There are books in which the footnotes or comments scrawled by some reader's hand in the margin are more interesting than the text. The world is one of these books.
                                                   —George Santayana

Funny way to start a book list, eh? Well, I'm hoping our list contains books interesting enough to scribble notes in, but more interesting-by far-than those scribblings. Great reads of all kinds suggested by staff, volunteers, friends, listeners, and a few famous people.

My reading goes in waves, including an occasional vast valley during which I never seem to have time to open anything other than junk mail. But, summer is characterized by the highest peaks-the perfect vacation includes a stack of books that I actually read.

As with last year's summer book list, you'll find, scattered in descending order, the top ten winners of a recent Bulwer-Lytton Contest. Run by the English Department at San Jose State University, entrants submit a first line of an imaginary very bad novel. (Bulwer-Lytton being the author who wrote the line, "It was a dark and stormy night.")

Enjoy your summer, and remember your favorite authors and titles over the next few months for our winter reading call-in.

                Ellen Rocco / ellen@nc pr.org 877-388-6277

From Staff and Volunteers...

ELLEN ROCCO, Station Manager

I often read clusters of related books—either works by a single author or books about a particular time, place or subject. On an earlier list, I shared some of my picks from my immersion in WWI. Let me recommend two books you may have missed that are a great starting pair for burrowing into the Civil War era:

• In the Fall, Jeffrey Lent. A New England man returns home after the war, with a surprising companion, and from there an intricate family saga develops. Very northern, yet tied ultimately to the south.
• Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier. Very southern. Wounded soldier walks home-and as he walks, the reader is drawn deeper and deeper into his world.
  
  An assortment of other unrelated titles:
  
  
• Lying with the Enemy, Tim Binding. Set in WWII, this is a compelling work of fiction that doubles as a war story and murder mystery.
• Memoir of the Hawk, James Tate. Poetry. Funny, twisted, very readable, lingers a long time. The poet has won tons of prizes including the Pulitzer and National Book Award.
• A Renaissance in Harlem: Lost Essays of the WPA, by Ralph Ellison, Dorothy West, and Other Voices of a Generation, Lionel C. Bascom, ed. I think the subtitle tells it all.
• The Eighth Continent: Life, Death, and Discovery in the Lost World of Madagascar, Peter Tyson. Again, I think the subtitle tells it all. The author works with NOVA, and is a free-lance writer.
• Prodigal Summer, Barbara Kingsolver. Susan Sweeney Smith here at the station left this book on my chair and I've just finished it. While her last novel was set in Africa, in this one, Kingsolver takes on nature near at hand and American agrarian and small town life. A quick, fun read. I think you'll recognize some of her characters as people you might know.

TODD MOE, Morning Host

• John Adams, David McCullough. What can I say? It's the 225th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and we recently took a road trip to Philadelphia and Washington, DC, where I picked this up at a bookstore. Remarkable insight on a Founding Father I knew little about. And McCullough was a recent guest with Chris Lydon!
• At Home With Beatrix Potter: The Creator of Peter Rabbit, Susan Denyer. My love of old houses, Britain and life in the country led me to this book. It's an easy read with lots of beautiful photos of the English countryside and sketches by Potter.
• The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien. My perennial favorite. I recently introduced the trilogy to a friend after he read The Hobbit and it's no surprise that he's hooked! I love re-reading Tolkien's poems and songs. AND DON'T FORGET—three films are being made based on the trilogy—U.S. release dates set for December 2001, December 2002, and December 2003. The cast includes Sir Ian McKellen as Gandalf, Ian Holm as Bilbo Baggins, Cate Blanchett as Galadriel, and Christopher Lee as Saruman.

• One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
• The Brothers K, David James Duncan. This one has it all: family, humor, religion, Vietnam, spiritual treks, and, of course, baseball.

• Aphrodite, Isabel Allende. Sensuous recipes, great prose.

Each summer, I try to focus on one author. This summer it is Vladimir Nabokov. The task is made easy by the Library of America's beautiful three-volume edition of Nabokov's collected American works.

