Book Shelf:  All Books Link to the Current Shelf: The 2010 Book List

This web page lists all books appearing on the pages of Executive Times and at http://bkrev.blogspot.com from April 1999 through December 2009. For the pending list and reviews in 2010, visit http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/2010books.html. You can click on the title of a rated book to jump to the detailed book review. Click on the picture of any jacket cover to jump to amazon.com where you can purchase a copy of any book on this shelf. You can jump to an issue of Executive Times by hitting the date in the “Issue Date” column. When you hit a broken link, send an e-mail to books@hopkinsandcompany.com to request what you want.

Key to Ratings:
*****	Outstanding book-read it now
****	Highly recommended
***	Recommended
**	Mildly recommended
*	Read if your interest is strong
DNR	Do Not Read: Take a Pass

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Title (Click on Link to go to Book Review)	Author(s)	Rating	Issue Date	Comments	Click on Picture to Purchase at amazon.com
One Nation Under Gods: A History of the Mormon Church	Abanes, Richard	***	Feb 03	Saints Revealed. From Joseph Smith at the beginning to the 2002 Olympics, Abanes presents a history of Mormonism that reveals them to be a cult, not the Christian religion they present to the world.
Sin in the Second City	Abbott, Karen	***	Oct 07	Sisters. Riveting non-fiction about the two sisters who ran a first-class brothel in Chicago from 1900 to 1910 and the women they employed, the clients they served and the politicians they paid.
A Perfect Mess	Abrahamson, Eric and David H. Freedman	***	June 07	Tidy. Authors meander through a premise that things may be done better through disorder rather than via neatness and order. Readers fixated on one way of acting will learn that alternatives can work better.
Speaking Freely	Abrams, Floyd	Unread		Shelf of Ennui 2005
Call Me By Your Name	Aciman, Andre	***	Oct 07	Passion. Debut novel uses beautiful prose to relate the coming of age of a seventeen year old boy who falls madly in love.
Boss Tweed: The Rise and Fall of the Corrupt Pol Who Conceived the Soul of Modern New York	Ackerman, Kenneth D.	Unread		Shelf of Ennui 2005
The Clerkenwell Tales	Ackroyd, Peter	Unread		Shelf of Ennui 2005
The Fall of Troy	Ackroyd, Peter	***	July 08	Manipulating. Fictionalized account of two 19^th century archeologists who search ancient Troy for adventure and loot, manipulating each other and their craft as they proceed.
The Lambs of London	Ackroyd, Peter	**		Read, but not reviewed.
The relationship edge in business : connecting with customers and colleagues when it counts	Acuff, Jerry	Unread		Shelf of Ennui 2005
Harbor	Adams, Lorraine	***	Feb 05	Alien. Debut novel explores Arab Muslim immigrants struggling in Boston, Brooklyn and Montreal. Fine portrayal of cultural confusion, terror and predators.
Far Appalachia: Following the New River North	Adams, Noah	***	06/01	A virtual vacation lush with images, rapids, people, stories in Adams’ slow, deliberate writing style. Read longer review.
A Good Hard Kick in the Ass: Basic Training for Entrepreneurs	Adams, Rob	***	Oct 02	Swagger. Austin-based Adams presents drill sergeant attitude and practical advice, especially to those starting or expanding a business.
The Blue Way: How to Profit by Investing in a Better World	Adamson, Daniel de Faro	Unread		Shelf of Ennui 2008
Between the Assassinations	Adiga, Aravind	***	7/9/09	Vibrant. Aravind Adiga’s fourteen short stories in the collection titled Between the Assassinations are connected by time and place. All are set between the 1984 assassination of Indira Gandhi and the 1991 assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in the fictional town of Kittur, India. Adiga structures the stories from day one through day seven and begins each with a made-up travel guide description of some area or feature of Kittur. While the travel guide’s blandness fails to attract much interest, Adiga’s description of the locale and the people come to life with clarity and vivid writing. Between the Assassinations tackles politics, corruption, religion, caste, poverty and everyday life in India in a way that left me wanting to read more about interesting characters and their struggles as each story came to an end. If you’re taking a staycation this Summer, consider reading Between the Assassinations as an alternative to traveling to India. You’ll almost hear the sounds and sniff the smells, thanks to Adiga’s fine writing.
The White Tiger	Adiga, Aravind	**	12/27/08	Success. I paid no attention to Aravind Adiga’s debut novel, The White Tiger, until it won the Man Booker prize, and then I decided to read it. Adiga is imaginative and clever in the way he has structured the novel, and in how he explores the levels of darkness in a society polarized by wealth. The narrator and protagonist is Balram Halwai, who rose from poverty in a villiage in India to become the driver for a wealthy man in Delhi, and then the owner of a fleet of cars serving Bangalore. His path to wealth was through murder and theft. The novel is structured as letters from Balram to the premier of China who is about to visit India, and wants to learn how to apply the entrepreunership of India for China. Adiga presents wealth in India as corrupt, and the wealthy as venal and abusive to those who work for them. While the darkness can be comic at times, the starkness of the contrast between wealth and poverty, and the triumph of evil makes The White Tiger a stark tale with characters who are more caricature than authentic.
