Books we're reading at the station and recommend to you.

When we're not on-the-air or at our desks, we like to pick up good books. Most of us here at the station are, in fact, avid readers. In the style of NPR's "What We're Reading" (an excellent weekly guide) we, too, decided to share what we've been reading. Here's a list of books recently read by WKMS staff members, student workers and volunteers.

Interested in a book on our list? Follow the Amazon link beneath the picture. A small percentage of your purchase of anything on Amazon through this link goes right to WKMS at no additional cost to you.

What are you reading? Share your good read our Facebook Fan Page, here.

Some of our good read blurbs are more in-depth on The Front Blog. See our FB Good Reads page, here.

	Bright's Passage by Josh Ritter Product Description: Henry Bright is newly returned to West Virginia from the battlefields of the First World War. Grief struck by the death of his young wife and unsure of how to care for the infant son she left behind, Bright is soon confronted by the destruction of the only home he’s ever known. His only hope for safety is the angel who has followed him to Appalachia from the trenches of France and who now promises to protect him and his son. Together, Bright and his newborn, along with a cantankerous goat and the angel guiding them, make their way through a landscape ravaged by forest fire toward an uncertain salvation, haunted by the abiding nightmare of his experiences in the war and shadowed by his dead wife’s father, the Colonel, and his two brutal sons. "Josh Ritter’s debut novel Bright’s Passage is not a disappointment for fans of his music. His prose echoes the intricacy of his song lyrics and Ritter seems to have mastered delicately juxtaposing everything in this book. Henry Bright is able to face his murderous family members, but is terrified at the thought of raising his newborn son alone. The story is able to whip back to a misty Appalachian morning after an explosive scene in muddy trenches of France during WWI. Set in West Virginia, Bright’s Passage is steeped in Ritter’s true Americana style with a sense of upstanding nobility given to the local culture. The book also brings religion and morality into question. With a guardian angel (or a hallucination of a talking horse brought upon by PTSD, depending on the reader’s interpretation) that doesn’t always keep Bright out of harm’s way, Ritter presents a very interesting religious situation, with no particular slant. The freshman novelist has room to improve. Bright’s Passage has some some loose ends and fuzzy plot points. But if Ritter’s last decade of musical growth is any sign of his writing improvements to come, he is sure to join Twain and Poe as one of the great American artists." - Rose Krzton-Presson
	The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt Product Description: With The Sisters Brothers, Patrick deWitt pays homage to the classic Western, transforming it into an unforgettable comic tour de force. Filled with a remarkable cast of characters–losers, cheaters, and ne'er-do-wells from all stripes of life–and told by a complex and compelling narrator, it is a violent, lustful odyssey through the underworld of the 1850s frontier that beautifully captures the humor, melancholy, and grit of the Old West and two brothers bound by blood, violence, and love. "I read this on the spurs from this year's great western flicks: True Grit and Cowboys vs. Aliens. The Sisters Brothers is a sharp-tongued, gallows humor bloodbath that goes down smooth and strong like fine brandy. It's Quentin Tarantino absurdism, following around Charles and Eli Sisters, two hired gunslingers on a mission to hunt down Herman Kermit Warm. I was often shocked by the brothers' punishing sense of justice and judgment, yet I found myself nodding along, ensnared by the not so fair-handed reasoning of Eli Sisters. The Wild West was a free-for-all and the Sisters had an oddly charming way of collecting their entitlements. The emotion and action in this story is finely, finely tuned. You will hate the brothers, love them and most of all be absolutely riveted by the story's poignancy." - Matt Markgraf
	A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin Product Description: Here is the first volume in George R. R. Martin’s magnificent cycle of novels that includes A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords. As a whole, this series comprises a genuine masterpiece of modern fantasy, bringing together the best the genre has to offer. Magic, mystery, intrigue, romance, and adventure fill these pages and transport us to a world unlike any we have ever experienced. Already hailed as a classic, George R. R. Martin’s stunning series is destined to stand as one of the great achievements of imaginative fiction. " In 2005 Time magazine famously called George R.R. Martin "the American Tolkien" based on his A Song of Ice and Fire series. After one reads A Game of Thrones, it's clear that Martin deserves at least that much praise. Tolkien's chief talent as a writer was his ability to build worlds. Martin shares Tolkien's talent for creating an expansive world that his readers can and will get lost in. However, whereas Tolkien's characters were quite clearly good or evil, Martin's occupy the rather large grey area that exists between the two extremes. "As you read this book, you'll be transported to the world of Westeros, where the seasons last years rather than months, and powerful families wrestle for control of a great iron throne made from the melted swords of the conquered enemies of a long-dead king. Martin does not treat his characters well. There's plenty of incest, rape, betrayal and murder to be found in Westeros, but also a surprising amount of honor, courage and duty. "In short, the characters in A Game of Thrones talk and act like real human beings. Characters commit horrible acts out of self-interest and self-preservation rather than to fulfill some grand evil plot. Finally, don't assume that your favorite characters will be around at the end of this series. Martin has consistently shown the willingness to kill any character at any time if it advances the greater story. And what a story it is; once you start reading A Game of Thrones, your biggest challenge will be putting it down long enough to work and sleep." - Tracy Ross
	Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi Product Description: In America’s Gulf Coast region, where grounded oil tankers are being broken down for parts, Nailer, a teenage boy, works the light crew, scavenging for copper wiring just to make quota–and hopefully live to see another day. But when, by luck or chance, he discovers an exquisite clipper ship beached during a recent hurricane, Nailer faces the most important decision of his life: Strip the ship for all it’s worth or rescue its lone survivor, a beautiful and wealthy girl who could lead him to a better life. "Ship Breaker is a gritty, grimey, post-apocalyptic and almost perceptibly political adventure set on the American Gulf Coast. What struck me was the fast-paced and chlautrophobic narrative. The novel begins with Nailer climbing through the tight ventilation ducts of old ships, tearing out copper wiring and other metal with any kind of worth. Paolo doesn’t waste any time with flowery steampunk descriptions, but dives right into the dirty depths whether the reader is ready or not. The second half of the book is where the politics regarding the catastrophic results of harvesting fossil fuels and the insurmountable division of class warfare come into the forefront. When Nailer discoveres a wrecked “swank” ship full of “riches” (things we may take for granted), and later when they struggle to get by in a very different New Orleans were memorable moments. The character development is top notch, interactions are carefully written and the world will leave grit in your teeth. Ship Breaker is a quick read, and a substantial one." - Matt Markgraf
	Pogue’s War: Diaries of a WWII Combat Historian by Forrest C. Pogue Product Description: With a foreword by Stephen Ambrose and a preface by Franklin D. Anderson Forrest Pogue (1912-1996) was undoubtedly one of the greatest World War II combat historians. Born and educated in Kentucky, he is perhaps best known for his definitive four-volume biography of General George C. Marshall.  Pogue’s War is drawn from Forrest Pogue’s handwritten pocket notebooks, carried with him throughout the war, long regarded as unreadable because of his often atrocious handwriting. Supplemented with carefully deciphered and transcribed selections from his diaries, the heart of the book is straight from the field. He not only graphically – yet also often poetically­­ – recounts the extreme circumstances of battle, but he also notes his fellow soldiers’ innermost thoughts, feelings, opinions, and attitudes about the cruelty of war. Franklin D. Anderson, Forrest Pogue’s nephew by marriage, is a longtime educator. He lives in Princeton, Kentucky. "From the war-time diary of combat historian Sgt. Forrest C. Pogue, long time Murray resident and professor at MSU. Incredible story of coming ashore at Normandy. Just after the June 1944 invasion… Highly recommended!" - Todd Hill
	Chasing the White Dog: An Amateur Outlaw's Adventures in Moonshine by Max Watman Product Description: From these moonshine pioneers, to the bathtub gin runners of the 1920s, to today’s booming bootleg businessmen, journalist Max Watman traces the historical roots and contemporary story of white lightning, which has played a surprisingly large role in American history. It touched the election of Thomas Jefferson, the invention of the IRS, and the origins of NASCAR. It is a story of tommy guns, hot rods, and shot houses, and the story is far from over. In this fascinating, centuries-long history of illicit booze, Watman infiltrates every aspect of small-scale distilling in America, taking us from the backwoods of Appalachia to the gritty nip joints of Philadelphia, from a federal courthouse to Pocono Speedway. Along the way, this unrepentant lover of moonshine profiles the colorful characters who make up white whiskey’s lore and hilariously chronicles his own attempts to distill hooch from his initial ill-fated batch to his first successful jar of ’shine. "...Max Watman knifes through the stereotype of bucktoothed backwoods hill-billies with a book that’s as sharp as uncut corn whiskey... Watman intertwines chapters on famous moonshine rings and stings, with his own bumbling attempts at illegal distillation. In one chapter, Watman sweats his way through buying still equipment at a brewer’s supply store, guiltily avoiding intrusive questions like, ‘what are you making?’ ...Chasing the White Dog traces both the personal and the political heritage of moonshine. Watman’s passion for the craft and his keen journalistic perceptions come through with every word." - Angie Hatton

