The Nine by Jeffrey Toobin

A fair and mostly bipartisan critique of the Supreme Court during and after the Rehnquist years. Toobin manages to get into the inner workings of the court, and his descriptions of who really holds sway and why are fascinating. Sandra Day O’Connor and William Kennedy in turn hold the keys to the court, as their votes are the deciding ones in many if not all of the 5-4 decisions. The politics of the 2000 Bush vs. Gore case is worth reading alone. The justices and their interactions with each other are intimately described. A good look at both the personalities on the Court and the major cases of the last thirty-five years. - RC

The Year of Fog by Michelle Richmond

This beautifully-paced novel tells a story of a dedication and faith, as well as the subtle nuances of the meaning of redemption. Photographer Abby takes Emma, her fiancé’s young daughter, for a walk on a foggy beach. In a tragic moment of inattention, the child vanishes, leaving Abby to manage her guilt and grief, her love for Emma’s father and especially for the child herself, her unswerving belief in Emma’s survival, and her almost obsessive determination to bring her home. The book moves quickly, and Abby is a sympathetic character who comes to peace with her past and her own needs, strengths and flaws as she copes with the events surrounding Emma’s disappearance. Other reviewers have compared Richmond’s work favorably with the family and relationship dramas of Jacquelyn Mitchard (The Deep End of the Ocean) and Jodi Picoult (My Sister’s Keeper; Vanishing Acts). - CB

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

This is a laugh out loud funny and at the same time very touching novel with characters you really come to care about. The Corrections tells the story of three anxiety-ridden adult siblings and their aging parents (who have some pretty major issues of their own) as they deal with their more or less dysfunctional lives and lurch towards a pending Christmas family reunion. Some reviewers used words like "self-indulgent" and "show-offy" to describe this book, and others loved it. While it is undeniable that the plot lines do careen all over the place, and Franzen's writing style may not be for everyone, I found the digressions to be fascinating, and the writing blew me away. Winner of the 2001 National Book Award and an Oprah Book Club selection. (Franzen gained some notoriety as the author who got disinvited from Oprah's show.) - EB

Going Gray: What I Learned about Beauty, Sex, Work, Motherhood, Authenticity, and Everything Else That Really Matters by Anne Kreamer

At the age of forty-nine and after twenty-nine years of dying her hair, Anne Kreamer made a drastic decision. She chose to “go gray”. In this very engaging, humorous and honest memoir, Kreamer, a former television executive, takes a long look at what it takes to be your authentic self. On her journey, the newly gray-haired married author conducts a number of sociological experiments, such as looking for dates on Match.com, hitting the singles bars (both with her amused husband’s blessing) and meeting with professional image consultants. Can a middle-aged woman with graying hair still be appealing, attractive and authentic? The answers that Kreamer uncovers are somewhat surprising and often unexpected.

For additional essays on “Going Gray” as well as photos of Anne Kreamer’s transformation from her self described “too darkly shellacked helmet of hair” to her current natural state, visit her website at www.annekreamer.com. - MM

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

Jacob Jankowski is a ninety-something year old man “living” in a nursing home. In his younger days, at the beginning of the Great Depression, he spent seven years traveling with the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. While his mind is no longer as sharp as it once was, he can recall details of those seven years as if they were yesterday. He carries those memories, and a long-kept secret, as he wages a daily war against the indignities of old age.
Sara Gruen’s, Water for Elephants, is a captivating book filled with colorful, complicated characters in a rich, vivid, exotic setting. Gruen has combined a beautiful love story with a page-turning mystery. At the same time, she manages to capture all of the dark splendor and seediness of life under the big top. Gruen takes the reader into the world of the circus, with its peculiar rituals, rules and laws. One can’t help but get swept away with Jacob and his traveling companions as they experience joy and despair in 1930’s America.
Using Jacob’s insightful narration, Gruen also reminds us that an aging body may still house a youthful soul and a passionate spirit. - MM

One Hundred Demons by Lynda Barry

Inspired by an ancient Buddhist scroll depicting one hundred demons, the author decided to create her own "scroll" of personal demons from her girlhood. The child-like drawings show old humiliations, thrills and discoveries about family, friends, neighbors, teachers and old boy friends. One by one, each strip seems inconsequential, but as an aggregate, it's a terrific distallation of growing up in the 60's and 70's. - JEP

Blankets by Craig Thompson

This autobiographical novel about first love is set in the context of the author's small-town, repressive Catholic upbringing. It does an excellent job of conveying both the anguish and joy of adolescent love amid flash-backs of Thompson's often-cruel childhood. Through the arc of the story we see Thompson stuggle with his beliefs and develop as an artist. The stark, energetic black and white illustrations are a perfect complement to the powerful emotions this story expresses. - JEP

Fables series by Bill Willingham

This series imagines a world in which all the characters from children's classic fairy tales -- Snow White, The Big Bad Wolf, Prince Charming, Little Red Riding Hood, and many, many more -- populate a world set in the present that's invisible to "normal" people. Legends in Exile is essentially a murder mystery, the heart of which is, who killed Little Red Riding Hood (Rose Red)? Although employing characters from a more innocent time, as well as a lot of humor, these are definitely adult and young adult stories. - JEP

Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson

This is a quiet story of a sixty-seven year old widow who chooses to live his remaining years alone in an isolated cabin in Norway near the border to Sweden. While here he reminisces about a summer spent in a similar cabin with his father in 1948 and an incident that happened to a family of a boy he befriended while there. The author deftly moves between past and present, writing a spare but rich, compelling, and haunting story. - JP

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

I loved this novel about a months-long South American hostage crisis and opera singing (one of the hostages is a world-famous soprano), even though I have no particular interest in either topic and I was not at all sure I would be drawn in. But drawn in I was. The story, which is based on a real incident, is full of surprises, the writing is masterful, and the observations about human nature, art and love are profound. Winner of several awards, including the PEN-Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction. -EB

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is one of those novels that utterly transports you to another time and place, so much so that when you put down the book you are astonished to find normal life going on around you. The relationships and struggles of the narrator, Lily, a woman of nineteenth century rural China, ring familiar and true, no matter how strange the details may be to us now. Footbinding, arranged marriages, and nu shu, a secret written language used solely by women, are among the historical details that come very much alive. This is a moving, thought-provoking, poignant novel. -EB

The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu

Sepha, the main character of this beautifully written novel, owns a run-down grocery story in a Washington, D.C., neighborhood. Sepha fled his native Nigeria as a teenager seventeen years ago after seeing his father beaten and dragged from his home. His two long-time friends, "Ken the Kenyan" and "Joe from the Congo" are also African expatriates, though they attended Georgetown and have better paying jobs. The friends still meet to drink and talk and play a trivia game based on past African tyrannies. These get-togethers and an occasional visit to an older Nigerian friend comprise Sepha's social life. As the neighborhood begins to becomed gentrified, a white professor and her biracial daughter, Naomi, move into Sepha's neighborhood, and he tentatively approaches them in friendship. - JP

Complications:a Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science

Gawande, a surgeon at Brigham and Women's and an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, brings the challenges, glories, and fears of the world of medicine down to earth, chronicling his own experiences as a young surgeon. Complications uses case studies to describe the intricate science of diagnostics and surgery. Better addresses the crucial but sometimes mundane topic of consistency in performance, showing how common sense is often more useful than whiz-bang technology. His prose is lucid and thought-provoking, and his willingness to admit his own mistakes is refreshing. In a culture where doctors are both revered and reviled, Gawande humanizes those we would set on a pedestal, and reminds us of our common mortality. -EM

Guido Brunetti series by Donna Leon and Rei Shimura series by Sujata Massey

Spend part of the summer in Venice or Tokyo via these two well-written, engaging mystery series. Traverse the many calles and canals of Venice with Commasario Guido Brunetti, capable and compassionate police detective and devoted family man. Be immersed in the culture and customs of Japan while Japanese-American Rei Shimura, antique dealer/sleuth, solves yet another crime. Marilyn Stasio in the New York Times Book Review describes Donna Leon as "the ideal author for people who vaguely long for "a good mystery", meaning a strong story with discreet violence, a wise detective who doesn't drink or brood too much, and a setting that's worth the visit". The same could be said for Massey. -JP

Guido Brunetti series, in order: Death at La Fenice, Death in a Strange Country, Dressed for Death, Death and Judgment, Acqua Alta, The Death of Faith, A Noble Radiance, Fatal Remedies, Friends in High Places, A Sea of Troubles, Wilful Behavior, Uniform Justice, Doctored Evidence, Blood from a Stone, Through a Glass Darkly, and Suffer the Little Children.

Rei Shimura series, in order: The Salaryman's Wife, Zen Attitude, The Flower Master, The Floating Girl, The Bride's Kimono, The Samurai's Daughter, The Pearl Diver, The Typhoon Lover, and Girl in a Box.

Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Susan Beth Pfeffer's Life as We Knew It paints a terrifying picture of a world out of joint, showing how quickly one's definition of "normal" can change. Like everyone else, sixteen-year-old Miranda was excited to watch the much-hyped near-miss of an asteroid with the moon. Only problem: the asteroid didn't miss. Instead, it knocked a chunk out of the moon and shifted it closer to the earth, throwing the tides out of alignment and causing cataclysmic climate change around the world. Living in the heartland of the U.S., Miranda and her family are spared the worst of the immediate disaster (tsunamis, floods, hurricanes), but it quickly becomes clear that life will never be the same again. Food shortages, financial collapse, lawlessness, and crises in public health -- Miranda and her family struggle to keep going, day by day, with no guarantees of any future, let alone a bright one. Especially timely given current concerns about climate change, Life as We Knew It will keep you up late reading -- and then up late worrying. You'll never look at your woodstove the same way again. -EM

