Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

 

     Nine-year-old Oskar Schell and his father used to play “reconnaissance” games where they would follow clues and recover items around New York City.  Then his father is killed in the second tower in the September 11th  attacks.  Finding a mysterious key in an envelope marked “Black” in a vase in his father’s closet, Oskar thinks it’s another game and embarks on a quest that is not merely an adventure, but also a journey into his own feelings of loss and guilt. 

 

            A challenging but very rewarding read, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a very effective and moving tale of a boy’s coming of age. 

 

Read-Alikes: 

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers

Absent Friends by S.J. Rozan

Every Boy by Dana Adam Shapiro

Dear Zoë by Philip Beard

Catherine Nashak, Deer Park Public Library

 

 

 

Heart in the Right Place by Carolyn Jourdan

 

     This is the story of Carolyn Jourdan, the daughter of a doctor in the very rural Eastern Tennessee mountains. She has a high powered career as a Senate staffer in Washington DC but suddenly must return home after her mother has a heart attack.  Carolyn’s father is the only doctor and for 40 years, he and his wife have managed medical care for the people in the area. Her mother is a rural health Nurse and ran the front desk and assisted her husband wherever she was need. Carolyn has no medical training, but takes over the front desk part while her Mother recuperates.

 

    This is the story of how Carolyn decided to stay in Eastern Tennessee and help her parents continue their medical service to this rural community. Some of her stories are funny, some are very tragic.  This story illustrates the dedication of people who devote their entire lives to helping other people. Carolyn went into public service to be of some use in the world, and realizes that she is more valuable helping this rural community than she is in Washington DC.

 

 Read-Alikes:

 

                                                               Elizabeth Reade, Mastic Moriches Shirley Community Library

 

 

Jumbo:  This Being the True Story of the Greatest Elephant in the World by Paul Chambers 

 

      Have you ever flown on a jumbo jet? Asked for an order of jumbo fries? We use the word “jumbo” to describe the sheer enormity of an object. But most are probably not aware that the term entered our vocabulary as a result of the popularity of an African elephant born in the mid-19th century. Paul Chambers has written a book that traces the story of Jumbo—the greatest elephant in the world.

 

     Snatched from the wilds of Africa, Jumbo was taken to Paris and then London before he was bought by P.T. Barnum and transported to New York City. In all of his travels, throngs of people would greet Jumbo upon his arrival, and then gather again to see him off upon his departure. Chambers’ account of Jumbo’s life provides a meticulous snapshot of a social phenomenon. Read about the handler who became a recluse while caring for Jumbo for over thirty years; learn about the competitive and cruel practices that zoological societies used to procure exotic animals; and marvel at the enormous fame that Jumbo commanded up to the time of his tragic death.

 

     Entertaining and well-researched, Jumbo reads like a novel. It will appeal to animal lovers as well as those who would like to take a glimpse into life in the late 19th century. The book’s images will linger in one’s heart and mind long after the completion of the final chapter.    

     

    Other non-fiction titles that may interest Jumbo readers are Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin, and Modoc: The True Story of the Greatest Elephant That Ever Lived by Ralph Helfer. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen and Hannah’s Dream by Diane Hammond are two novels that Jumbo readers may enjoy, and don’t forget to revisit Dumbo, the Walt Disney classic that was, in fact, inspired by Jumbo.

 

 

Deborah Formosa, Northport-East Northport Public Library 

That Summer in Sicily by Marlena de Blasi

    A tale of life and love in the mountains of Sicily.   While trying to do research on the interior regions of Sicily, de Blasi literally stumbles upon the Villa Donnafugata.  The story of this amazing place from another time and how it emerged out of the past is told to de Blasi by the vila's mistress, Tosca.  When she was nine or ten years old, her widowed father had sent her to live at the villa with Leo, a Sicilian prince, in exchange for a stallion that he wanted desperately.