Previous Good Reads:

Here's an archive of books previously featured above. If you're interested a book, click on the title to purchase the book through Amazon. A percentage of any purchase made from that link supports WKMS without any additional cost to you.

Across the Universe by Beth Revis
Matt Markgraf said: One of the most anticipated young adult novels of the year. Publisher's Weekly raved about the first chapter, when it was released several months before the book. I caught a glimpse then and was floored by the vivid detail, the rich and colorful details and the easing into the 'rules' of the science fiction world. The story begins with young Amy being freezed in a cryochamber as her family attempts to flee Earth. The second perspective follows Elder, the young leader-to-be of the spaceship Godspeed. Things, of course, go awry and their paths cross. Both characters are believable and refreshing and the spaceship is a fascinating microcosm of an idealistic sustainable earth. Any fan of sci-fi with a little romance will love Across the Universe.

All Facts Considered by Kee Malesky
Matt Markgraf said: I'm naturally curious about facts and anecdotes that may have little tangible value in the functioning world. NPR does little to discourage this obsession, too... And now in book form! Since reading this book, I've started (and ended) many conversations with 'Did you know...?' Here are a few neat things I've learned: Julia Child made a shark repellent for the CIA; Tiramisu was invented less than 30 years ago; the term 'deadline' was once literal; the first African to come to the New World was a pilot for Christopher Columbus; the US Army had a Camel Corps - yes, camels; if a male dog mates with a female coyote they'll produce a 'dogote'. The bite-sized blurbs in this book are varied and substantive enough to leave you fulfilled. Malesky has very extensive citation in the back, which I appreciated. It's a fun book and it'll make you smarter, a rare formula that makes for an excellent read.

American Lion by Jon Meacham
Todd Hill said: Great perspectives on the life and times of Andrew Jackson's years in the White House - with background information on Jackson, his rivals Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun, and particularly revealing about his circle of friends and family. Serve to humanize Jackson and, by placing him in context, to show the ironic conflicts in his vision for America and the role of the President as Executive...

Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman
Todd Hatton said: If it wasn’t such an engrossing and entertaining read, it would qualify as the most sobering book I’ve ever cracked. In these days of ‘noise/talk’ media and iPhones, Amusing Ourselves to Death is eerily prescient.

Another Bullshit Night in Suck City: A Memoir by Nick Flynn
Jacque Day said: As I made my way through this memoir, I envisioned myself walking with bare feet through Nick Flynn’s life. Suck City is a barefoot walk, at least for me. The dare comes not with the title, but by Flynn’s immediate defiance of the tonal expectation he establishes by using that title as the calling card for this particular story. The title and everything in it is Jonathan Flynn, Nick’s father, the great undiscovered writer, the troubled scribe, the alcoholic with delusions of grandeur, the meek that shall inherit the Earth—or at the very least, finally, a hardcover book in which he, finally at long last and deservedly, is the main event. Of course, of course this title belongs to Jonathan Flynn. He owns it. With all its cynicism and realism and wit, it’s his, hands-down.

The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker
Angela Hatton said: If you've ever had writer's block, you'll be able to relate to Paul Chowder. An accomplished poet, Chowder can't seem to finish the introduction to his new anthology of rhyming poetry. He isn't even sure he wants to be a poet anymore. Part diary, part manifesto,  Baker brings us an intimate and funny look at an artist's mid-life crisis. You'll probably learn a few things about form and verse along the way too.

The Average American Male by Chad Kultgen
Caleb Campbell said: This book is offensive and raw, but an entertaining read by a new author. I found myself reading this in class instead of listening to my instructor. The characters feel like people you might actually know in the real world. For a quick, fun trip, I recommend this.

Baby, We Were Meant for Each Other by Scott Simon
Mark Welch said: Scott Simon is a remarkable man – an award-winning broadcaster and host of NPR’s Weekend Edition, author, a devoted husband to Caroline, and father of two beautiful daughters, Elise and Lina. His latest book is Baby, We Were Meant for Each Other: In Praise of Adoption. Simon tells their story of adopting two daughters from China after his wife was unable to conceive in the “traditional Abraham-and-Sarah-begat manner” and deciding there are already children in this world who needed them. And, he adds, “we sure need them.” I had the privilege of interviewing Simon recently. He said that Elise & Lina “re-wired” their new parents, making them hopelessly in love and completely devoted to these tiny strangers from the other side of the world. An added bonus in the book are the stories of other adoptive families. Some are famous (NPR sports commentator Frank Deford) and some are not, but each family’s experience captures the tenor of the first sentence of Baby, We Were Meant for Each Other: Adoption is a miracle.

Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era by James McPherson
Todd Hatton said: Battle Cry of Freedom is not a political tract. It is a rich account of a quintessential American identity crisis. Who are we as a nation or a people? And who do we want to become? Prior to 1861, we referred to ourselves as Kentuckians, Tennesseans, and Illinoians and said that the United States are. It wasn’t until after 1865 that we began calling ourselves Americans, saying that the United States is. This book is a profound insight into why.

Read Todd's complete review on The Front Blog.

Between Panic & Desire by Dinty W. Moore
Jacque Day said: What is the shortest distance between two Pennsylvania towns? Towns, I might add, somewhat nearby where I grew up. Panic and Desire, little boroughs, as we call them, about five miles apart, near Punxsutawney. Dinty W. Moore, named not for soup but for a troublemaking Irish comic strip character, dwells in the spaces between in this personal journey through American fear, from the Red Scare of the 1950s through the turbulent ‘60s. In Moore’s equation, Between Panic and Desire lies Paranoia. On a map, a dot called Wishaw occupies the honorary in-between place. Directions: to get from Panic to Desire, take Panic-Wishaw Road due east to Desire Road, and if you want to avoid Desire at the very last second, veer west onto Rock Dump Road, which eventually leads to Paradise Road, and if you’re ready for some deeper happiness, Hemlock Road. How easily we go from the physical to the metaphysical.

