"The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson. Crown Publishers, 2003.
Sick fascination - this meticulously documented narrative of the creation of the "White City" for Chicago's Columbian expo in the early 1890s is told in tandem with the gruesome story of H. Holmes, a serial killer that managed to dispatch as many as 20 women and children in the span of a couple of years within a few blocks of the fair without detection! He cremated them, then hired someone to clean the bones and reassemble the skeletons, which he sold to medical schools. Not until years later, when a distraught mom hired the Pinkerton detective agency to find her missing children, did the full story emerge and become sensationalized in the press.

The story of the fair and the depraved sociopath is so compellingly told that I couldn't put the book down until I reached the very last words. The parallel stories progress relentlessly and with graphic description. We come to know the major players, both good and evil, perpetrators and victims, as if they were alive today. No forensic TV series could have told it any better!

An unexpected side entertainment was discovering the luminaries associated with the fair: Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley, Thomas Edison, Pullman and others; as well as the number of products still available today that debuted then: shredded wheat, the Ferris wheel, neoclassical public buildings, electric lighting.

"Back on Blossom Street" by Debbie Macomber. Mira, 2007.
I found this book completely by accident. I was looking for new knitting books, and this novel popped up in the list of results. I decided to give it a go, and was charmed. Macomber has a talent for creating likeable, believable characters, and presenting the small - and large - dramas in their lives in a way that makes you want to get to know them.

In this, the third in a series about Blossom Street, the characters have joined a knitting class offered by the owner of A Good Yarn, a yarn shop. The project is a prayer shawl, and for each of the participants the shawl will be a gift for someone who helps her overcome a personal challenge. The stories of the women in the class are told with quiet compassion, almost like a reflection. The conclusion is entirely satisfying.

I have heard of prayer shawls, but assumed they are intended to be worn while praying. Instead, I learned they are created as gifts, conveying in tangible form your prayers, love and good wishes for the recipient. The author includes instructions for the shawls mentioned in the story - so it turned out to be a knitting book after all: knitting stories as well as shawls. Macomber provides instructions and photos on her web site.

"Signed, Mata Hari" by Yannick Murphy. Little, Brown and Co., 2007.

In prison, accused of spying, and awaiting execution, Mata Hari tells stories to her French captors, buying time. They are stories from her early life in Holland, her schooling, marriage to a Dutch army officer, their deployment to Java, and the death of their son by poisoning. The family returned to Holland and the marriage fell apart; she tells of her life as a circus rider, artist's model, exotic dancer; of her liaisons with French, German, and Russian military personnel, and her subsequent arrest. But The Big Question is still unanswered: was she a spy?

What struck me most was the way the author seemed to be "channeling" Mata Hari's life, describing it in a way that made it seem like an alternate reality. An early experience in Hari's life was walking across the sand to an island at low tide. There was a real danger of being swept away by the incoming tide, but she returned safely. This experience was a transforming one, making her feel invincible, and it recurs throughout the novel at several of her life's turning points. As a result, she was so distanced from the life of her husband as to become "foreign" both in her lifestyle and in her way of thinking about her life's events.

This book is so new, Sacramento Public doesn't have any copies yet. The author, however, is represented in the collection by other titles.

Addendum 6/8/09: Sacramento Public now has copies.

"He She and It", by Marge Piercy. Graphics Arts Center Pub. Co., c1997

In the future world of the 21st century, global warming has reduced Earth to mostly deserts and the cities on the east coast of the United States are underwater. Ozone depletion has caused solar radiation to be a life-threatening hazard for unprotected individuals who leave their domes to venture into the "Raw." Information and "The Net" are commodities valued by individuals and multinational corporations to the extent that information pirates are infiltrating and killing programmers. Against this background, two parallel stories are told.

Avram has spent his life creating robots. Although there are rules against creating humanoid cyborgs, he has broken them to create Yod, who's job will be to defend the independent city of Tikva against the information pirates. Shira and her grandmother Malkah, who are artificial intelligence experts, have been working - also illegally - to program Yod to be as humanlike as possible, and to socialize him so he fits in with other humans. As part of this socialization, Malkah recounts to him the story of a golem, created in similarly dangerous times during the 1600s in Prague.