 

    In the years following World War II, the prince and his ward fall in love and together bring education, health care and a new vitality to the village.  Ultimately, Leo is kidnapped and his disappearamce is blamed on the local Mafiosi.  After losing Leo, Tosca goes to live for a time in Palermo.  What happens at Donnafugata and to the villagers upon her return - how they care for one another and go about their tasks is the heart of this book.

Read-Alikes:  A Thousand Days in Venice and

Grace O'Connor, West Islip Public Library

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

 

    Thursday Next is a Literary Detective.  It’s her job to investigate crimes of all kinds involving the book world but when characters from classic literature start to go missing, literary detection takes on a whole new meaning.

 

    The Eyre Affair is great for readers looking for something a little different.  Yes, it takes a bit of imagination to get into it, but the concept is so unique that it’s definitely worth it.  It has a little something for everyone and once you see London from Thursday’s point of view, you’ll be clamoring to become a Literary Detective yourself.

 

    The Eyre Affair is part mystery, part science-fiction, part fantasy and a whole lot of fun.  Everything is a little off in Thursday’s world where the present time is actually 1985, the Crimean War is still going on, characters have names like Jack Schitt and Braxton Hicks, you can re-engineer a dodo bird to be your family pet, cheese is a black-market item and everything is sponsored by the Toast Marketing Board.

 

Read-Alikes:

Making History by Stephen Fry

The Nursery Crime Series by Jasper Fforde

The Discworld Series by Terry Pratchett

Harry Turtledove for alternative history fiction 

 

Azurée Agnello – West Babylon Public Library

 

 The Good Guy by Dean Koontz

 

     Timothy Carrier, a quiet stone mason having a beer in a California bar, meets a stranger who mistakes him for a hit man. The stranger slips him a manila envelope containing $10,000 in cash and a photo of the intended victim, then leaves. A moment later, the real killer, arrives and assumes Tim is his client. Tim manages to distract the killer from immediately carrying out the hit by saying he’s changed his mind and will return the money he just received. Tim feels that by doing this, he will have time to warn the victim. But can he save her life and his?

 

Read-Alikes:

The Husband  by Dean Koontz

Forever Odd  by Dean Koontz.

Exit Strategy by Kelley Armstrong

 

Rosalie Toja, Brentwood Public Library

 

The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit by Lucette Lagnado

 

    Senior special writer and investigative reporter for the Wall Street Journal, Lagnado writes of her "family's exodus from Old Cairo to the New World."  After the fall of King Farouk and the purging of all foreign influences, the Lagnados are forced to make their escape.  With their belongings packed into twenty-six suitcases, they depart for any country that will take them.  The poverty and hardships they encounter in their journey from Cairo to Paris to New York are set against the beauty and comfort of the lives they left behind.  A very personal story of one family's fortunes and misfortunes and a heartbreaking account of lives forever changed.

 

Read-Alikes: 

The Septembers of Shiraz by Dalia Sofer

Bearing the Body by Ehud Havazelet

The Zookeeper's Wife by Diane Ackerman

 

Grace O'Connor, West Islip Public Library

 

Promised Land: Thirteen Books That Changed America by Jay Parini

 

    Inspired by a lecture that identified seminal British titles, Jay Parini, a poet, novelist, biographer and college professor, determined to look for the books that have defined America’s national identity.  The result is a fascinating selection covering topics about our national experience: exploration, independence, immigration, assimilation, government, religious freedom, race and ethnicity.  The chosen books are Of Plymouth Plantation, The Federalist Papers, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, The Journals of Lewis and Clark, Walden, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Souls of Black Folk, The Promised Land, How to Win Friends and Influence People, On The Road, The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care and The Feminine Mystique.  For each title Parini gives an introduction and some background about the book and its author, a summary, and a discussion about the reasons for selection.