• In Volumne One you get The Real Life of Sebastion Knight (a mystery story); Bend Sinister (probably the only equal to Kafka's The Castle on the nightmare of bureaucratic existence); and the memoir Speak, Memory.
• Volume Two places the novel Lolita next to the screenplay Nabokov wrote for Stanley Kubrick. Reading Lolita is always an uncomfortable undertaking. You cannot help but admire the novel's artistry while simultaneously feeling disgust for the subject matter. It remains a stunning, wrenching reading experience. Pinn is my personal favorite among Nabokov's works. It is a genuinely funny novelistic look at Nabokov's life as a professor at Cornell. The volume closes with Pale Fire. This is a challenging exercise in autobiographical poetry.
• Volume Three opens with Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle. The focus of this long work is a brother/sister relationship. Transparent Things is a murder mystery. The subject matter of this work is almost as dark as that of Lolita. Nabokov was at his best drawing dreary settings for his characters. The final work is Look at the Harlequins! This is another autobiographical exercise.
• Louis Menand's The Metaphysical Club: The Story of Ideas in America is a surprise hit in the publishing world. It is a study of the emergence of Pragmatism as an American philosophy and cultural voice. Menand paints some exquisite portraits of Chauncey Wright, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey. The writing is first rate and the explications of the founding works of Americna Pragmatism are, for the most part, insightful. The exclusion of George Herbert Mead from the work is a flaw. Nevertheless, this is a valuable study.

KELLY JACOBY, Development Assistant

• Bridget Jones' Diary and Bridget Jones-The Edge of Reason, Helen Fielding. They're great, quick summer reads. Very funny—any woman who reads them will relate in one way or the other. They're about the life of a thirtysomething British woman and her professional and romantic escapades. I treated myself to one chapter every night before going to sleep and it was a great way to end each day.

• The Mitford Series, Jan Karon. I loved this series—very light, folksy reading.

• On Children and Death, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. I just read this book. It's really good. Kubler-Ross talks not so much about death, but about how to live after the death of a child/children. Good for all who have children in their lives, or anticipate having them.

RICK HUNTER, Guest Host (Malone)

