Becky’s Picks

The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta

I’m never disappointed when I pick up a Tom Perrotta novel. Perrotta’s latest is a witty, darkly humorous, fast (but far from fluffy) read concerning the clashes — and attraction — between a liberal sex-ed teacher and a Born Again Christian soccer coach in a small New England town. I devoured this in a couple of days, then wouldn’t shut up about it for several more. Hard to put down and makes you think — what a good combination!

Back to Wando Passo by David Payne

Payne’s novel is a richly imagined saga, one in which two parallel storylines centuries apart drive the narrative. Ran Hill, a formerly successful pop songwriter in the 80’s, has joined his estranged wife, Claire, at her family’s Southern estate, a former plantation. While dealing with a love triangle in his own life, an uncovered artifact propels Ran into a similar tale of love and race a century and a half old. Love, time-travel, history, voodoo — this unique novel is packed!

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

Here in Newburyport we were lucky enough to welcome Diaz as part of the lineup for last year’s Lit Fest. His new novel is a whirl of colorful language, curses (both the profane and literal kind), Dominican history, and at the center of it all is Oscar Wao, a fat, sci-fi loving teenage Dominican-American writer. Oscar, his mother and his sister Lola provide the inspiration for this tale spun intelligently and flamboyantly by Yunior, Oscar’s college roommate, Lola’s former paramour and the family’s biggest advocate. Read this for the history, the tragedy, the love stories, or simply to root for Oscar — you’ll want to!

The Post Birthday World by Lionel Shriver

Have you ever thought about the infinite directions your life could take, based on the tiniest incident? This fascinating book follows Irina, a woman who finds herself at such a crossroads. After years living in London with Lawrence, her solid, faithful, intellectual partner, she finds herself inexplicably attracted to another man, Ramsey, a moderately famous acquaintance. From then on, Shriver explores the two possible paths Irina’s life could take — if she stays with stable Lawrence, or if she takes up with exciting Ramsey. Excellent book for fans of the movie Sliding Doors, or anyone who likes to wonder, “what if?”

The Secret of Lost Things by Sheridan Hay

A coming of age story, a love story, and a good literary mystery — what’s not to like?? Eighteen-year-old Rosemary arrives in New York City from Tasmania in the early 1980s, shortly after her mother’s death, knowing no one. She soon finds work at the Arcade Bookstore, reminiscent of New York’s famous Strand (where the author herself worked). She becomes infatuated with Oscar, an intellectual Albino, and, with him, ensnared in a mystery involving an undiscovered work of Herman Melville’s. In the Arcade, Hay has truly created a masterpiece, and Dickensian characters abound! I predict this will be a favorite of booksellers — and booklovers — everywhere.

Paint It Black by Janet Fitch

All of Janet Fitch’s usual hallmarks are here: complicated female characters, the glamour and tragedy of LA, intricate and absorbing prose. It’s the early 80s, and punk rock runaway Josie Tyrell and her brilliant artist boyfriend, Michael, couldn’t be happier. Until Michael commits suicide. Josie and Michael’s cold, famous pianist mother, Meredith, are then drawn together by equal parts grief and need. Beautiful and heartwrenching, I absolutely could not put this down.

Her Mother’s Daughter by Linda Carroll

Yes, this is a memoir written by the mother of Courtney Love, one of the wildest women in recent music history — but it is so much more than a celebrity tell-all. This story is about Linda, a woman coming of age in the 60’s and 70’s, the child of sometimes-cold adoptive parents and the now mother of five children. It has received rave reviews as a touching, reflective portrait of mothers and daughters, and was a thoroughly engrossing read from beginning to end. Fans of The Glass Castle will enjoy this book!

Bluesman by Andre Dubus III

This first novel by local author Dubus, author of The House of Sand and Fog, introduces us to Leo Suthers, eighteen years old, a student of the blues harmonica, and in love with Allie, the sixteen-year-old daughter of his boss on the construction crew. Beautifully rendered by Dubus, Leo’s coming of age story is a “sympathetic chronicle of an ordinary life.”

The Last of Her Kind by Sigrid Nunez

Two roommates at Barnard College in 1968 could not be more different: Georgette from a hard-scrapple background, and Ann, an activist who rejects her privileged upbringing. Nunez’s mesmerizing narrative follows both women through the decades after they have fallen out of touch — until Ann gets convicted of murder in the late 70s. For anyone who enjoys novels about women, or the heady period of counterculturalism in America’s recent history.

Half Life by Shelley Jackson

Read this book — it will twist your mind. Incredibly creative, satirical, perverse and very funny, Half Life tackles the same subject matter as another wonderful new book, Lori Lansens’ The Girls — conjoined twins — but with a decidedly different tone. Nora and Blanche Olney are conjoined twins (known as “twofers”) living in an alternate present in which guilt over the atomic destruction of Hiroshima has led to an unusually large number of such twins. In their late twenties, Nora and Blanche live in San Francisco, hub of twofer activism, and Blanche has been asleep for fifteen years. When Nora heads to London seeking controversial “divorce” surgery, she must delve into their shared past and present.