Black Boy by Richard Wright
Jacque Day said: Black Boy is an exquisite gift to American letters by Richard Wright, a clear voice rising among millions of unheard southern African Americans living within generational memory of slavery. This memoir opens the eyes and consciousness to the Black struggle in a way unequaled in literature.

Book of the Hopi by Frank Waters
Kate Lochte said: From what I can gather the Hopi didn’t like Frank Waters’ The Book of Hopi because it brought in a lot of gringo new-age people visiting the mesas of their villages, seeking a religious bonding with the tribe that considers itself the first people on earth. And apparently serious anthropologists dismiss the book for its unscientific exposition. Read this book to start catching up with the very oldest Americans one doesn’t learn about in school (or at least not when I went to school). I hope First Nation history is part of the curricula now and children are learning about our own ancient peoples as best they can. Shame on the historians who ceded telling their tales to Hollywood.

Read Kate's complete review on The Front Blog.

The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier
Tracy Ross said: This book centers around two of my favorite literary subjects – global pandemics and interesting visions of the afterlife. Good fiction thrives when it deals with matters of the life and death variety, and this novel deals with matters of life and death and life after death.

Cahokia: Ancient America's Great City on the Mississippi by Timothy Pauketat
Kate Lochte said: WKMS Morning Edition host Todd Hatton told me I'd enjoy Cahokia by anthropologist Timothy R. Pauketat, and I did. Perchance you've visited the mounded remains of this city which was a bustling cultural center in the year 1050 across from St. Louis, MO? Standing atop Monk's Mound summons the ancients. Pauketat's book seeks to place Cahokia in the context of the indigenous civilizations of the Mississippi Valley through fascinating analysis of physical and spiritual artifacts and their interpretation by generations of scientists and archaeologists whose approaches vary with the political-theoretical trending of their academic fields over the years. Since childhood, the great ancient monuments of the American Southwest have captivated me, but the ancient life in our very coverage area only came to life for me upon visiting Wickliffe Mounds three decades ago. The feeling at Cahokia – a significantly larger community than Wickliffe - was as strong for me as standing in the Great Kiva at Mesa Verde or the Serpent Mound in Southeast Ohio. Read the book and you too will want to know more about mysteries like the pecked-out map on a boulder in Thebes Gap's Grand Chain on the Mississippi and the Red Man Art in the Gottschall Rockshelter and Picture Cave. Too bad educators don't go into these great stories with kids – or do you?"

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Chris Taylor said: J.D. Salinger's 1951 novel is a quick read and an unforgettable classic. The young protagonist's mile-a-minute account writhes with confusion, angst and budding sexuality in way that just makes for real swell prose! If you missed this classic, you ought to pick it up.

Cesar's Way: The Natural, Everyday Guide to Understanding and Correcting Common Dog Problems by Cesar Millan and Melissa Jo Peltier
Jenni Todd said: I’m a new dog owner. We welcomed our puppy into our home in early November…and life changed dramatically! I borrowed a copy of Cesar’s Way after watching a few episodes of the show. While I don’t watch the TV program regularly, I loved this book. It’s a quick read and Cesar really puts things into perspective. He promotes easy to remember formulas for a healthy relationship with your dog: exercise, discipline, and affection, in that order. I especially liked reading about Cesar’s early life in Mexico and his stories about celebrity dog owners, like Oprah.

City of Falling Angels by John Berendt
Angela Hatton said: This book answers the question, "do we really need another book about Venice" with a resounding, "yes!" Part investigation, part personal essay, John Berendt takes a looks at the quirky people who inhabit this legendary city, from Ezra Pound's former mistress to an American expatriot looking to contact aliens.

The Common Man: Poems by Maurice Manning
Angela Hatton said: Maurice Manning continues his love affair with rural life. Common Man at times reads like a Library of Congress archive, the poems a transcript of the scratchy dialects recorded on a research excursion. Told through a series of unrhymed ballad couplets, Common Man is Manning’s most tender and entertaining tribute to his Appalachian home to date.

Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horwitz
Kate Lochte said: If you're new to South (and western Kentucky was the South in Civil War days), this is recommended background reading as you settle in your new home.

Click here to read Kate's complete review on The Front Blog.

Confessions of an Art Addict by Peggy Guggenheim
Kate Lochte said: Someday there’s a trip to Venice, Italy in my future and among my stops will be Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, where Peggy Guggenheim made her stand for 20th century artists, often reclining in her turquoise bedroom graced by a silver bed-head by sculptor Alexander Calder. Guggenheim’s father went down with the Titanic and she used her legacy to go into the art business on her own while her uncle Solomon Guggenheim did the same thing, eventually building Frank Lloyd Wright’s spiral caprice that is the Guggenheim Museum in New York. She championed artists like Arp, Pollock, Marini, Giacometti, and Ernst (who was one of her husbands, as well). She opened galleries, mounted exhibitions, and threw parties. Guggenheim writes a blunt and entertaining book about herself and it prompted me to read another book about her by a former director of the Guggenheim, New York, and her granddaughter – which pretty much corroborated everything in the autobiography. Refreshing!

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Bec Feldhaus said: Though I'm not reading it right now, I highly recommend Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo to anyone. Yes, yes, it's long, but that just means you get more for your money. It's filled with action, adventure, romance, revenge, a little philosophizing and much more. I read it this summer on my daily subway commute from Brooklyn to Lincoln Center, and I finished it in about a week. I could not put it down. It's a classic for a reason.

The Curse of Lono by Hunter S. Thompson
Chris Taylor said: A wealth of Ralph Steadman illustrations bring this random journey with the Doctor around the Hawaiian islands to life, though it’s not your standard aloha affair. It reads rather uncomfortably: jam-packed with scattered prose, notes, and excerpts from the likes of Mark Twain and others. Thompson is up to his usual mischievous and inebriate debauchery, which is sure to both abuse and amuse you. FYI~ I wouldn’t recommend it be your first HST read.

DC's 52 Series (Volume One) by Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison, Greg Rucka, and Mark Waid
Katie Villanueva said: I finished DC's four volume comic 52. The big 3, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman, went on hiatus, other super heroes had to step up to the plate to take care of things for awhile. Lex Luthor takes advantage of Superman's absence and creates a super hero gene for ordinary people, so who needs the real super heroes anymore? What does it take to be a super hero these days? Super villains have an endless supply of money on their tiny island to create anything that leads to destruction. There's time travel, world travel, space travel, and magic in 52. The entire series tracks an entire year in the DC Universe, and you are right there with characters as they grow from the misgivings they had at the beginning of the year and turn them into opportunities at the end of the year. A fun read and a great book to expose anyone to new super heroes to fall in love with.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney
Matt Markgraf said: I read all four books in this series in four sittings, partly because they are easy and meant for kids who generally dislike reading, but also because they are friggin' hilarious and awesome. Greg, the wimpy kid on the cover, is encouraged to write a 'diary' by his mom, and so he does - chronicling all his hopes, fears and mis-adventures in what may be considered the typical life of a middle-schooler. The power of this series, which both kids and adults would appreciate is in the author, Jeff Kinney's masterful narrative, making Greg hilarious, loveable and most importantly: real.

Drinking Coffee Elsehwhere by ZZ Packer
Bec Feldhaus said: Drinking Coffee Elsewhere is a collection of short stories by ZZ Packer. Packer tackles African American issues in a way that exposes the grit of reality. I enjoyed the collection so much because it was not a happily ever after story. The use of humor, failure and understanding comes together to create a powerful result.

Duke Ellington's America by Harvey G. Cohen
Todd Hill said: Outstanding work looking at Duke Ellington's life and career and tying it to events of the place and time - I have always maintained that music does not occur in a vacuum, and Cohen shows this assumption to be correct! Great reading!

