Book of the Month...September 2008

The Devil in the White City, by Erik Larson.

Subtitled Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair That Changed America, the Devil in the White City takes place against the backdrop of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair and is about two men: Daniel Hudson Burnam, famous architect who designed New York’s Flatiron Building and who was director of “works” for the Fair, and Henry H. Holmes – a doctor and a serial killer who uses the Fair as his stalking ground for victims.

Their stories are told in parallel and both are equally as riveting. The architect who struggled to merge the talents of Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles McKim and Louis Sullivan, to turn what was a swamp with the prosiac name of Jackson Park into the White City of the Chicago Fair: the physician who constructed his own “Fair” wherein he lured and tortured women to their deaths.

The Devil in the White City is a fascinating, true story of an intriguing time in our nation’s history and several characters that – for whatever reason – remain unforgettable. Meg

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Book of the Month....August 2008

Digging to America by Ann Tyler.
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On the surface, this is a novel about two very different families thrown together by chance and their mutual decision to adopt a Korean child. But if you dig further, it is a novel about cultural identity and what happens to an individual’s identity when that connection to culture is lost.

The Donaldsons and the Yazdans meet at BWI (Baltimore/

Washington International Airport); both have adopted a child from Korea and both are meeting that child for the first time. The families are very different: Brad and Bitsy Donaldson are white, upper middle-class; Sami and Ziba Yazdan are Iranian Americans and far from well-to-do. But their new daughters draw them together, and as time goes one, the families become friends – although that friendship is sometimes strained.

Bitsy Donaldson is bound and determined to celebrate and keep her daughter’s oriental heritage alive. She names her Jin-Ho and dresses her in oriental costumes on her anniversary date. The Yazdan’s, who have been assimiliated themselves, are more comfortable letting their daughter, Susan, lose sight of her heritage.

Sami’s mother, Maryam Yazdan is the ambivalent one. She is bound and determined to retain her ties to her Iranian heritage, but this determination has effectively cut her off from friendship, community and love in America. As the two families and their children learn how to manage both heritage and acceptance so, too, Maryam must learn to let her culture not become a barrier to her future happiness. Meg

Book of the Month...July 2008

Fallen Founder by Nancy Isenberg
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Villain or patriot? Scheming politician or forward thinker, way ahead of his time? Ms. Isenberg’s book of revisionist history explores all these questions and more while she relates the life and death of one of America’s most controversial figures, Aaron Burr.

In this challenging, but fascinating biography, Isenberg asserts that Burr was, in fact, “the only founder to embrace feminism” and the only one who “adhered to the ideal that reason should transcend party differences.” None of the founding fathers were without faults and human frailties, and Burr was no exception. But his character and contributions should not be ignored.

Fallen Founder is an interesting portrait and one that should lead to much discussion and thoughtful reflection. Meg

Book of the Month....June 2008

Five Skies, by Ron Carlson
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One summer in the Rocky Mountains, three men are brought together to construct a ramp to nowhere – a causeway for a daredevil motorcycle rider to jump across a canyon. As the men work together, their wounded lives and backgrounds are gradually revealed: Darwin’s wife died and he is in the grip of grief and fury; Arthur, after betraying someone close to him, has abandoned his career as a Hollywood stunt engineer to build this road to emptiness; Ronnie, the youngest of the three, is a petty thief and runaway looking for a way back to a normal life.

Carlson, writing his first novel after several succesful short story collections, describes how these three men grow into a family of sorts. Redemption, tragedy, and grace come at the end. Meg

Book of the month.....May 2008

The Great Swim, by Gavin Mortimer
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Why would anyone want to swim the English Channel?? Well – this book is about 4 women who, during the summer of 1926 –just after World War I – battled each other in a race to be the first woman to swim across that Channel. The 4 American women – Gertrude Ederle, Mille Gade, Lillian Cannon and Clarabelle Barrett – were each backed by various American newspapers from New York to Boston – and these newspapers made the most of the publicity that a woman, in a bathing costume on the front page of a national newspaper would produce.

Mr. Mortimer uses a great variety of sources to reconstruct the excitement and drama that accompanied an event that captured the heart of people on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

Check the library's catalog for The Great Swim. Meg

Book of the Month....April 2008

Mozart's Ghost, by Julia Cameron
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Meet Anna, a thirtysomething Midwesterner living alone in New York City. A schoolteacher by day, she is a medium by night, covertly helping people reunite with their lost loved ones. Anna leads a double life, guarding her secret as much as she guards her heart – until Edward, a gangly yet quietly handsome concert pianist, moves into her building.

Edward’s music fills Anna’s apartment with beautiful sounds that disturb her concentration and her lines of communication with ghosts. She and Edward fall for each other fast, but Anna is conflicted: by exposing her true identity, does she risk losing what may be her true love? And is music really his true love?

Then a ghost begins to interfere – Mozart’s ghost – and while making a pest of himself to Anna, he begins to play matchmaker with unpredictable results….**

Julia Cameron is also the author of several books about writing, including The Artists’ Way.

(**Text from book's fly leaf.)