Graphic novels

f you've never read a graphic novel and are scared to try, these three recent books may be for you. Marjane Satrapi was a young girl during the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, and her two memoirs, Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood and Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return tell her story in black-and-white. The graphic format allows Satrapi to show emotion in ways plain text can't capture, bringing depth and poignancy to the story in unexpected ways. Timely and taut, Persepolis is a great introduction to the form.
Cancer Vixen by Marisa Acocello Marchetto. In turns funny, crude, heart-breaking, and hopeful, Marchetto chronicles with unflinching detail her experiences as a cancer patient: the long, painful chemo treatments, her evolving relationship with her fiance (later husband), and her struggle to keep working through her illness. Not for the faint of heart, but an invaluable resource for any woman whose life has been touched by illness. -EM

Julie and Romeo by Jeanne Ray

It's Shakespeare with a sexagenarian twist: two florists, both alike in dignity, uphold a long-standing feud between their families -- the source of which, no one remembers. Sixty-year-old divorcee Julie Roseman struggles to keep her family's Somerville flower shop in business; across town, widower Romeo Cacciamani's shop is on equally shaky ground. The two meet cute at a business seminar and, against the wishes of Julie's kids and Romeo's fearsome mother, fall in love and try to end their family feud once and for all.

Julie and Romeo is a good, old-fashioned love story, told with heart and humor. Ray, the mother of author Ann Patchett, is that rare breed of storyteller who can elicit belly laughs as easily as tears. The sequel, Julie and Romeo Get Lucky, is also recommended, as are Ray's other books, Step-Ball-Change and Eat Cake. -EM

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro, follows the lives of Kathy, Tommy and Ruth, three students in a plush boarding school in England during the early 1990's. We tag along with them from childhood through young adulthood, gradually learning, along with the characters themselves, the disquieting secret they share about their origins and purpose in society. Although it takes place more than ten years ago, this is really a science fiction morality tale about a future that we're already on the verge of, with our current debates about scientific "advancements" such as stem cell research.
This book generated the most excitement and discussion of any story that my book group has read in the past few years. -JEP

This quiet, beautifully written novel is one of my recent favorites, also. -JP

An Abundance of Katherines by John Green

Colin Singleton has been dumped 19 times, all by girls named Katherine. His best friend, Hassan, who schools Colin in the finer points of casual conversation ("Not interesting," he proclaims most of Colin's commentary), prescribes a road trip to get over the latest lost Katherine. Along the way Colin tries to escape the curse of the child prodigy (a prodigy does not a genius make) developing a universal theorem of Dumpers and Dumpees. Printz Award-winner Green (LOOKING FOR ALASKA, 2005) deftly captures the agony and ecstasy of love, loss, and anagrams. -EM
2007 Michael L. Printz Honor Book; starred reviews from Kirkus, Horn Book, Booklist

Grief by Andrew Holleran and The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

These two recent titles, one nonfiction and one fiction, deal with themes of grief and loss, but in very different ways.

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
Didion, whose husband died almost instantly of a heart attack as they sat down for dinner after visiting their very ill adult daughter in the hospital, works through her shock and loss by writing about her experiences, bolstered by quotes from research and her literary flourishes. Some readers find The Year of Magical Thinking raw and touching, others distant and cold. Either way there is no denying that Didion presents an honest accounting of this shocking event and her feelings in response to it. - JP

Grief by Andrew Holleran
Grief is an exquisite, haunting novel about how different people deal with grief, from the protagonist, a middle-aged man who goes to Washington, D. C., to teach at a college for a semester after the death of his mother whom he has visited every Saturday for the past twelve years, to his gay landlord and friends who have all lost many friends to AIDS, to Mary Todd Lincoln as expressed in her letters, which the protagonist reads while in Washington. Holleran’s work is spare, but beautifully written. - JP

In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez

This is a fictionalized account of a true event: the assassination of three sisters during the revolution against the Trujillo dictatorship in in the Dominican Republic in 1961. It's wonderful to hear each sister's voice (including a fourth sister who survived) describe events from their childhood up until the assassinations. One sister's personality and circumstances is as absorbing as the next. - JEP

Fame Junkies: the Hidden Truths Behind America's Favorite Addiction by Jake Halpern

Since I'm dumbfounded by the staying power of things like reality television, this book gave me some insight into our culture's fascination with celebrity. Some of the stories are funny, some outrageous and some sad. You learn more that you might want to know about why so many Americans crave fame. - JEP

Happiness: the Science Behind Your Smile by Danie Nettle.

Some of the things Nettle discovered through psychological research really surprised me. For example, we're driven to want things (status, big houses, beautiful spouses) not because they'll actually make us happy, (they won't) but because evolution drives us to do so. I was also interested in the fact that, no matter what happens to us, (death of a spouse, winning the lottery) we each eventually return to our own set point for happiness. - JEP

Patrimony: A True Story by Philip Roth

Patrimony: a true story describes the decline and ultimately the death from a brain tumor of writer Philip Roth's octogenarian father. This book pulls no punches and is not always an easy read. Nevertheless, Patrimony: a true story will resonate with those who have watched a family member succumb to terminal illness. It is also a loving tribute to Herman Roth, a first generation American with an eighth grade education. Roth calls his father a man who "rooted all his life in everydayness," but the story of his struggles and relationships, and the son's meditation on what this father has left behind - his patrimony - make for compelling reading in the hands of this always brilliant writer.
Patrimony: a true story won the 1991 National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography. - EB