1999 for her novel, A Crime in the Neighborhood. You can read about it here on Highly Recommended.

Jean Salked – Administration Office

Editor’s note: We wish all of our readers a happy Thanksgiving Day holiday. Highly Recommended will return on Monday, December 1.

Seth Greenland

Hapless Marcus Ripps has three wishes: that his small family lived in a less seamy suburb of L.A. That his cold carp of a wife would begrudge him one tender crumb of passion, and that, were it in his power – and checkbook – he could give his beloved son Nate the blow-out bar mitzvah of his dreams.

And then the unthinkable happens. Marcus’ job is outsourced to India – thanks to a ruthless CEO who also happens to be Marcus’ backstabbing boyhood friend.

Marcus needs a miracle, and in Shining City, Seth Greenland’s turbo-charged and manic second novel about a ‘has not’ who suddenly inherits a thriving escort service, he gets one.

And it’s all good – because in upscale West Hollywood, as Marcus ( now dubbed Pimp Daddy by his ‘Sweet Tart’ team) soon comes to realize, the term entrepreneur is often blurred. After all, how many johns offer their girls comprehensive health care and a monthly book club?

A bittersweet fable about success and its many consequences, Shining City is a hilarious alternative to all the usual ‘book club’ suspects.

Aimee Zuccarini – East Columbia Branch

The Little Book is full of some big ideas. Would you change major events in world history if you had the chance? Would you follow your heart even if it meant that your family legacy would be forever altered? And what would you discuss with Sigmund Freud if you had the chance to lie on his couch as he was formulating the Oedipus complex? These are some of the issues that Wheeler Burden must resolve as he finds himself mysteriously transported to 1897 Vienna. Here he has a chance to fall in love, become better acquainted with his war-hero father, discuss psychological theories with Sigmund Freud, "invent" the frisbee, and become acquainted with the city he only knew through the eyes of his beloved professor, "The Venerable Haze." Although Burden was a young man of strong personal convictions, he realizes along the way that he is not the person he believed himself to be.

The author’s personal story is as fascinating as the book. Selden Edwards began writing The Little Book over 30 years ago, while working as an English professor. He obviously threw himself into the writing of this book – literally. Like our main character, Edwards played sports at an Ivy League college, and like "The Venerable Haze," spent much of his time employed at private schools. We can only speculate whether he has found himself transported back in time…

Edwards does take some time developing the story in early chapters that would have benefited from more careful editing. Keep reading; the trip is worth the wait.

Andrea Misner – Administration Office

Recently, you may have noticed some great new additions to the expanding music collection at Howard County Library. In particular, I’d like to recommend three CDs by The Killers: Hot Fuss, Sam’s Town and Sawdust. A band in the vanguard of the post-punk revival, The Killers do a great job of taking the 80s New Wave sound in new directions and producing music that is somehow familiar and yet original, distinctive, and fun.

The Killers‘ debut album, Hot Fuss, includes Mr. Brightside, a wonderful collection of jealous neuroses set to music, as well as a number of other standout tracks.

The follow-up, Sam’s Town, is a CD that has been put together in sequence and plays best, even in this MP3 era, when listened to as a whole. After the rip-roaring title track opens Sam’s Town, the CD is framed by a Sgt. Pepper-like intro welcoming listeners to the CD – hoping you “enjoy the show" – and an outro that sends us on our way feeling good about having listened to the whole collection. In between are some great pop-rock songs including For Reasons Unknown, Bones, and the exceptional Read My Mind. Each track on Sam’s Town possesses depth beyond the melody and has something forceful to say, making this CD a collection that can stand repeat listening.

The newest Killers‘ CD in Howard County Library’s collection is Sawdust, a B-sides and rarities collection that fills in some musical gaps and recovers the best stuff from the cutting room floor. There are seventeen tracks here, and although a couple of the covers and remixes fail to soar, the majority of the CD is vintage Killers. Under the Gun and a cover of Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town are standouts.

The Killers‘ Day and Age, is due for release in late fall. There’s plenty of time between now and then to catch up with Hot Fuss, Sam’s Town and Sawdust, so that you’re fully prepared when the new CD is released.

John Jewitt – Savage Branch

Dr. Mario Livio

It’s hard to find wonder in the middle of winter. There’s the whole waking up in the dark thing, trying to find two good socks, and something to wear other than black pants. The holidays brighten everything up but then when the calendar flips to January and February, if you’re like me you start looking for something different to do to break the monotony of winter.

