The Secret Rooms by Catherine Bailey

What begins as a trip to do research for an upcoming book turns into a real-life mystery for television producer Catherine Bailey.  The Secret Rooms reads like something in a PBS Masterpiece or Downton Abbey script:  historian goes to giant English castle to research for a book and is let into a series of rooms that have been completely sealed off for more than 60 years.  While going through the extensive trove of family letters, she notices that all of the letters from the person she is most interested in, John, the 9^th Duke of Rutland, are missing for about six months of World War I.  Not only that: all of the letters from all of the family members are missing during the exact same dates.  Another queer fact pops up during this mystery: John died in the series of rooms where all of the family records were kept though he was suffering from a preventable illness.  What was he feverishly working on until the moment of his death?  Her original book idea abandoned due to a lack of primary sources, the thought continually nags at her: why, if the 9^th Duke was such a meticulous records keeper, would such a large bunch of letters be missing?  What transpires is a twisting hunt through decades of family and government records. 

After much searching, Bailey discovers that there was not one gap in the family’s letters, but three.  Once again, not only John’s letters, but those of the entire family were missing for the periods beginning on August 23^rd 1894, June 6^th 1909 and July 7^th 1915.  While she surmises that the gap in 1915 could potentially have something to do with the war, the gaps for 1909 (when John was stationed at the British Embassy in Rome) and the gap in 1894 (when John was only eight years old) are particularly puzzling.  Was John hiding something that he did or was he covering for someone else?

Bailey takes us on a thrilling ride through the early 20^th British aristocracy and the secrets they kept.  This book is a great choice for both readers who enjoy the writing style of Erik Larson’s Devil in the White City and those who enjoy the world of Downton Abbey.  The Secret Rooms is a fascinating true history of a family who would do almost anything to see their estate and way of life survive.  

Check out The Secret Rooms by Catherine Bailey @ the library!

The Gallery of Regrettable Foods by James Lileks

In this day and age people from all walks of life fret about the obesity epidemic. Why, we ask, are people struggling with this problem more now than in previous decades? Conventional wisdom says that the causes are too many snacks, too many sugary drinks and too little exercise. These logical conclusions are probably correct, but a reader of The Gallery of Regrettable Foods may discover another possible reason. Perhaps the food served in previous decades just did not look or taste good enough to tempt one to overeat.  James Lileks has been collecting post-war cook books and pamphlets for many years and has compiled the best (or worst) of them in this book. Here is a portrait of an earlier America when no one worried about salt or fat, salad was made with gelatin, famous chefs cooked with marshmallows, married women used their husbands’ first names and ethnic food meant a teaspoon of chili powder or soy sauce in a casserole. Do you need a new idea for refreshments for your sophisticated cocktail party? Try toast! Or jellied calf’s liver! Or frankfurters in aspic! There are few recipes in this book, just a lot of unappetizing pictures and some hilarious observations by Mr. Lileks. The Gallery of Regrettable Food will make you laugh out loud.

Check out The Gallery of Regrettable Food @ the library!

At Night We Walk in Circles by Daniel Alarcon

At Night We Walk in Circles is a book for the patient reader. Its exposition slowly sets the stage for the meeting of the two main characters: Henry the playwright and Nelson the actor. Nearly fifteen years earlier, during a war of rebellion in an unnamed South American country, Henry had been imprisoned for writing a seditious play, “The Idiot President.” Now that politics and rebellion are no longer an issue, he has planned a revival of the play with a three-man touring group.  Nelson, a rather naïve and directionless young man, joins the cast, leaving behind his widowed mother and estranged girlfriend, Ixta.  As the troupe travels inland, performing in small mountain villages, Henry tells Nelson more about his imprisonment. In the last village, Nelson becomes involved with the elderly mother of a ruthless drug dealer, who believes Nelson is her long-lost youngest son. When he begins to regret having ended his relationship with Ixta, he suddenly bolts, deserting the mother, heading back to the city and angering the drug dealer who sends his thugs after Nelson to exact revenge. Back in the city, Nelson is a changed man, more aggressive and more resolved to revive his relationship with Ixta, who is pregnant and living with another man. Eventually, a tragedy occurs and although a mysterious narrator has been hinting at a bad outcome for Nelson throughout the book, the reader is taken by surprise by the actual event. 

Check out At Night We Walk in Circles @ the library!

The Returned by Jason Mott

This book is about the life of Harold and Lucille Hargrave whose world is turned upside down with a knock on the door.  Their son died 50 years ago and he has now returned from the dead.  At eight years of age Jacob is exactly how Lucille remembered him.  All over the world loved ones are returning from the dead.   What would you do if your loved one was back from the dead?

Lucille and Harold live in the small town of Arcadia and with so many people returning it is difficult to find room for all of them.  The Federal Bureau of the Returned starts to take over the situation and many of the townsfolk are not too happy.  One of the struggles that everyone is having is that they do not know why people are returning and if it should be considered a miracle or a warning of something to come.