 

     You’ll learn a lot of history here!  You can turn to the Appendix and find an annotated list of one hundred other special books that might have been included. This would be an excellent choice for an issues oriented, or history, reading group, and is highly recommended.  Read-alikes include 12 Books That Changed the World by Melvyn Bragg, and Alfred Kazin’s A Writer’s America. Landscape in Literature.

 

Suzanne McGuire, Commack Public Library

 

 Consumption by Kevin Patterson

 

     Consumption takes place in the Canadian Arctic in the late 1960s and 70s. The title of this book, Consumption, has both literal and metaphorical meaning. Literal as in tuberculosis, but also metaphorical in the sense of what the material goods and spiritual emptiness of the modern world is doing to the traditional Inuit way of life.

     Victoria is ten years old in 1962 when she is sent from her village on the shores of Hudson Bay to recover from tuberculosis. Six years later she returns to her community to find it unrecognizable. Her people, formerly nomadic hunters, have now traded their lifestyle for a settlement existence.  Her town is now populated by non-natives with their mining interests, western medicine, and alien religious ideas. She finds that is now impossible to tolerate the food and living conditions that she grew up with, having been exposed to modern ways while she was in the sanitarium. 

   

    She marries a white man who accepts a job offer from a mining concern that believes a fortune in diamonds is in the area. Victoria’s husband, John Robertson, eventually betrays the Inuit in his role as manager of the mine. Victoria and her family are deeply affected by the force s tearing apart their society. 

 

     Consumption is a powerful novel that will make you think about the real meaning of progress and civilization, and a fascinating study of a culture most readers know little about.

     

    Kevin Patterson has extensive personal experience as a kablunuak, a white person living among the Inuit. He works as an emergency and general medicine doctor on Saltspring Island in British Columbia, Canada. He put himself through medical school by serving in the Canadian Army. He has an M.F.A. and his fiction has won numerous awards.

 

Read-Alikes may include: 

The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney

The Long Exile: A Tale of Inuit Betrayal and Survival in the High Arctic by Melanie McGrath

Crow and Weasel by Barry Lopez

Elle by Douglas Glover

Ada Blackjack: A True Story of Survival in the Arctic by Jennifer Niven

Bruce Silverstein, Patchogue-Medford Library

 

 Mortal Danger by Ann Rule

 

     The author of many true crime novels, Ann Rule's Mortal Danger is the 13th volume in her Crime Files series.  This book covers 5 true crime cases involving possessive, controlling men and the women that they terrorized.  The author returns to old cases that have finally come to their conclusion, and relates a few recent cases as well. 

 

     In Mortal Danger, Kate Jewell endures a 10-year relationship with John Williams before fleeing naked and barefoot, through the woods in order to escape being strangled and stabbed to death by him.  Unfortunately, years later Turi Bentley succumbed to John's jealous rages when he shot her to death.

 

    Written in Blood details the murders of Brian and Bev Mauck, who were murdered by a neighbor supposedly for calling him a name.  Daniel Tavares confessed to the crimes.  It was later found that he had killed his mother years earlier.

 

   If I can't have you is a 23-page report on the stabbing death of Amelia Jager.  Heinz, her husband of three months refused her any friends or social interaction.  When she left him, he followed and killed her, also severely injuring her sister.

 

    Julie Costello was not the first victim of Clarence Williams.  Thirty years earlier, Sara Beth Lindquist had been murdered by a complete stranger.  Thirty Years Later uncovers the DNA evidence that finally solved her case.

 

Lori Ludlow, Babylon Public Library

 

The Girl with No Shadow by Joanne Harris

 

    The Girl with No Shadow is a sequel to Chocolat. More than four years has passed since Vianne Rocher moved with the wind. She has given up witchcraft and changed her name to Yanne Charbonneau when she had a close encounter with authorities after the birth of her infant, Rosette. Yanne’s daughter Anouk is now known as Annie and Yanne and her daughters live in Montmartre. The charming but ruthless Zozie comes into their lives and all of the ordinariness that Yanne worked to achieve is in danger of disappearing. Yanne, Zozie, and Annie narrate this tale which takes place in the time between Halloween and Christmas day.