Mollie's Job: A Story of Life and Work on the Global Assembly Line	Adler, William		09/00	Fascinating story follows the same job as it moves from Paterson, New Jersey to Mendenhall, Mississippi to Matamoros, Mexico, and the impact of the changes on the people and communities involved. Recommended.
Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism	Akerlof, George A.	Unread		Shelf of Ennui 2009
Objects of Our Desire	Akhtar, Salman	Unread		Shelf of Ennui 2005
Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog	Akunin, Boris	Unread		Shelf of Ennui 2007
How This Night Is Different	Albert, Elisa	Unread		Shelf of Ennui 2006
The Underminer : Or the Best Friend Who Casually Destroys Your Life	Albo, Mike	Unread		Shelf of Ennui 2005
The Five People You Meet in Heaven	Albom, Mitch	***	Nov 03	Otherworldly. A harmless, sentimental effort to imagine life in heaven being introduced to the recently departed by five people whose lives you affected in some form or other while you were on earth.
Never Have Your Dog Stuffed	Alda, Alan	**	Apr 06	Sentimental. Gentle and funny memoir tells many family stories well, and minimizes the ego-centrism typical of Hollywood lives.
Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself	Alda, Alan	***	Dec 07	Questions. Using the structure of his speeches to various audiences, Alda leads readers to ask and answer for ourselves life’s tough questions.
The $64 Tomato	Alexander, William	***	August 06	Indulgence. The author’s gardening hobby mushroomed to such an extent that after a poor crop one summer, he computed his cost that year and came up with the book’s title.
Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip	Algeo, Matthew	***	9/19/09	Nostalgia. If you’ve ever doubted that a decent book can be written about anything at all, give a chance to Matthew Algeo’s book, Harry Truman’s Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip. Algeo describes a 1953 road trip that Harry and Bess Truman took from Independence, Missouri to Washington, on to New York, and back to Independence after Eisenhower became president. Harry did all the driving in a vehicle that’s almost a character in the book: a black 1953 Chrysler New Yorker. Algeo retraced the Truman’s route, and added a quirky dimension to the book by inserting his own experiences at some of the stops along the way, and what happened to some places in the intervening decades. This book presents a great image of 1953, with a decent dose of nostalgia, and personalization by the insertion of Algeo’s current experience of this route. The pictures helped, mostly because every time I saw a photo Harry Truman’s wide smile, especially when behind the wheel of the New Yorker, I found myself leaning into a grin of my own.
Alentjo Blue	Ali, Monica	***	Sept 06	Village. Through tidy vignettes in her second novel, Ali presents the permanence of a village in Portugal alongside the transformations of its residents and visitors over six decades.
Brick Lane	Ali, Monica	***	Nov 03	Elsewhere. Readers take an enjoyable journey into the immigrant Bangladesh community in London through Ali’s skilled mastery of description, dialogue and plot.
In the Kitchen	Ali, Monica	***	7/16/09	Breakdown. The protagonist of Monica Ali’s new novel In the Kitchen is chef Gabriel Lightfoot, a character who becomes increasingly difficult to spend time with as he delves deeper into a nervous breakdown over the 436 pages of the book. Gabriel is the executive chef at the once-grand Imperial Hotel in London, and he leads a kitchen crew of hard workers from many countries. Gabriel’s life is packed with changes: his father is dying; he proposes marriage to Charlie, a jazz singer; he’s agreed to leave the Imperial and open a new restaurant with two partners that will be named “Lightfoot’s.” Following the death of a kitchen porter, Gabriel is haunted by a recurring dream and his life begins to spiral out of control. Gabriel wants to know who he is and what is meant to do in life. Ali’s descriptions of kitchen life capture the humor, challenging work conditions, and dictatorial nature of this environment. Her writing throughout the novel is excellent, in dialogue, description and language. A side plot about the exploitation of immigrant workers allows for some structure to the novel, but seems somewhat out of place in what is basically a psychological novel about a midlife crisis with concurrent erratic behavior and a nervous breakdown. In the Kitchen is finely written, gloomy, and may appeal most to readers who are willing to spend time admiring a writer’s skill no matter what the plot or how hard it is to spend time with as unsympathetic a protagonist as Gabriel Lightfoot.
Ready For Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Work and Life	Allen, David	DNR	Nov 03	Oz. Wizard of productivity takes readers behind the curtain where they find: not much. 160 pages of recycled, repetitive, rambling drivel. Take a pass and do something productive instead.