• The Tin Flute, Gabriele Roy. I am consistently impressed with the fiction (mostly) contained in the New Canadian Library series, published by McLelland & Stewart. This 1945 novel is no exception. A story of late depression-era Montreal, Tin Flute is almost a laboratory-like setting of individuals beset by grinding poverty, and how they respond.
• The Luneburg Variation, Paolo Maurensig. This mystery takes the opening line, "they say that chess was born in bloodshed," to a chilling conclusion in a deadly match played between a Jewish prodigy and a concetration camp commandant where the stake is human lives. In form a traditional thriller, this novel intensifies into much more than that.
• Cloudstreet and The Riders, Tim Winton. Both of these novels by Australian Tim Winton are excellent. The first is a highly picaresque, funny yarn of two families in post-war Australia. There is much less funny in the other, set mostly in Ireland.
• Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri. A great collection of short stories. Lahiri, who is of Indian descent, though born in London and raised in New England, focuses all of her tales on her people, either in their native subcontinent or transplanted to American cities.
• Daniel Plainway: or the Holiday Haunting of the Moosepath Leauge, Van Reid. This is the latest in a series of comic, sweet novels featuring Tobias Waltan and his companions Ephram, Eagleton and Thump.
• Thank You for Smoking, Christopher Buckley. The hero of this wickedly funny novel is Nick Naylor, leading Washington lobbyist for the tobacco companies. He is having a bad year, and it gets worse when he is kidnapped by an anti-smoking zealot. Dark humor, very enjoyable.
• Headlong, Michael Frayn. This comic novel is an absolute hoot! This is the perfect summer read for those who enjoy art, mystery, humor and fine writing all in equal measure. Highly recommended.
• The Man Who Ate the 747, Ben Sherwood. A charming, comic novel featuring J.J., a "fact-checker" for the Guinness Book of World Records.
• If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O!, Sharon McCrumb. This mystery, set in a small town in Tennessee, is well-written and has well-developed characters. Convincing and interesting.
• The Hunt Club, Bret Lott. Lott is one of my favorite novelists, one of the few whose works I will buy sight unseen and for full price, and whose new works I await as eagerly as my children do Christmas. (Jane Hamilton, Wilton Barnhardt, and Rohintin Mistry also fall in this category.) In this recent work, Lott sets up a classic mystery, but with the author's gifts for drawing word pictures of characters and landscapes, this book is so much more.
• Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather. Every year, I try to read one or two "classics. For 2001, I have chosen this one, first published in 1927, this remains a fine, spare novel worth a read in this new century.
• The Caine Mutiny, Herman Wouk. This was a great novel when it won the Pulitzer Prize in 1952, and it remains a magnificent read today.
• Marie Blythe, Howard Frank Mosher. In this novel, Mosher proves again why he is one of my favorite writers-wonderful writing and great character development. As with much of his work, this one is set in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom.
• The Journey Home, Olaf Olafsson. This is an utterly convincing first person narrative of a middle-aged woman, dying of cancer, who looks back on her life while on a final journey from England to her Iceland birthplace. Written in short, episodic chapters, this is a novel to be savored.
• Gap Creek, Robert Morgan. Some books are just really good and you're not sure why. This is one of those. On Oprah's reading list, this novel explores, in skilled but unvarnished prose, the poor, often horrifying, but ultimately uplifting life of Julie Harmon, a young woman of North Carolina.
• The Patron Saint of Liars, Ann Patchett. This remarkable first novel, like Patchett's later Taft, is all about what makes a family. As you read the book, ask yourself about the "signs from God," and how they assemble the remarkable family here.
• Montana 1948. Larry Watson. This book reminded me of To Kill a Mockingbird, and is worthy of comparison to that classic. A coming of age story which raises the issue of standing up for what one believes is right. (Watson's collection of short stories, Justice, is also wonderful.)
• A Map of the World, Jane Hamilton. Profound and ultimately compelling story. Also recommended, Hamilton's The Book of Ruth and A Short History of a Prince.
• Goodnight Nebraska, Tom McNeal. One of the best novels I have read this year. Part coming-of-age tale, part redemption, this first novel deserves a wide readership.
• In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, Nathiel Philbrick. Drawing on many original sources, particularly journals of several survivors, Philbrick convincingly describes what happened to the unfortunate men of the Essex, the true story which provided the basis for Melville's Moby Dick. This book was nominated for the National Book Award.
• Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-45, David M. Kennedy. This Pulitzer Prize winner is narrative history at its best, telling many smaller stories while synthesizing a coherent narrative of this tumultuous era.
• Seabiscuit: An American Legend, Laura Hillenbrand. The author has done prodigious research for this very favorably received account of America's greatest racehorse—and the jockey, trainer and owner who made this greatness possible. Spellbinding narrative.
• The Old American, Ernest Hebert. This is historical fiction at its best, bringing to life relationships between Algonkians and colonists in the mid-1700s.
• The Catastrophist, Ronan Bennett. Set in the Belgian Congo before independence, the narrator is a journalist struggling to remain apolitical in a revolutionary and dangerous time.
  
  Other recommended reads:
  
  
• The Sun in the Church: Cathedrals as Solar Observatories, J.L. Heilbron.
• Portrait of Dr. Gachet: The Story of a Van Gogh Masterpiece, Cynthia Salzman.
• The Ice Finders: How a Poet, a Professor and a Politician Discovered the Ice Age, Edmund Blair Bolles.
• Julia's Mother: Life in the Pediatric ER, William Bonadio.
• Northern Borders, Howard Frank Mosher.
• My Old Man and the Sea: A Father and Son Sail Around Cape Horn, David & Daniel Hays.
• Travels with Lizbeth: Three Years on the Road and on the Streets, Lars Eichner.

