2006 Readers & Writers on the Air Summer Reading List

I know I need a vacation when the pile of books next to my bed—okay, and the stacks in the hallway, on my desk and under the overflowing bookshelves—tip over. Unfortunately, no vacation in sight for at least a couple of months, which means my reading time is insufficient, limited to a few pages at night or in a dentist’s waiting room. Luckily, many of you are finding time to read and have made some terrific suggestions for this year’s list. Special thanks to Chris Robinson and John Ernst, my co-hosts for the call-in program that generated this list. I’m a masochist, so keep those titles coming. We’ll include them on our winter reading list, which we compile just before the end of the year. Don’t forget, this list and previous lists are archived on our website, www.ncpr.org. 

Happy reading, happy listening, have a wonderful summer.

Ellen Rocco
North Country Public Radio
Canton, NY 13617
http://www.ncpr.org/
ellen@ncpr.org
877-388-6277

Throughout this list, you’ll find definitions from a wonderful little book called Grossman’s Glossary of Every Humorous Word in the English Language, by Richard Grossman (BukAmerica, Inc.). I only have access to words beginning with the letters a, b or c, but this will give you the flavor of Grossman’s approach to our language. See if you come across any of these when you’re buried in the latest from your favorite author. Like:

  Axillary, existing on an armpit.

  Brownie, a good-natured elf who secretly helps with household chores.

  Bouton, the tip of a honeybee’s tongue.

As I confessed on the air, most of the books I’m recommending are on the “to read” piles at home and work, with one exception: Brian Mann’s soon-to-be-published book which I had the privilege to read in a pre-release manuscript. So, we can compare notes about the titles I haven’t read and see if we agree, thumbs up or down.

• The Whole World Over, Julia Glass. This is the latest novel from the author of Three Junes which was high on my recommendations list a few years ago.
• Mother of Sorrows, Richard McCann. Another new novel. Frankly, I can’t remember who mentioned this one to me but it was given glowing reviews by that unknown reader.
• Infrastructure: A Field Guide to the Industrial Landscape, Brian Hayes. If you liked Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything, this one may appeal to you. It explains how the “stuff” in our 21^st century lives works—cellphones, computers, etc.
• White Apples and the Taste of Stone: Selected Poems 1946-2006 and The Best Day the Worst Day: Life with Jane Kenyon, Donald Hall. Hall was just named U.S. Poet Laureate, so I thought I ought to dig into his work a bit more deeply. The first title is obviously a sampling of his life’s work; the second is a prose celebration of his marriage to the late Jane Kenyon, a fine writer in her own right.
• Welcome to the Homeland, Brian Mann. Should be at booksellers late in the summer. Brian has written a thoughtful, well-researched and very personal exploration of the political divide in 21^st century American life—a divide that is considerably more complex and thorny than the popular “red state-blue state” shorthand. Brian explores his theory that the rural-metro divide is a far more accurate indicator of what is happening in our political life, and simultaneously tracks a long-running conversation he has carried on with his very religious and politically conservative brother. You may not agree with all of Brian’s theories but I suspect this book will deepen your thinking about America’s body politic. Plus, we all respect Brian as a consummately careful journalist for North Country Public Radio—his attention to fact and balance is reflected in this book.

More from Richard Grossman’s book:

Bombus, gurgling intestines.

Borborygmus, gurgling intestines.

Bogsaat, Pentagon jargon for bunch of guys sitting around a table.

Normally I take some time in February and March to daydream about what I will be reading over the summer. This was to be my Don Quixote summer. I ordered a very fine translation, leafed through it eagerly when it first arrived, and then placed it on the pile next to the bed where it could rest a bit as the outdoor temperature rose and the indoor work load decreased. Here we are in July and Cervantes sits unopened in exactly the same spot. I suppose I should feel guilty, but I really don’t. What happened is that other books got in the way. Here’s the list (minus all those academic titles I have to read for work). It’s a list heavy on books about Human Rights, a consequence of living in a time of war, torture, genocide, and natural disaster. 

