"State of Wonder" by Ann Patchett is a suspenseful jungle adventure with an unexpected ending and other assorted surprises

Partial review is reprinted from the Chicago Tribune article by Laura Ciolkowski

Prize-winning author Ann Patchett ("Bel Canto," "Truth and Beauty," "The Magician's Assistant") once confessed that the single most important artistic influence on her work is "The Poseidon Adventure," the 1933 Paul Gallico potboiler that was made into a classic 1970s action-adventure-disaster movie featuring Gene Hackman and Ernest Borgnine fighting their way out of a luxury liner capsized by a 100-foot tidal wave. Patchett explained, "['The Poseidon Adventure'] was the first time I saw something that made me think, Oh, that's what plot is: you're going along, it's fine, then everything turns upside down; people band together, sacrifices are made, there's passion, there's loss, there's a journey and at the end you cut a hole in the boat and you come into the light."

"State of Wonder," Patchett's sixth novel, is a riveting variation on that tightly plotted journey from darkness to light. The novel traces the steps of 42-year-old Marina Singh, pharmacologist at the Vogel Pharmaceutical Company in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Marina makes her way to a place deep in the bowels of the jungle, "somewhere on a tributary off the Rio Negro" in Brazil, and then must fight her way back home to the bright, frozen landscape of Eden Prairie.

"State of Wonder" is Marina's interior, psychological journey back in time to confront her past, in the shape of her former medical school professor Dr. Swenson; and a vivid account of her travels through snake-infested rivers, malarial swamps and "thick walls of breathing vegetation".

In "State of Wonder" Patchett writes with the confidence and authority of an author-explorer endowed with the power to imagine a universe divided into ill-mannered natives and the modern men and women from Minnesota who teach them table manners, instruct them in the art of wiping their feet before they get into bed, and train them to be docile subjects, "submitting themselves to constant weighing and measurement, allowing their menstrual cycles to be charted and their children to be pricked for blood samples".

Part scientific thriller, part engaging personal odyssey, "State of Wonder" is a suspenseful jungle adventure with an unexpected ending and other assorted surprises.

Jonathan Frazen's take on why novels will survive

Dan Winters for TIME

On the eve of his much lauded new release, "Freedom", Jonathan Frazen, author of the critically acclaimed novel, The Corrections (2001), waxes poetic about life, writing, and the pleasure - and need - of humans to sit down and become immersed in a good read in this cover article from TIME magazine. Here's an excerpt:

"There are any number of reasons to want novels to survive. The way Franzen thinks about it is that books can do things, socially useful things, that other media can't. He cites — as one does — the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard and his idea of busyness: that state of constant distraction that allows people to avoid difficult realities and maintain self-deceptions. With the help of cell phones, e-mail and handheld games, it's easier to stay busy, in the Kierkegaardian sense, than it's ever been.

Reading, in its quietness and sustained concentration, is the opposite of busyness. "We are so distracted by and engulfed by the technologies we've created, and by the constant barrage of so-called information that comes our way, that more than ever to immerse yourself in an involving book seems socially useful," Franzen says. "The place of stillness that you have to go to to write, but also to read seriously, is the point where you can actually make responsible decisions, where you can actually engage productively with an otherwise scary and unmanageable world."

Read more: 

TIME magazine cover article on Jonathan Frazen: Great American Novelist, by Lev Grossman

'The Shallows': This Is Your Brain Online

Just the latest lament on how the internet is making us all incapable of deep thought:
(from the npr article)

June 2, 2010

Try reading a book while doing a crossword puzzle, and that, says author Nicholas Carr, is what you're doing every time you use the Internet.

Carr is the author of the Atlantic article Is Google Making Us Stupid? which he has expanded into a book, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains.

Carr believes that the Internet is a medium based on interruption — and it's changing the way people read and process information. We've come to associate the acquisition of wisdom with deep reading and solitary concentration, and he says there's not much of that to be found online.

Chronic Distraction

Carr started research for The Shallows after he noticed a change in his own ability to concentrate.