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
Bec Feldhaus said: After viewing a trailer for this summer's production of Eat, Pray, Love; I was intrigued. A few friends had read the book and  highly recommended it, but I wasn't sold. I'm glad something convinced me. I found myself sitting for hours reading and arising refreshed. The lessons are not earth-shattering, but definitely worth some consideration. I read the book and loved it. In my opinion, it's a  book best read during transition times in life. Happy eating, praying, loving, reading.

The Echo Maker by Richard Powers
Kate Lochte said: Why do cranes return to the Platte River of Nebraska in the spring? Why does a head injury make a man think his sister is an imposter? Why does development threaten a wildlife refuge? Why does a successful cognitive neurologist lose his grip on science and family? Why does a journalist take employment as a nursing aid? Novelist Richard Powers wrote a world of flawed and aggravating people into this introspective mystery. Even though exasperating, Powers’ characters hold the reader in their dilemmas. While Powers works on solving the mystery of the truck wreck, he also seeks clarity for an enigma one might find comfort in during a personal time of anxious caring for oneself or a loved one.

The Endless Steppe by Esther Hautzig
Jacque Day said: I was nine years old, in 1980 when I discovered The Endless Steppe in a box of yard sale discards dropped off by a neighbor, or perhaps a family member who couldn’t unload it. The price: ten cents, written in pen on masking tape. I ran my hand over the face of a girl on the cover, brushing a light coating of dust away and tried to say the word Steppe, sounding it out the way I still do when I come across a word new and unfamiliar. It was this curiosity—this need to know what is a steppe—that compelled me to enter the pages. My parents had already discussed the Holocaust with me. We talked about such things because history helps the human consciousness remember. But never before had I felt my hands chap and bleed, digging into the frozen ground for food. Never before had I gone so far inside another person’s heart. She was girl about my age, exiled in a frigid desert while her loved ones died at the hands of Hitler’s Third Reich. In so many ways, Esther become my friend, a person who opened a window to a place and time that should never, ever pass out of memory.

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
Chris Taylor said: This semi-autobiographical novel feels very real. It apparently established  Hemingway as an American writer and was made into a couple of films in the 30’s and 50’s. Ultimately a tragedy, A Farewell to Arms expounds upon Hemingway’s World War I experience as an ambulance driver. The narrative follows the romance between an American soldier and a British nurse during their service on the Italian front. The book doesn’t really show its tragic hand until its end, though; which can leave you writhing with emotion and feeling very miniscule  and inane.

Fever Dream by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child
David Weatherly said: I just finished up Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child's latest, "Fever Dream". It's one of their Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast novels and concerns the agent's deceased wife who was mauled by a lion while they were on a hunt in Africa. 12 years later Pendergast finds that the mauling was not an accident and enlists the help of his NYPD pal Lt. Vincent D'Agosta to break ranks with NYC and come down south to find the true motive behind her death. The novel gets the pair outside of NYC and into the marshy bayous of New Orleans and surrounding towns on the coast. Preston and Child are masters of popular mysteries and add the dimension of the supernatural to their novels creating a nice mix of characterization and suspense. I would recommend starting with one of their earlier Pendergast novels if you've not read them before. "Relic" being the first. Another good place to begin would be with "Cabinet of Curiosities".

Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom by Conrad Black
Todd Hill said: Looks at all sides of his very complex personality, good and bad. Best biography of Roosevelt I've read.

From the Mountain From the Valley by James Still
Kate Lochte said: The poems haven’t proven as interesting to me as Still’s autobiographical essay, “A Man Singing to Himself,” which is included in the volume. This essay should be required reading for understanding more about Still’s self-consciously intense drive to shape his writing into art with which he could make a living. It is especially relevant in these financially difficult years, because Still was a young writer during the Depression, motivated to continue despite hunger.

Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King
David Weatherly said: Similar in structure to his early collection of novellas 'Night Shift', but much much darker.  Through four short stories he explores themes of secret depravity and its effect on the soul of all the individuals involved, innocent or not.  Not as masterful as 'Night Shift', but memorable just the same, and the best thing King has written in quite some time.

Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime by John Heilemann & Mark Halperin
Brian Clardy said: This book is a very insightful and innovative coverage of the 2008 Presidential election cycle that has caused excitement and controversy in the political world. Moreover, this book keeps the reader rivited as new revelations are made regarding recent events and popular personalities. It is a must read for students of current events, politics, and the complexities of human personalities.

Generations of Winter by Vassily Aksyonov
Kate Lochte said: You must read Vassily Aksyonov’s expansive novel Generations of Winter. It opens just as Russia is moving into the Stalin era and closes with World War II. You’re with the Gradov family all the way through with asides from an owl, a tree, a great dog, and other unique commentators on events at hand. Reviewers compare it to works of Tolstoy. I think Dickens comes to mind as well in the sheer fascination of the portraiture of life in the streets as well as the parlors, the meeting rooms, the work camps, the battlefields, and more. Terrific read for a couple of intense weeks!

Girl Trouble by Holly Goddard-Jones
Angela Hatton said: Publishers Weekly called this book of short stories 'a powerful sum of  reflection, loss and regret.' I call it darn good writing. Jones writes about western Kentucky in a way that doesn't demoralize or exploit its people. Often while reading the book, I forgot where I was and completely fell into the scene on the page. If you're not afraid to be deeply moved, read Girl Trouble.

The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower, Book 1) by Stephen King
David Weatherly said: I am upset with myself, being a reader of King, for not picking this series up sooner. It's quite different from his other work. The pace is slower and it is riddled with philosophic and religious undertones. King set out to write his great epic in the tradition of The Lord of The Rings but gave his story a western feeling and set it in the post-apocalyptic future. Looks like I've found my summer reading!

Hadji Murad by Leo Tolstoy
Kate Lochte said: Tolstoy died before his final work Hadji Murad was published in 1912.  Critics say that the loneliness of the book's romantic Cacausian Avar hero brings to mind that of Tolstoy himself who died apart from family and friends.The novel pits the noble, but conniving tribesman against the corrupt and scheming Russians. There's pressing danger in the cold air for the colorful, but ascetic Murad and those who assist him. The story is fresh and pertinent in light of our own era's clash of Western and Eastern civilizations.  Humankind doesn't learn.

HAPAX: Poems by A.E. Stallings
Angela Hatton said: Rhyming poetry is not dead! Most contemporary poets eschew rhyme and form for the more contemplative free verse. However, Stallings bucks the trend, bringing "abab" into the 21st century with poems that range from childhood trips to museums to adult cocktail parties. Stalling, who has lived in Greece for several years, brings the rich legacy of Greek mythology and culture into her verses. A thoroughly delightful and accessible entry into neo-traditional poetry.

Heaven's Coast by Mark Doty
Jacque Day said: Mark Doty’s memoir Heaven’s Coast wrenches the spirit and opens the heart to the notion that love knows no boundaries. Doty takes us inside the decline and death of a life partner, and through his honesty and beautiful language, he provides a rare vision into the humanity of living with AIDS. He devotes a significant section to the troubled life and untimely death of his good friend, the poet Lynda Hull—his portrait of Hull isn’t always kind, in keeping with many complicated friendships. Doty stands as one more example of a known poet who writes exquisite prose.

Hidden History of Kentucky in the Civil War by Berry Craig
Todd Hatton said: Hidden History is a twofold pleasure. They’re great stories, historical or  not, and Craig tells them well, much as you’d imagine someone would who’s got to keep it fresh semester after semester. Organized by year, the pieces can be read individually in a few minutes or all in one sitting. It's the history class you always wished you’d taken, written by the one professor you’d want to take it from.