ANITA FIGUERAS, Russell

• Death in the Holy Orders, P.D. James. It's summer, and it's time to read a good mystery! I've been a fan of P.D. James for a long time, and her new book didn't disappoint me. In fact, it's not quite as dark as the last few Adam Dalgleish mysteries have been. James still has a very dark view of murder, and a pretty dark view of human nature, but there is a taste of a happy ending to this one—and we get to read two of P.D. James' poems.

ANA, Russell (almost 13 years old)

• The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass, Philip Pullman. The last title in the trilogy has just been published-and it's the best!
• The Ruby in the Smoke, The Shadow in the North, The Tiger in the Well, Philip Pullman. Known as the Sally Lockhart Trilogy, these mysteries are set in Victorian times.
• The Song of the Lionness Quartet: Alanna; In the Hand of the Goddess; The Woman Who Rides Likes a Man; Lioness Rampant, Tamora Pierce.
• The Immortals Series: Wild Magic; Wolf-Speaker; Emporer Mage; Realms of the Gods, Tamora Pierce.

MARYLOU COLE, North Creek

I wanted to give you just a few of the book titles that are proving popular so far this summer at the Town of Johnsburg Library where I volunteer. Fun books for easy reading.

• Sticks and Scones, Diane Mott Davidson.
• Final Target, Iris Johansen.
• Chosen Prey, John Sandford.
• Resort to Murder, Carolyn Hutt.
• Seven Up, Janet Evanovich.
• Bitterroot, James Lee Burke.
• P is for Peril, Sue Grafton.
  
  On the more serious side, I have been watching books going in and right back out of the library these past few weeks, including:
  
  
• Long Distance, Bill McKibben.
• Seabiscuit, Laura Hillenbrand.
• Four Wings and A Prayer, Sue Halpern.
• Ghost Soldiers, Hampton Sides
• A Series of Unfortunate Events (Series), Lemony Snicket. For the kids, a delightful new series.

JIM WILLEMIN, Canton

I'd like to suggest a couple of light fantasies for your summer reading list. Both authors provide wonderful fare for reading aloud-the writing of both feels to me to be strongly in the oral tradition. Reading aloud is wonderful during summer rainy days!

• Beauty, Robin McKinley. The author has a wonderful way with words. This is her first book—the story is retold in her recent work Rose Daughter. I recommend either or both books very highly. One may have to look in the Young Adult section-despite this potential stigma ("it's just a kid's book"), I think the beauty of the storytelling lifts either work into the realm of art: life-enriching, life-affirming beauty.
• Tower at Stony Wood, Patricia McKillip. The author has a fascinating way of telling stories with subtle plots (though I'm sure a post-modern literary critic would scorn to consider the work serious, or even literature). McKillip also has a wonderful way with words—she has a true storyteller's soul.

THE BELLINGER FAMILY, Ogdensburg

From Jake (age 12):

• Redwall Series, Brian Jacques.
• The Ender Series, Orson Scott Card.
• Darkness Over Denmark: The Danish Resistance and the Rescue of the Jews, Ellen Levine. Excellent true account of how the Holocaust affected Denmark's citizens, Christian and Jewish.
  

From Andrea (mom):

• Prodigal Summer, Barbara Kingsolver. The book I didn't want to end.
• Horse Sense, Jane Smiley. Funny and enjoyable.
• Sold Down River, Fever Season, A Free Man of Color, Graveyard Dust, Barbara Hambly. New Orleans series, featuring an African American detective/musician.
• On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, Stephen King. Wonderful book. I ended up reading it twice and reading it aloud to an appreciative audience while at camp. I am not a horror reader, so have only read The Shining (from King's fiction work). Re-read last month at camp. I would recommend to anyone.

GUEN GIFFORD, Burlington

• Red Azalea, Anchee Min. Amazing autobiographical novel of a women who grew up in China under Mao. It's an intense interpersonal drama that draws you in and shows you the personal impact of larger political forces. Incredibly gripping. Don't take it on vacation with your sweetie-you won't be able to stop reading.

ELSIE TUCKER, Canton

• Mrs. 'arris Goes to Paris, The Snow Goose, Paul Gallico. The first dates back to 1958, the second title to 1940.

