Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks

First sentence:

"He is coming on the Lord's Day."

Description:

In her new novel Caleb's Crossing, Geraldine Brooks once again takes a shard of little known history and brings it vividly to life. In 1665, a young man from Martha's Vineyard became the first Native American graduate of Harvard College. From the few facts that survive of this extraordinary life, Brooks creates a luminous tale of passion and belief, magic and adventure.

The voice of Caleb's Crossing belongs to Bethia Mayfield, growing up in the tiny island settlement of Great Harbor amid a small band of pioneering English Puritans. Posses of a restless spirit and a curious mind, Bethia slips the bounds of her rigid society to explore the island's glistening beaches and observe its native inhabitants. At twelve, she meets Caleb, the young son of a chieftain, and the two forge a secret bond that draws each into the alien world of the other.

Bethia's father is Great Harbor's minister, who feels called to convert the Wampanoag to his own strict Calvinism. He awakens the wrath of the medicine men, against whose magic he must test his faith in a high stakes battle that may cost his life and his very soul. Caleb becomes a prize in this contest between old ways and new, eventually taking his place at Harvard, studying Latin and Greek alongside the sons of the colonial elite. Bethia also finds herself in Cambridge at the behest of her imperious elder brother. As she fights for a voice in a society that requires her silence, she also becomes entangled in Caleb's struggle to navigate the intellectual and cultural shoals that divide their two cultures..

What becomes of these characters--the triumphs and turmoil they endure in embracing their new destinies--is the subject of this riveting and intensely observed novel. Like Brooks's beloved narrator Anna in Year of Wonders, Bethia proves and emotionally irresistible guide to the wilds of Martha's Vineyard and to the intimate spaces of the human heart. The narrative travels from the sparkling harbors of Martha's Vineyard to the mean, drafty dormitories of early Harvard and, as ever, Brooks buttresses her richly imagined fiction with the fascinating and meticulously researched detail that has brought her legions of readers and a Pulitzer Prize." -- from the inside flap

My thoughts:

This was a fascinating book about the European-Native American encounters in 17th century New England. Brooks does a great job fleshing out the characters and giving a sense of what could have been if Caleb had survived.

Date read: 11/21/2013
Book #: 36
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Historical Fiction

ISBN-10: 0670021040
ISBN-13: 9780670021048
Publisher: Viking
Year: 2011
# of pages: 300
Binding: Hardcover
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The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Anne Barrows

First sentence:

"Dear Sidney, Susan Scott is a wonder."

Description:

"'I wonder how the book got to Guernsey? Perhaps there is some sort of secret homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers.' January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she’s never met, a native of the island of Guernsey, who has come across her name written inside a book by Charles Lamb….

As Juliet and her new correspondent exchange letters, Juliet is drawn into the world of this man and his friends—and what a wonderfully eccentric world it is. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society—born as a spur-of-the-moment alibi when its members were discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island—boasts a charming, funny, deeply human cast of characters, from pig farmers to phrenologists, literature lovers all.

Juliet begins a remarkable correspondence with the society’s members, learning about their island, their taste in books, and the impact the recent German occupation has had on their lives. Captivated by their stories, she sets sail for Guernsey, and what she finds will change her forever.

Written with warmth and humor as a series of letters, this novel is a celebration of the written word in all its guises, and of finding connection in the most surprising ways." -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

I loved this book about finding new friends in a new home while learning about their shared history of German occupation during World War II. I especially liked the way it was written through letters.

Book #: 35
Date read: 11/15/2013
Rating: 4*/5 = great
Genre: Fiction

ISBN-10: 0385341008
ISBN-13: 9780385341004
Publisher: Dell Press
Year: 2009
# of pages: 290
Binding: Trade Paperback
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The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

First sentence:

"A throng of bearded men, in sad-colored garments and gray, steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes."

Description:

"Set in the harsh Puritan community of seventeenth-century Boston, this tale of an adulterous entanglement that results in an illegitimate birth reveals Nathaniel Hawthorne's concerns with the tension between the public and the private selves. Publicly disgraced and ostracized, Hester Prynne draws on her inner strength and certainty of spirit to emerge as the first true heroine of American fiction. Arthur Dimmesdale, trapped by the rules of society, stands as a classic study of a self divided. As Nina Baym writes in her introduction, The Scarlet Letter was not written as realistic, historical fiction, but as a 'romance," a creation of the imagination that discloses the truth of the human heart." -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

I liked this book about Puritan ethics and hypocrisy. I found the reactions of the townspeople to Hester interesting as time goes by.

