Angie @ the Service Center Archive.

My husband and I love to talk to each other about the books we read. It is our own book club for two. As new parents, we were intrigued by two recent nonfiction books by authors who are married to each other, Manhood for Amateurs: the pleasures and regrets of a husband, father, and son by Michael Chabon and Bad Mother: a chronicle of maternal crimes, minor calamities and occasional moments of grace by Ayelet Waldman.

While the books offer a rare glimpse inside a literary marriage, there is little Mars and Venus action here. It is made clear that these are two people who love each other (and love their children) very much. In past, Waldman was widely criticized for a piece in the New York Times ("Truly, Madly, Guiltily") where she maintained that her love for her children was secondary to her love for her husband.

Chabon's book is a collection of previously-published essays on varying aspects of manhood--everything from carrying a purse ("I Feel Good About My Murse") to the virtues of unsupervised time ("The Wilderness of Childhood"). Chabon is a master stylist and so the essays read smoothly, combining humorous insights with moments of poignancy. My husband felt compelled to read many a passage aloud to me.

Which was frustrating, because at the time I was engrossed by Waldman's engaging description of her own "bad" mothering. Her book, too, is a collection of essays, mostly about how difficult it is to live up to society's standards for motherhood. Waldman asks us all to extend a little forgiveness, giving each other the room to make mistakes doing what is a messy, complicated, and difficult job. While her trademark acerbic wit is ever-evident, I was reduced to tears more than once.

Cheaper than therapy and more intellectually-stimulating than the first season of Married, With Children, Chabon's and Waldman's books are an excellent choice for your two-person book club. 

Charles Darwin was not given to rash decisions. When he was nearly thirty and needed to decide whether to marry, he sat down, drew a line down the middle of a piece of paper and made a list of pros and cons. On the plus side, marriage would offer the benefit of children ("if it Please God") and an object of affection, "better than a dog anyhow." On the minus side, he would miss the "conservation of clever men at clubs" and might not be able to read in the evenings.

His decision to take the leap and marry his cousin Emma Wedgwood is the subject of Deborah Heiligman's 2009 National Books Award finalist  Charles and Emma: the Darwin's Leap of Faith..

Darwin was a pragmatist, an agnostic, and a scientist. Emma was his intellectual match and yet devoutly religious. Theirs was a true love story--a match of wits and wills, of science and religion. Despite her reservations about Darwin's theories, Emma helped edit her husband's work. She honestly feared for his soul and at the same time bore him ten children, three of whom died before the age of ten.

Heiligman is a skilled nonfiction writer. The Victorian Era is brought to vivid life through the couple's letters and other primary sources. This setting is the backdrop for one of the great marriages of history. Although originally published for the teen market, Charles and Emma will equally engage adult readers, who will know something more about the ups-and-downs of married life than its intended audience.  

It is a story that might have turned out quite differently if Darwin had decided to settle for the company of that dog after all.

Denis Cooverman is socially-challenged, which is unfortunate since he is also in love with the most popular girl in school. Instead of pining for her from afar, he uses his high school valedictory speech to declare, "I love you, Beth Cooper!"

Debut author Larry Doyle knows from mayhem (he writes for The Simpsons). In I Love You, Beth Cooper the reader follows Denis through graduation night, which turns out to be the best and worst night of his life. It starts when Beth decides to drop by Denis's graduation "party" (two guests: Denis and his sexually-ambiguous best friend, Rich) and ends as most of these stories do, with the boy-least-likely getting the girl-who-know-one-else-understands. In between, a cast of mean girls and enraged boyfriends keep the action moving.

Does all this sound familiar? It is not surprising that I Love You, Beth Cooper is already a summer teen movie. In a season crowded with blockbusters, it will likely sell better on DVD. Doyle is keenly aware of his market. Each chapter begins with a famous quote from a teen film (Say Anything, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Sixteen Candles--they're all there) and a cartoon-image of Denis as his night gets stranger and stranger. Rich cleverly peppers the book's dialogue with film quotes, lending to the book's self-aware cache.  

If you are looking for a familiar and fresh love story that will bring back your teen years, I Love You, Beth Cooper is a better choice than its movie-trailers would lead you to believe.   

Emilia is the "other woman" -- a young lawyer who had an affair with a married man in her firm and is now his second wife. Her husband Jack is her soulmate, but along with him came William, a five year-old stepson still very resentful at the breakup of his family. Emilia must entertain William every Wednesday afternoon.

