This is just the kind of book that would have made my mother’s eyes twinkle with laughter. Ernest Pettigrew, a widower, is the quintessential old school British gentleman — sardonic, quick in wit, and impeccable in manners. Ensconced in the village of Edgecomb St. Mary in Sussex, England, he somehow never imagined that his "ossified existence of sixty-eight years" would take a delightful turn with Mrs. Ali, a dignified, well-read Pakistani shop keeper who recently lost her husband. Mrs. Ali and Major Pettigrew are not expecting much from life at this stage in their lives and this newfound friendship is something altogether promising and delightful — if not surprising. In this village, where you may be judged for the cookies that you bake or the climatis that you grow, their attraction is getting unwarranted attention from both their neighbors and families. After all, the class delineation still haunts England, much more than the remnants of their former colonies.

Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, a debut novel by Helen Simonson, is just a delightful read. One gets a feeling that Simonson gleefully created all these endearing characters (even the nasty ones) and let them loose in this village. There is Roger, the Major’s pretentious son, and his American girlfriend who just wants to cash in on the real estate developments of the village. When the Major objected to his son buying a cottage from a racist, Roger commented, "It’s called the real world. If we refused to do business with the morally questionable, the deal volume would drop in half and the good guys like us would end up poor. Then where would we all be?" To which the Major replied, "On a nice dry spit of land known as the moral high ground."

Simonson’s elegant writings with splashes of satire and humor make this book a refreshing summer read. It certainly makes us believe in the possibilities of love, of romance no matter how late in life, and of the transforming power of courtesy and kindness.

Cristina J. Lozare – Central Library

We’ve heard the line "you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover" over and over again from teachers and parents alike, but in my opinion, the advice falls short of being a maxim. In fact, I’ve been noticing a correlation between great external graphic design and internal content. Henry Schlesinger’s new book The Battery: How Portable Power Sparked a Technological Revolution, published by Smithsonian Books, provides both.

This was a really fun and well-written book about the history of the electrical battery. You know, the things that are in your cell phones, TV remotes, cars, watches, iPods, computers, flashlights — I think you get the point. We know what they are and have a basic understanding of how they work, but how many of us know where they came from? As Schlesinger discovered while researching, the history of the battery is no less than the history of modern science itself.

The battery as we know it now likely began with observations made by philosophers and alchemists of old. Natural substances such as magnetic lodestones and static-charged amber were known to exist, but these properties were mysterious and widely misunderstood. It wasn’t until the 1700s that European chemists began to understand electricity as a naturally-occurring phenomenon, and then that it could be predictably generated with the right arrangement of metals and chemicals.

What you’ll find here is a lively (dare I say, "shocking?") chronological narrative involving dozens of chemists, scientists, engineers, inventors, and the inventions, circumstances, rivalries, and partnerships that both led to battery technology, and resulted from it. To help illustrate the evolution of the electrical battery, the pages are speckled with lovely old-style line drawings. There’s a fair amount of natural humor here (some of the early experiments with electricity made me snort), and Schlesinger paints a vivid context by deftly quoting famous novels which reference the emerging technology. There’s even a Metallica reference!

Dan Curry – Savage Branch

As long as there are libraries, you should — and likely will — have access to this book. Required reading for many middle and high school curricula, Agatha Christie’s (1890 – 1976) most famous novel And Then There Were None continues to weather the test of time. Widely considered to be the greatest mystery novel of all time, I’ve now read it three times — most recently as an audiobook narrated perfectly by Hugh Fraser. Fraser’s nuanced acting added many new layers of enjoyment to the story this time around.