Novels and Memoirs

• Mary Karr, The Liar’s Club.  I am late to this book, I know, but it is still my number one title of the summer so far. Some writers have an amazing talent for recall, and Karr is tops in this class. If you liked Frank McCourt’s memoir, Angela’s Ashes, then The Liar’s Club is a book you don’t want to miss. (The follow up to this one is Karr’s Cherry.)
• Dan Lloyd’s Radiant Cool. The hottest topic in Cognitive Psychology, Philosophy of Mind, and Computer Science has been the question of consciousness. How does this non-physical awareness that permits experience of the world and self-reflection emerge from physical brain processes? Radiant Cool is Science Fiction at its very best. It belongs on the shelf next to William Gibson’s Neuromancer.
• Romeo Dallaire, Shake Hands With the Devil. Dallaire was the head of the 1993 peacekeeping force in Rwanda. He offers a front seat view of the genocide there and the utter, tragic inadequacy of the international response. The Foreword by Samantha Power is succinct and powerful.
• Ian McEwan, Saturday. This is the story of a day in the life of a British surgeon. It opens with a disturbed sleep and a witnessing of a airliner in flames over the London sky and ends with a sustained and moving reflection on what makes life worth living. It is a brilliant piece of writing.
• Jim Harrison, Off to the Side. I read this after interviewing Jim Harrison on his novel, True North. This is a fascinating autobiography of a wonderful poet, novelist, wine connoisseur, and traveler.

Politics and Environmentalism

• Richard J. Goldstone, For Humanity: Reflections of a War Crimes Investigator. A memoir by a white South African jurist who led a commission that investigated Apartheid-era crimes and served as the chief prosecutor of the U.N. International Crime Tribunals for former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
• Jonathan Glover, Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century.  An antidote to the Enlightenment Era view that we are moving ineluctably toward a more civil and peaceful future by documenting the growing brutality of the 20^th Century that continues unabated in the 21^st.
• Jean Hatzfield, Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak. How are we to understand a spasm of face-to-face violence that led to the murder of almost a million people? This account of conversations with the killers is a disturbing beginning of a necessary inquiry.
• Ron Suskind, The One Percent Doctrine. This is probably the best book on American Intelligence Agencies by an American journalist. Suskind knows how to read intelligence reports and sift through the misinformation that is an integral part of CIA, Defense Intelligence, and FBI briefings. He presents a portrait of the Intelligence community as caught between the onerous burden of conducting a war against terrorism and the incompetence of the Bush Administration.
• Kevin Bales, Disposable People. Slavery is alive and well in the new global economy, and we are helping it to flourish. The book has wide reaching political and moral implications that emanate from case studies on prostitution in Thailand, water delivery in Mauritania, charcoal making in Brazil, brick making in Pakistan, and bonded agricultural labor in India.
• Paul Farmer, Pathologies of Power. A largely invisible crime against humanity is being perpetrated against the lesser developed nations of the world. Paul Farmer defines the crime in terms of economic deprivation, political disenfranchisement, and the relation of these systematic abuses to declining global health. When Farmer receives the Nobel Prize for Peace in the near future, you’ll be glad you read his book.
• James Howard Kunstler, The Long Emergency. Petroleum reserves are depleting quickly. What will the end of oil mean for the world? Pessimists will love Kunstler’s informed and vigorously argued response.

Poetry and Philosophy

• Billy Collins, Sailing Alone Around the World. A nice collection by the former Poet Laureate of the United States.
• Czeslaw Milosz, New and Collected Poems, 1931-2001. As good as poetry gets.
• Simon Critchley, On Humour. I have to be careful when recommending works of philosophy to non-philosophers, but this is a really vivid and provocative read on an interesting question: What makes jokes funny? After scanning the list of things I have been reading you can understand why I need a book on comedy.

More from Richard Grossman’s dictionary:

Calliblepharous, having makeup on the eyelids.

Caruncular, having a fleshy growth under one’s chin.

Caltrops, gigantic thumbtacks dropped in front of horses to impede their movement during battle.

