CRITIC'S CHOICE
REVIEWED BY JONATHAN DURBIN
NOVEL
Booker Prize winner Doyle returns to the heroine of his 1996 novel, The Woman Who Walked into Doors, in this engrossing tale. Paula Spencer, 48, is a recovering alcoholic living in Dublin, a widow whose abusive ex-husband was killed by Irish police and whose children alternately loathe, pity and adore her. The novel takes place over a year in Spencer's life when, seemingly, not much happens. She makes ends meet by working as a cleaning woman, once signing up for an outdoor garbage-pick-up job at a White Stripes concert; she bridges the gap between her two sisters and their health and love crises; she muscles her way through self-doubt and worries that her daughter may become an addict. Frets Spencer: "She's been smoking in bed. Drunk and tired, out of her face.... She's as stupid as me." Doyle's love of language and acute ear for dialogue keep his narrative thrumming, and Spencer's reaction to her circumstances is inspiring. This is an extraordinary story about an ordinary life that requires almost no suspension of disbelief.
by Emma Darwin
REVIEWED BY EMILY CHENOWITH
NOVEL
In her impressive first novel, Charles Darwin's great-great-granddaughter intertwines the stories of British schoolgirl Anna Ware, a lonely 15-year-old in 1976, and Stephen Fairhurst, an aristocrat who is wounded in the Napoleonic Wars. Rejected by a young widow to whom he has proposed, Fairhurst returns to his drafty Suffolk manor, Kersey Hall, and enters into an epistolary relationship with the widow's artistic sister, a spinster. About 150 years later, Anna is unceremoniously dumped at the faded manor, now inhabited by her viperous grandmother and malodorous uncle. Connections between the two narratives are awkward in the beginning (Stephen's buttoned-up erudition contrasts sharply with Anna's adolescent disenchantment, for example), but emerging themes of battle and romance presently smooth them. As Stephen delves into his memories of bloody conflicts and lost love, Anna slips into a relationship with a neighbor who is a war photographer. Their stories meander slightly but also fascinate in Darwin's ambitious, alluring tale.
by Vendela Vida
REVIEWED BY MARIA SPEIDEL
NOVEL
When New Yorker Clarissa Iverton happens upon her birth certificate, she realizes that everyone she trusts, including her freshly deceased dad, knows that her biological father was a man she's never met. Since her mother walked out years earlier, Clarissa, the protagonist of Vida's accomplished second novel, must go to Finland to find the stranger who fathered her.
Vida, who is married to Dave Eggers, propels Clarissa alone into the dark snowscape where her birth secrets are buried. She perfectly captures the emotional dimension of Clarissa's search, showing that the truth, no matter how pockmarked, is preferable to fiction.
A Better You!
Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
A savvy analysis of the reasons some ideas find traction and others fade away. Use the Heaths' tricks (make communiqués concrete and credible) to pump up your own volume, even if it's just with the kids.
Thinking About Tomorrow by Susan Crandell
An upbeat, practical handbook on "reinventing yourself at midlife" with stories from boomers whose second-act job titles include zoo owner and celeb look-alike.
How to Cheat at Cleaning by Jeff Bredenberg
Clever triage for lazy neat-freaks: wear sandals whenever possible (no sock-washing!) and pick lamp shades in warm colors like orange and yellow, which help conceal dirt. And it's 234 skimmable pages, so you won't get bogged down.
How to Spell Like a Champ by Barrie Trinkle, Carolyn Andrews and Paige Kimble Lively Authoritative and accessible, this book and interactive CD from a trio that includes two Scripps National Spelling Bee winners will help you groom kids for s-u-c-c-e-s-s (or maybe just give you the confidence to ditch spell-check).
The March of Dimes now calls them Ambassador Children and the Internet has made the old posters obsolete. But what was it like to be pictured on one? Now 32, Poster Child author Emily Rapp, who was born with a shortened leg that didn't grow, remembers.
"The posters were a way to raise money so more people like me wouldn't happen--it's a little sick, if you think about it! But I felt like a star. I remember people taking my picture, and they'd invite me to ribbon cuttings at malls. I had my little spiel--'I'm so happy even though I have an artificial leg.' People told me I was amazing; I thought I had to keep it up. It created a drive for perfection that's stayed with me."
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