Emilia's relationship with this precocious preschooler is the heart of Love and Other Impossible Pursuits by Ayelet Waldman. William lives to get under Emilia's skin and his angry mother makes life even more difficult, insisting that she accommodate William's non-existent food allergies. Just where do you find lactose-free pattiserie-quality cupcakes?

William is almost too much for Emilia to bear, especially after the sudden death of her own infant daughter. Yet somehow, she finds the emotional reserves to face her grief and forge a relationship with the five-year-old from hell.

Ayelet Waldman incited the wrath of Oprah watchers everywhere when she authored an op-ed piece in the New York Times, declaring that she loved her husband (prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon) more than her children. This book is no less provocative, daring the reader to sympathize with a woman who literally cannot stand her stepson. Yet, it is through Emilia's honest and humorous voice that we discover the depths of love that can come to exist in the modern, mishmashed family.

Love her or hate her, Waldman has created an utterly memorable character in Emilia -- a woman who learns her life is not so impossible after all.

Connie Willis is perhaps best-known for her time-travel novels The Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog. In Passage, she tackles a very different journey - from life to death.

Joanna Lander is a psychologist fascinated by Near Death Experiences (NDEs). Why do so many people who claim to have had them have such similar experiences?  Does everyone really see a white light? Richard Wright is a neurologist who has found a drug that can replicate NDEs. Richard and Joanna just might make the perfect research team, as evidenced by their romantic tension and witty banter.

When all of their test subjects drop out or are otherwise disqualified, Joanna chooses to go under the drug herself. At first, she experiences the long passage and the white light, but in repeated sessions finds herself in a somewhat familiar place. Joanna's NDE has brought her aboard the Titanic and the ship is sinking fast.

In the hospital where Richard and Joanna do their research is a young patient obsessed with disasters, natural and otherwise. So each chapter begins with the description of one. These feed a looming sense of dread that is realized in a plot twist about 2/3 of the way through the book. From that point on, readers should clear the afternoon, cancel all appointments, and ride this ship to its watery end. The book is impossible to put down.

Whatever your beliefs about the afterlife, Passage will start you thinking and keep you reading. It is more than just a passing fancy.

 February is the month of love. Valentine's Day always inspires me to pick up a fat, juicy, romance with a gorgeous gown on the cover. Luckily, I need walk no further than the teen area at my local library.

Anna Godberson is the author of three such romances--Luxe, Rumors and Envy (published just this month). They star the Holland sisters, Elizabeth and Diana, two of Manhattan's most lovely and eligible heiresses--or so it seems. The setting is not modern New York, but rather the glamorous Gilded Age. Each book begins at the end--Luxe opens at Elizabeth Holland's funeral--and spends the rest of its pages telling how it all happened. The parties are lavish, the dresses are gorgeous, and even the good guys are a little bit bad.

The teen appeal of the series is obvious. The books read like a cross between Edith Wharton and Gossip Girl. They are an unexepected treat for grown-ups as well. Although not as steamy as their adult counterparts, they nonetheless set this reader's heart a-flutter with storylines featuring hot stable boys, scheming social climbers, thwarted love, and a faked death. The quality of the telling does not lag, even in the third book, where no one's heart is left unscathed.

I, for one, cannot wait to read what happens and see what luscious gown will be on the next cover. Hopefully, there will be a few more installments in the series before next Valentine's rolls around.

  

\ləsh\ - adj: (1) growing vigorously; (2) appealing to the senses; (3) in dramatic style--noun: (1) a drunkard.

One night, in Manhattan's Lower East Side, a trio of barhoppers is staggering homeward in the wee hours of the morning. Ike Marcus, the bartender among them, is shot and killed. The primary witness, and suspect, is Eric Cash, an aspiring writer and host at the same restaurant where Ike worked.  Detective Matty Clark must sort through the conflicting stories and evidence to find out who killed Ike. Was it a random street shooting? Or does Eric have a reason for wanting Ike dead?

Richard Price's Lush Life was one of the best reviewed novels of 2008 and is listed among KCLS's Best Books of the Year. With good reason. His prose brings to life this growing New York neighborhood--giving equal voice to its cops and criminals, to the owners of its trendy restaurants and to its project dwellers. Fans of the HBO series The Wire will recognize Price's name--he wrote a number of episodes--and his style. You'll come to care about every character, no matter their faults, as they navigate their way through the ethical questions Ike's death brings to light.

Lush Life teems with the energy of the streets. Its complex characters and natural dialogue will engage your literary sensibilities. The dramatic twists and turns in the plot will keep you turning the pages. Did I mention all the booze and drugs?