• Little Chapel on the River: A Pub, A Town and the Search for What Matters Most, Gwendolyn Bounds.  The only thing that is important for me to tell you is that this woman can really write. She hooks you from the first paragraph. This is a book that makes you smile, nod in recognition, and regularly find your eyes misting up. In the end, the Guinan family and the regulars at the pub become as familiar as your own family and almost as important to you.
• Red House: Being a Mostly Accurate Account of New England’s Oldest Continuously Lived-in House, Sarah Messer. A marvelously incisive and revealing story of two families whose histories become entwined in a 350-year-old house. It moves gracefully back to the first owner and forward to the author’s childhood and continues in great looping swirls to take in the eccentrics, the ghosts, the fires, the floods, the fueds and back again to Sarah Messer growing up in a house whose traditions are someone else’s—a house lovingly festooned with family portraits, belongings and even wills of a family not her own. It is a book about home, identity, Americans, family life, and in a very profound sense, who we are. It is a real tour de force.
• The Lost Painting: A Quest for a Caravaggio Masterpiece, Jonathan Harr. This one was on the NY Times’ list of 10 best books of the year. This is an art thriller. And unlike The Da Vinci Code, it is non-ficition. It’s the story of the discovery of a long-lost Caravaggio masterpiece, “The Taking of Christ,” in a remote Jesuit residence in Ireland. Through the present-day narrative, Harr weaves the story of Caravaggio himself, a murderer, a fugitive, a man of towering rages and a genius whose work was not fully appreciated for hundreds of years. (By the author of A Civil Action.)
• Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories 2, Annie Proulx. In Proulx’s inimitable mix of tall tale and black comedy, here is a collection of stories all taking place in and around Elk Tooth, Wyoming—a place famous only for its three bars and its inhospitality to Easterners. Fun to read and fun to talk about. (Proulx’s first collection of Wyoming stories, Close Range, included the now famous Brokeback Mountain.)
• The Sea, John Banville. This is the winner of the Man Booker prize which beat out, among others, two of my favorites: Ian McEwan’s Saturday and Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. So you could say I read the book as penance. It is a very intense, very literary meditation about a middle-aged Irishman’s return after his wife’s death to the seaside town wehre his family vacationed when he was a boy and where he encountered first love, sexual longing, class barriers and a life-altering tragedy. Written with a vocabulary that sent me frequently to the dictionary, the novel is beautifully accomplished and extremely evocative.
• The Making of the Wizard of Oz, Aljean Harmetz. This is a 60^th anniversary edition in paperback (originally published in 1977). For fans of Judy Garland, Bert Lahr, Ray Bolger and for everyone who grew up with the film, this is an amazing treasure chest of a book, full of odd movie lore and great anecdotes. A great story, meticulously researched and lovingly told.
• Grant and Twain: The Story of an American Friendship, Mark Perry. From the spring of 1884 when Mark Twain persuaded Ulysses S. Grant to write his memoirs, until Grant’s death in July 1885, from tongue and throat cancer, this is the story of how the lives of these two interesting men were woven together. This is a compelling story that leaves one with a sense of real admiration for Grant in his generosity and bravery and strength of character, producing a tremendous piece of research and writing skill in spite of the agony of his illness.
• Lincoln and His Generals, T. Harry Williams. Written in 1952 by a professor of history at Louisiana State University, this is not a chronicle of battles, it is the story of Lincoln’s gradual, painful growth as a military strategist and of the development of the first truly modern military command system. Lincoln finally came to realize, as many of his generals did not, that the object of the war was not to capture Richmond but to destroy Lee’s army. This is the story of how the war was almost lost, was dragged out for years, and finally was won by the dogged efforts of Grant, Sherman and Abraham Lincoln.
• The Tattoo Artist, Jill Ciment. This is a strange but interesting short novel about a lower East Side shop clerk who meets a banker’s son and cuts a swath through the avant garde world of the ‘20s and ‘30s, becoming an artist and revolutionary. Out of work and money in the Depression, the two head out on a Japanese freighter for a remote Polynesian island famous for its makers of masks and exotic tattoos. The writing is simple, direct and surprisingly affecting. What could have been an outlandish subject is made sympathetic and understandable.
• A Pale View of the Hills, Kazuo Ishiguro. This is the first novel (1982) by the author of Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go. The novel sews threads that will work through much of Ishiguro’s fiction: the terrible things that very nice, ordinary, sympathetic people are capable of. Who were the cultured, courtly, high-minded gentlemen who led Japan to war? Who were the pleasant, sincere women who drowned their children or abandoned them or drove them to suicide? They are here in these pages as they will be later in the portrait of the perfect British country gentleman who aids the Nazis or the lady of liberal bent who provides a perfect school to educate clones raised only for medical purposes. This is an opportunity to observe the beginning of a distinguished novelist’s career.
• An Artist of the Floating World, Kazuo Ishiguro. The story of an artist forced to re-evaluate his life and career in post-WWII Japan in the face of the criticism of a younger generation and the embarrassing rejection of his daughter in a marriage negotiation. As always in Ishiguro’s work, each scene has an edge, characters talking at cross purposes, or simply failing to understand each other. It is the tension that propels his fiction. In this case he looks at a man who knows he did wrong, but did so for what he believed were the purest motives. Is he excused because of his “sincerity”? This is a master novelist at work with materials and people he knows well.
• Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe. This is a brilliantly simple novel with echoes of a Greek tragedy—the fall of a powerful man with a fatal flaw. The novel is full of the richness of village life before the shadows of colonialism and missionary-driven religion intrude. This is the story of how war is declared, judgments are reached, gods are placated, and harvests brought in. The story of what family life is like and how clans interact. How an economy works where the currency is yams. The telling is as simple as a folk tale but with the sophistication of a brilliant novelist behind it. The scene is as foreign as it could be to 21^st century America, but the people and their relationships are totally familiar and recognizable. A short, powerfully-wrought and beautiful novel.

