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Here are the suggestions that have come for summer reading for us.  If there
are any more ideas out there, please post them.  I am especially interested
in excellent professional titles for educators, for those who enjoy reading
things other than light fiction.  Anne Mangels

My suggestions for this year are:  1)  the Jan Karon books about Mitford
(real heart-warmers) and 2)  Laurie King's new book, which is different from
both of her mystery series, called A Darker Place.  It features a professor
of alternative religious movements, who from time to time helps the FBI by
infiltrating cults that seem to be heading in dangerous directions.  It was
absorbing and
thought-provoking.

*****
Besides the Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, I've enjoyed two others
I might suggest, two very different ones, but like Kingsolver, the narrative
is carried by two or more women:

Paradise by Toni Morrison (About a remote community of blacks in the west --
from the viewpoint of several women; deeply serious, tough-slogging, but
very rewarding.)

My Year of Meats by Ruth L. Ozeki (About a Japanese-American woman working
as an interpreter for a Japanese video crew who are taping American
families. A subplot set in Japan portrays the Japanese wife of one of the
crew; light, funny, with a serious message running underneath.)

*****

Two books that I finished recently and enjoyed were John Irving's A Widow
for One Year and Rawlings' Harry Potter and the Magic Stone. The first being
vintage Irving (interesting characters and a memorable plot) and the second
being by the newest author on the fantasy scene for kids.

*****

The perfect book for a librarian: _The Professor and the Madman: a tale of
murder, insanity, and the making of the Oxford English Dictionary_ by Simon
Winchester.  Harper Collins 1998.  It is a gripping, true story and the
writing and research are top notch.  It made want to go out and buy the OED.

*****

The Detroit News Book Editor, Linnea Lannon included her list of
contemporary great books "...an armful of books that made my life worth
living these past nine years." in her last column on April 27th as she is
leaving this position.
        FYI --Here is her list:
1.  "A Prayer for Own Meany" by John Irving
2.  "Means of Ascent" by Robert Caro
3.  "Rabbit at Rest" by John Updike
4.  "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien
5.  "What I Lived For" by Joyce Carol Oates
6.  "A Civil Action" by Jonathan Harr
7.  "The Moor's Last Sigh" by Salman Rushdie
8.  "The Diving Bell & the Butterfly" by Jean-Dominique Bauby
9.  "The Stone Diaries" by Carol Shields
10. "My Own Country" by Abraham Verghese
11. "What It Takes" by Richard Ben Cramer
12. "Angela's Ashes" by Frank McCourt
13. "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer
14. "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down" by Anne Fadiman
15. "Titan" by Ron Chernow
16. "King of the World" by David Remnick

*****

I would like to recommend a novel, The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara
Kingsolver.  It is set in Africa, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in
the late 1950's and early 1960's before and after Belgium gave the Congo
independence. The story centers around a missionary family, an American
minister and his wife and children from Georgia, who live in a remote native
village about 100 miles from Stanleyville (now Kisangani), a city on the
Congo River.

The book on its own merits is a gripping novel of human and family
relationships, and of people from different cultures trying (and not trying)
to understand each other.  Kingsolver employs an unusual device to help us
get close to the characters.  She has each female member of the family, the
mother and the four daughters, rotate as the narrator, telling a part of the
tale in turn. Their distinct personalities come through forcefully, and you
feel you are right there when the women are struggling to get enough to eat
or being attacked by red ants or trying to cope with their increasingly
fanatical minister father.

For me, the story was even more poignant as I lived through the same era in
another part of the Congo.  Much of the detail Kingsolver limns evoked my
own memories as a young mother during the anarchic days after independence
in 1960. The novel rings true whether you know the history or not, but the
events of that era forty years ago haunt us now, and this story may, while
it entertains, help us envision central Africa today.

*****

These books are fun mysteries- I was actually laughing out loud.  The author
is Janet Evanovich.  So far there are four books in the series: One for the
Money, Two for the Dough, Three to Get Deadly, and Four to Score.  The main
character is a former cosmetics buyer who is now working for her cousin as a
bounty hunter.  The scrapes she gets into (and out of) are very humorous.

*****

Yeah, I read ALL the Mitford books last year. They're good. I agree with
that choice. How about the Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye? I'm reading the
5th one right now. Not heart warming like the Mitford series but very
thought-provoking.

*****
My favorite last summer was Under the Tuscan Sun and her latest is what I'm
reading now.

*****

We are heading into winter here and have only a three week July break to
look forward to.  I'm really envious that you will all be indulging in a
summer reading binge while I work and shiver!  These are some books that
I've read and enjoyed recently:
Edwidge Danticat - The Farming of Bones
Niall Williams - Four letters of love
Barbara Evans - History of Silence

Enjoy your well-earned break

*****

From Betty Dawn Hamilton, who met the author while traveling:
Although the books are very light reading, I recommend at least the "Texas
Healing Women Trilogy", by Holly Harte.  (I haven't read any of her other
titles.)

*****

For those of you who enjoy fantasy and connections with traditional fairy
tales (in the manner of Robin McKinley's Beauty), try Orson Scott Card's new
book called Enchantment.  It will entice you to reread your Russian folklore
in a whole new light--especially Baba Yaga's house with the
chicken legs.
                In a different vein, but still Orson Scott Card, I found
Lost Boys to be an intriguing combination of computer history (think
Commodores), suspense, mystery and "supernatural" elements.  I also enjoyed
his series which starts with Seventh Son.

*****

I just read Birdsong   and of course can't remember the author, but it was a
good story about WWI.  I never realized what a horror that war was.


***************************************
* amangels@quiknet.com (Anne Mangels) *
* Library Media Coordinator           *
* Rocklin Unified School District     *
***************************************

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