High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
Angela Hatton said: There are a mountain of books out there that cover relationships, romance, and dating from a gal’s perspective. Hornby takes the other side, giving a candid take on one man’s tangled love life. I’d say this is a male version of Bridget Jones’ Diary, witty, fast-paced; it’s easy-reading for a lazy weekend.

His Excellency: George Washington by Joseph J. Ellis
Todd Hill said: An unvarnished and unsentimental look at our first president. Fine history and a must for those who need a better understanding of the separation of powers and why the Articles of Confederation were destined to fail. Applicable today? Yes. People waving "Don't Tread on Me" flags need to read this history and reflect.

Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris
Chad Lampe said: Painfully funny holiday essays written by Public Radio Personality David Sedaris.

Homecoming by Bernhard Schlink
John Griffin said: In Berhard Schlink's newest novel, Homecoming, as with his other writings, his German readers are expected to confront the question of their own identity  and to ponder what it means to be a German in the 21st century while still be tied to history of the 20th century. And of course, it is likewise important for American readers to have an understanding of why other cultures behave as they do, to keep us from constantly assuming that since they seem so similar in so many respects, they must really be same.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Matt Markgraf said: There's a reason why this book was on the Publisher's Weekly list for young adult fiction for weeks and weeks... Suzanne Collins boldly and creatively kicks sand over the figurative line of what may be acceptable for young adult fiction, while at the same time conquering a great writerly challenge. 'The Hunger Games' are a violent, somewhat sci-fi equivalent of the American Gladiator TV show with contestants who all happen to be between the ages of 12 and 18. The contestants must kill each other to be the last one standing, winner gets food for their homeland. Collins deftly evokes sympathy for a protagonist who must face killing her peers to survive. You will be rooting for Katniss all the way through this enthralling and breathtaking read.

I am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to be Your Class President
by Josh Lieb
Matt Markgraf said: This book is freakin' hilarius and I recommend it to everyone. Josh Lieb writes with a darkly humorous, snarky wit with an irresitably fresh narrative directed towards the reader. Oliver Watson is my new favorite antihero.

I Am Not The Same Girl: Renewed by Stacy Lattisaw Jackson
Brian Clardy said: West Tennessee did not have the type of cosmopolitan glamor of its more urban counterparts, but young people were still able to stay current on the latest music by innovative artists. Whether it was Prince, the Rolling Stones, or the Charlie Daniels Band, area listeners bought records by artists that appealed to their imagination and sense of having good clean fun. One of those artists was Stacy Lattisaw..

Identity Crisis by Brad Meltzer, Rags Morales, Joss Whedon, Michael Bair
Katie Villanueva said: It's a little off the beaten path, but I read DC's Graphic Novel, Identity Crisis. The wives and loved one's of the super heroes of the Justice League of America are being targeted. The league bans together, but find that the threat isn't any super villan, but themselves... It is one of the best stories I have read yet.

Invisible Sisters by Jessica Handler
Jacque Day said: To write about grief and loss with the kind of raw wit and dignified posture Jessica Handler delivers in her memoir Invisible Sisters requires a delicate balance. Yet Handler’s chronicle of the loss of not one, but two sisters to congenital blood disorders—illnesses so diametrically opposed that for the cases to occur among siblings proved a stumping point to doctors—comes with such veracity that I hardly put the book down from first page to last. The Handler family story reminded me that I have permission to know grief for what it is—a phase in the experience of love.

Island Beneath the Sea by Isabel Allende
Kate Lochte said: 'The sweeping story of an unforgettable woman - a slave and concubine determined to claim her own destiny against impossible odds.' That's the jacket cover's hyperbole. I didn't find this novel as enchanting as Allende's The House of Spirits. Island Beneath the Sea is a tough book with a bunch of sex. Some of it is of the hormonally-overcharged romance novel variety, but mostly it's unforgivably hostile rape resulting in three mulatto children whose lives teeter between cruelty and love. The history passages weave in and out of the fictional stories of the slave, her owner, her lover, her friends and finally her husband, and align the plot, the people and the settings with reality, including the Haitian slave uprising led by Toussaint Louverture, the escaping of Haitians to Cuba, thence to New Orleans. Classism and racism threaten anyone on the wrong side of power. Viciousness is a heavy, persistent weight here. Then drums start beating and Tété begins to dance and she is free.

Jazz Anecdotes by Bill Crow
Todd Hill said: Laugh out loud hilarious stories told by jazz players and about legends and near-legends compiled by jazz bassist Bill Crow (possibly best known for his work with Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker).

Jakob the Liar by Jurek Becker
John Griffin said: In a Polish ghetto toward the end of the war, Jakob finds himself in a rather untenable position when he casually mentions to friends that he heard of the Russian advance on his radio. This brings such unwarranted hope to his community that it soon becomes burdensome for him to keep up the string of good news.  But Jakob eventually realizes that the hope his lies bring is as important as food for everyone’s survival. Our omniscient narrator gives us a wonderful variety of characters, but never allows us to believe that surviving on hope could be the same as an actual miracle. The tale never strays far from the utter all-encompassing terror that is life within the ghetto, yet the inhabitants somehow mitigate that hell with humor and kindness. Jakob the Liar reminds us that civilization is in a constant struggle with inhumanity, but somehow, seemingly against the odds, it muddles through.

Killing Mister Watson by Peter Matthiessen
Kate Lochte said: Matthiessen tells a story of a man thought to be a killer who is eventually killed by a mob. Matthiessen's narrative flows through fictional voices of early twentieth century residents of the Ten Thousand Islands on the west coast of Florida adjacent to the Everglades. There are some gruesome and unaccountable murders in it as well as a devastating hurricane. Dark, moldy, itchy. The swamplands are miserable, yet fecund. “In the hurricane’s wake, the labyrinthine coast where the Everglades deltas meet the Gulf of Mexico lies broken, stunned, flattened to mud by the wild tread of God. Day after day, a gray and brooding wind nags at the mangroves, hurrying the unruly tides that hunt through the broken islands and twist far back into the creeks, leaving behind brown spume and matted salt grass, driftwood.” This is an example of Matthiesen’s fine and true crafting of setting for this haunting, slowly told examination of character that took me a couple of years to finish. Mathiessen sets the hook and lets you play out the line until you’re reeled back in and landed at the finish.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Katie Villanueva said: I read the Kite Runner and couldn't put it down. I learned a lot about Afganistan's history and the events that made it into what it is today. It surprised me to know Afganistan wasn't always like it is, silly I guess, but you always hear the same stories come from the war torn country. The Kite Runner personalizes those stories and the cities we hear in the news, and it tests you to rethink your stance on the war. It's a story about a boy growing up in Afganistan during the 70s. He is good friends with the survent boy who is a Hazara, a lower class with a different relgion. Their favorite past time is Afganistan traditional kite flying competition. Their friendship is tested in the brutalist way possible. When the Russians invade his father takes him to America. The boy struggles with his relationship with his father. Over time the boy turns to a man and is called back to Afganistan to find his Hazara friend's young child. When the man returns the the Afganistan, he finds it as the country we know today and is surprised. Sometimes the book gets really intense and I found myself crying as I turned the pages. I couldn't put it down though, I had to find out what happened next.