Opus Dei: The First Objective Look Behind the Myths and Reality of the Most Controversial Force in the Catholic Church	Allen, John L.	Unread		Shelf of Ennui 2006
Conclave: The Politics, Personalities, and Process of the Next Papal Election	Allen, John L., Jr.	***	Aug 02	Learn through the eyes of a talented, balanced and authoritative writer what will happen behind closed doors when the next pope is chosen. Breezy, conversational writing style makes this book easy to read.
The Rise of Benedict XVI	Allen, Jr., John L.	Unread		Shelf of Reproach 2005
Garden Spells	Allen, Sarah Addison	Unread		Shelf of Ennui 2008
Mere Anarchy	Allen, Woody	Unread		Shelf of Ennui 2008
The Trophy Kids Grow Up: How the Millennial Generation is Shaking Up the Workplace	Alsop, Ron	**	12/21/08	Expectations. Journalist Ron Alsop (The Wall Street Journal) has taken a group of columns and expanded them into a book titled, The Trophy Kids Grow Up. Alsop’s kids are the millennials, those born between 1980 and 2001, who have grown up with prosperity and have had lavish attention and praise wash over them throughout their lives. Now that they are arriving in the workplace, Alsop proposes ways that companies need to change to accommodate this generation of workers. I’m not as sure as Alsop is that this generation is shaking up the workplace. It may be that this group, to whatever extent they represent a real group, may be unrealistic in their expectations of the workplace, and are making their concerns heard. Some companies are listening and making changes; other companies are likely to tell them to grow up. Alsop provides lots of examples of what changes some companies are making. Each chapter ends with “chapter highlights” to recap his key points. I found this book to be tedious to read and sometimes repetitive. I was aghast to read about helicopter parents wanting (and sometimes getting) to sit in on performance assessment meetings with their children who are adults. My forecast is that this cohort called millennials may be starting out with expectations that some companies will be willing to meet. As the bulk of millennials come to the workforce, their expectations may become more realistic and more consistent with current corporate practices. If you read this book and decide to copy what some companies are doing, I encourage you to think twice, and make only those changes that you conclude are absolutely necessary to avoid alienating the talented millennials you want to become part of your organization.	-
The Defining Moment	Alter, Jonathan	Unread		Shelf of Ennui 2006
Comrades	Ambrose, Stephen E.			Stories of friendship from a great historian.
To America: Personal Reflections of an Historian	Ambrose, Stephen E.	***	Jan 03	Spirit of Optimism. Read this farewell book from a fine chronicler of people and events and come away feeling better about America, Americans, and our many individual and collective achievements.
Buffalo Lockjaw	Ames, Greg	**	6/14/09	Tetanus. Greg Ames’ debut novel, Buffalo Lockjaw, describes the holiday return of 24-year-old protagonist James to hometown Buffalo from his new life in Brooklyn writing copy for a greeting card company. Ames seems to have followed the advice of many creative writing teachers to write about what you know. He’s probably given that advice to others, since Ames is a creative writing teacher at Brooklyn College. Ames knows Buffalo, and presents the struggles and quirks of that place with mastery in this novel. In many respects, Buffalo is the best developed character in the book. James is both naïve and immature, and in grief over his mother’s Alzheimer’s disease he explores euthanasia as a way to give her what he thinks she wants. His stoic father, from whose expression Ames chose his book title, has sold the family home and struggles to pay for his wife’s care. James’ lesbian sister and her partner arrived for Thanksgiving from Oregon to announce her pregnancy. On top of this mix of main characters, James revisits Buffalo friends and finds them in various states of dissolution, not unlike the city. I had the sense in reading Buffalo Lockjaw that Ames had assembled vignettes about the city and some characters and then pasted this novel together with that old material. In a clever way, he interspersed among the novel’s chapters the text of audio interviews that James did with quintessential Buffalo characters. Anyone with a particular connection to Buffalo will find a lot to enjoy in this novel. Readers willing to give a chance to a first-time author will also find some good writing on these pages. Critical readers are likely to find ample faults with characters, plot and dialogue to have preferred a tetanus shot rather than spend time reading Buffalo Lockjaw.
Wake Up, Sir!	Ames, Jonathan	**	Nov 04	Stupor. With a bow to P.G. Wodehouse, this novel gives us a heavy drinking protagonist and his butler, Jeeves, and some funny episodes. Rambling narrative and directionless plot.
Human Capital	Amidon, Stephen	***	Feb 05	Short. Striving suburban Connecticut life creates prosperity for all those around protagonist Drew Hagel, while he faces sequential failures.
Security	Amidon, Stephen	***	6/9/09	Insecure. Stephen Amidon’s new novel, Security, explores many aspects of personal insecurity and the ways in which each of us remains fundamentally insecure, no matter how strong we’ve made our defenses. Protagonist Edward Inman owns a security company and leads a comfortable life in Massachusetts with his wife, Meg, an alderman running for mayor. Their relationship has become loveless, and after Ed reconnects with his old flame, Kathryn, recently divorced, he becomes involved in her life and issues, crumbling the already weak foundations of his own. A broader cast of characters, most of whom are unlikeable for one reason or another, exhibit behaviors that disclose the range of ways in which we try to overcome the insecurity that we want to hide from others. Amidon’s writing is superb, and this satire of modern life and relationships can be read with detachment or with an identification with one or more of the behaviors these characters as we try to find happiness or acceptance with others. Security is a timely novel by a talented writer.