"I'd sit down with a book, or a long article," he tells NPR's Robert Siegel, "and after a couple of pages my brain wanted to do what it does when I'm online: check e-mail, click on links, do some Googling, hop from page to page."

Carr admits he's something of a fatalist when it comes to technology. He views the advent of the Internet as "not just technological progress but a form of human regress."

Human ancestors had to stay alert and shift their attention all the time; cavemen who got too wrapped up in their cave paintings just didn't survive. Carr acknowledges that prolonged, solitary thought is not the natural human state, but rather "an aberration in the great sweep of intellectual history that really just emerged with [the] technology of the printed page."

Read the whole article

The Internet, Carr laments, simply returns us to our "natural state of distractedness."

Librarians now cool - and also, endangered. Read about it In the new book release "This Book is Overdue", Bryan Hissong's humorous love letter to those who toil in the stacks.

Reprinted from: USA TODAY
by Craig Wilson
WESTMINSTER, Md. — Bryan Hissong is 31, happily married, and the father of a 2-year-old named Olivia. He seems quite content with his life.
But Marilyn Johnson, who is not his wife, loves him and has said so very publicly. It doesn't matter that she has never met him. Hissong is a librarian.

He doesn't look like the clichéd librarian of old. He favors plaid shirts and is sporting a beard on his babyface — but that doesn't matter to Johnson, either. She's well aware that librarians wear many disguises these days. Often they're pierced, tattooed, punk with bright blue hair. She loves them all.

Who knew librarians had become so ... cool?

Johnson is the author of the new This Book Is Overdue! How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All (Harper, 272 pp., $24.99), a humorous, unabashed love letter to the men and women who used to toil quietly in stacks but now circulate in cyberspace.

"They're smart and they're funny and they totally get it," says Johnson, whose respect for librarians grew tenfold when she was researching The Dead Beat, her acclaimed 2006 book on obituaries and obit writers. "They're not saints, but ethically and morally and every other good way, they're professionals. They're good people."

And possibly endangered.

"It turns out this is a good time to point out that we're shooting ourselves in the foot if we let these people go from our lives," says Johnson, 55, who lives in New York's Hudson Valley. "We need them more than ever."

The reasons are simple and multiple: "The middle class is squeezed and needs libraries more, information is multiplying at an alarming rate so we need librarians more, and the jobless are streaming to libraries in droves," she says.

Overall, the use of public libraries is up by 6% over last year, according to the Library Journal, while states and municipalities are drastically cutting back on aid to libraries, causing many to close. New York has just proposed its fifth cut to state library spending in two years. Ohio libraries were threatened with up to 50% cuts in aid last summer before thousands of patrons protested to legislators, who then cut state funding by 18%.

Hissong's boss, Lynn Wheeler, 61, director of the Carroll County (Md.) Public Library system and a 37-year veteran in the library world, has seen all this firsthand but remains upbeat about her rapidly changing profession.

"Librarians are life-long learners," Wheeler says. "We're flexible. We're up to speed."

And despite losses in the ranks — mainly from budget cuts nationwide — librarians march on into new territory. According to Johnson, thousands of librarians even frequent virtual reality sites such as Second Life where they share resources and socialize. Wheeler acknowledges that this brave new tech world can be overwhelming but says libraries are keeping up, with 24/7 website operations, self-checkouts and improved cooperation between branches. Some patrons now even text-message their questions.

"The demand for technology access and the teaching role for librarians will only continue to grow," she says.

Hissong agrees. "We have had this huge burst of information, yes, but how do you know what you want or need?" he asks of his patrons. "That's where a librarian comes in: to usher people through, to filter things out."

Johnson, who visited libraries big and small researching her book, will be the keynote speaker for the Virtual Worlds and Libraries Online Conference on March 6. The theme: "The Future is Now."

That "future" includes Kindle and other e-readers. What will their arrival do to traditional libraries?