The Land of Green Plums by Herta Muller
John Griffin said: The Land of Green Plums is the story of a group of young people in Nicolae Ceausescu's Romania. As the friends betray each other, we see how the totalitarian state inhabits every aspect of human existence. Of  German heritage, Mueller suffered repeated threats from the Ceausescu  government before finally being able to emigrate in 1987. Muller is the winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize for Literature.

The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey by Walter Mosley
Katie Graves said: After hearing about "The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey" on both Fresh Air and All Things Considered, I was intrigued, to say the least. Ptolemy, the title character, is a 91-year-old man, forgotten and living in filth amid the onset of Alzheimer's. When he meets Robyn, Ptolemy eventually becomes faced with a life-changing decision to regain his memory, but at an almost certain cost. I would highly recommend this book, not only for the plot, but for Walter Mosley's writing style; if you are a Murray State student, you can check it out through the Interlibrary Loan Office on campus!

Leavings: Poems by Wendell Berry
Bec Feldhaus said: Perhaps this is biased, because I've never read something by Wendell Berry that I didn't like, but Berry's collection titled Leavings astounds me. This collection is made up of shorter poems for the most part, but retains the depth apparent in his longer works. Berry deals with the evolution of a globalized and technologically-based world and how that detracts from personal contact and, at times, moral integrity. Even if you only read one poem out of the entire collection, Berry's voice is clear and thoughtful leaving you with something to consider.

Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
Matt Markgraf said: Leviathan is a quintessential steampunk, alternate history thrill ride featuring two young protagonists, Alek and Deryn, who form an unlikely team to save an embattled Europe in the throes of WWI. Don’t let the huge walking machines and living airships fool you – this book is of literary quality, written with the finest attention to detail and a strong emphasis on characterization. Luckily, it’s the first of a series, with book two scheduled to come out this fall.

Little Bee by Chris Cleave
Angela Hatton said: To make a cliché like, 'one moment changes everything' work, you have to be a good writer, and Chris Cleave is one. Little Bee is about the dissonance, and surprising harmony, between the commercialized world and the third world. Cleave takes hold of his readers, always keeping a focus on the emotion of his characters, even as he deftly tackles war, genocide, and illegal immigration.

Lost Stories by Daschiell Hammet
Todd Hatton said: I’ve always loved Dashiell Hammett’s detective stories of Jazz Age San Francisco. His economy of language, his spare power of description, and his vivid characters had me from the first “Continental Op” short story I ever read. But there’s obviously a finite body of his work, and when I ran across this book in Chicago, I jumped at the chance to read something new (or new to me) by The Master.

Love all the People by Bill Hicks
Chris Taylor said: Almost as good as hearing his comedy albums. Though, Hicks' social commentary is nearing two decades old, it's still strikingly poignant today.

Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father and Son by Michael Chabon
David Weatherly said: I'm finishing up Michael Chabon's "Manhood for Amateurs".  It's a memoir, actually more like a series of essays, reflecting back on childhood from a parent's perspective. He talks about the fears modern parents have, plus the greater freedom and imagination past generations had at their disposal that modern ones don't. It's full of his terrific prose and wit and is a great read for men (and women) raised in the 60's and 70's.

Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer by James L. Swanson
Todd Hatton said: I picked this book up in the bookstore that’s tucked into a corner of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.  I was looking for a good historical non-fiction read while I was in town, and I found it.  Swanson translates his encyclopedic knowledge of the Lincoln Assassination and its players, both major and minor, into a story that reads like a good thriller.  It’s a thorough account (some 392 pages) that neither bogs the reader down nor engages in stereotypes; I finished Manhunt in a mere three days.  An absolute must for Lincoln enthusiasts, history buffs, and even lovers of a good mystery.

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
Matt Markgraf said: This book of loosely-connected short stories is an irresistible sci-fi delight. It's a super fast read due to its violent, messy, chaotic prose about man's discovery of intelligent Martian life and the subsequent destruction of culture. On a deeper level, Bradbury seems to write allegorically on mankind's destruction of Earth, and perhaps even mankind's destruction of self and the inevitable demise caused by aging and generation. Whatever symbolism The Martian Chronicles evokes in your imagination, it'll be fascinating and memorable

The Meadow by James Galvin
Jacque Day said: James Galvin’s shimmering chronicle takes us to a very specific time in a very specific pocket of the American West. It is a story of both place, and transcendence. Part memoir, part naturalist work, part chronicle for what might still be, The Meadow has the feel of finding a sack of photos belonging to a stranger, dumping them into a pile, and picking them up one by one. Galvin’s narrative seems to revolve around a question: what is this thing we call the West, and who possesses it?

Mexico as I Saw It (series) by Ethel Alec-Tweedie
Kate Lochte said: Mrs. Alec Tweedie, born Ethel Brilliana Harley, was a pioneering travel writer. In this volume she displays a prodigious nerve, superb social connections, and an eye for "take you there" details. In this book of her adventures originally published in 1901, you ride a new railroad across Mexico on its maiden voyage. You ride a horse up to the mountain ruins Xochicalpa. There are family posadas at Christmas and fancy society festival gatherings. You crawl down into the Cacahuilmilpa caves, wonder at Mitla's tombs and experience a rain forest by riverboat going across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. She's savvy, snobbish in her descriptions of most of Mexico's indigenous peoples, and seemingly fearless -- but then again, she is provided with competent tour guides, available lodgings and guards. Amazon.com carries many other Tweedie titles, like A Winter Jaunt to Norway, Through Finland in Carts, and Russia as I Saw It, and I'll wager that each might have its own oddly smart and fresh, albeit dated, observations I enjoyed in Mexico As I Saw It.

Naked in Dangerous Places by Cash Peters
Mark Welch said: Cash Peters’ self-deprecating approach to his escapades as a “reality show” host is hilarious (imagine an uptight, obsessive-compulsive, brutally honest Brit thrust into staged bizarre third-world conditions!). I loved his zany contributions to the Savvy Traveler, a former public radio series which aired weekly on WKMS.

Orlando by Virginia Woolf
Angela Hatton said: Like the title character, this book is timeless. Half-way through his lifetime as a Jacobean English gentleman, Orlando turns into a woman, and continues to live into the 20th century. The story is fantastical and constantly entertaining, due in no small part to Woolf’s precise and witty writing. Orlando will make you think about androgyny and the boundaries between femininity and masculinity.

Our Lincoln: New Perspectives On Lincoln and His World edited by Eric Foner
Todd Hatton said: Our Lincoln isn’t a light read; but then, not much about Lincoln ever is. It is, however, an engrossing one. Pulitzer Prize-winning authors contribute insights into Lincoln the Commander-in-Chief and his relation-ship to the Constitution and civil liberties, but we also find essays that peer into Lincoln’s spirituality and analyze his role as a student and patron of the visual arts. Andrew Delbanco, who edited The Portable Lincoln, even contributes a piece asserting that other than Mark Twain, no other writer had as enormous and lasting an impact on American literature as did Abraham Lincoln. Not bad for a guy with a grand total of 18 months of formal education.

Read Todd's complete review on The Front Blog.

Packing for Mars by Mary Roach
Angela Hatton said: The folks at NASA have their hands full. They’ve designed rockets, shuttles, landers, and rovers that have taken us to the moon and beyond. But as Mary Roach shows, they still struggle with the most complicated mechanism known to man, the human body. Roach takes you to the lesser known regions of space travel science, including bone-loss, boredom, and going to the bathroom.

A Parchment of Leaves by Silas House
Laura Cash said: If you love House's first book, Clay's Quilt, then you will not be disappointed with A Parchment of Leaves. House writes of Appalachia and uses the same dialect as was in his first novel, but he changes the viewpoint to a strong, female protagonist, a Cherokee woman named Vine. Set in the early 1900s, Vine learns the true meaning of family, prejudice, love, betrayal and all the consequences that ensue.