More of Richard Grossman’s entries:

Bret, a herring.

Brit, a herring.

Brut, a herring.

Brisling, a herring.

Buckling, a herring.

• A Thread of Grace, Mary Doria Russell. A very moving and beautiful novel about Italy in the 1940s, the Italian Resistance movement, and the little-known story of Italian citizens who saved 43,000 Jews during the final phase of World War II. A thick, fat volume, and an addictive page-turner—a perfect book to get lost in this summer.

It’s the 100^th anniversary of the famous murder…

• An American Tragedy, Theodore Dreiser.
• A Northern Light, Jennifer Donnelly. A different perspective on the story.
• Murder in the Adirondacks: An American Tragedy Revisited, Craig Brandon.

Two others with Adirondack connections:

• The Lake of Dead Languages: A Novel, Carol Goodman.
• The Key to the Skeleton, Justin Vanriper. The latest in the Adirondack Kids series.

And, two other recommendations:

• The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair That Changed America, Erik Larson.
• Zorro: A Novel, Isabel Allende.

Here are my favorite recent books—arts-related, of course!

• Flying Colors, Tim Leffens. The true story of an abstract painter who worked with a group of students with severe physical challenges—only one could talk, none could walk, and all lacked the use of their hands. He was determined to help them learn to paint and express their ideas through art. A very moving and thoughtful story.
• Dr. Suess & Mr. Geisel, Judith Morgan. A wonderful biography of the man behind all those beloved children’s books—with some fascinating insights about how his books were created.

• House of War, James Carroll.  It is disturbing but eye-opening, something all Americans need to read and think about now. A combination of autobiography, biography and history, the book is not light, summer reading, but provides real insight into what has been done and is being done by our government under the guise of “national security.”

A few more from Richard Grossman’s dictionary:

Bonist, someone who belives that life is great but could be better.

Bubuckled, encrusted with acne.

Boanthropy, a form of madness wehre a man believes himself to be an ox.

• This Book Will  Save Your Life, A.M. Holmes.
• Without Grace, Carol Hoening. A wonderful sotry set in Churubusco, NY—which would make me want to read it anyway, but then it’s GOOD, so it’s a double.

• Lucy’s Eggs, Short Stories and a Novella, Rick Henry. A local writer and professor at SUNY Potsdam. The stories and novella all take place in the mythical upstate New York town of Homer.

• Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood. She is one of my favorite authors, and thought this has to be classified as science fiction, it is as well written (and dark) as I have come to expect from her.
• The Red Tent, Anita Diamant.
• No Colder Place or The China Trade, S. J. Rozan. For mystery fans, these are very well-crafted private eye stories presenting social issues from an unusual perspective. These two are a good place to start.

• Team of Rivals, Doris Kearns Goodwin. Lincoln’s cabnet…not a lot new for Lincoln of Civil War buffs, but well written and enjoyable read.
• Lincoln, A Life of Purpose and Power, Richard Carwardine. Deeper study of development of Lincoln’s philosophy and politics…interesting but definitely not a “beach book.”
• Grand Expectations, James T. Patterson. US History from 1945-1974. Really interesting for readers of a certain age (mine) to read large chunks of your own life as “history,” movies you saw with dates cited as cultural landmarks. This is your summer War and Peace, it’s 829 pages. There’s another volume covering Watergate to Bush v. Gore that I plan to tackle next.
• Let Me Finish, Roger Angell. Highest possible recommendation…most enjoyable book I’ve read in years. Elegant prose style you’d expect from New Yorker editor and stepson of EB White. Lots of interesting stuff about growing up in a long-ago (he’s 86) New York and his WWII service as well as life at The Comic Weekly…cameo appearances by Thurber, Ross, Shawn, SJ Perelman…even Groucho Marx.

• The Uses of Haiti, Paul Farmer, Jonathan Kozol, Noam Chomsky.

• The Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri. A collection of short stories by an East Indian writer. Wonderful insights into how immigrants adjust to new cultures and delightful stories about Indians in their own country.
• The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho. A Brazilian author guides you to finding your purpose in life through the delightful wanderings of a shepherd boy.
• A Turn in the South, V.S, Naipaul. Or anything else by this author and observer of cultures.

• The Italian Secretary: A Further Adventure of Sherlock Holmes, Caleb Carr.

• The Party’s Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies, Richard Heinburg.

• Florida, Mason Smith.

• The Vagabond, Collette. An old classic. The story of how a woman in an era where divorce was unthinkable faced her future after divorce.

• Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson.

Two more from Richard Grossman’s dictionary:

Catachresis, mixing metaphors.

Accubator, couch potato.

• March, Geraldine Brooks. I’ve just started this book—about the life of Mr. March, the father who’s largely absent from the plot and pages of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women.
• Rumspringa: To Be or Not to Be Amish, Tom Shachtman. Primarily about Amish adolescence and their “running around” period, before they choose (or not) to be baptized and join the church community. Gives a wonderful overview of Amish culture and religion.
• Pretty Birds, Scott Simon. I originally heard about this book on NPR—a novel told from the point of view of a young female sniper in wartime Sarajevo.
• Zlata’s Diary, Zlata Filipovic. While reading Pretty Birds, I kept being reminded of Zlata’s Diary, a book I remembered hearing about when it came out in 1995. I just picked up a used copy and hope to read it soon. It’s the diary of an 11-year-old girl in Sarajevo, often compared to the Diary of Anne Frank.

I want to express my appreciation for local libraries. Being on a tight budget, it is wonderful to have a local library that has such variety and always has new releases available. Thanks to the staff at Potsdam Library for keeping me reading.

• A Northern Light, Jennifer Donnelly. Loved it, and liked reading a story that mentioned so many familiar places.
• The Lake of Dead Languages, Carol Goodman. A good mystery, which keeps you turning the pages, set in the Adirondacks. Another mystery that touches on the spiritual world, by the same author, The Ghost Orchid.
• To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee. My all-time favorite novel.

The following are some of my favorites this year:

• Gilead, Marilynne Robinson.
• If You Lived Here I Would Know Your Name, Heather Lende. News from small town Alaska.
• The Way the Crow Flies, Ann Marie MacDonald.
• Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust, Immaculee Ilibagiza.
• Disgrace, J.M. Coetzee.
• The Power of the Dog, Thomas Savage.

Richard Grossman’s humorous words abound:

Cockalorum, a small man with randiose illusions.