POYNTER (via email)

• True History of the Kelly Gang, Peter Carey.
• When We Were Orphans, Kazuo Ishiguro.
• The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood.

MEG BERNSTEIN, Saranac Lake

• For mystery fans, I'd like to recommend the Stan Kraychik series by Grant Michaels: A Body to Dye For; Love You to Death; Dead on Your Feet; Mask for a Diva; Time to Check Out; and Dead as a Doornail.
     Stan is a gay hairdresser who lives in Boston and who is innately and obsessively curious. Once a psychologist, he turned to hairdressing because it was less emotionally exhausting and, anyway, he could "shrink 'em at the sink" instead. The books are clever with lots of witty repartee and there is an ongoing question as to whether Stan will develop a relationship with big, handsome Vito Branco, a smart, efficient homicide detective whose sexual orientation is a closely guarded secret.
     The writer really knows Boston very well so anyone who likes that city will enjoy the settings. The mysteries are hard to figure out because Stan, being mildly paranoid, makes mistakes and usually begins by thoroughly suspecting everyone. There is a lot of sorting out of suspects to do and a good deal of suspense.
     I have a lot more recommendations on my website at www.geocities.com/reviewerus which all got started thanks to you and Stonewall.

KAY BRIGGS, Canton

• Founding Fathers, Joseph J. Ellis. A delightful book and a Pulitzer Prize winner. The author's name has taken on a rather bad odor because he lied about his involvement in the Vietnam war. Nonetheless, he writes very well, and makes very real the tension and controversy and need for workable compromises in the fledgling republic.
     One can note that the pattern of inflammatory rhetoric in Congress dates back to pre-1800. For example: In 1790, when two Quaker delegations presented petitions to the House calling for the federal government to put an immediate end to the slave trade, James Jackson, the representative from Georgia, was "positively apoplectic that such a question should even be considered by any serious deliberative body. The Quakers, he argued, were infamous innocents incessantly disposed to drip their precious purity like holy water over everyone else's sins. They were also highly questionable patriots, having sat out the recent war against tyranny in deference to their cherished consciences. What standing could such dedicated pacifists enjoy among veterans of the Revolution, '...who, at the risk of their lives and fortunes, secured to the community their liberty and property?'" Now, isn't that a choice bit of prose?

FRED GOSS, Ogdensburg

• From Paris to the Moon, Adam Gopnik. By the New Yorker writer...great for everyone who has visited Paris and dreamed of somehow living there...occasional pretentiousness far outweighed by charming descriptions of "parent struggling with French Christmas tree lights."
• An Honorable Defeat, William C. Davis. People like me who think they've probably read all they ever need to about the Civil War may enjoy this one...about not only the final days before the fall of Richmond and Lee's surrender, but the flight of the confederate cabinet through the South; the "battle" between John Breckinridge (the author's hero), who took over as Sec'y of War in early 1865 and almost immediately siad, "It's over, the confederacy and slavery are gone, but maybe we can negotiate about the status of CSA soldiers and officers, status of confiscated property, etc.," and Jefferson Davis, who was seeking two more guys who would stand behind a tree with him somewhere and throw stones at Federal troops.
• Joe College, Tom Perotta. Very funny account of an undergraduate at Yale in the early '80s. I presume the mise en scene is pretty accurate since the author was an undergraduate at Yale in the early '80s. I read a review that said this is the third time the author has written basically the same book but since I hadn't read the first two, I loved it.
• A Pitcher's Story, Roger Angell. This is what I'm reading right now...any summer is improved by an Angell baseball book. He writes better than George Will and is immeasurably less pompous.
  
      For fall, I'm waiting for a new Inspector Lynley/Sargeant Havers mystery from Elizabeth George. Great British mysteries. I met her at a book signing a few years ago. If there were 50 people there, it was me, two other guys and 47 ladies-which I'm told reflects the general readership of the genre.
     And, having wasted years writing Dutch, and pontificating all over NPR, Edmund Morris' 2nd volume of his biography of Teddy Roosevelt is coming September.