This book was recommended to me by a librarian classmate as a prescient example of how the boundaries between the real world and virtual worlds have become blurred, as more and more people join social networking communities and virtual worlds like Second Life.

"Go Tell It On the Mountain" by James Baldwin. Delta Trade Paperbacks, 2000, c1953

This novel, unabashedly autobiographical, explores Black life in Harlem during the early part of the 20th century. In particular, Baldwin probes the influence of autocratic religious beliefs on family relationships, daily life and the hopes and fears for a better life in the future. It was an interesting window into the pre-civil-rights era, and at the same time, spotlighted those elements that have still not changed, even today.

John, the 14-year-old protagonist, is the son of a preacher. He, unlike his brother Roy, is a good boy, but is apparently despised by his father and beaten often. He is expected to become a preacher, though he expresses a deep hatred of his family and a wish to escape. Much of the novel deals with the tension caused by this hatred and the need to accept family members as they have become, whether by personality or circumstance.

This is not an easy book to read, because it does not follow the traditional "floor plan" of a novel. It reads so much like a social case-study or a biography, it is difficult to NOT get involved in the justice - and injustice - of the characters' lives.

"The Whistling Season, a Novel", by Ivan Doig. Harcourt, 2006.

This was another in the list of adult titles of interest to teens. It starts slowly, as a reminiscence, but gradually the reader is drawn in to a year in the Minnesota dry land farm life of the early 20th century.

There's something mysterious about Rose, who comes to be the housekeeper after the death of the narrator's mother, and her brother Morrie, who fills in as teacher in the one-room schoolhouse when the incumbent marries and moved away. There's drama when Toby's foot is crushed by a workhorse, and when the Inspector comes to evaluate the school; there's a bit of history woven into lessons with the advent of Halley's Comet; there's the foreshadowing of the future as the narrator steps in with musings from his present as Superintendent of Schools, charged with abolishing rural one-room schoolhouses. And there's a heart-sinking, gut-wrenching revelation at the end, as Rose and the narrator's father prepare for marriage.

Without apparent effort, the author creates such a real world, it's hard not to treat it as a biography. I was sad to see it end.

"The Reluctant Fundamentalist", by Mohsin Hamid. Harcourt, 2007
Although the only voice we hear is the narrator's, a device maintained meticulously throughout the novel, we are treated to the sights, sounds, smells and feelings of both the evening street scene in Lahore and the vivid memories of the narrator's education and work in America. Even the responses of his listener are implied, as the story winds up to its increasingly tight, unexpected and scary end. This book would make an excellent classroom or book club discussion title.

"The Suspect" by John T. Lescroart. New York, Dutton 2007.

The entire story takes place between the time Stuart leaves Lake Tahoe and returns to his home in the Bay Area, only to discover his wife has drowned in their hot tub, and the grand jury hearing at which he is accused of her murder. With exquisite detail, Lescroart draws a bead on first one character then another, as the attorneys battle it out before the judge.

I was not totally enamoured of his writing; however, this is the "One Book" title that will be discussed in October as part of the Sacramento Public Library's sesquicentennial celebration this year. Because I fell in love after the fact with a previous One Book title, "Epitaph for a Peach," and regretted missing the author talks, I thought I'd get a head start on this year's book.

"The List of Seven" by Mark Frost. W. Morrow, 1993.
This is an implausible novel built around the outline of Arthur Conan Doyle's life before Sherlock Holmes. In it, Doyle has written a book partially lifted from the writings of Madame Blavatsky and submitted it to a publisher. Unfortunately for Doyle, the plot mimics a real plot involving the publisher, zombies, spiritualism, and a tantalizing link to Nazism. Thinking Doyle is on the verge of exposing the plot, an elaborate trap is laid: he is invited to a seance where a murder takes place, and he is launched into a chain of sinister events which threaten his life and the succession of the British monarchy.

"Fruit of the Lemon" by Andrea Levy. Picador, 2007.

Because I enjoyed Levy's first book, Small Island, so much, I snapped this one up off the new books truck as soon as I saw it.