Well, on December 1, 2008 through March 15, 2009, Howard County Central Library will host an exhibit of photographs from the Hubble Space Telescope. You’ll glimpse images of tunnels that are billions of miles long, and of stars exploding. Did you know there are fields out in space where stars are being born? Have you ever seen a picture of deepest space? Can you imagine what that would look like?

We invite you to come with someone special, bring the kids, or even load the car up with all the relatives and come in out of the cold to see these amazing pictures. The photos are on display courtesy of the Space Telescope Science Institute, The Walters Art Museum, and The Johns Hopkins University Programs in Museums and Science.

In addition to the exhibit, an engineer from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center will teach children about the Hubble Space Telescope on Thursday, December 11; 7:00 pm at Central Library. He’ll bring an astronaut’s glove for the kids to try on, a tool used to repair the Hubble, as well as a small replica of the Hubble. You may register online beginning on December 4.

Then, for the adults, on Thursday, February 26, Dr. Mario Livio, a senior astrophysicist at the Space Telescope Science Institute, will visit Central Library at 7:00 pm. He’ll explain what we are seeing in the Hubble images. What is a black hole? How do they know a tunnel is a trillion miles long?

Dr. Livio speaks nationally, and we’re thrilled to have him join us. We’ll host a book signing with him that night – books will be available for purchase at the event – and you’re all invited to a reception following his presentation. We’re also inviting scientists and engineers who work on the Hubble to attend. We invite you to talk "Hubble" with the people who really know "Hubble." Come see us at the Library on this special occasion.

Barb Langridge – Central Library

Kathleen Kent

Although ours is a country offering precious freedoms and incomparable possibility, the United States, both in its infancy and beyond, lays claim to some dark moments. The Salem Witch Trials must be viewed as one of the darkest. The late 1600s in Massachusetts was a period when purity drained from religion; swayed by hysteria, political and religious leaders lost their moral bearings.

It was during this time that Thomas Carrier and his wife Martha, raising their five children, faced the hardship of providing a modicum of shelter, food, and warmth. On top of the basic everyday challenges, smallpox and Indian raids were continuous threats. When the Carriers move to a family homestead and eventually accept ownership of the land, a seed of bitter resentment is planted. Feeling the land is rightly his, Martha’s nephew Allen tries to destroy what the Carriers have built. Martha, however, does not bow to the will of Allen or, for that matter, the will of any man.

Her opposition stokes a festering anger in him. At an opportune moment, Allen fabricates stories about his aunt and her witching powers. Others lend additional credence to his outrageous allegations. With Cotton Mather on a vigilant hunt for those in the service of the Devil, a community, already on edge, is quick to crucify. It is at this point that the Carrier family’s future is changed forever.

The Heretic’s Daughter provides a stunning combination of lyrical writing, palpable characters, and a commanding story. Historical fiction is not a genre to which I gravitate, yet I’m sure this will remain a favorite of mine. The Carriers and their remarkable courage will resonate with you long after you have finished the last page. I feel beholden to convey the brilliance of Kathleen Kent’s book with my words. The task is daunting.

Fritzi Newton – Miller Branch

Naomi Novik

Imagine the Napoleonic wars with an air force added into the mix. Now, further imagine that dragons make up that air force! Welcome to the world of Naomi Novik’s His Majesty’s Dragon. England has managed to stave off an inevitable invasion from French forces by the invincibility of its Navy in the Atlantic and by the draconic Aerial Corps’ strong patrols along the coast and over the Channel. Of course, the Corsican general has his own force of bombers and fighters to send against his enemies. Each dragon has a human handler who lives and works in close contact, and a fighting crew to help with care and in fights. Novik gives us a wide range of dragons, from speedy, smaller messengers to fire-breathing behemoths. They all come with their own personalities, as fully developed as the people around them.

The novel begins with Captain William Laurence, an officer and a gentleman, on the deck of a French warship he has just captured after a particularly bloody fight. The cause of the French ferocity is understood when a rare dragon egg is found in the ship’s hold. When the dragon hatches at sea, Laurence becomes the Temeraire’s handler, much to his chagrin. Members of the Aerial Corps are honored for their service, but not particularly welcome in polite society. Above all else, Laurence is an English aristocrat with a very stiff, British upper lip. He and Temeraire soon combine into a wonderfully sympathetic pair, which makes it easy to cheer them on through their training and battle adventures. Temeraire is a dragon like no other ever seen on Britain’s shores.