This was a really good read and really made me think more about life and death.  The author’s note at the end of the novel really gives a food feel for why the author wrote this story.  This is a good read for anyone who is interested in the afterlife.  Or if you are curious as to what the world could become if all our loved ones returned.    

Want to read more about the returned? Jason Mott wrote some short stories as prequels to The Returned they  are in e-book form and can be found through the library.  They are, “The Choice,” “The First” and “The Sparrow.”   These short stories give more background information on some of those that were returned in his novel, The Returned.

Jason Mott’s Novel is being made into a television program called, The Resurrection.  It premiers on Sunday March 9 @ 9/8c on ABC.  Check out more about the show here: http://abc.go.com/shows/resurrection

Check out The Returned @ the library!

Snow Hunters by Paul Yoon

Yohan, a North Korean soldier who spent several years in a prisoner-of-war camp, refused to be repatriated after the 1953 Armistice brought the Korean War to an end. So, the United Nations arranged for his passage to a coastal town in Brazil where he lived and worked with a Japanese tailor.   In this foreign town in a distant land with a strange language, the soldier finds a home and kindness from strangers, most particularly his employer, the Japanese tailor, Kiyoshi, a refugee from another war.  In war-torn Korea, Yohan had witnessed a family walking precariously across the snow-covered war ruins of their bombed-out village, filling their pockets, seemingly salvaging something from nothing. These were snow hunters, people struggling to sustain themselves in lives that had been irrevocably changed. In Snow Hunters, Yohan does the same. The situation may be less physically dire, but Yohan’s search for belonging in a very foreign place is also a difficult task which takes patience and resilience. The fact that Yohan’s employer and closest friend is Japanese, a nationality that was long the oppressor of Korea, shows how people can adjust to new circumstances. As Yohan looks back on his early life, the reader discovers that he never had much opportunity for choice. His was a foreordained fate: farmer, orphan, soldier.  Then, as a prisoner of war, at the point in his life when he was most vulnerable, he was offered a choice. He made a most daring decision and his life was changed forever.    

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We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawyo

Darling is a ten year old girl living in an unnamed African country, probably based on Zimbabwe. She spends her days with a group of friends, children like her who have had their homes, schools and families destroyed by poverty and political violence. Unsupervised, they spend their days playing rough games, vandalizing property and stealing fruit from the trees in a wealthy neighborhood. Despite these activities, the essential innocence of the children is apparent in Darling’s telling of the story. Darling likes to brag to her friends that she will one day be joining her Aunt Fostalina in America and enjoy the all the benefits of life in that country. As a teenager, Darling does join her aunt in “Destroyed,” Michigan but the benefits she envisioned elude her. She misses the companionship of close friends because Americans choose isolation in their homes and apartments in front of televisions and computers. They don’t face hunger, but Americans either gorge themselves into obesity or starve themselves in order to be thin. School is not challenging and available jobs are menial and low-paying. Higher education is financially out of reach. Eventually Darling does make some American friends, but in place of running wild through the countryside, they watch pornography on the internet, drive illegally and hang out at the local mall.   Darling misses the family and friends she left behind in Africa but is unable to return and probably would no longer fit in if she could. Between two cultures, she faces a future of loneliness and dreams denied.  

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Glitter and Glue by Kelly Corrigan

Kelly Corrigan is a young woman in her early 20s.  She longs for adventure, for a chance to have interesting new experiences that you can only have when you “leave the house.”   She and her college roommate decide to go on a round-the-world trip beginning in Taipei.  The two are on the road for two months before they run out of cash while in Sydney, Australia.  Corrigan pictured herself working in a bar or restaurant to save up money for the next leg of her trip; not playing nanny to two kids whose mother has recently died of cancer.   And she certainly never expected to travel more than half way around the world to connect with her mother, of all people.  But this book is all about difference between what you imagine and what is.  About what you think is important, and what actually is important.

Corrigan uses a lot of flashbacks to talk about the type of person her mother is.  She makes it very plain that she and her mother have virtually nothing in common.  Her mother is a practical woman.  One who doesn’t spoil her children and makes them follow her rules at all times.  Her father, however, was always a pleasant, outgoing guy who loved to spend time with his kids after work and called his only daughter “Lovie.”  But as her mother liked to remind her daughter, “Your father’s the glitter but I’m the glue.”  Corrigan relishes the opportunity to be living her own adventure away from her mother’s nagging but soon finds that her mother’s voice is the one constantly giving her advice on how to care for the Tanner children.  As the weeks tick by, Corrigan is struck by how the Tanner family learns to survive without a mother.  The harder she tries to help the children, the more she thinks about her own mother and slowly discovers that life’s true adventure is experiencing life within a family. 

Glitter and Glue is a quick read that is a different type of coming of age memoir.  It begins with a young woman’s quest for independence and excitement and ends with her deep feelings about the importance of family.  Glitter and Glue is available everywhereFebruary 4th, 2014.