Christie’s brilliance rests in offering the reader a perfect balance between revelation and secrecy. Ten seemingly unrelated characters are summoned to a house on a tiny island off the coast of England by a Mr. Owen. Upon arrival, it is discovered that none of the folks actually know Mr. Owen, who has not yet joined the party. Soon, one of them dies, although appearances point to mostly natural causes. An unfortunate beginning, they attempt to conclude. Their faith in such a conclusion is tested, however, when another guest dies under slightly less innocent circumstances…

How can a mystery novel provide the same, if not greater, thrills the third time you’ve read it? Once you know whodunnit, what is left to enjoy? Isn’t solving the crime the point of it all? True, with each chapter you are brought closer and closer to the explanations you long for. Yet, alongside this, through dark sub-plots which surround each character, Christie demands the attention of our consciences as well as our intellects. As the perceived innocence of the ten guests becomes harder to maintain, somehow, so does the reader’s — enough to make you feel like you might be on Indian Island right now…

Dan Curry – Savage Branch

"He can draft a contract, train a falcon, draw a map, stop a street fight, furnish a house and fix a jury." The blacksmith’s son, Thomas Cromwell, is the quintessential 16th century man and the most powerful advisor of Henry VIII. So much has been written about the court and wives of Henry VIII, but Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel stands out heads above the crowd in its elegant prose, its grasp of the dangers that abound by choosing the wrong word or advice, and the sense of malevolence and betrayal seeping from the court to the streets of Tudor England.

The book opens with Thomas Cromwell, almost beaten to death by his alcoholic father and consequently his running away abroad, gaining financial skills and political savvy and then returning to England. He became a protege’ of Cardinal Wolsey, the power behind Henry’s throne who advised him: "If your chance comes to serve, you will have to take him as he is, a pleasure loving prince. And he will take you as you are, which is rather like one of those square-shaped fighting dogs that low men tow about on ropes. Not that you are without a fitful charm, Tom."

In his rise to power, the free-thinking Cromwell, unfettered by all court’s intrigues and machinations, forged ahead with his ideas on education, tolerance, and free worship. Of course, there are many detractors to the role of Thomas Cromwell in the court of Henry VIII. It is through Mantel’s finely-wrought writing that we feel and grieve with Thomas when his young, beloved wife and daughter died. Mantel’s acerbic observations, wry wit, and contemporary language rather than ye old diction made this book such an engaging read. Rumors have spread that a sequel is being written — I can hardly wait!

I leave you with Thomas Cromwell’s very apt advice: "Love your neighbor. Study the market. Increase the spread of benevolence. Bring in better figures next year."

Cristina J. Lozare — Central Library

Layer Cake, directed by Matthew Vaughn, is a London gangland crime drama that begins with an ending. The unnamed protagonist (Daniel Craig) is a highly successful businessman whose business happens to be drugs. As we meet him, he’s making preparations to disappear and live the rest of his life on the right side of the law. He’s able to do this because he has a clear head, a code of conduct that has protected him, and a clear sense of the end game. He’s also surrounded himself with a small team of trusted associates, and cut off his activities from the outside as much as possible. Everything changes quickly, though, as a series of new developments throw our man off stride.

First, gangland boss Jimmy Price (Kenneth Cranham) doesn’t want to let our man go, and keeps him busy by sending him to find the missing daughter of an old friend. Second, a loud-mouthed amateur crew led by The Duke (Jamie Foreman) ripped off a million ecstasy pills from a well-organized gang of Serbian smugglers, and dropped our man’s name in the process. The Serbians’ most dangerous operative, Dragan, is now hot on our man’s trail. Third, our man’s head is turned by a woman, Tammy (Sienna Miller), who is in a relationship with The Duke’s nephew, but sees the opportunity to upgrade as she meets his eye in a crowded nightclub.

Add to these shifts some uncharacteristically sloppy behavior by his right-hand man Morty (George Harris), and our man is forced to improvise, deciding who to trust as the world opens up, both for him and the audience. This classic caper is played for drama, not for laughs, and we the audience struggle to guess who has out-thought whom as the endgame plays out. Layer Cake has the cool factor of a Guy Ritchie film or Ocean’s Eleven, but ratchets up the tension mercilessly and refuses to show us a way out. Craig, pre-Bond, is perfect as the clear-eyed, focused anti-hero. We share his tension, and borderline desperation, as he struggles to make his way through the Layer Cake.

There are two alternate endings on DVD, and both make a significant change to the way that the story concludes. Be sure to watch them after you’ve watched the movie. You can also check out J.J. Connolly’s original novel.