The New City	Amidon, Stephen		6/00	Fast-moving vacation novel set in 1973 in the not-very disguised planned community of Columbia, Maryland. Amidon nails racial tension and human relationships. Enjoyable.
Experience: A Memoir	Amis, Martin			Amis picks up on the trendy memoir genre and applies his talent to a tale of his own life. Amis is a fine writer and this work helps readers gain insight into Amis’ life experiences, especially his relationship with his father, writer Kingsley Amis.
House of Meetings	Amis, Martin	**	Oct 07	Grim. Finely written examination of evil set in a Soviet gulag presented by a troubled narrator who alternated between not knowing what was going on to participating with relish in the evil.
The Second Plane: September 11: Terror and Boredom	Amis, Martin	***	Aug 08	Reflections. Fourteen pieces including essays, book reviews and short stories, arranged chronologically, show the evolution of this fine writer’s thinking, and display his skills.
Nerds: Who They Are and Why We Need Them	Anderegg, David	Unread		Shelf of Ennui 2008
Perfect Enough: Carly Fiorina and the Reinvention of Hewlett-Packard	Anders, George	***	May 03	Sell. Anders tells ample stories about the past and present career of Carly Fiorina and her achievement of landing the top H-P job and merging with Compaq. Engaging stories make this book a pleasure to read.
Reset: How This Crisis Can Restore Our Values and Renew America	Andersen, Kurt	***	9/21/09	Optimism. No matter how little time you have available for reading, you’re likely to find the time to read the 70 or so pages of Kurt Anderson’s new book, Reset: How This Crisis Can Restore Our Values and Renew America. Anderson proposes that we have a window of opportunity in the current financial crisis to carefully reset our values, both personally and communally, to make different choices going forward. He delivers his optimistic message stridently with clear opinions that can border on the preachy. He gets his message across quickly, and that left me with plenty of time to reflect on his message, and to think about my own values and the degree to which I may have drifted from the values I hold.
Turn of the Century	Andersen, Kurt			Compared favorably to Tom Wolfe, Andersen writes a funny book about the media set in February 2000.
Free: The Future of a Radical Price	Anderson, Chris	***	8/22/09	Marginal. Most readers will find something interesting or useful in Chris Anderson’s new book, Free: The Future of a Radical Price. Expanded from a February 2008 article in Wired, Free explores the various ways in which success can come from offering something at a price of zero. For a limited time, Anderson made this book available online for free (where I read most of it before reading the rest for free from a library copy). Anderson got into some trouble when this book was released and some parts of it were identified as being lifted intact from Wikipedia. Part of Anderson’s explanation of this attribution error was the challenge of attribution to something that changes form regularly, and he and his publisher having different views on noting hyperlinks. This sloppiness may distract some readers, but I found the book to be a breezy exploration of trends, and had no expectation that this was a work of scholarship. Coined words like “freemium” may cause some readers to wince and others to smile. Anderson comes across as confident and arrogant at times with his views. Underneath these distractions, there’s a message worth hearing, and reading Free will encourage readers to think about this issue.
The Long Tail	Anderson, Chris	*****	Nov 06	Niches. Simple concepts, summarized in our review and excerpt, with huge implications and consequences for producers and distributors. Our highest rating because of that potential impact.
Busted: Life Inside the Great Mortgage Meltdown	Andrews, Edmund L.	**	7/2/09	Neighbors. In so many ways Ed Andrews’ personal story of mortgage disaster was both more and less than I expected. Busted: Life Inside the Great Mortgage Meltdown presents the embarrassing story of a New York Times economic reporter’s personal financial and personal crises of the last few years. One would expect that an educated and informed person would have averted predatory loans and would not have spent so far beyond one’s means, but we humans are complicated, and Andrews’ story is like that of many others. He divorced, and faced increased expenses by adding his own housing expenses. He remarried, and his costs increased further. Both he and his new wife were reckless with spending and never quite found a productive way of talking about money and spending. For readers who love schadenfreude, Busted will be very satisfying. For fans of reality television, this print version of Cribs might be entertaining. For any reader who wonders about what kind of people get themselves into financial muddles, Andrews and his wife offer some answers but little sympathy because of their selfishness, immaturity and overall recklessness. If these people are our neighbors, the neighborhood is in trouble.
The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What To Do About It	Angell, Marcia	***	Apr 05	Deceit. Abundant examples of the deceit from big pharma followed by specific suggestions for reform. Keep blood pressure medication close at hand when turning these pages.