Although Faith and her older brother were both born in London, their parents had emigrated from Jamaica, and, now that their children are grown are thinking of returning "home." This is very upsetting to Faith, because for all those years, neither her mother nor father seemed willing to talk about their early lives and families. At the same time, her increasing awareness of racial prejudice and violence causes her to withdraw from work and her circle of friends. Concerned for her health, her parents decide she needs a vacation and send her to visit Aunt Coral in Jamaica for two weeks. There, by way of colorful stories and visits to the places where the families had lived, Aunt Coral paints in the lives of her parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. Slowly, Faith realizes that Jamaica is in fact a place where she can "belong", and comes to appreciate her place in the family. An interesting visual effect is the filling-in of the family tree as the stories are told, and in the last chapter, it looks just like a lemon!

Levy's Jamaican voice is very well conveyed, and I can vividly hear my mother speaking in the turns of phrase and expressions: I ask you! And the stories mother told about some family members who were "light" and hated to acknowledge they were part black is reflected in the sentiments and life choices of the characters in this story.

I'm looking forward to her next book!

Ghost at the table, by Suzanne Berne. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2006.
Against her better judgment, Cynnie allows herself to be persuaded to travel to her sister's house for Thanksgiving weekend. She expected to accomplish three things over the weekend: help settle her father into a care facility, visit Mark Twain's home, and share Thanksgiving dinner with her sister's family. Nothing goes as expected: there's no room at the care home, strangers have been invited to dinner, and old and unresolved emotional "baggage"colors all the relationships. What was most unsettling to me was that the author never actually resolved the central question: how did their mother really die, so many years ago? There are four equally plausible suspects.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. Riverhead Books, 2004, c.2003.

Amir has been struggling his whole life long with the knowledge that his father despised him for what he perceived as character flaws. In addition, his father seemed to show more interest in Amir's best friend, Hassan, the son of his servant, than in his own son. In an attempt to catch and hold his father's attention, Amir betrayed Hassan, resulting in the estrangement of the two families after a 40-year friendship. Now, after many years and a flight to America ahead of the Taliban, he still feels guilt and loss, and castigates himself on his lack of character and lack of courage.

After his father's death, Amir receives a cryptic phone call from a family friend in Afghanistan, urgently requesting him to "Come. There is a way to be good again." He decides, now that he is married, to accept the offer in the hope that the truth can finally be told, the guilt assuaged, and the weight of hidden secrets can be lifted from his relationships. And so, he returns to Afghanistan to meet Rahim Khan, a journey that becomes an epiphany.

The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield. Atria Books, 2006.

Nearly reclusive Margaret, who writes biographies of dead authors, is summoned to write the life story of a living author of many popular books. Reluctantly, she allows herself to be persuaded, and is drawn into a bizarre story of madness, incest, twin-talk, and research.

Vida Winter, a self-described storyteller, has provided at least 20 different accounts of her life to journalists. Now nearing death, she is oddly haunted by the earlier request of a brown-suited journalist to "tell the truth". It is up to Margaret to determine whether, this time, the story is fact or fiction.

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die , by Chip Heath & Dan Heath. Random House, 2007.

Using famous and not-famous examples, the authors analyze common elements of real and (urban) mythical ideas that "stuck." The six principles they arrived at are: the ideas are simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional, and tell a story. Having read the book, I can see applications in all areas of life - anywhere you have a message to convey. By applying the six principles, anyone should be able to craft a message that will be immediately clear, to the point, and "sticky." (Footnote: I have trouble remembering the correct title of the book - even though the safety-orange cover and simulated duct tape across the front is vividly in my mind.)

The secret life of The lonely doll : the search for Dare Wright, by Jean Nathan. New York : H. Holt, c2004.

An image of the cover of a children's book "The Lonely Doll," originally published in the 1950s, resurfaces unbidden in Jean Nathan's memory, and she embarks on a quest to discover more about its author, Dare Wright. The book itself proves elusive to find, and biographical information about its author equally so. Eventually, the story she is able to piece together is both profoundly illuminating and profoundly disturbing.

Although I would not have chosen this biography to read on my own, I found I was fascinated by Dare's story. Confined to a world of make-believe by a strong mother who couldn't let go, Dare's personality is subsumed so completely into that of her mother, she herself almost completely ceases to exist as an individual. It was like watching a spider create its web and entrap its victims; yet, even knowing what the ultimate end would be, I was unable to stop reading.