Comatulid, having neatly combed hair.

Compurgate, to duck a charge because your friends swear you didn’t do it.

Condom, the surname of the man who invented the condom.

Crapper, the surname of the man who invented the toilet.

Here’s the Avid Readers AAUW Jefferson County Book Group 2006-7 Discussion List:

• The Last Days of Dogtown, Anita Diamont.
• The Human Stain, Philip Roth.
• The World is Flat, Thomas Freedman.
• Water and Cracking India, Sidhwa.
• Parrish’s Fancy, Walter Kellogg. North Country setting.
• Madame Bovary, Gustav Flaubert. Our classic reread.
• March, E.L. Doctorow.
• 1776, David McCulloch.
• Gilead, Marilynne Robinson.
• Light on Snow, Anita Shreve.

Here are some books I have especially enjoyed this past year:

• The Bridge, Doug Marlette.
• Tortilla Curtain, T.C. Boyle. Especially relevant re: the illegal alien controversy.
• The Bookseller of Kabul, Asne Seierstad. Another eye-opener.
• The Naked and The Dead, Norman Mailer. Also relevant, though published in 1947.
• The First 48 and Exact Revenge, Tim Green. The author is a north country lawyer and former football star. Both are page-turners. I’m looking forward to the next one.

I have been smitten by an English writer, Katie Fforde. Her novels are light, fluffy English tales and are perfect for the summertime.

• Flora’s Lot, Life Skills, Thyme Out, Wild Designs, Living Dangerously and Highland Fling, Katie Fforde.

These are my favorite books…I encourage readers to take a new look at books and authors not on today’s bestsellers list.

• The Pagan Nun, Kate Horsely. This is my favorite…a beautifully written book, lyrical in its prose. Based around 550 AD, at a time of transition between Druidism and Christianity in Ireland.
• Dandelion Wine, Ray Bradbury. This is really a fictionalized memoir by sci-fi writer Ray Bradbury. Based n 1928, it is a story as aged as good wine. Every chapter is filled with the memories of a “summer of green apple trees, mowed lawns, and new sneakers…half burnt firecrackers, gathering dandelions, and ‘belly busting dinners.’”
• The Snow Goose, Paul Gallico. This short story is about a lonely, deformed man, shunned by society, with love in his heart for wild and hunted things, and a young girl who sees beyond his grotesque shape to the gentle person inside.
• The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be…and The Boat That Wouldn’t Float, Farley Mowat. Both books are well written, read aloud memoirs that are uproariously funny. If you haven’t read Mowat, you must.
• Cross Creek, Marjorie Kinnan. A memoir from the author of The Yearling.

These are sugar for the brain or beach books:

• Sunset Limited, James Lee Burke. Mystery/detective.

(My husband recommends the Lucas Davenport detective series by John Sandford.)

Canoe, Bike or Hiking Trip Books:

• Wizards First Rule, Terry Goodkind. This is a long fantasy which I took with me on my Nova Scotia bike trip last year. It would not fit in my panniers, so I strapped it to the back of my bike and tore the pages off as I finished reading them. This is a decent adventure, not on the scale of Tolkien, but a story line that will not only get you through your journey, but will give you food for thought along the way.
• People of the Raven, Kathleen O’Neal Gear and Michael Gear. This is a Prehistoric North American series, written by a husband and wife history/archeologist team. There are around 15 books in the series, all ranging in different time periods of First Peoples history. They are stand alone reads, have a decent plot, and weave contemporary archeological issues into the storyline.

These titles called in by Tracy during the show:

• The Missing: A Novel, Thomas Edison.
• Imagining Argentina, Lawrence Thornton. A gripping novel about the “disappeared.”
• Stina, the story of a cook, Herman Smith.
• The Beans of Egypt, Maine, Carolyn Chute.
• Highly recommended for children:
• You Are My I Love You, Maryann Cushimano.

More from Richard Grossman’s dictionary:

Concamerate, to divide a room into smaller rooms.

Concremate, to burn a widow.

Contranate, to swim upstream.

