| Marta's Reading InSight | number 5 |  |
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| Amazing adventures
of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon |
New York City 1939. Joe Kavalier has escaped Nazi-occupied Prague and, looking to make money, joins his cousin Sammy Clay to create the heroes, stories, and art for the latest novelty: comic books. Weaving the legend of the Escapist hero and the mistress of the night, Luna Moth, they usher in the Golden Age of comic books, while the shadow of Hitler looms. An engaging epic written with brilliance and grace. |
| Bee Season by Myla Goldberg |
A reinvention of the family saga, this quirky and captivating story revolves around a spelling bee. Nine-year-old Eliza's natural talent for spelling disrupts her usual role as the "slow" one in this suburban Jewish family. Father, mother and brother must re-examine their attitudes and Goldberg presents this in an offbeat and lyrical way. |
| Are you somebody:
The accidental memoir of a Dublin Woman. by Nuala O'Faolain |
Raised in Dublin by an alcoholic mother and an absent father, O'Faolain nevertheless plunged into life with passion. Telling a story shaped by loneliness, loss, love, pain and self-discovery ,she writes of romance, feminism, parenthood , and belief in God. |
| The Samurai's Garden by Gail Tsukiyama |
A young man is sent to a tiny Japanese beach town to recuperate from tuberculosis. The serenity of the story intensifies when a friendship between the young Chinese man and the unassuming, old, Japanese caretaker begins to grow. Lessons of fate and friendship against the backdrop of a nearby invading army. Tsukiyama, daughter of a Chinese mother and a Japanese father, writes lucid and sensual prose. |
| Operating Instructions:
A journal of my son's first year by Annie Lamott |
Recognizing the wild highs and lows of new parenthood, she tells it with wit and sarcasm, tenderness and love, bliss and self-mockery. A single parent living with an unusual group of family and friends, she is newly sober and newly religious. |
| Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross |
Based on the legend that a ninth century woman disguised as a man actually reigned as Pope, this vividly presents life in the Dark Ages. Historical fiction full of the drama of love, sex, duplicity, and long-buried secrets. |
| Look at me by Jennifer Egan |
Turning from a
woman in ninth century Rome to one in twentieth century New
York, we meet the fashion model protagonist of LOOK AT ME
by Jennifer Egan. After an accident in her home town of Rockford,
Illinois, facial surgery leaves her unrecognizable and she floats
through her former life as if invisible. Recognitions and misunderstandings,
memories and self-images, lend new meaning to the public images
which surround us. |
| The diving bell and the
butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby |
Jean-Dominique Bauby personally describes the experience of being locked inside an unresponsive body, after he has a massive stroke at the age of forty three. Able to move nothing except his left eyelid, he describes the sensation of having a diving bell on his chest, but soaring like a butterfly nevertheless. Delectable foods, the sound and feel of the beach, as well as his strong determination to communicate are all dictated by the blinks of one eyelid. A remarkable book. |
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Marta Campbell, Head of Collection Management |  |
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| Tel: 203-291-4842 | E-mail: mcampbell@westportlibrary.org | |||
dcelia@westportlibrary.org