Kindred by Octavia Butler

Kindred, which recently celebrated its 25th anniversary, is what I love about science fiction: a book that uses time travel as a way to answer a basic, very real question — how could anyone be a slave? What were slaves’ lives like? What would it be like if a modern-day black woman from the 1970s, Dana, was repeatedly called back in time to rescue the white son of an antebellum Southern plantation owner — who would eventually become her ancestor? The answers lie in this fascinating book.

Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld

The New York Times picked this as one of the 10 best books of 2005, and I’m happy to say I agree wholeheartedly. One of the most honest, warts-and-all portrayals of a high-school-age protagonist I’ve read. We follow Lee through 4 years at prestigious Ault School, through her friendships, trials with her family, and most of all her observations about everyone and everything around her. Days after reading it, I can’t get her out of my head.

Jesus Land by Julia Scheeres

Julia Scheeres’ haunting memoir takes us to the fundamentalist Midwest, as she grows up with tyrannically strict, distant parents who require their children to eat “garbage soup” even as the father drives a Porsche to work. The Scheeres family also includes two adopted black brothers — one whom Julia adamantly avoids, and one with whom she forges a deep alliance. The book is split in two halves — the first details the daily prejudices she and her brother David face in their Indiana town; the second takes us to Escuela Caribe in the Dominican Republic, after Julia and David are sent to “Christian boot camp” after their parents decide they’ve had enough of them.

How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff

Meg Rosoff’s award-winning novel tells the scary yet sadly realistic story of war breaking out in the 21st century. Jaded, troubled 15 year old Manhattanite Daisy is sent to live with her cousins — whom she’s never met — in the English countryside. She finds herself falling in love with her 14 year old cousin Edmond — and, suddenly, stuck in the middle of a foreign war. Abruptly torn away from the rest of her family, Daisy must soon rely on survival instincts to keep herself and her 9 year old cousin, Piper, alive. It isn’t a “light” read, but one that is frightening, beautiful, powerful, and resonates with you long after you’ve put it down.

Wicked by Gregory Maguire

Maguire’s first novel tells the backstory behind Dorothy’s dreaded Witch. Actually, Elphaba — the unfortunately green-skinned woman others know as the Wicked Witch — has had a more trying life than Dorothy, coping with a misunderstood childhood, a murdered lover and the death of a beautiful, yet crippled, sister. The ending is the same, but Maguire’s is an intriguing, wicked romp through Oz.

Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

The best book I’ve read in the past year, all because of the incredible lead character — Foer’s 9 year old Oskar Schell: inventor, jewelry designer, pacifist and Francophile. Oskar embarks on a curious mission that takes him through the streets of Manhattan three years after his father died in the September 11th attacks. Along the way, he meets survivors of all kinds.

If you read one book this year, read this one — it will stay with you.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon

Enter the mind of Christopher Boone, an autistic 15 year old who finds himself at the center of a very curious mystery-a neighbor’s dog has been impaled with a garden fork, and he is accused of the crime. Animal-lover Christopher decides to find out for himself who the murderer is, and makes plenty of surprising discoveries along the way.

Saving the World by Julia Alvarez

This is the first Alvarez book I’ve read, but rest assured I will be reading more! Edna Huebner and Isabel Sanchez y Gomez live two centuries apart, but they both find themselves following men who are trying to “save the world” through somewhat questionable means. Their stories intertwine — Edna is writing a novel about Isabel. Alvarez’s intelligent and feminist prose explores why some women make the choices they do, and the conflict between altruism and class differences.

Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer

If you’ve seen the recent movie adaptation of this bestseller, you only know a fraction of the story. Jonathan Safran Foer sets off to the Ukraine on a quest to find the woman who saved his grandfather during World War II. Interweaved with this Holocaust-era love story is Safran Foer’s imagined story of the origins of his grandfather’s shtetl, and also the modern-day story of Alex, Jonathan’s hilarious young translator in the Ukraine.

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

A wonderful, thought-provoking book with a decidedly feminist bent. This book kept me up for days, immersed in the story of Offred, Atwood’s narrator in the post-United States, the Republic of Gilead, where women have only two purposes: to reproduce and to keep house. For fans of Orwell and Huxley, a modern classic.

The World According to Garp by John Irving

A deliciously overstuffed coming of age tale, Irving’s story follows the life of TS Garp, born under unconventional circumstances to feminist Jenny Fields and raised in a world full of strange characters. Garp travels from the prep schools of New England to a life as a husband and father. But in Garp’s world, nothing is ever as it seems.

A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L’Engle

Third in the Wrinkle in Time series, this story follows Meg Murray O’Keefe as the world faces a threat of nuclear war. Meg and her exceptional brother, Charles Wallace, must travel through time to save the world. This is a richly layered piece that tells several intertwining stories — one of my favorite books, and I don’t usually even like fantasy! Great for children and adults alike.

White Oleander by Janet Fitch

This book was recently turned into a hit movie starring Michelle Pfeiffer, but as is often the case, the book puts the movie to shame. Its story follows a teenager, Astrid, as she moves through a series of foster homes, each with a mother more damaged and compelling than the last . . . engrossing!

The True Story of Hansel and Gretel by Louise Murphy

A modern retelling of a classic fairy tale, set during the Holocaust. Two young Jewish children renamed “Hansel” and “Gretel” to protect their identities, are released into the woods by their parents in hopes that they will not be killed but saved. Deep in the woods they encounter a “witch,” Magda, who risks her life by housing the children.