• City of Light, Lauren Belfer. A mystery and historical novel set in Buffalo.

• The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini.

• Mission to America, Walter Kirn. Or anything else by this writer. Kirn’s style is light and fun enough to read in a hammock, but literary enough to discuss over cocktails.

• A Crack in the Edge of the World, Simon Winchester. A fascinating and well-written book about the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
• Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity, John Stossel. John is an equal opportunity troublemaker who has written a most entertaining read which will challenge your thinking.

• Pig Plantagenet, Allen Andrews. At first glance, a children’s book, but it deals with death and sacrifice. Short but engrossing read.

• Dancing at Ciro’s: A Family’s Love, Loss, and Scandal on the Sunset, Sheila Weller.

Three whose suggestions missed the winter reading list…but these books are good for any time of year…

For young adults:

• The Singer of All Songs, Kate Constable.
• The Magic Tree House Books, Mary Pope Osborne.
• The Coffin Quilt, Ann Rinaldi.
• A Wrinkle in Time, Many Waters, Swiftly Tilting Planet  and Wind in the Door, Madeline L’engle.

Richard Grossman words:

Chiliagon, a geometric figure with a thousand sides.

Chrematophobia, fear of money.

Cremnophobia, fear of standing on the edge of cliffs.

• The Ancestor’s Tale, Richard Dawkins. Each chapter is it’s own tale of evolution, told by a master.
• Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan. Although sometimes longwinded, the perspective that some of our domesticated plants (apple, tulip, marijuana and potato) have in fact domesticated us is great.

• The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody, How To Tell Your Friends From The Apes and How to Become Extinct, Will Cuppy. All three done from 1931 to 1949, they’re made up of quite short but highly opinionated pieces on, in the first, notable people from Cheops to Miles Standish (one section is called “Ancient Greeks and worse”), and in the second two, on our various ancestors from Java Man to modern—“The modern man, or nervous wreck…” is the way he starts the last piece. As much fun as the articles are the the many footnotes.

• No Bad Deed Goes Unpublished, Sharie Derrickson. Sharie is a local author, humorist and blogger (ncpr.org). Her book was recommended by many listeners, including Hilary Oak of the St. Lawrence County Arts Council in Potsdam, Linda Vorhees, Director of the Cape Vincent Community Library, Debbie from Clayton, Ron Spooner from somewhere in the 1,000 Islands, and Sharon Briggs from the Hawn Memorial Library.

Sharie sent me this message:

“Why I’m Not a Radio Journalist”

by Sharie Derrickson

So, there is this real stupid woman named Sharie Derrickson, who is me, and a friend calls me and says that someone is talking about this stupid woman, who is me, on your show, which I forgot was on—sorry. So, anyway, I listen for a while and then WANT to tell you about a book I am reading, but I am so scared, because radio scares me more than bats with rabies, but I say to myself, “You need to get over your fear of the radio.” I take a giant swig of Listerine. My heart pounds. Sweat pools. “I have to conquer this fear.”

It did not work. I call. I make a fool of myself. I will stick to writing. But thanks for mentioning me on the air. What I heard of the show was great, and I wish I had mentioned something a little more sophisticated, like Jimmy Carter’s book, which is wonderful, but I got too tongue tied to add it.

Just so you know, there is an actual editing contest going on that the person who finds the most typos in my book gets a free copy of my book signed with an inscription that will be misspelled.

Thanks again for the overly kind words.

• Our Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis, Jimmy Carter.
• Why My Wife Thinks I’m An Idiot: The Life and Times of a Sportscaster Dad, Mike Greenberg.
• Anything by David Sedaris.

A few final definitions from Richard Grossman’s dictionary:

Bubu, a multicolored African unisex garment.

Bulbul, a Persian nightingale.

Bubulcitate, to yell at cows.

Agnify, to dress up as a sheep.

And one for all you old hippies,

Acersecnmicist, someone who never cuts his hair.

Keep collecting those book titles, and send them to me for our next reading list call in:

Ellen Rocco
North Country Public Radio
Canton, NY 13617
http://www.ncpr.org/
ellen@ncpr.org
877-388-6277