John Jewitt – Savage Branch

Soccernomics is a great example of that breezy, new-ish genre of non-fiction that encourages you to look at old, familiar things from new, different and challenging perspectives. If you enjoyed Levitt & Dubner’s Freakonomics & Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point, or if you’re glued to ESPN as the World Cup 2010 plays out, this is the book for you. Authors Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski, sports writer and sports economist respectively, take the statistics of soccer and make the game make a new kind of sense.

Using statistics to calculate expected performance, they present fans’ expectations alongside their own to reveal that the England team (often thought by fans to be a disappointment) actually over-performs. Among other great calculations, the authors show us how many goals a home-field advantage is really worth. Using the example of French club side Lyon as a team that gets this right, they analyze (and ridicule) the process that teams use to hire a new manager. Kuper and Szymanski also expose the error of paying big money in the transfer market for the latest hot property, holding up Nottingham Forest in the Brian Clough years as a team who were very successful in buying hot properties early, below market price, and selling them on after reaping the benefit.

In addition to close analysis, there are lots of large-scale observations here. The authors propose a cycle of team success in which teams from the new industrial cities of the nineteenth century will eventually yield to teams from Europe’s metropolitan cities. Likewise, they identify pressures that will inevitably propel certain countries towards international soccer success while leaving other countries on the sidelines. The most engaging section of this great book uses game theory to review the penalty shoot-out that ended the 2008 Champions League final between Manchester United and Chelsea. The authors persuade us that this apparently random, desperately high-pressure end to the match might in fact be neutralized by reviewing tape and collecting statistics, as long as the players follow the advice of the statisticians.  

The FIFA 2010 World Cup doesn’t end until July 11, so there’s still time to check out Soccernomics, to see whether this is the year that Kuper and Szymanski’s World Cup predictions become a reality, and to get a sense of the scope of soccer as a cultural and social phenomenon. Don’t miss this great title!

John Jewitt – Savage Branch

In The Road Home, novelist Rose Tremain stays faithful to real life in her flesh-and-blood creation of 43-year-old Lev. Lev is an Eastern European dreamer and widower with a young daughter, a hopelessly superstitious mother, and an irrepressible pal named Rudi, whose voracious (but misconstrued) appetite for everything “West” has him selling, in one very funny scene, the coat off his back and seven bottles of vodka for an ancient sky-blue "Tchevi" Phoenix with some serious transmission issues.

Lev, though, is more pragmatic — especially since the saw mill at Baryn closed. When he goes off to London in search of work, he schools himself to expect little and yet, what he finds shocks him. Here are the harried, often insensitive, and (from the viewpoint of someone coming from a land of nothing) grossly self-indulgent men and women of Rudi’s fanciful West – and none, Lev discovers to his dismay, look at all like his frame of reference: the actor Sir Alec Guinness.

Disoriented, bereft, and soon on the brink of collapse, Lev finds himself in a men’s washroom sobbing as the memory of his dead wife comes to him unbidden. “Why master feelings that, in this unreal world he’d just entered, felt real and true?” Tremain asks this question as Lev endures both emotional compromise and the struggle to keep a toe-hold on dignity – the plight of all immigrants.

When he finally lands a job as dishwasher in an upscale restaurant, his luck seems to be turning. Fascinated with the fast and furious kitchen drama surrounding him, Lev begins to realize a way out of his frustrating existence – but not until he is willing to let go of palpable memories. He meets this challenge with the help of his philosophizing Irish landlord, a Moslem kabob seller (who is certain that virgins are waiting for him in Heaven when he extends a kindness to Lev), and Ruby, a senior “living well beyond her shelf life," who recognizes in Lev a man deserving of dreams. Readers will agree, treasuring all of Tremain’s characters. But Lev they will cheer for!

Aimee Zuccarini – East Columbia Branch

In Mistress of the Art of Death — Ariana Franklin’s illuminating suspense thriller set in twelfth-century England — one of the most disturbing scenes occurs when feisty young medical student Adelia becomes intrigued with the dead farm of her venerable mentor. It is a place where pigs decompose at various rates, at various ages, and from various (sometimes unspeakably vile) deaths. Adelia is horrified until her teacher asks the question which will both inspire and seal her fate forever as a physician and listener of human bones: “Man hovers between Paradise and the Pit – Will you see the truth or avoid it?”