It is "lush" in every sense of the word.

 

Today is my husband's birthday and in his honor, I promised to post on one of his favorite books, The Driver: my dangerous pursuit of speed and truth in the outlaw racing world by Alexander Roy.

On his deathbed, Alex Roy's father shared a secret with him. He had once participated in the highly-illegal road race that was the basis of (and nothing like) the Burt Reynolds movie The Cannonball Run. He asks his son to find the Driver, the mythic organizer of the cross-country race.

To this end, Roy goes against the better judgment of his family and friends, soups up a BMW M5 and attempts to catch the attention of the Driver by driving a 120 mph lap around Manhattan (ala the 1976 French cult film, C'était un Rendez-vous). Entering this underground society, he competes in the Gumball 3000 and the Bullrun, two of the most infamous rally races in the world. Finally he attempts to set the record for a New York to Los Angeles run. His time? 3000 miles in 32 hours and 7 minutes.  Along the way, he uses every means at his disposal (radar detectors, police scanners and costumes) to achieve and maintain speeds up to 200 mph.

Dangerous? Yes. Fun to read? Oh yes. For a time, Alex Roy lived his life in pursuit of speed and truth for himself and his late father and we, his readers, get the shotgun seat on his adventures. Fast-paced and funny, The Driver may just tempt you to open up your engine the next time you see a clear highway ahead.

Alice Lindgren is a quiet, reserved, school librarian when she meets aspiring politico Charlie Blackwell. Charlie stems from a wealthy, well-connected, conservative family. Their whirlwind courtship and marriage eventually becomes the stuff of legend as their life together takes them from a governor's mansion to Pennsylvania Avenue.

Change the names and the story sounds remarkably like that of the current occupants of the White House. Curtis Sittenfeld's American Wife, is fiction that in less capable hands could have come across as a schockly tell-all biography of our First Lady. The author does not disguise her inspiration. As the story unfolds, Charlie struggles with drugs and alcohol, becomes a born-again Christian,  and as President begins an unpopular war in the Middle East.

However, Sittenfeld is interested in humanizing the woman behind the man. Alice Blackwell is a complicated and altogether kind creation. She loves her husband and at the same time disagrees with his politics. "If I were to tell the story of my life...and if I were being honest...I would probably feel tempted to say that standing that night just inside my apartment...I made a choice: I chose our relationship over my political convictions, love over ideology."  The parts of Alice the world does not see are very readable and very relatable, and for good reason American Wife was one of the best reviewed books of 2008, landing on the Top Ten lists of both Time and Entertainment Weekly.

With the excitement building toward January 20, and the Inauguration of a new President, now is a good time to read the story of this First Lady. Even fictional, Alice Blackwell may  stay with you long after the Bush's have retired into history.

Every reader has an annoying habit. Some people will borrow a book from your personal library and never return it. Others cannot help but tell you a book's ending.  Me? If I get bored with a book, I read the last couple of pages. If it is obvious what will be happening between where I am and the story's end, I move on to the next book on my stack.

Needless to say, I am not a big mystery reader. Your standard whodunnit holds little appeal when you can skip to the end and feel no guilt at all.  When I do enjoy a mystery, it is either because the story is so compelling, I am anchored to the page. Or, it is because there is much more than a standard investigation going on.

The Likeness by Tana French is one such mystery--equal parts gripping and disturbing, it dares to tackle some thorny identity questions--are we who we think we are? who we say we are? or, who we pretend to be?

Detective Cassie Maddox is enjoying the relative quiet of the Dublin Domestic Violence unit after losing her partner and her cool in a particularly ugly case in the Murder division. Then a body is discovered, a woman who is the exact likeness of Cassie. The woman is identified as Alexandra Madison, a university student. Lexie Madison is the name that Cassie herself used as an undercover agent years before when she infiltrated the college's drug ring. Now Cassie is called on to be Lexie Madison once more, this time adopting the dead woman's identity to catch her killer.

The Likeness is the sequel to French's bestselling debut In the Woods. While you do not need to have read the first book, its fans will learn what happens when Cassie's past comes back to haunt her--much as her partner's did in the first book. Mystery readers and non-mystery readers alike will enjoy the books' Dublin setting and flawed, not-altogether reliable, narrators.

Just as everyone has an annoying reading habit, everyone is supposed to have a doppelganger. Let us hope that our own do not meet Lexie's unfortunate end.