JUDITH HILT LEVINGS, Potsdam

• My Grandfather's Blessings, Rachel Naomi Remen. On the top o' my list this year. Thought-provoking, funny, sad, challengin—-all the good stuff! It's a book I actually read, as opposed to audio books since I travel frequently.

ELSA SCHISLER, Indian Lake

• Faithful Gardener: A Wise Tale About That Which Can Never Die, Clarissa Pincola Estes. What a gem. A slim collection of stories with so many layers of meaning—so much healing...so much power. I'm so glad this book was written.
• One Man's Meat, E.B. White. Essays written between 1938 and 1943, while White lived on a saltwater farm raising sheep and chickens in Maine. Each still timely essay (technology and mass media then was radio and t.v.) is enough for me to chew on while I'm working around our place. Being able to look back at that time while tremendous storm clouds were gathering in Europe and knowing the extent of that storm, makes reading these essays now especially poignant. You can hear the rumbles in the , distance. You can feel the power building. He could be speaking of the middle east today.

ROBIN COLLEN, Potsdam

• The Inextinguishable Symphony, Martin Goldsmith. Goldsmith (former host of NPR's Performance Today) tells the story of his parents' lives—as Jews in Nazi Germany in the 1930s. They are musicians and play in the all-Jewish, Nazi-sanctioned Kulturbund, which was both an outpost for Jewish musicians, actors, dancers and stage hands, and for Jews in the community who were patrons.
     I found this book engaging for a number of reasons. Goldsmith's story was very personal; he wanted to understand himself, his parents, and his past through researching and writing this book. This story also led me into a different viewing of that horrific period of time. Kristallnacht went from being an event that I knew of and had seen pictures of to one in which I was on the street, experiencing it.
     For me, much of this book was about the power of beauty over ugliness, even if beauty does not ultimately "win."
     Finally, I appreciated Goldsmith's giving voice to those who felt that the Kulturbund had a dark side, who felt that it was so intent on enriching lives that it was blind to the danger of losing lives...in part, by not encouraging emigration as much as it could have. Goldsmith feels that the good it brought its participants and audiences far outweighed any negative effects.

ROSALIE SMITH, Massena

I've just finished two great books.

• Plainsong, Kent Haruf. A feel good and uplifting book.
• Island, Alistair MacLeod. These collected stories are not as uplifting...but, very well written depiction of life on Cape Breton Island.

REV. DUDLEY E. SARFATY and ELIZABETH SARFATY, Malone

• The Raft is Not the Shore, Daniel Berrigan and Thich Nhat Hahn, introduction by bell hooks. After 30 years, a new edition.
• Please Understand Me II: Temperament, Character, Intelligence, David Keirsey. Another re-issue. A favorite training and counseling guide: user friendly, with essential message that members of families and institutions are okay even if we are all a bit different—and we would do well to appreciate those differences.
• Connections: The Threads that Strengthen Families, Jean Illsley Clarke. Illustrating the importance for appreciating this vital human need to have meaningful relationships, particularly in light of contemporary pressures.

HANNEKE LAFOUNTAIN, Potsdam

• Midwives, Chris Bohjalian.
• Girl with the Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier

FRAN COLLIER, Saranac Lake

• I just finished Helen Fielding's Cause Celeb. Also, Francine Prose's Blue Angel. I was really pleased with both of them, and I am interested in any books by these authors (Bridget Jones is a great light read). Right now, I have started Isabel Allende's Daughter of Fortune. I am also somewhere in the process of reading David Lodge's Therapy, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's The Mistress of Spice, and Carlo Levi's classic, Christ Stopped at Eboli. In addition, these are the books on my "to read" shelf:
• The Wrestler's Cruel Study, Stephen Dobyns.
• Galileo's Daughter, Dava Sobel.
• Guided Tours of Hell, Francine Prose.
• Blonde, Joyce Carol Oates.
• Prodigal Summer, Barbara Kingsolver.
• Disobedience, Jane Hamilton.
• The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood.
  
  So why do I need the names of more books to read, right!? Happy Summer Reading!