Let Me Finish	Angell, Roger	Unread		Shelf of Ennui 2006
The Canon: A Whirligig tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science	Angier, Natalie	Unread		Shelf of Reproach 2007
Blue Water	Ansay, A. Manette	Unread		Shelf of Ennui 2006
Midnight Champagne	Ansay, A. Manette		10/99	Consider packing this book for a coast-to-coast flight, or enjoying it as a great weekend or evening break.
The Art of Napping at Work	Anthony, Bill		11/99	Looking forward to reading this.
Tales from the Boom-Boom Room: Women vs. Wall Street	Antilla, Susan	***	May 03	Explosive. Life for women trying to succeed on Wall Street in recent decades was worse than you ever imagined. Antilla tells what happened, how women sued, how Wall Street made changes, and how legal strategists kept things quiet and inexpensive.
The Headmaster Ritual	Antrim, Taylor	***	Oct 07	Force. Debut novel set in Massachusetts prep school riffs on the ways in which power and force build up and blow, on many levels. A quirky North Korea motif adds to the entertainment.
Dumb Money: Adventures of a Day Trader	Anuff, Joey and Gary Wolf		6/00	An amusing and well-written book that provides a glimpse into the world of day trading. Recommended.
Apple’s America	Apple, R.W.	Unread		Shelf of Ennui 2005
Thomas Jefferson	Appleby, Joyce Oldham	Unread		Shelf of Reproach 2004
Cellophane	Arana, Marie	***	Oct 06	Transparency. Set in the jungles of Peru, this debut novel presents fine prose, well-developed characters, multiple levels of meaning, and interesting ways of making hidden desires manifest.
False Impression	Archer, Jeffrey	Unread		Shelf of Ennui 2006
Flawed Advice and the Management Trap: How Managers Can Know When They're Getting Good Advice and When They're Not	Argyris, Chris		05/00	Having trouble implementing the recommendations of consultants? Argyris explains why and takes on other consultants in the process. Highly recommended
Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions	Ariely, Dan	***	June 08	Experiments. MIT behavioral economist presents lively and readable insights from array of experiments that seem to show that not only is human behavior irrational, but also it is predictable.
Hedwig and Berti	Arkin, Frieda	Unread		Shelf of Ennui 2005
A Short History of Myth	Armstrong, Karen	**	Feb 06	Context. Survey of the evolution of myth as culture and civilization changed. This first book in the Canongate myth series sets a context, and without reading the myths, leaves the reader with theory, but not examples.
The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness	Armstrong, Karen	Unread		Shelf of Reproach 2004
Every Second Counts	Armstrong, Lance	***	Dec 03	Discomfort. How do you spend your time? Tour de France champion and cancer survivor provides dozens of stories that reinforce the reality that every second brings us closer to or further away from our goals.
It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life	Armstrong, Lance		11/00	Inspirational story of courage and spirit of cancer survivor and Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong.
Corporate Cults: The Insidious Lure of the All-Consuming Organization	Arnott, Dave		2/00	Quoted from Fortune article on 100 best companies.
The Long Firm	Arnott, Jake	*	Feb 02	Multiple narrators describe gay English gangster Harry Starks’ life of crime, violence and sex. No compelling reason to read this novel.
The First Crusade	Asbridge, Thomas	Unread		Shelf of Ennui 2005
Never Again	Ashcroft, John	Unread		Shelf of Ennui 2007
No God But God	Aslan, Reza	***	Oct 05	Primer. Well-written introduction to the history of Islam, its evolution, and its place in the modern world.
Somewhere Towards the End: A Memoir	Athill, Diana	***	7/16/09	Spunky. Memoirs can lead readers to reflect on some of life’s big questions through a peek into an individual’s recollections of the paths taken. Diana Athill’s memoir, Somewhere Towards the End, was written by her at age 91, following fifty years as a literary editor. Her writing is clear and crisp, and she tackles those aspects of life many of us would prefer to avoid, ignore, or just wish would not happen to us. She covers relationships, sex, religion, and health with a dispatch and a way of talking about herself that does not preach to readers. The losses that come with the passage of time need not remove the spunk from life or diminish optimism. The fewer than two hundred pages of Somewhere Towards the End made me feel just fine about whatever the passage of time will bring to my life.
Case Histories	Atkinson, Kate	Unread		Shelf of Ennui 2005
One Good Turn	Atkinson, Kate	***	Dec 06	Connections. Intelligent mystery set in Edinburgh with plethora of connections that come together at the end. Full of loyalty, betrayal and revenge.