Novik does a remarkable job of conveying the conventions of the time, especially when contrasting the very strictly ruled Navy with the more relaxed mores of the Aerial Corps, which accepts whomever the dragon chooses as its handler, even women officers – shocking! As the series continues, so do Laurence and Temeraire’s adventures, which take them to China, through the Afghani wilderness to Turkey, and finally to Africa. Through Temeraire’s inherent sense of fairness and rampaging curiosity, Novik explores a wide range of issues. These are fun books that occasionally challenge the reader’s easy assumptions.

Kristen Blount – Administration Office

Marya Hornbacher

Last month I saw Madness: A Bipolar Life on the "New Books" shelf and I cringed. In the late 90s I had read another book of Marya Hornbacher’s called Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia. It was sad and horrific, something so visceral and often ugly that I was more than happy when I finished the last page. Her account of personally battling eating disorders was so traumatic – so appropriately "wasted" – that I couldn’t imagine there would be room left for additional woes, no matter how heartbreaking they may be.

I don’t fare well with brutally detailed memoirs of excessive self-destruction; it is both embarrassingly fascinating and startling uncomfortable to peek into a stranger’s life this way. Still, it’s the kind of thing that has the potential to change lives, even if it does so in a less than pleasant manner. I picked up Madness and started reading.

Like its predecessor, Hornbacher’s latest may strike you as one long ride through wild self-indulgence. Her excellent and quite lucid writing makes you question how such a fragile mind could churn out this stuff without skipping a beat, as if everything that happened to her is somehow manufactured. Yet anyone who’s been through (or known someone who has) the highs and lows of bipolar and other mental illnesses will tell you this is eerily dead-on. This is no An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison (possibly THE best book ever on bipolar disorder), but it’s loud enough to make you take notice of a disease that has yet to be fully understood.

You can find out more about the author on her website. These days she appears to be doing lots better and for that I’m glad.

Angie Engles – Central Library

Patricia Wood

Perry L. Crandall is a young man prone to goodness and small but sparkling moments of wisdom. He is going to need them. His life has just become very complicated – which to Perry, with a significant IQ of 76, "means your feelings have many parts to them."

Indeed, within days, two events shake his world: he loses his feisty grandmother and wins twelve million dollars in the Washington State Lottery. Suddenly Perry must depend on that distinguishing I.Q. – only one point above the label of mentally retarded – to determine his future.

Slow, his grandmother always counseled, meant getting to a place later than fast people. And in the process you got the time to think – and think Perry does (with the help of a crusty Vietnam vet who has his back) as possessing strangers and corrupt relations descend upon him.

In Lottery, a Washington Post Best Fiction of 2007 selection, first-time author Patricia Wood imagines a character of such clarity, purpose and appeal, readers will come away with the weird notion that Perry L. Crandall exists beyond the last word. At least they will wish he did.

Aimee Zuccarini – East Columbia Branch

Martha Sherrill

The prologue of Dog Man: An Uncommon Life on a Faraway Mountain tells the following story:

In 1924, a man dies after suffering a stroke. His dog, Hachi-ko, continues to meet his master’s commuter train at Shibuya Station every day for the next nine years. Hachi-ko eventually receives a bronze statue in honor of his loyalty. He was an Akita, a breed beloved by samurai warriors. Today the Akita is Japan’s national breed.

Set in the snow country of Northern Japan, Dog Man tells the tale of Morie Sawataishi, a thirty-year-old engineer with Mitsubishi who becomes a heralded Akita breeder. By the end of World War II, there were only a dozen or so Akitas remaining in Japan. Many of these dogs were slaughtered for their beautiful pelts or used to feed people who were starving. Martha Sherrill uses meticulous research from primary sources – including conversations, photos and memorabilia from the breeder, who is now in his nineties – to illustrate Morie’s key role in saving the Akitas from extinction.

In his lifetime, Morie has owned generation upon generation of Akitas. You will read about amazing dogs like Three Good Lucks, One Hundred Tigers, and the very best of all, Samurai Tiger. Sherrill also writes about Morie’s wife Kitako, who left an elegant life in Tokyo to live in the middle of nowhere; his children, who resented the fact that their father lavished more time on the dogs than he did on them; and Uesugi, a rugged bear hunter and guide. You don’t have to be a dog lover to enjoy this book. It’s not just a story of a man and his obsession with Akitas, but also a look at the evolution of Japan’ s industrialization after the war years.

Click here to listen to a conversation between Martha Sherrill and Charlie Rose.

Eve Olsen – Central Library