Date read: 11/10/2013
Book #: 34
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Fiction

ISBN-10: 0142437263
ISBN-13: 9780142437261
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Year: 1850; 2003 (this edition)
# of pages: 228
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
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Don't Forget Your Spacesuit, Dear edited by Jody Lynn Nye

First sentence:

"The morning started out quietly enough. "

Description:

"The apron string theory of spacetime

So, you think things will be any different in the future, in space, in other dimensions where magic works? Wash your mouth out with soap! Mother will always know best. The galactic emperor, master of a million suns, lust better not get too busy to call his mother. Starship troopers had better not forget Mother’s Day, even if massed space armadas are about to rocket into battle across the galaxy. The great and powerful White Wizard had better remember what his mom told him about washing his white robes separately from his colored long johns. Speaking of washing, who do you think taught that famous alien to scrub behind his pointy ears? And as for that muscular barbarian swordsman-with all those mighty thews, why can’t he clean up his room? 

Enough about the square-jawed, steely-eyed heroes of science fiction and fantasy, already-where would those heroes be without their mothers? Its time to give the mothers of the galaxy their due, and New York Times bestselling authors Anne McCaffrey, Morgan Llywelyn, Robert Asprin, and Diane Duane are on hand to do mom honors, along with Elizabeth Moon. Esther Friesner, Christopher Stasheff, Mike Resnick, Jody Lynn Nye herself, and more. Enter a star-studded volume celebrating motherhood throughout space and time. But first-wipe your feet-and Don’t Forget You’re Spacesuit Dear.  -- from the back cover.

My thoughts:

I enjoyed this collection of science fiction stories with a maternal theme. My favorites included Jody Lynn Nye's "What's the Magic Word?" and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough's "Don't Go Out in Holy Underwear."

Date read: 11/7/2013
Book #: 33
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: SF

ISBN-10: 0671877321
ISBN-13: 9780671877323
Publisher: Baen
Year: 1996
 # of pages: 320
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
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The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

First sentence:

"They say it came first from Africa, carried in the screams of the enslaved; that it was the death bane of the Tainos, uttered just as one world perished and another began; that it was a demon drawn into Creation through the nightmare door that was cracked open in the Antilles."

Description:

Things have never been easy for Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight, lovesick Dominican ghetto nerd, a New Jersey romantic who dreams of becoming the Dominican J. R. R. Tolkien and, most of all, of finding love. But he may never get what he wants, thanks to the fuku--the curse that has haunted the Oscar's family for generations, dooming them to prison, torture, tragic accidents, and, above all, ill-starred love. Oscar, still waiting for his first kiss, is just its most recent victim--until the fateful summer that he decides to be its last.

With dazzling energy and insight, Junot Diaz immerses us in the uproarius lives of our hero Oscar, his runaway sister Lola, and their ferocious beauty-queen mother Belicia, and in the family's epic journey from Santo Domingo to Washington Heights to New Jersey's Bergen-line and back again. Rendered with uncommon warmth and humor, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao presents an astonishing vision of the contemporary American experience and the endless human capacity to persevere--and to risk it all--in the name of love.

A true literary triumph, this novel confirms Junot Diaz as one of the best and most exciting writers of our time. -- from the inside flap.

My thoughts:

I enjoyed this book about a Dominican-American man trying to find his way in New Jersey and Santo Domingo.

Date read: 11/7/2013
Book #: 32
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Fiction

ISBN-10: 1594489580
ISBN-13: 9781594489587
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Year: 2007
# of pages: 335
Binding: Hardcover
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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

First sentence:

"There's a photo on my wall of a woman I've never met, its left corner torn and patched together with tape."

Description:

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists knew her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells-taken without her knowledge--became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first 'immortal' human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. If you could pile all HeLa cells ever grown onto a scale, they'd weigh more than 50 million metric tons--as much as a hundred Empire State Buildings. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses , and the atom bomb's effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilziation, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions.

Yet Henrietta Lacks remain virtually unknown buried in an unmarked grave.

Now Rebecca Skloot takes us on an extraordinary journey from the 'colored' ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to stark white laboratories with freezers full of HeLa cells, from Henrietta's small, dying hometown of Clover, Virginia--a land of wooden slave quarters, faith healings, and voodoo--to East Baltimore today, where her children and grandchildren live and struggle with the legacy of her cells.

