|
 Catcher, Caught by Sarah Collins Honenberger
Amazon Encore $14.95
Take a good look at this Virginia author’s novel as she chronicles the experiences of a boy who packs a lifetime of living in the last year ofhis life. Daniel Solstice Landon is diagnosed with AML (acute myeloid leukemia) in his tenth grade year. As he tries to sort out the responses of his family, peers and the community around him, he turns to the book Catcher in the Rye as a point of comparison. When Daniel’s desperate mother takes him tto a clinic in Mexico for treatment, his growing maturity is put to the test and he passes. Honenberger’s clear and unstinting tale of a boy crossing the threshold from childhood to adulthood will leave you with greater faith in a child’s ability to grow up, no matter what the circumstances.
Hare with the Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal
Picador, $16.99
Netsuke (nets-kay) are the catalyst for this absorbing journey through one man's family past. Mr. de Waal, a world-renowned ceramicist, inherits 264 miniature Japanese sculptures. How did they come to him? This century long memoir relates the rise and fall of a European banking family, the Ephrussis of Vienna, contemporaries of and just as wealthy and respected as the Rothschilds. What happened? The once proud scion, Viktor, by way of his patriotism, is Aryanized when the Nazis arrive in Vienna, and subsequently loses all of his wealth and prestige. The netsuke survive as one of the few possessions returned to his daughter Elizabeth after the war and only because a family retainer secreted them out of their display in her skirts and hid them in her mattress until after the war. de Waal’s sleuthing to locate and characterize his family and his charming vignettes of the family's life coupled with canny insights make this a tremendous memoir and history; a not-to-be-missed peek into the lives of three generations of one of Europe's respected banking empires.
 The River Me by Marty Glenn Taylor
$16.00
Everyone wants to write a family memoir, so take notice of Marty Glenn Taylor’s account of growing up in the small fishing community of Morattico, Virginia in the 1930s. In a series of vignettes Marty gives us a rich peek into her family. At times amusing, learn how to hypnotize a chicken, chuckle at the humorous admonishments of her grandmother, at times poignant, her father’s bouts with alcohol and her indignation as a child when the "come here’s" visit to see how the natives live. Enjoy this generous serving of a time gone by and the proud, resourceful, and independent heritage of the microcosm which is Morattico.
 Ronin’s Mistress by Laura Joh Rowland
St. Martins Press, $25.99
Welcome back to the early 18th century in feudal Japan and Sano Ichiro’s world of power, honor and control. Ronin’s Mistress retells the tale of the forty-seven Loyal Retainers and de-romanticizes a story told on the Japanese stage for three centuries. Lord Kira is brutally murdered by the retainers of Lord Asano led by chief retainer Oishi in a vendetta that is banned by the Shogun. The populace is very sympathetic towards the forty-seven Ronin, and the Shogun must retain his authority by making the correct decision regarding their fate, whether they will live or die. To complicate matters, Sano has been demoted through the machinations of Chamberlain Yanagisiwa and his son Yoritomo. And to cap it all, Sano must provide a satisfactory outcome for the Shogun’s decision to be correct! If he fails, he is banished to southern Japan while his family will stay in Edo, never to be seen again. There seems no hope for Sano and his retainers. While not exactly a who-done-it because we know who did, this is rather a dark mystery with insights into the struggle at the top of a totalitarian society through the retelling of a classic true story.
|
locations
Comments