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
Angela Hatton said: When I hear the word “superpower,” I go back to the classic debate. What would you rather have: invisibility or the ability to fly? In her latest novel, Aimee Bender brings the fantastical to the mundane. Rose discovers on her eighth birthday that she can taste people’s emotions in the food they make. As she tries to balance growing up normally with all the secrets she learns through food, Rose begins to suspect she isn’t the only one in her family who’s different.

Pathfinder by Orson Scott Card
Cort Walker said: Pathfinder is the first of a new series by the well known science fiction writer, Orson Scott Card.  The main character Rigg was born with the ability to see paths that show where all living creatures and humans have traveled throughout the beginning of time.  When his father suddenly is killed in a horrible accident, Rigg is forced into an adventure, with his childhood friend Umbo, to find the mother and sister that he never knew he had. Pathfinder is a science fiction adventure that claims to be targeted to the young adult audience but with its witty banter, observations of society and government, and use of science, it is an intellectually challenging read for any age group.  The first of the book is a little slow but once I dove into the story it was hard to put down.  Any lover of science fiction, and even those who never explored the genre, will definitely enjoy this book.

Peace by Richard Bausch
Kate Lochte said: I highly recommend Richard Bausch’s Peace. When you begin reading there’s a wave of recognition that you’ve just entered a black and white World War II movie. So what can be new with this material? Plenty. This one night lasts what seems like a very long time during this short read about a soldier and his patrol experiencing rain, snow, mountains, rocks, trees, meadows with shootings, snipers, executions, moonlight, flashbacks, cold weather, hot blood, and brotherly love.

People of Darkness by Tony Hillerman
Kate Lochte said: Needing a quick, engrossing read, I picked a Hillerman Trilogy off our bookshelves at home and devoured People of Darkness in a couple of evenings. Protagonist Jim Chee is a Navajo policeman who wrestles with leaving the reservation to join the FBI or stay on the reservation and fulfill his spiritual destiny for which he’s been in training. So in the Jim Chee series there are pretty good murder mysteries set in Indian Country, that Hillerman knew and loved. I enjoy the representation of Navajo ways that Chee observes, like not getting out of the car until someone comes outdoors to meet him when he pulls up, like sitting outdoors parsing the night sky for Navajo-named stars, like navigating arroyos and canyons, and pondering Navajo symbolisms. It’s just like being there – peaceful, powerful, exotic landscapes and cultural practices.

The Places In Between by Rory Stewart
Angela Hatton said: Stewart’s story begins in western Afghanistan in the winter of 2002, only a few months after September 11. At the time, he was the country’s only tourist. In this account of his hike across the country, Stewart reveals the lives of the many Afghan people who never make it in the spotlight: the rural, the poor, the isolated. Stewart describes his journey with precise authority, but without embellishment. This is an honest book about a place that remains a question mark to many Americans.

Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong by Terry Teachout
Todd Hill said: Pops is the best BY ANY MEASURE of all Louis Armstrong biographies - Wonderfully readable even by the non-musician. Most informative (and largely so) due to recent discoveries among Armstrong's personal correspondence and other writings held by the Armstrong House curated by Queens College. More about Louis' strong feelings during the civil-rights movement (he has been vastly misjudged in this regard) than has ever been revealed previously.

Prayers for Bobby by Leroy Aarons
Caleb Campbell said: I was blown away by this biography of a young man shattered by denial and self-hatred. It's a book everyone should be required to read. Bobby is someone in every community and every family. The journey his mother goes through after his death to find acceptance and understanding is one that every parent will be able to relate to. A moving piece of non-fiction.

The Prize Winner of Defiance Ohio by Terry Ryan
Jenni Todd said: This is a heartwarming true story about a resourceful woman who uses her creativity to keep her family- and their finances- afloat. Evelyn Ryan is the mother of ten children, the wife of an alcoholic husband and …an optimist. She supports her family the only way she can- by using her ingenuity and her natural way with words to win advertising contests. I love Evelyn’s humor, wit, and that she teaches her children to have fun regardless of the circumstances. This story is an honest look at the ups and downs experienced by the Ryan family in the 1950’s.

Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
Rebecca Feldhaus said: With news coming from Iran and the surrounding countries lately, I thought I’d swipe a book off my shelf I’d been meaning to read for a while. Reading Lolita in Tehran is difficult book to categorize. Some libraries put it in fiction because author Azar Nafisi changed so many names and tweaked so many stories. For my money, it’s a memoir with literary criticism sown in, very cleverly. It’s divided into four sections: Lolita, Gatsby, James and Austen. Each section is based on a time in her life during her years in Iran. Nafisi talks about the literature she had to fight to teach during employment at different universities. Perhaps the most touching section is her private study group with just a handful of young Iranian women. By tackling literature they also assess their own life issues. It’s a historically, emotionally and literarily enlightening book. Enjoy!

The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan by James Mann
Dr. Brian Clardy said: For me, this book is a very pleasant trip down Memory Lane. I was in high school and college when many of those events took place. And it also informed me about the importance of Suzanne Massie, a lower level protégé of President Reagan's, who played a tremendous role in helping to transform U.S./Soviet relations.

The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy
Kate Lochte said: In February the National Symphony Orchestra performed Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe in the Carson Center in Paducah. Its thrilling layered themes were enchanting. Music for a ballet that debuted in Paris in 1912, the Ravel made me think the Hardy novel, Return of the Native... Return of the Native’s main characters are either deeply at home on the Heath or yearning to escape its hold. That’s the conflict as much as the unwise decisions about marriages less motivated by genuine affection than by desire to mate in one’s own class or above it, but certainly not below it. Hardy’s love of descriptive prose clothes these simple plot lines in the beautiful dark finery of the natural setting. If you enjoy being carried away into the wildness of the world and the human heart, this book might just be a good read for you, too.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Laura Cash said: Think of William Golding's "Lord of the Flies" combined with the movie "Road to Perdition." Now combine that scenario with the question "What would you do if your world remained while nearly everyone else's ended?" and you have the makings of Cormac McCarthy's "The Road." The narrator takes the reader past the end of the world through the eyes of a father and son who survived it and now have to pay the consequences. They face never-ending cold, hunger and sleep deprivation only to be constantly hunted by cannibals. This book is not for the reader looking for something to spread holiday cheer, but it is a page turner as the reader flips to learn if the duo lasts another day or if the little boy's wish is granted and the two have met the same fate as most of the once living beings.

The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific by J. Maarten Troost
Matt Markgraf said: Unfortunately this book featured neither sex lives nor cannibals, but it was still entertaining non-fiction. The book is more humorous than informative, based on the narrator's presumption that everything will be idyllic and the fact that, of course, he's completely wrong. It's ultimately a book about reestablishing the rules of reality. Troost survived the 'backwards' people who had never heard of spices or functional electricity and comes out on the other end with a new perspective on life and happiness. He never glamorized the remote tropical paradise, but he didn't have to. The beauty of the island comes from its flaws, its misfortunes and the people who step on it.