Henrietta's family did not learn of her 'immortality' until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists investigating HeLa began using her husband and children without informed consent. And though the cells had launched a multimillion-dollar industry that sells human biological materials, her family never saw any of the profits. As Rebecca Skloot so brilliantly shows, the story of the Lacks family--past and present--is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of.

Over the decade it took to uncover this story, Rebecca became enmeshed in the lives of the Lacks family--especially Henrietta's daughter Deborath, who was devastated to learn about her mother's cells. Deborah was consumed with questions: Had scientists cloned her mother? Had they killed her to harvest her cells? And if her mother was so importatn to medicine, why couldn't her children afford health insurance?

Intimate in feeling, astonishing in scope, and impossible to put down, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks capture the beauty and drama of scientific discovery, as well as its human consequences." -- from the inside flap

My thoughts:

I learned much from reading this book, not only about medical history but also about ethics and about a family left in the dark for far too long.

Date read: 10/26/2013
Book #: 31
Rating: 4*/5 = great
Genre: Nonfiction

ISBN-10: 1400052173
ISBN-13: 9781400052172
Publisher: Crown Publishers
Year: 2010
# of pages: 328
Binding: Hardcover
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Fool by Christopher Moore

First sentence:

"'Tosser!' cried the raven."

Description:

"'This is a bawdy tale. Herein you will find gratuitous shagging, murder, spanking, maiming, treason, and heretofore unexplored heights of vulgarity and profanity, as well as nontraditional grammar, split infinitives, and the odd wank . . . If that's the sort of thing you think you might enjoy, then you have happened upon the perfect story!'

Verily speaks Christopher Moore, much beloved scrivener and peerless literary jester, who hath writteneth much that is of grand wit and belly-busting mirth, including such laurelled bestsellers of the Times of Olde Newe Yorke as Lamb, A Dirty Job, and You Suck (no offense). Now he takes on no less than the legendary Bard himself (with the utmost humility and respect) in a twisted and insanely funny tale of a moronic monarch and his deceitful daughters—a rousing story of plots, subplots, counterplots, betrayals, war, revenge, bared bosoms, unbridled lust . . . and a ghost (there's always a bloody ghost), as seen through the eyes of a man wearing a codpiece and bells on his head
Fool

A man of infinite jest, Pocket has been Lear's cherished fool for years, from the time the king's grown daughters—selfish, scheming Goneril, sadistic (but erotic-fantasy-grade-hot) Regan, and sweet, loyal Cordelia—were mere girls. So naturally Pocket is at his brainless, elderly liege's side when Lear—at the insidious urging of Edmund, the bastard (in every way imaginable) son of the Earl of Gloucester—demands that his kids swear their undying love and devotion before a collection of assembled guests. Of course Goneril and Regan are only too happy to brownnose Dad. But Cordelia believes that her father's request is kind of . . . well . . . stupid, and her blunt honesty ends up costing her her rightful share of the kingdom and earns her a banishment to boot.

Well, now the bangers and mash have really hit the fan. The whole damn country's about to go to hell in a handbasket because of a stubborn old fart's wounded pride. And the only person who can possibly make things right . . . is Pocket, a small and slight clown with a biting sense of humor. He's already managed to sidestep catastrophe (and the vengeful blades of many an offended nobleman) on numerous occasions, using his razor-sharp mind, rapier wit . . . and the equally well-honed daggers he keeps conveniently hidden behind his back. Now he's going to have to do some very fancy maneuvering—cast some spells, incite a few assassinations, start a war or two (the usual stuff)—to get Cordelia back into Daddy Lear's good graces, to derail the fiendish power plays of Cordelia's twisted sisters, to rescue his gigantic, gigantically dim, and always randy friend and apprentice fool, Drool, from repeated beatings . . . and to shag every lusciously shaggable wench who's amenable to shagging along the way.

Pocket may be a fool . . . but he's definitely not an idiot." -- from the inside flap

My thoughts:

I enjoyed this version of "King Lear" as told by the Fool, with various cameos from other plays (witches from "Macbeth"). I especially liked Pocket's interactions with Lear and Cordelia.

Date read: 10/25/2013
Book #: 30
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Fiction

ISBN-10: 0060590319
ISBN-13: 9780060590314
Publisher: William Morrow
Year: 2009
# of pages: 304
Binding: Hardcover
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