When Will There Be Good News?	Atkinson, Kate	****	3/28/09	Clever. Kate Atkinson reprises retired police detective Jackson Brodie in her new novel, When Will There Be Good News? She adds a cast of interesting and quirky characters, and engages them in clever plots and subplots that keep a reader thinking and engaged throughout the 400 pages of the novel. The past looms like a shadow over characters like Dr. Jo Hunter, and how she behaves in the present has much to do with tragedy from her past. Dr. Hunter’s teenage nanny, Reggie Chase, is an orphan and acts as an amateur detective to great success. She is wiser and more focused than her age would lead others to expect. Her brother looms over her life. Brodie and Detective Chief Inspector Louise Morris rediscover each other on these pages, and each has a marriage partner that may not bring the same quality of relationship that these two have with each other. The clever writing and depth of character development combine to make this novel a very satisfying book to read.
My Life in the Middle Ages	Atlas, James	Unread		Shelf of Ennui 2005
Moral Disorder	Atwood, Margaret	***	Jan 07	Tangles. Finely written interconnected short stories trace one Canadian family from the 1930s to the present, linking memories, loss and all the tangles that become families.
Oryx and Crake	Atwood, Margaret	****	June 03	Tomorrow. Finely-crafted novel of what our world could become as we experience the missteps of genetic experiments, corporate imperialism, the values of games and media, and the ability of one person to make all the difference.
Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth	Atwood, Margaret	Unread		Shelf of Ennui 2009
The Blind Assassin	Atwood, Margaret		01/01	Atwood’s dialogue consistently remains in the style of the 1930s and 1940s, and she captures the flavor of elements of that period flawlessly. Read First chapter. Read longer review. Recommendation: ****
The Penelopiad	Atwood, Margaret	***	June 06	Perspective. Ever wonder about what Penelope was doing while Odysseus was on the road? Atwood offers Penelope’s own point of view in this finely crafted book that includes a chorus of 12 handmaids.
The Tent	Atwood, Margaret	**	May 06	Images. Quirky and mostly harsh short fiction in a more focused and concentrated dose than is found in her longer works. Still enriching and enjoyable.
The Year of the Flood	Atwood, Margaret	****	11/25/09	Survival. Margaret Atwood’s new novel, The Year of the Flood, does something that I can’t recall her doing before: she reprises characters from a previous novel, and expands their story. Several of the characters from Oryx & Crake, (which I also rated with four stars in 2003), appear in the new novel, and the two novels merge pleasantly to create a more complete view of a future possible world. The Year of the Flood is a story of survival in a world devastated by genetic experiments gone foul, and a plague that wiped out much of the population. One group in The Year of the Flood is called God’s Gardeners, and the hymns that Atwood creates describe their beliefs and their world with humor and insight. A collaborator composed music for these fourteen hymns and they can be heard and purchased at www.yearoftheflood.com. Atwood’s writing is superb, the characters believable, and the future world she creates is a scary place.
Writing With Intent	Atwood, Margaret	Unread		Shelf of Ennui 2006
East Side Story	Auchincloss, Louis	**	May 05	Perpetuation. 60^th novel of upper class New York life. In this version, the fictional Carnochans strive to meet family expectations and obligations across multiple generations.
Last of the Old Guard	Auchincloss, Louis	***	6/14/09	Partnership. Prolific novelist Louis Auchincloss’ new novel is titled Last of the Old Guard. On these pages, protagonist Adrian Suydam reflects wistfully on his life and that of his recently deceased law partner, Ernest Saunders. Set at the end of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century, Auchincloss presents with a formal detachment the relationships and behavior of those times. While the primary relationship is that between two life-long friends and law partners, other relationships are also critical to the novel: husbands and wives; fathers and children; and employers and employees. This brief glimpse into another time provides a striking contrast to modern times. Last of the Old Guard conveys the sense of responsibility, formality, manners and expectations of a time that has passed, but dimensions of personal character and integrity that survive and can thrive in any era. Reading Last of the Old Guard is like visiting a museum and coming away with impressions about other times and places. Readers who want to visit an old New York will find pleasure on these pages.
The Headmaster’s Dilemma	Auchincloss, Louis	**	July 08	Boys. The master novelist of upper class life sets his latest book at an exclusive New England prep school and uses the behavior of new boys to play out a conflict between two old boys, one a trustee, and the other the headmaster.
The Scarlet Letters	Auchincloss, Louis	***	May 04	Puritan. Hawthorne’s tale updated to 1950s Manhattan. Well-written with complex characters, depth and thoughtfulness about loyalty, power, mores and temptation at work and in relationships.
The Shelters of Stone	Auel, Jean M.	*	Jul 02	Ayla and Jondalar go to his home to meet the parents and get married in this 750-page fifth volume in Auel’s Earth’s Children series of novels about prehistoric life.
Shakespeare in Charge: How to Lead and Succeed on the Stage of Business	Augustine, Norman R.			We enjoyed Augustine's Travels and expect this new book by the former chairman of Lockheed Martin will be well done.
Media Man: Ted Turner's Improbable Empire	Auletta, Ken	**	Mar 05	Restless. While repetitive at times and less lively than the subject, an instructive biography of a successful visionary.
