More book reviews

I have been busy lately reading and writing book reviews for Waucoma Bookstore, a bookstore I have owned for 31 years. That will all change on April 1st, 2008, when I will sell it to a couple my children's ages. The new owners want me to keep writing reviews and to help them order, especially the fiction titles, for a while, to keep the flavor I have created over the years. I thought this blog might be a way to get started with that endeavor.
We have an old oak library table in the bookstore full of books we label "staff favorites" which all the staff contribute to. We write reviews on 3 by 5 cards which we laminate and put with the book. That table is what keeps our business flourishing, sometimes it seems like that is the only table we really need to have in the store. As long as we keep reading, changing the books and reviews, we keep people coming back for more. We have loyal fans - some people only like the books I recommend, some won't go near my titles - they are too depressing they say.
Here are some of my latest editions to the table:

Five Skies by Ron Carlson
Ron Carlson writes about men - solid, genuine, western men. The three men in this novel spend a summer on an isolated bluff high in the Rocky Mountains in Idaho collaborating on a construction project. They arrive as strangers from different worlds, each escaping his own difficult past. They are men of few words, but what they say is what they mean. Their friendship over the course of a summer makes for a powerful read. The quiet landscape, the value of work and hard labor, their day to day living outdoors, all are part of the healing process for these three men. I loved this book as did my husband.

Fortunate Son - Walter Mosley
This urban fable about two children, one black, one white, on divergent paths, so cleary illustrates the racial divide in this country. Tommy and Eric are born a week a part in the same Los Angeles hospital. Tommy is born with a hole in his lung, to a poor, hardworking, black, single mother. Eric's mother dies shortly after childbirth, leaving him to be raised by his father, a doctor in the hospital, and his Vietnamese housekeeper. The mother and father meet in the hospital and befriend one another. They end up living together for 6 years, never marrying, much to the doctor's dismay. The boys flourish as brothers and share their love of Tommy's mother and Eric's somewhat distant father. When Tommy's mother dies, his drunken, jobless father appears and claims Tommy as his son and takes him back home to his miserable existance. We continue to follow the boys separate and opposing lives as they grow into their 20's when a chance encounter reunites them once again. The parable is full of stark contrasts: black/white, rich/poor,good/evil, but Tommy's almost saintly qualities bring a sense of hope to this tragic comment of race in America.

Run by Ann Patchett
I seem to be on a theme here of black and white children from different worlds ending up living together. This is Ann Patchett's first book since Bel Canto, which was published 6 years ago. This novels takes place over the course of about 24 hours. It is the story of a prominent Boston family, who had one son of their own, and then adopted 2 black boys, one an infant and one a few years old. The mother in this story also dies young and the father raises all three children on his own. When the boys are adults, the father insists that they all attend a Jesse jackson speech on a snowy night in the city. Here is where the 24 hours comes in to play. What ensues, is the meat of the story. An argument, an accident, an injured black woman and her child transform the lives of this family. Patchett explores the notion of family in the broadest sense as well as our connections and responsibilities to strangers who we come in contact with. My life was richer after reading this powerful story.