JERRY WEINBERG, Burlington

• The Talented Mr. Ripley/Strangers on a Train/Edith's Diary, Patricia Highsmith. After I saw the movie, The Talented Mr. Ripley, and subsequently learned it was one of five novels (plus a book of short stories) about the strange, strange man, I started reading Patricia Highsmith, who died a few years back after writing many novels, including Strangers on a Train, which was much odder and suspenseful than Hitchcock's movie.
     I just finished Edith's Diary, which my local library happened to have, and I suspect your library can dig out from its stacks. It's a terrific book, detailing a period from the '50s through the early '70s, with the radical political times as a backdrop to a woman's life. I don't want to tell more, and I advise that you don't read the blurb on the dustcover, which tells too much. Just let the story unfold. This woman is THE master of suspense, as far as I'm concerned-better and pyschologically scarier than Jim Thompson, Cornell Woolrich, etc. If you need more inducement, she was one of Graham Greene's favorites-and he wasn't so bad when it came to suspense, either.

MICHELLE ROBINSON, email

• Tulip Fever, Deborah Moggach
• Straight Man, Richard Russo
• About a Boy, Nick Hornby

NPR'S SUMMER READING LIST FROM TALK OF THE NATION

On a recent edition of Talk of the Nation, Juan Williams invited David Kipen, Book Critic of The San Francisco Chronicle, Laura Miller, Books Editor of Salon.com, and Elizabeth Taylor, Literary Editor for The Chicago Tribune and President of the National Book Critics Circle to talk about their recommendations for summer reading. Here are their suggestions, with each of their "top picks" given as the first title in their lists.

From David Kipen:

• Bel Canto, Anne Patchett. A love story set during a hostage situation.
• 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Jules Verne. For young adults...along with anything else by Verne.

From Laura Miller:

• John Henry Days, Colson Whitehead. A jazzy, fun, smart contemporary book about a cynical African-American pop culture journalist.
• Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw, Mark Bowden. A real-life account of the manhunt for drug lord Pablo Escobar in Columbia.
• Shooting the Moon: The True Story of an American Manhunt Unlike Any Other, Ever, David Harris. About building the case against General Manuel Noriega of Panama.
• Passage, Connie Willis. About near-death experiences.
• The Cold 6000, James Ellroy. Poses possible scenarios on the assassinations of JFK, RFK, and Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Ghost Soldiers: The Forgotten Epic Story of World War II's Most Dramatic Mission, Hampton Sides. About the rescue of American soldiers who were captives of the Bataan Death March.
• Lord of the Rings Trilogy, J.R.R. Tolkien. For young adults.

From Elizabeth Taylor:

• American Places: Encounters With History, William E. Leuchtenburg, ed. Leading American historians talk about sites where the past comes alive for them.
• Snow Mountain Passage, James D. Houston. A novel about the Donner party.
• Facing the Wind: A True Story of Tragedy and Reconciliation, Julie Salamon. About a Brooklyn lawyer who kills his wife and three children.
• Seabiscuit: An American Legend, Laura Hillenbrand. About a 1930s race horse sports star.
• Holes, Louis Sachar. For young adults. About a boy wrongly accused of a crime and sent to a nightmarish reform camp.
• Man O'War, Walter Farley. Biography of the famous race horse.
• Journey to Topaz, Yoshiko Uchida. About the experience of the Japanese internment camps.

PRODUCERS OF THE CONNECTION RECOMMENDATIONS

• The Night Sky, Chet Raymo.
• The True History of the Kelly Gang, Peter Carey.
• Safe Area Gorazde, Joe Sacco.
• Purified by Fire, Stephen Prothero.
• The Metaphysical Club, Louis Menand.
• The Lost Children of Wilder, Nina Bernstein.
• Race and Reunion, David W. Blight.
• Remember Me to Harlem, Emily Bernard.
• The Future of Nostalgia, Svetlana Boym.
• Killing Pablo, Mark Bowdoin.
• Tip O'Neill and the Democratic Century, John Farrell.