By Alice Walker
An aging baby boomer on a quest for meaning, Kate Talkingtree is carrying around a boatload of anger, the accumulation of years of being condescended to and tending to the needs of everyone but herself. Where better to unload her burden than into a mighty river? The bulk of this slender novel takes place by the Amazon, where a shaman leads Kate and a group of fellow seekers whose lives are a symphony of misery (rape, incest, oppression). The travelers share camaraderie, spiritual talk and a mind-altering native drug.
Most of the thinly imagined characters are just props for Kate's voyage of discovery and what she learns will strike some readers as mere New Age hooey (we are told to respect the healing powers of yagé, "the grandmother medicine") mixed with familiar diatribes about how the white man caused the Third World's miseries. But Walker's evocative prose will please her fans: "Everything was in motion. If she listened closely, she could distinguish slithering, sliding, jumping, hopping, ambling, crawling, flying." And few will disagree with the 'Central theme of the book that getting older brings its own rewards. "Age is power," Kate tells her lover when she returns home. "Or it can be if it isn't distracted by shopping and cooking and trying to look nineteen."
NOVEL
By Steve Almond
CRITIC'S CHOICE
It's hard not to resent Almond: He's hysterically funny, he can consume vast amounts of candy without gaining an ounce, and he designed a research ? project that allowed him to score free chocolate. Brilliant! Acreative-writing teacher at Boston College, Almond takes an intimate look at the candy industry, specifically the regional manufacturers whose struggle to compete with the Big Three (Hershey, Mars and Nestlé) makes David vs. Goliath look like some friendly joshing by the watercooler. Besides eating, Almond's research involved interviewing professionals like a historian with 20,000 alphabetized candy wrappers and making a cross- country tour of candy factories. His accounts of watching equipment such as the nut applicator, the continuous cycle starch mogul and the coconut depositor play their parts in Goo-Goo Clusters and other treats are rendered in the sort of lusty vocabulary used in romance novels Not only is Candyfreak a delicious read it has neither calories nor carbs.
NONFICTION
By Harlan Coben
Fifteen years ago Grace Lawson was trampled at a rock concert. Eighteen people were killed. Grace survived, though her memory of the event is blurry. Now, married with two kids, it's all behind her until she takes a trip to the local Fotomat. What is an old, odd photo doing among her pictures? The question will jolt Grace out of her minivan tranquility and lead her to a path—and a past—she could never have imagined.
Stocked with fascinatingly creepy characters, Coben's keeps-you-guessing mystery is terrifying. The tension doesn't build slowly; it snaps and crackles right from the get-go. One small complaint: Coben relies too much on the Internet as a sleuthing tool, a trap too many mystery and thriller writers fall into these days. But that doesn't diminish the fear factor. The only plausible reason for setting down this book is to make sure your front door is locked and double-bolted.
MYSTERY
By Donna Leon
No one seems unhappy that Maria Battestini has been bludgeoned to death in Venice. Even her doctor, who discovered the corpse, calls her "an old shrew." After the case goes cold, only the persistence of Commissario Guido Brunetti, the wily hero of this satisfying crime novel and 12 others, can overcome police lethargy. More Columbo than Dirty Harry, Brunetti is an endearingly human, very Italian figure who goes home for stupendous lunches with the family. He's also aware of his own ethical lapses. But as he ponders the seven deadly sins, he never loses sight of his ultimate goal: justice.
MYSTERY
By Carrie Brown
This beautiful novel maps the emotional life of a World War II refugee who becomes trapped in his new existence in America. Part Sophie's Choice, part Anne Tyler, Confinement follows Austrian Arthur Henning as he loses his wife and baby in a bombing and takes his son Toby to the suburbs of New York City to work as a driver for the cold, dysfunctional Duvall family. Arthur never develops a life of his own, but as nine years go by, Brown powerfully renders his more than fatherly, but chaste love of Aggie the Duvalls' only daughter. He's horrified to learn that Aggie is pregnant-and that the father is his own son now a teenager.
These revelations won't spoil the story since the twists come early and the novel looks back at them. Confinement's success is in its character study, the way Arthur's violence-studded memories mingle with quick bursts of hope.
NOVEL
From the latest novels by two Newbery-winning authors to a story in: verse to great fantasy reads, here's a bouquet of the finest of the season s new titles forages 10 and up.
AL CAPONE DOES MY SHIRTS BY GENNIFER CHOLDENKO In this novel set in 1935, 12-year-old Moose Flanagan has just moved to Alcatraz, where his father is a guard and the titular criminal an inmate. Funny situations and plot twists abound.
THE REPORT CAIRO BY ANDREW CLEMENTS From an early age, Nora has hidden her intelligence. When she sets out to" prove the irrelevance of tests by getting D's on her-fifth-grade report card, all does not go? according to plan. But she makes a point about how grades" have repercussions not only for the student but for the teacher school and even the entire state.
MESSENGER BY LOIS LOWRY The third in a trilogy of political fables that began with the Newbery Award winner The Giver Messenger also works as a stand-alone as it follows Matty a once-scruffy thief who discovers that he has healing powers. Matty's skills become crucial in saving his formerly tolerant village from the-greed and suspicion eating away at it.
THE OUTCASTS OF 19 SCHUYLER PLACE BY E.L. KONIGSBURG Margaret, rescued by her great-uncles from an awful summer camp, ends up defending them against the city council in a novel that explores art, history and community.
HEARTBEAT BY SHARON CREECH Newbery Award winner Creech uses free verse to tell the story of 12-year-old Annie as she awaits a new sibling and eloquently contrasts the baby's arrival with her grandpa's slow withdrawal from life.
SIGN OF THE QIN BY L.G. BASS This first book in a planned trilogy blends mythology, fantasy and martial arts in a Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon-style tale about a boy, born to an evil emperor, who bears a birthmark that looks like the logo of a. rebel group.
- Contributors:
- Debby Waldman,
- Joe Heim,
- Ron Givens,
- Maggie Haberman,
- Jennifer Brown.
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!