World War 3.0: Microsoft and Its Enemies	Auletta, Ken		04/01	Comprehensive story of the Microsoft antitrust trial based on insider interviews. Fascinating to read about Microsoft’s arrogance. Read longer review. Recommendation: ****
Beware of God	Auslander, Shalom	Unread		Shelf of Ennui 2005
Man in the Dark	Auster, Paul	***	2/23/09	War. Darkness can take many forms, and in this short novel, Man in the Dark, Paul Auster explores many of those forms. Following a car accident, protagonist August Brill at age 72 is recovering in the Vermont home of his daughter. In pain and sleepless, Brill tries to write his memoir, but instead creates stories to battle his depression. During the day, he watches movies with his 24 year old granddaughter, Katya, whose boyfriend was tortured and murdered in Iraq. His divorced daughter, Miriam, struggles to write about Nathaniel Hawthorne’s youngest daughter, Rose. Each of these characters grapples with the darkness of their lives. Brill uses the darkness of night to write about a parallel world, one in which the war in Iraq didn’t happen. He creates the parallel protagonist, Owen Brick, who finds himself involved in the Second American Civil War, between the red states and the blue states, and on a mission to kill August Brill. Any war ravages relationships and leaves consequences for survivors that can feel like a permanent state of darkness. Man in the Dark might be our common condition as long as we engage in war. In the meantime, stay up in the dark for a few nights, and read Auster’s way of trying to make sense of the nonsense of war.
Oracle Night	Auster, Paul	**	Mar 04	Recovery. Two writers use each other to overcome writing blocks and move from illness to living life fully. An unusual visit to Brooklyn in the form of a literary novel.
The Brooklyn Follies	Auster, Paul	***	Apr 06	Ordinary. The novel’s narrator, Nathan Glass, says he returns to Brooklyn to die, but instead makes a fresh start as Everyman, and thrives. Fine writing, good characters and dialogue.
Travels in the Scriptorium	Auster, Paul	Unread		Shelf of Ennui 2007
Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-by-Numbers Is the New Way to Be Smart	Ayres, Ian	***	Jan 08	Statistics. Conversational presentation of the ways in which vast amounts of data are being gleaned by savvy analysts and used to make significant decisions.
Remember Me	Azzopardi, Trezza	Unread		Shelf of Ennui 2004
The Importance of a Piece of Paper	Baca, Jimmy Santiago	Unread		Shelf of Ennui 2004
Out of My Mind	Bach, Richard			It took about a half hour to read this imaginative book. Skip it.
Leading Quietly: An Unorthodox Guide to Doing the Right Thing	Badaracco, Jr., Joseph L.	****	Apr 02	Lots of leadership books focus on heroes. Badaracco presents those everyday challenges that ordinary people face with all life’s ambiguity. Useful and realistic.
Blow the House Down	Baer, Robert	***	Nov 06	Plausible. Former CIA field officer’s debut novel presents plausible story of the events preceding 9/11. Disturbing in how much of this fiction may be rooted in facts.
See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA’s War on Terrorism	Baer, Robert	***	Jun 02	Disgruntled CIA agent’s story of his work life and how the CIA and White House devalues field and foreign agents and sources, weakening the ability of the U.S. to know what’s going on around the world.
The Devil We Know	Baer, Robert	Unread		Shelf of Ennui 2009
The Argument: Billionaires, Bloggers, and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics	Bai, Matt	**	Nov 07	Alliances. Interesting description of multiple alliances of those trying to achieve Democratic Party success, written by New York Times reporter. Not much unity has been created yet around what author calls “the argument,” that which will bring out voters.
The Grace That Keeps This World	Bailey, Tom	Unread		Shelf of Ennui 2006
To Begin the World Anew: The Genius and Ambiguities of the American Founders	Bailyn, Bernard	***	May 03	All-American Ambiguity. Bailyn analyzes several leading founders of the United States and succinctly describes both their key contributions and the inconsistencies and real humanity of their lives.
The Corporation	Bakan, Joel	**	Feb 05	Personification. Canadian law professor explains that society has given too much control to corporations and bad behavior should be expected unless new laws reign in corporate greed.
A Box of Matches	Baker, Nicholson	**	Mar 03	One a Day. Each chapter opens with the lighting of the fireplace with a match. Readers are invited into the mind of the lighter which Baker exposes day by day in multiple ways. Quirky and interesting.
Checkpoint	Baker, Nicholson	*	Nov 04	Chilling. Jay invites his friend, Ben, to a hotel room, sets up a videotape, and proceeds to explain that he plans to assassinate the President. Controversial, sparse and cold.