Shanghai Girls by Lisa See
Katie Villanueva said: I just finished this fabulous book called Shanghai Girls. This novel is about two Chinese sisters who live in Shanghai in the late 1930s, right before WWII. They are upper middle class and consider themselves "modern" and try to be "western." They love Shanghai and have a very social night life. Their father gambles all their money away and sells them to an American Chinese man to marry his sons. The girls marry the men but refuse to move to America and miss their boat. Their father mysteriously disappears when the deal is broken & WWII breaks out and Japan invades China. The sisters and their mother must leave Shanghai and get to safety without being caught by the Japanese. The only place to go is to America to husbands who may yet refuse them once they arrive. Shanghai Girls is an amazing story chronicling the lives of these sisters who transform to women and then evolve into mothers. They are faced with rape, unwanted pregnancy, interrogations, racism, economic difficulty, oppression, and identity crisis. However they are also enveloped with each other's love which protects one another and a ferocious inner strength that guides them through their journey. Granted this novel is historical fiction, the novelist drew on real life experiences from many Chinese and Chinese Americans living during that time period. The Shanghai Girls' encounter many real life situations that have happened to one person or another during that time. It is flooring how the world operated & thought back then. It's shameful. I can say though, all the discouraging things that happen to these two women are evened out by the life they eventually find but never really wanted because they will forever consider themselves Shanghai Girls.

Sinatra! The Song Is You: A Singer's Art by Will Friedwald
Todd Hill said: Excellent book about the singing career of Frank Sinatra. Skips the all-too-often sensationalized aspects of his personal life and concentrates on his apprenticehip as a band singer (with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey), the era of "The Voice" on his Columbia Recordings with arrangements and orchestras led by Axel Stordahl, the Capitol Recordings with Nelson Riddle, Billy May and Gordon Jenkins and the Reprise years with diverse writers/leaders such as Neal Hefti, Johnny Mandel, Quincy Jones and Count Basie. If you only know the Sinatra of "Strangers in the Night," "My Way" and "New York, New York" - not to mention the dreadful and over-produced "Duets" CDs of the 1990s - then educate yourself with this book and seek out the worthy recordings. Sinatra, more than any other performer, defined the "Great American Songbook" and many of his recordings are definitive.

Something Under the Bed is Drooling by Bill Watterson
Paco Long-Mendez said: Written by Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes is a kid and his stuffed tiger living in a classic suburban life. Suburbia that was developed enough to still have plenty of woods and hills to play in. Reading "Something Under the Bed is Drooling" reminds me of ways that these books influenced my own witty and adventurous childhood.

The Terror by Dan Simmons
Tracy Ross said: "The Terror by Dan Simmons is a work of historical horror fiction based on Sir John Franklin’s lost expedition. The doomed polar expedition left England in 1845 in search of the Northwest Passage and never returned. The two ships HMS Terror and HMS Erebus became trapped in the sea ice and no survivors were ever found. Simmons meticulously researched the novel and produced a story that is historically accurate and rich in detail. However, the author really shines when he paints a dreadful portrait of what might have happened to the 129 members of the expedition. A monstrous “thing on the ice” terrorizes the men, who are already drifting into madness as a result of scurvy, lead poisoning, and the numbing reality of spending their third consecutive winter locked in the ice. The Terror is told from the perspective of many different characters, although Captain Francis Crozier and the surgeon, Dr. Harry Goodsir are the main protagonists. Be warned, The Terror is over 750 pages long, and the narrative sometimes slows to a glacial pace but rarely seems to drag due to the incredibly real and frightening world Simmons has created."

Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris
Angela Hatton said: "If you’ve ever seen the television sitcoms The Office or Parks and Rec, you already have an idea of what this book is like. Ferris takes readers through the absurdity of office life, including the saga of the office chair and the burning cubicle gossip, 'does the boss have cancer or doesn’t she?' This book has both character and heart"

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Laura Cash said: A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini is a great second novel for those who loved "The Kite Runner." It, too, elaborates on Afghanistan's tumultuous past, focusing mostly on women's rights - or lack there of. I recommend this book to anyone wanting more than a quick, easy read.

Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace... One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
Mark Welch said: A good friend of mine loaned me his copy of Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson & David Oliver Relin. It’s a remarkable true story of a young man who turned great failure into a quest to help others. Greg Mortenson’s passion to educate underprivileged children in Pakistan and Afghanistan proves that one person CAN make a difference. Three Cups of Tea is inspiring and humbling. I can’t wait to read Mortenson’s latest book, Stones into Schools.

Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Jenni Todd said: The Time Traveler’s Wife is one of my favorite books of all time! This story centers on Henry DeTamble and Claire Abshire. Henry is a time traveler and Clair isn’t. Their love story is quite compelling… but it’s the science-fiction twist, multiple perspective storytelling, and non-linear timeline that keep me reading this book year after year. The movie is okay, but the book is perfect in my eyes.

'Tis: A Memoir by Frank McCourt
Jacque Day said: 'Tis is Frank McCourt's memoir-in-continuation, a follow-up to his Pulitzer Prize-winning book Angela's Ashes, which chronicled his impoverished childhood in Ireland. We loved McCourt the boy-a life told with heartbreaking humor and a singing brogue. In Angela's Ashes McCourt gives us a clear roadmap into the complex heart of the man recalling the events of a half-century earlier. 'Tis begins, with some necessary overlap, where Angela's Ashes leaves off-a young Frank McCourt stepping off a boat from Ireland to make a life in New York. The memoirist tosses us without apology into his shoes. Frank McCourt is no longer with us, and sadly he wrote precious few books in his lifetime. 'Tis is an exercise in humanity by a man with a rare gift for a story, and a brogue that sings on.

Under the Dome by Stephen King
Matt Markgraf said: Don't let the size of this near 1,100 page novel scare you... leave that task to the gripping prose true to King's famous irreverent, glib and fast-paced style. A small town, not too different than one you may live in, is suddenly trapped inside an inexplicable dome. The novel begins with a series of brutal, yet oddly intriguing interactions with the invisible barrier and quickly launches into the various perspectives of the townsfolk, from a psychopathic teenager, to a power-hungry selectman, a plucky newspaper reporter, an overwhelmed physician's assistant, an equitable ex-soldier, and over a dozen others. King breaks up these perspectives in a well-organized and believable way that draws out the mystery of the dome and the series of events into a wild and memorable ride. It's an accomplished and satisfying read. Steven Spielberg is supposedly working on the mini-series!

The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard, Cliff Rathburn and Tony Moore
Matt Markgraf said: I'm generally not one to pick up a graphic novel without some prodding. I got hooked on The Walking Dead series on AMC and didn't want to wait until October to find out what happens next, so I picked up the first volume of the massive graphic novel series. Two weeks later and over 1500 pages later, I'm on volume 10. The show barely scratches the surface. Also, many of the events and characters are completely different. It's chock full of zombies, guns, sex and swearing, but its most interesting and important feature is its examination of survivalism, humanity and the will to live. If you're reluctant to graphic novels like me, I highly recommend this intricate tale surrouding a zombie apocalypse. Also, one of the protagonists is a police officer from a small town in Kentucky!

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
Katie Villanueva said: Water for Elephants!! Yeah, it's that exciting. I read this and was amazed about the mysterious lives of circus folk. This is an amazing book about love and about one guy standing up for what he believes is right and wrong. A coming of age tale that could be described as a true baptism through fire. The movie was announced to be coming to theaters shortly after i finished reading the book, and you can bet I will be first in line to see it. This book is for animal lovers, men, and women alike. Read it. See it.

With Billie by Julia Blackburn
Todd Hill said: The author serves as editor on previous research done by another through a series of interviews by those who knew the legendary Billie Holiday. The only weakness is that there are not more musicians (focusing on the music) who worked with her, although we do hear from many who did. If you are a Billie Holiday fan or just want to dispell the garbage that William Dufty invented in "Lady Sings the Blues" this is a great read. Gritty. Real.