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This book is very well written although the authors style is a bit unusual. The book is about a man who is left widowed with two small children. He moves to a small fishing town and starts working for the local newspaper. His adventures help him find confidence and love. This book won a pulitzer prize so others thought it good also. "SR 2007"

In June, I heard a Harvard Professor of Religion give a talk on Islam, and afterwards I asked if there was a good overall book on the topic. He said that though it is difficult to find books on the topic that are free of specific agendas, he could highly recommend "Following Muhammad", by Carl Ernst, as an objective and readable book. Since then I've bought several copies as gifts for family members. I appreciate the respectful manner that Ernst uses when speaking of the sources and the religion of Islam, and I like the clarity with which he outlines the often distorted Western views of Islam. Ernst also distinguishes between the basic tenets of Islam and fundamentalist versions of those tenets, and he offers helpful explanations of controversial topics such as veiling. I'm very grateful that the library made this book available for Princeton readers. (SR2007)

In this brilliant, entertaining book, Michael Lewis, formerly a reporter
for the Wall Street Journal, demonstrates how rational assessment of
talent can make all the difference in the success of a sports franchise
(in this case, the Oakland Athletics). All the more surprising is how
benighted many baseball organizations remain, relying on the primitive
guesswork of scouts and old-time general managers. The book also has a
lesson to teach most businesses: if baseball executives, who have a wealth
of information to evaluate talent in their profession do such a poor job,
what does that say about other fields, in which much less information is
available and methods of evaluation are even more imperfect?
-D.Venturo
SR 2007

I really was impressed with this novel about Korean-Americans, since it dealt so squarely with the importance of money in people's lives (as does Middlemarch, the great 19th c. novel which Min Jin Lee so clearly admires). The book, essentially realistic, was slightly marred by some improbable touches more suitable to a romance novel,and I wasn't quite as taken with the lead character as everyone seemed to be (there was occasionally a whiff of chick-lit about her); also the story didn't have the elegance or stylistic distinction of "The Namesake," for example. However, it had charms of its own, including an extraordinarily compelling plot and a wide range of lively characters. I look forward to future books by this author. (SR - 2007)

This novel tells 2 parallel stories in alternating chapters: the first one, set in the present day, is about Alma, a Latina author with writer’s block; the other, set in the early 1800s, is about Isabel, an orphanage director traveling with a Spanish medical expedition to eradicate smallpox in the colonies. Both stories begin with the women living in the small, almost confined world of their immediate surroundings, where they are selfless care-givers. Alma is concerned about her neighbor Helen, an ailing, near-blind octogenarian, with mysterious family ties. Isabel lives to nurture the boys in her charge, most of who were orphaned by deadly diseases, including smallpox. Then, both women are confronted with life-changing decisions as the men in their lives embark on serious journeys. Alma’s husband, Richard leaves their bucolic life in Vermont to build an environmental center in the Dominican Republic, Alma’s native land. Alma decides not to accompany him. Twenty-two of Isabel’s orphans are selected by the King’s doctor as live vaccine carriers to travel to Mexico, South America and the Philippines. Isabel cannot imagine letting her boys go without her – she insists on joining them. The choices made by Alma and Isabel open up their worlds to unexpected tragedies which test their courage and abilities.

I found the story of Isabel, with its historical background and factual details, more compelling than Alma’s. I raced through Alma’s chapter, so that I could find out what happened in Isabel’s. Towards the end of the book, the jump in time from 1811 to 1830 left me curious about how the native Spaniards fared in adjusting to daily life in the colonies. The character of Alma annoyed me in certain circumstances, but the author’s descriptions of Alma’s thoughts and actions were sincere and true, especially during the times when Alma does the unpredictable. (SR2007)

I usually enjoy Anita Shreve's somewhat slick but very skillfully written novels, but I feel "Body Surfing" is one of her weakest, basically because the various romantic entanglements of Sydney, the main protagonist, seem unbelievable and the ultimate plot twist is a severe disappointment. However, the descriptions of summer spent on the New Hampshire seacoast are authentic and unfailingly lovely. Shreve also has a keen eye and ear for social conventions and interactions. (SR 2007)

It's a pleasure to read a book about snow during the humid months of summer, and when the book is Orhan Pamuk's fascinating novel about a poet's return to a snowy city in Turkey, the pleasure is sharply heightened. There are many strands of story in "Snow", including the failed marital relationship of Ka and Ipek, the wearing of head scarves in Turkey, and the larger issue of a citizen's response to political domination and change. All are woven into a tale which features Pamuk's humor and wonderful use of language. Somehow, though, I think that the sensual descriptions of snow - its softness, its peacefulness, "the large snowflakes floating so elegantly through the air... the silence of the snow-packed side streets... the beautiful snow-covered Russian houses and the oleanders..." will linger long after other aspects of this story have faded. (SR2007)

This is an amusing and sometimes touching book about the author’s travels to small, even tiny, towns throughout the United States. The people in these towns have festivals and museums to celebrate such mundane things as the watermelon, the tow truck, a frozen dead guy, a headless chicken and dried out cow dung, otherwise known as cow chips. I laughed out loud when I read about the United Baggage Center, where your unclaimed luggage goes when it gets off the plane and doesn’t get to you, and the Church of the Holy Barbeque, a Texas restaurant that serves brisket, ribs, and chicken that is “more than lunch; (it’s) a life experience.” Interspersed between several chapters are essays on the art of traveling through small-town America with tips on how to tell if you’re having a bad flight (tow truck arrives to jump-start your plane) or if you’ve checked into a less-than ideal motel (half-eaten burrito under bed).

The book is written in the straight-forward style of a reporter, the author after all is a CBS correspondent, with a lot of color provided by quotes from the local folks and the Geist’s own dead-pan sense of humor. It makes for a thoroughly entertaining read about “the vanishing rural world from whence we all came…” SR 2007