"Nothing," Johnson says. "It's just more neat delivery systems for books. There will be some shifting shelf space, as there has been to accommodate DVDs and audiobooks, but we will always need books. And good public libraries, if they're funded, will figure out ways to get them to us."

On a recent afternoon at the Westminster library here in northern Maryland, the main reading room is packed, and all 20 computers are occupied.

Hissong is wandering the floor with a Samsung Q1 tablet computer in his hands, helping patrons find everything from a Jane Austen classic to an Austin Powers DVD.

"A library is as popular as ever. It's not just a book depository anymore," he says. "We're a resource for everyone. If they check out a book, great. If not, that's OK, too."

"The Vintage Caper" by Peter Mayle

Feeling the doldrums of the fall- not quite the Holiday Season, yet the fun days of summer and travel to far-away lands  seems at best a distant memory? You're in luck if you care to get swept away to a place and characters of a completely different world (at least to most Americans), that of the village life in the South of France. If you've loved this author's books in the past, why not take a visit once again to the region with this tale, highlighting the cuisine, the wine, and the to put it politely, the interesting natures of the people which will have you exclaiming, "oh-those-French!"


See the L.A. Times review:
Peter Mayle, best known for his bestselling "A Year in Provence," has made a cottage industry of writing about Provence and the entire South of France, with copious references to delectable cuisine and coveted wine selections. After writing mostly nonfiction in recent years, he's enjoying a return to the whodunit form with "The Vintage Caper," providing Francophiles, foodies and wine lovers a fun way to indulge their passions while helping solve the case.

Jane Austen - ever wonder why so many love her books? Find out in A Truth Universally Acknowledged: 33 Great Writers on Why We Read Jane Austen

For two centuries Austen has enthralled readers. Few other authors can claim as many fans or as much devotion. So why are we so fascinated with her novels? What is it about her prose that has made Jane Austen so universally beloved?
In essays culled from the last one hundred years of criticism juxtaposed with new pieces by some of today’s most popular novelists and essayists, Jane Austen’s writing is examined and discussed.Modern voices celebrate Austen’s amazing legacy with an equal amount of eloquence and enthusiasm. Fay Weldon reads Mansfield Park as an interpretation of Austen’s own struggle to be as “good” as Fanny Price. Anna Quindlen examines the enduring issues of social pressure and gender politics that make Pride and Prejudice as vital today as ever. Alain de Botton praises Mansfield Park for the way it turns Austen’s societal hierarchy on its head. Amy Bloom finds parallels between the world of Persuasion and Austen’s own life. And Amy Heckerling reveals how she transformed the characters of Emma into denizens of 1990s Beverly Hills for her comedy Clueless. From Harold Bloom to Martin Amis, Somerset Maugham to Jay McInerney, Eudora Welty to Margot Livesey, each writer here reflects on Austen’s place in both the literary canon and our cultural imagination. 
Or, perhaps, like me you regard Austen with just a bit more, well - to put it bluntly - annoyance. Don't worry Mark Twain apparently felt the same way when he famously stated, "Every time I read 'Pride and Prejudice' I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone."

"Alice In Wonderland" Inspires Bestselling Trilogy "The Looking Glass Wars"

Tomorrow is National Young Readers Day, an initiative to celebrate and encourage a love of reading in kids, and in honor of that, we bring you this interview with Frank Beddor, author of the popular young adult trilogy "The Looking Glass Wars," and most recently "ArchEnemy," the last book in the series.

The series is a retelling of Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" which includes the real Alice and Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) themselves as characters. In this re-imagining, Alice becomes Princess Alyss and wages a Civil War-like battle against Redd Heart, Beddor's name for Carroll's queen.

While the series hasn't had much traditional critical acclaim (a notable exception is a recent LA Times review that marveled at the many incarnations that Beddor has created for the series, including a spin-off comic series, a coffee-table book, and an upcoming movie), the blogging world has dug right in. A BlogCritics review, for example, finds the books as engaging for "old" adults as for young adults.

In this Good Morning America interview (click on link in red below), Beddor wows an audience of kids with his story and the beautiful antique "Alice in Wonderland" playing cards that started off his journey in the first place. You can read an excerpt from "ArchEnemy" on the Good Morning America website.