The Numerati	Baker, Stephen	***	2/23/09	Algorithms. Each of us is more than a number: we’re the product of complicated algorithms. That’s what I concluded after reading Stephen Baker’s book, The Numerati. Many smart mathematicians are developing all sorts of ways to predict our behavior, and Baker presents some of the ways in which that is happening. Baker is a Business Week reporter, and confesses to being more liberal arts major than math wiz. Thanks to that perspective, The Numerati provides a sweeping exploration of data mining without plodding down in details that might be of interest only to algorithm writers. Baker structures The Numerati to describe how our personal information is gathered and used in seven dimensions of our lives: worker, shopper, voter, blogger, terrorist, patient and lover. In each of those chapters, I learned something new, and winced or laughed often. If you’re looking for a general overview on the many ways in which personal information is being gathered, analyzed and used, this book provides such an overview.
The Medical Malpractice Myth	Baker, Tom	****	Feb 06	Evidence. A compelling, factual case for getting to the root of a real problem in medicine: there are more preventable mistakes being made by doctors and nurses. Big payments to undeserving claimants are rare, and few cases of malpractice are litigated.
Joy At Work: A Revolutionary Approach To Fun On The Job	Bakke, Dennis W.	***	July 05	Righteous. Former AES CEO describes a rare workplace where values for their own sake supercede everything else, leading to a motivated workforce full of people having fun.
Divine Justice	Baldacci, David	**	3/30/09	Tiresome. David Baldacci’s fourth Camel Club novel, Divine Justice, picks up where he ended the third one, Stone Cold. Protagonist Oliver Stone (John Carr) has to get out of D.C. following his murder of both a United States Senator and the head of the CIA. He ends up hiding out in Justice, Virginia, a mining town with a supermax prison. Despite Stone’s skills, he couldn’t successfully hide from either his government pursuer or from the remaining members of the Camel Club who wanted to find him. Since trouble always follows Stone, life in Justice, Virginia isn’t what it seems to be, and the cast of bad guys there leads to big trouble for Stone. There’s violence, murder, secrets and more near-death experiences than one individual could ever expect. Baldacci stretches it all out, milking the chapters for all he possibly contrive, and may actually bring this series to an end with this book. Fans of Baldacci and the series will probably appreciate the effort in Divine Justice, but fans of thrillers and mysteries may find the writing too tiresome to enjoy reading this mediocre offering.
First Family	Baldacci, David	**	5/25/09	Disbelief. Novelists ask readers to suspend our disbelief while they present their imagined characters and situations in ways that lead us to recognize something about human nature or relationships. Some novelists, like David Baldacci, have created brands with their novels that reprise characters and place them in new situations. Protagonists Sean King and Michelle Maxwell return in Baldacci’s latest novel, First Family. Sean and Michelle are competent private investigators, and former Secret Service agents. In First Family, they’ve been hired by the First Lady to find a missing child. What unfolds has all the qualities of a thriller: fast-paced action and plot twists and turns. For me, the novel fell apart in the middle when there were few characters that had any complexity or multiple dimensions. Past the middle, the plot became so implausible that any surrender of disbelief became impossible. I plodded through to the end, shaking my head at the drivel that can sell a lot of books. If you’re looking for an escape from reality, and little need to engage your mind, consider reading First Family.
Hour Game	Baldacci, David	**	Apr 05	Copies. Reprised characters bumble along from one copycat murder to another in a plot that drags after a promising start.
Last Man Standing	Baldacci, David	**	Jan 02	The plot is creative, and contains enough twists to keep a reader somewhat interested, despite the weak dialogue and limited use of the language.
Simple Genius	Baldacci, David	**	Oct 07	Puzzles. Reprised former Secret Service agents Sean King and Michelle Maxwell have to solve puzzles involving a secret think tank, and readers are dragged along as they slowly unravel the case.
Split Second	Baldacci, David	*	Jan 04	Slow Motion. Another attempt at a suspense novel becomes entangled in poor writing and fading reader interest over more than 400 pages of occasional fast-paced action.
Stone Cold	Baldacci, David	**		Read, but not reviewed.
The Camel Club	Baldacci, David	**	May 06	Revenge. Predictable junk reading escapist fare, with greater complexity and sensationalism than prior novels. Unlikely situations, thrilling plot, many characters.
The Christmas Train	Baldacci, David	*	Jan 03	No Twain. Weak dialogue, unsympathetic characters, lame story, slow plot development. Happily, it’s not too many pages. Modeled after a story Mark Twain didn’t write. Our loss.
The Collectors	Baldacci, David	Unread		Shelf of Ennui 2007
The Whole Truth	Baldacci, David	***	Aug 08	Absolute. No room for nuance or subtlety in this action novel pitting competent hero against evil villain. Entertaining summer reading.
True Blue	Baldacci, David	**	12/12/09	False. The plot of David Baldacci’s new novel, True Blue, moved quickly and provided lots of suspense. While I kept wanting to savor the development of the interesting characters, I found that with every passing chapter, they became more cardboard-like rather than human. Set in Washington, DC, two sisters are featured: one the police chief, the other, a former cop who’s being released from jail as the story opened. A hundred or more pages could have been edited out of this novel without much loss. Readers looking for a thrill will find some pleasure here, but those who want more depth to characters, should look beyond True Blue for something else.