Book recommendations thread

Cafe Society
1

I was motivated to start this thread by the fact that I find the book I am currently reading exceptional, and wanted to share it with any other readers. Thought you might enjoy the opportunity to do the same. Did you read anything over the past year that you found exceptional? If so, would you please identify it and write a brief synopsis?

I’m currently reading Between the Bridge and the River by Craig Ferguson. Apparently he hosts a late night show I am unfailar with. This novel is the type that has 4 main protagonists. It is structured with a series of short chapters, ranging from 2-10 pages or so, each of which deals with a different protagonist. They go in vastly different directions, but you have a reassurance that they will meet up somehow in the end.

The author has a quite cynical sense of humor sewering relationships and institutions, and goes on flights of fancy reminiscent of Cryptonomicon, but to my mind less - uh - indulgent. I’d never heard of the book or the author before I happened to pick it up in my library’s new book section. Just wanted to share.

Anyone else?

2

Craig Ferguson wrote a book? I’ve watched his show a few times and was impressed with his quick wit. He pokes fun at himself too, which is refreshing.

The most exceptional book I read this year is The World I Made for Her by Charles Moran. It’s about a young man in his 30’s who is in a hospital intensive care unit. A machine is breathing for him, he can’t speak, and he can barely move.

The “her” in the title is one of his nurses, who he forms a special bond with. He learns about her life from listening to her conversations, and he imagines something better. (He even appears in her dreams.) As he does this, he gets a deeper understanding of his own life and relationships, with some regret.

I was astounded at the realistic way he described his condition and his treatment, how it feels to go in and out of comas, losing time, waiting to die.

It wasn’t until I finished reading that I learned that something similar happened to the author, when he was stricken by adult chicken pox and almost died.

So besides being an effective and affecting (but not smarmy or sentimental) examination of a life, this book would be of value to medical staff. This is how it feels to lay for months in a hospital bed, unable to communicate but feeling everything that goes on around you.

3

Finished the book. I think by the end I was not as enthused as I was half way thru, but it still have some clever bits and made me laugh out loud several times - which is quite unusual. Definitely not for the reverant (I think!)

Your recommendation sounds interesting. I’d like to get a few specific recommendations to take to the library with me (as soon as I make my way thru the stack I got out yesterday.)

4

I’m only a chapter into it, but so far Naked Economics is a surprisingly good read for a non-fiction book.

5

In front of me is a decrepit ledger where I record all the books I read. 2006 has a lot of entries because I ride the bus to work, a minimum of an hour and a half each way; for related reasons, all of the books below were from the county library. These are all standouts in my mind, and the list would be longer if I included books I’d re-read.

nonfiction

Endless Forms Most Beautiful by Sean B. Carroll
The main concept that I took away from this one is that all animals have most of the same genetic material in common and it’s the “switching” on or off of key “toolkit” genes during embryological development that determines the growth and final form of an organism. No miracles required, just logic with an undeniable beauty of its own. Despite being dense with scientific terms and advanced concepts, this book held my attention during long commutes thanks to the comprehensible writing and a generous number of color photographs.

Collapse by Jared Diamond
I enjoyed Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel and I was not disappointed by this one. An eye-opening tour through the history of the destruction of societies and (IMHO) solid reasoning for the hows and whys thereof. Very relevant to today’s global dilemma. There’s a thread or two about it somewhere on the SDMB.

Inside Out by Nick Mason
A long-awaited history of Pink Floyd by its drummer, who’s been keeping scrapbooks all this time. It’s weighty in the literal sense - beware the sharp corners of the hardcover! - but narrated with dry humor and underlying heart. The photos alone make this a treasure trove of Sixties and Seventies rock music history. Even if you don’t give a wet slap about the Floyd, you could enjoy this book for hours. (Note: the edition I read went to press before the Live 8 reunion of Pink Floyd with Roger Waters.)

Team Rodent by Carl Hiaasen
A slim volume in the publisher’s “contemporary thought” series, IIRC. Scathing and funny observations on the Disney philosophy and the corporate mentality, with special attention to the rape of the Everglades in the name of Disney World.

An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural by James Randi
Alphabetical listing of concepts, items, and persons in the world of woo-woo, with concise entries and many illustrations. Opening to a random page, I find Mather, Increase; medicine man; medium; mentalist; meridians; Merlin; and Mesmer, Dr. Franz Anton. Like all of Randi’s works, it’s funny, sarcastic, unmerciful, and true.
This took me a long time so I’ll leave fiction for a later post.

6

The Broken Shore by Peter Temple. Temple is an Australian crime writer, with a distinctly noir bent. Pretty much anything by Temple is worth reading, his Jack Irish series evoke Melbourne better than anything I’ve ever read.

The Broken Shore is about the dark underbelly of rural life. It is suspenseful, sad, tragic and often very funny, written with a sparse, muscular, darkly romantic prose. It is about family and friendship and the thousand small details which make up a life.

If you’ve not read Temple then the only way I can convey a sense of him is by a not-comparison with Lawrence Block’s Matthew Scudder series. I start reading Block and keep thinking, “what am I doing, it’s so, so blokey”, and then the strength of his style just sucks me in again as I realise what a wonderful writer he is. If you like Block you might like Peter Temple.

A review.

The other I’d like to recommend is an Australian novel based on the Lord Lucan case. The Butterfly Man by Tasmanian writer Heather Rose imagines what Lucan’s life might have been like if he’d fled to Tasmania and started a new life.
University of Queensland Press

This is a precis of a review I wrote of it:
“The Butterfly Man asks, long after a crime, if redemption is possible and if transformation and regret are enough justice for the dead, and for the living.
As Henry Kennedy, who was once Lord Lucan, goes about the business of dying, he ponders the nature of memory, and the ways in which we both reveal and conceal ourselves from those we love. The prose moves at a deceptively limpid pace, but the flow of the narrative is very sure and controlled. Whatever the truth of Lord Lucan, The Butterfly Man, is a wholly satisfying and very moving novel.”

Of everything I read last year, this was the only book that made me cry, and I’m not prone to tears.

I think this book is difficult to get outside Australia, although if you don’t mind the shipping you can buy it from Angus and Roberston online