Barbara Kingsolver audio discussion on her new book, "The Lacuna"

Barbara Kingsolver, author of bestsellers "The Poisonwood Bible" and "The Bean Trees" discusses her new book "The Lacuna," how she came up with the name (and how her family felt about it) and her own recent relocation. Click on arrow below. For a good review of "The Lacuna" on the NY Times click here.

Traveling with Pomegranates: A Mother-Daughter Story - by Sue Monk Kidd and Ann Kidd Taylor

Sue Monk Kidd and her daughter Ann were both at a crossroads in 1998--Sue was near menopause with a case of writer's block and Ann was a recent college grad with a case of depression. The two visited Greece, France, and Turkey, and in this dual-memoir, Kidd (who wrote The Secret Life of Bees after the trip) and her daughter each describe their introspective journeys and their relationships with each other. This fascinating book will provide food for thought for anyone who's at their own life intersection, especially mothers and daughters--and Bees fans will enjoy reading about that novel's early beginnings.

Tudors retelling wins Man Booker Prize

The prestigious Man Booker Prize has been awarded to Hilary Mantel for "Wolf Hall," her historical fiction of Henry VIII's court. Mantel was considered the odds-on favorite going into tonight's ceremony in London -- yes, the British do take bets on who will win a book prize -- and beat out shortlisted authors A.S. Byatt, J.M. Coetzee, Adam Foulds, Simon Mawer and Sarah Waters. In addition to the honor of winning the award, Mantel will receive $83,500.

"Wolf Hall," scheduled for U.S. release Oct. 13, is said to be a minutely researched yet sweeping historical novel of the Tudor period. Told from the perspective of Thomas Cromwell, the book follows the courtly machinations that keep Henry VIII in power as he breaks with Rome to marry Anne Boleyn.

Disney to introduce online books for kids

The Walt Disney Company hopes an ambitious new digital service it plans to unveil on Tuesday will transform how children read its storybooks. The image shown here is from Disney’s digital book Web site, which will offer electronic replicas of hundreds of books for $79.95 a year. In what it bills as an industry-defining moment — though rivals are sure to be skeptical about that — Disney Publishing plans to introduce a new subscription-based Web site. For $79.95 a year, families can access electronic replicas of hundreds of Disney books, from “Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too” to “Hannah Montana: Crush-tastic!”

DisneyDigitalBooks.com, which is aimed at children ages 3 to 12, is organized by reading level. In the “look and listen” section for beginning readers, the books will be read aloud by voice actors to accompanying music (with each word highlighted on the screen as it is spoken). Another area is dedicated to children who read on their own. Find an unfamiliar word? Click on it and a voice says it aloud. Chapter books for teenagers and trivia features round out the service.


More at the NY Times here>>>

Eyebrow-raiser: HarperTeen edition of 'Wuthering Heights'

(reprinted from Chicago Tribune blogs)
An insult to teen intelligence or shameless grasp of Twilight coattails?

Name: Heathcliff
Sex: Male
Hometown: Yorkshire
Relationship status: It’s Complicated
Interested in: Women
Looking for: A Relationship

That’s one of the “extras” in the new HarperTeen edition of Wuthering Heights which boasts “Bella & Edward’s Favorite Book” on the cover.

At least Emily Bronte didn’t get the same dumb-down as Shakespeare. Guess words that have withstood the test of time don’t have a chance against relentless dumb-down.

On the same star-crossed lovers theme, the new Romeo & Juliet features a hip retelling – and it reminded me more of bad version of Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones than anything else.

Any other candidates for Facebookization?

Think you love books "too much" ? Here's one for you.