 

Read-Alikes:

Chocolat by Joanne Harris

Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen 

 

Michelle Epstein, East Northport Library 

 

The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

 

    Enzo, a golden lab mix, is our narrator in this unique blend of race car expose and the observations of our canine companions. Enzo’s family begins with Denny Swift a gifted racecar driver who struggles to make it big on the circuit; Denny marries Eve, and then they have Zoe. Eve has her reservations about Enzo but Enzo knows he would never hurt the newest member of the Swift family. Enzo demonstrates how he attempts to communicate with his human family sometimes with comical results, sometimes shocking. One example of the latter is when Zoe refuses to eat her chicken nuggets after specifically asking for them and Eve gets furious when Denny offers to make Zoe a hot dog. Eve in her fury ends up cutting herself quite badly and while the family is trying to patch Eve up, Enzo trots into the kitchen for a snack. There is no food in his bowl and sees the uneaten nugget on the floor. He sniffs it and realizes it has gone bad. He is frustrated that he can’t explain this to Zoe’s parents. We learn that Eve is seriously ill and Enzo is the first to sense this and is again frustrated that he cannot communicate. Enzo also bemoans the lack of thumbs and impresses us, the reader, of the value of that digit.  Enzo expects to come back as a man after he dies because “he is ready.”  We the reader agree that he is indeed ready. It was a very unique and delightful read.

 

Read-Alikes:

Merle’s Door  by Ted Kerasote

 

 

Peggy McCarthy, Smithtown/Commack Branch Library 

 

Chang and Eng by Darin Strauss

 

    Chang and Eng, the famous Siamese twins, were born in 1811 and lived a full life until 1874. This is a fictionalized account of their lives told through the eyes of Eng.  Focusing on the challenges in their day to day lives; the reader is also exposed to the challenges of other unions including their marriages and the state of the federal union. This poignant yet at times humorous tale will be enjoyed by readers of historical fiction and fictionalized biographies.

Read-Alikes might include Loving Frank by Nancy Horan or Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen.

 

Karen Jaffe, Comsewogue Public Library

Jolie Blon's Bounce by James Lee Burke

 

    Dave Robicheaux, a New Iberia, Louisiana police detective, is James Lee Burke's vehicle in his series of novels that taken together stand as a documentation of southern culture.  Robicheaux, a dangerously, perhaps fatally, flawed man whose struggle against the evils of the world around him are eclipsed only by his battle with his own dark side.

 

    Jolie Blon's Bounce begins with a brief but important foray into Robicheau's past before bringing the reader abruptly into the present - a present consisting of the senseless, brutal murder of a popular teenager.  The immediate suspect, Tee Bobby Hulin is a drug-addicted musician.  Robicheaux has doubts about Hulin's involvement in the murder.  However, another killing soon follows and Hulin again appears to be the likely culprit.  The second victim is a drug addicted prostitute who happens to be the daughter of a local Mafioso, a man more than prepared to hand out his own rough vengeance.  Standing like a shadow in the background is the malevolent Legion Guidry, an individual of mystery and such casual cruelty that he has acquired a terrifying reputation for decades among the black residents of the area.  Robicheaux's sudden, brutal encounter with Guidry results in Robicheaux's problems with substance addiction.  As Robicheaux struggles to overcome his addiction, he finds redemption in two unlikely sources; his old friend Clete Purcel, and a homeless drifter who claims to have been Robicheaux's rescuer in a firefight during the Vietnam war.  The conclusion to Jolie Blon's Bounce is at once inevitable and surprising.

 

Read-Alikes: Lawrence Block, Ed McBain, Lee Child, Dennis Lehane, James Hall, John MacDonald, Walter Mosley, John Sanford, Michael Collins, Robert Parker and Anthony Dunbar.

 

Rhea Pollock, Brentwood Public Library