From that moment, Adelia becomes an iron-willed seeker of the absolute, journeying to the superstitious backwater of old Cambridge, England, where she finds she is sorely needed. There, the wily King Henry II is outraged: it seems that a serial killer of children is on the loose and the finger of blame points to Henry’s Jews, who serve him well in all manner of court business. When the grisly murders continue, despite the fact that the entire Jewish population of Cambridge is now ensconced in the castle tower, Henry is forced to employ a master — or mistress — of the art of death.

Alfred Hitchcock once defined suspense as "the state of waiting for something to happen," and throughout Franklin’s detailed novel, that is just what the reader must do. But we don’t mind a bit, mainly because of the rich panoply of characters she stalls us with along the way. With arrogant knights strutting like medieval jocks, a misogynistic friar with prostate issues, a wise eel monger, and the king’s royally obnoxious tax collector (a man intent on winning Adelia’s contrary heart), Mistress of the Art of Death is a page-turner that’s hard to put down. 

Aimee Zuccarini – East Columbia Branch

Based on a true story, Bottle Shock is a fictionalized account of the 1976 Paris wine-tasting that put California’s vintners on the map. We first meet the movie version of Steven Spurrier (Alan Rickman) as a British ex-pat in Paris. In spite of his obvious interest in wine and his expertise, Rickman’s Spurrier is kept at arm’s length by the rarefied French wine establishment. In an effort to find a place for himself in the hierarchy, he decides to host a blind taste test comparing his selections of the finest French wines with selections drawn from vineyards in California. 

Enter the upstart Napa winemakers. The skeptical Spurrier travels to California to select the wines for the contest, and meets Jim & Bo Barrett of Chateau Montelena. Much of the humor in the movie derives from this up-tight European’s social inadequacies in laid-back California. Spurrier’s visit creates a buzz in the community; in spite of his abrasive nature, the opportunity presented by the taste test is embraced by Napa’s wine makers.

Bottle Shock takes these historical events, finds the humor in them, and tells us an engaging personal story in the process. Alongside Spurrier’s global quest, we encounter Jim Barrett (Bill Pullman) following his dream of becoming a wine-maker, Bo Barrett (Chris Pine, Star Trek) struggling to stand on his own feet as an independent adult, and Gustavo Brambila (Freddy Rodriguez) looking for a way to express his deep personal connection to the land and direct his own efforts at wine production. Watch too for Rachael Taylor as intern Sam Fulton, and Eliza Dushku (Dollhouse) as local bar owner Joe. As we see the California wine industry mature and develop, these characters do the same, and events build toward a historic conclusion, the metaphoric Bottle Shock of the title. 

John Jewitt – Savage Branch

Slam takes Nick Hornby’s signature “young guy making the transition to adulthood” theme to the extreme. Here, Hornby’s hero is younger than usual, and the transition that forces him to mature is more sudden than in Hornby’s other work. In skate parlance, a particularly bad fall is a “slam," and for high-school student Sam, the slam comes when he discovers that his first serious girlfriend, Alicia, is pregnant. The drama and tension in Nick Hornby’s novel are generated as the characters consider their future and evaluate their choices in light of this news.

Our teen hero, Sam, is a skater whose role-model is, naturally, Tony Hawk. This initially seems like a pretty straightforward mechanism for the character to deal with complex ideas and experiences, and to put his life in order. Sam bounces ideas off the TH poster above his bed, and the bird-man himself responds with relevant quotes from his autobiography. Things take a turn about half-way through the novel, though, as Sam is twice “whizzed” forward in time to experience his future. The first of these genre-bending time trips is a little unsettling for the reader, but they add a great deal to the novel and allow Sam to get his feet wet as a father before the arrival of his son “Roof.” Are these vivid dreams, panicked hallucinations, or does Tony Hawk have magical powers? You won’t know unless you read Slam.

This title is also available in audio format. Nicholas Hoult (who is familiar with Hornby’s world — he played Marcus in the movie About a Boy) provides narration that is pitch-perfect. The Library shelves this as a young adult novel, as the main protagonists are teens, but there’s definitely something here for adult audiences, and for fans of Hornby’s previous fiction. Take a look at (or a listen to) Slam today.

John Jewitt – Savage Branch