The Man Who Loved Books Too Much
by Allison Hoover Barlett
If you're interested in book collecting, detective stories, or just a good read, check out this non-fiction - but decidedly, not dry - tome delving into the book collection world. Here's a few reviews:

"John Gilkey wanted to own a rich-man's library in the worst way, and was soon acquiring expensive first editions in the very worst way of all: theft. Allison Hoover Bartlett's "The Man Who Loved Books Too Much" is the enthralling account of a gently mad con artist and his fraudulent credit-card scams, but it's also a meditation on the urge to collect and a terrific introduction to the close-knit, swashbuckling world of antiquarian book dealers."
-Michael Dirda, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic and author of Classics for Pleasure and the memoir An Open Book

"Allison Hoover Bartlett has written a meticulous and fascinating book about a serial bookthief and the persistent sleuth who dogged him for years and finally caught him. It will be especially gripping for those of us who trade in antiquarian books, who owe much to Ken Sanders's persistence. A fine read."
-Larry McMurtry, bestselling author of Books: A Memoir and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Lonesome Dove

"With its brilliantly observed details, wry humor, and thrilling plot twists, Bartlett's narrative drew me deep into the obsessive world of a book thief and the dealer determined to stop him. It's a captivating cat-and-mouse game and a fascinating exploration of why people are so passionate about books. If you liked The Orchid Thief, you're going to love The Man Who Loved Books Too Much."
-Julia Flynn Siler, author of The House of Mondavi

Fall Books: Brown, Albom, Crichton big names to watch

Three authors who've become publishing franchises —Dan Brown, Mitch Albom and the late Michael Crichton— top this fall's lineup of books that promise to be commercial juggernauts:
•Brown's The Lost Symbol (Sept. 15), his first book since 2003's The Da Vinci Code, is likely to be 2009's best-selling hardcover.

•Albom's Have a Little Faith (Sept. 29) is his first non-fiction since 1997's Tuesdays with Morrie.

•Crichton's adventure Pirate Latitudes (Nov. 24) was found in his computer after he died at 64 in November. (Steven Spielberg is developing the movie.)

They're just the biggest of big names: Nicholas Sparks (The Last Song, Tuesday), the late Sen. Edward Kennedy (True Compass, Sept. 14), David Baldacci (True Blue, Oct. 27) John Grisham (Ford County, Nov. 3), Stephen King (Under the Dome, Nov. 10), James Patterson (I, Alex Cross, Nov. 16) and Sue Grafton (U is for Undertow, Dec. 1).

"The Thoreau You Don't Know" - but would probably like to...

The Thoreau You Don't Know: What the Prophet of Environmentalism Really Meant" by Robert Sullivan endeavors to free Henry David Thoreau from his calcified reputation as a cantankerous hermit and nature worshipper. Sounding like your favorite teacher who manages to make history fun and relevant, Sullivan vibrantly portrays the sage of Walden as a geeky, curious, compassionate fellow of high intelligence and deep feelings who loved company, music, and long walks. An exceptional writer mad for puns, Thoreau was also a bold social critic and—the crux of Sullivan’s stimulating argument—a brilliant, tongue-in-cheek humorist. Sullivan, himself plenty saucy, also elucidates Thoreau’s radical focus on “man’s interaction with nature.” In command of a great diversity of fascinating material, Sullivan succinctly illuminates the striking parallels between Thoreau’s time and ours—foreclosures, lost jobs, and rapid technological change. Thoreau remains vital and valuable because of his acute observations, wit, and lyricism and his recognition that the “force of life is everywhere,” a perception even more essential now that the consequences of the societal choices Thoreau prophetically critiqued have reached staggering proportions.

(review reprinted in part from BookList)

New in paper: Jhumpa Lahiri

"Unaccustomed Earth" by Jhumpa Lahiri (Vintage, $15, fiction, reprint). "Never before has Lahiri mined so perfectly the secrets of the human heart," USA TODAY said of this collection of stories examining the immigrant experience.
Lahiri also wrote the multi-award winning "Interpreter of Maladies" and "The Namesake".

Read "First Chapters" of recent book releases

Did you know The New York Times Book Section online offers readers the opportunity to read many, many new releases' "first chapters"? Check out the offerings:

http://www.nytimes.com/pages/books/chapters/index.html