bookpagedev

by Alice Cary

I had just returned from my hourly visit to Dunkin’ Donuts when a copy of Arnie the Doughnut appeared on my desk. Obviously, my editor has me pegged. Were chocolate smudges somehow attached to my e-mails?

Arnie is one of the cleverest, funniest books I’ve seen in a long time. This is hardly a surprise, since my son and I were fans of Laurie Keller long before she turned her attention to breakfast treats. The Scrambled States of America has been one of our favorites for several years. In that book, Keller characterizes each state with funny little faces and stick arms and legs, and she uses a similar technique to bring Arnie to life as a lively chocolate-frosted fellow with sprinkles.

As in all of Keller’s books, there’s an abundance of witty text and amusing illustrations. The drama begins early in the morning when a balding, long-nosed man named Mr. Bing purchases Arnie from the Downtown Bakery and takes him home. After Mr. Bing puts him on a plate, then picks him up, Arnie says, "Isn’t that cute? He wants to hold me." Alas, Arnie is soon stunned and horrified to learn that Mr. Bing plans to eat, him. He is further traumatized, of course, when he calls the bakery to warn Mr. Baker Man of his predicament, only to be informed that the baker and all of the other doughnuts are well aware of the situation.

Mr. Bing and Arnie next enter into lengthy negotiations about alternate ways that Arnie can be useful without being eaten, with each suggestion (bowling ball, picture frame, pin cushion ouch!) meriting a fun-filled illustration. Finally, the two agree to part on good terms, but in the end they realize they need each other, and Mr. Bing devises an unusual role for Arnie to play. I don’t want to spill the beans I mean sprinkles here, but let’s just say the two end up as best friends forever.

Arnie and Mr. Bing are such lovable, fun companions that I can easily envision a cartoon based upon this book. For now, simply head to your favorite bookstore, and while you’re at it, you might as well make a little pastry stop. Just don’t tell Arnie what you’re up to!

I had just returned from my hourly visit to Dunkin' Donuts when a copy of Arnie the Doughnut appeared on my desk. Obviously, my editor has me pegged. Were chocolate smudges somehow attached to my e-mails?

Arnie is one of the cleverest, funniest…

Children's & YA

Children's & YA

Please don’t feed the dragons

Review by bookpagedev

by Deborah Hopkinson

Like many kids, George feels overlooked and ignored in the big, busy world of adults. Coincidentally, so do the dragons he begins to see in Helen Ward’s whimsical new book The Dragon Machine. Perched on telephone wires or hidden away in trashcans, the critters don’t seem to cause any trouble until George begins feeding them. Then they follow him everywhere, breaking things and making mischief. George soon realizes he has a problem on his hands. For, as everyone knows, once you start feeding dragons you simply can’t get rid of them!

To solve this dilemma, George heads for the library, where he finds a map of a great wilderness, a perfect place for dragons. But how to get them there? George draws up plans for an elaborate machine. It looks like a giant mechanical dragon, festooned with lots of extras: spare scissors, wrenches, even an anchor. When George’s dragons spy this enormous, mechanical flying contraption, they fly after it until at last they reach the great wilderness.

George is so exhausted after this extraordinary journey that he falls fast asleep. But when he wakes up the next morning he is surprised to find himself entirely alone. Every last dragon has disappeared in the vast wilderness. What will George do now? Back home, the emptiness in his own room spurs his parents to undertake a search for their missing son. After much hunting, they find him at last. Overjoyed to see their son, they promise never to overlook him again. They give him a dog as a homecoming present. A nice, very ordinary-looking dog. Or is it?

Originally published in Great Britain, The Dragon Machine was created by the English team of Helen Ward and Wayne Anderson, who also collaborated on The Tin Forest. This warm-hearted, exquisitely illustrated tale is bound to be a favorite with dragon hunters, big and little.

Deborah Hopkinson’s most recent book for young readers is Girl Wonder: A Baseball Story in Nine Innings.

Like many kids, George feels overlooked and ignored in the big, busy world of adults. Coincidentally, so do the dragons he begins to see in Helen Ward's whimsical new book The Dragon Machine. Perched on telephone wires or hidden away in trashcans, the critters…

Children's & YA, Picture Book

Children's & YA Picture Book

Poetry collection bears fruit

Review by bookpagedev

by Alice Cary

Plum is a peach of a poetry collection, a thoroughly engaging potpourri set off by magnificently rich illustrations. Everyone including very young children, older elementary students, even adults will find words to savor here. The pieces range from short ditties to longer story-poems and cover a broad range of topics. A simple poem called "flightpath" is a perfect starter poem for preschoolers. It reads: "The reason why the fly annoys me, as it does, is that, however hard I try, I can’t ignore its BUZZ." The illustration shows a wacky dog, obviously driven bug-eyed by the pest, with the text zigzagging its way across his forehead, representing the fly’s zooming path. Artist Mary GrandPré is best known for illustrating the U.S. editions of the Harry Potter books. Several spreads invoke the magical qualities of Harry Potter, but others, like the one showing the Queen of England and the president of Zarnia in a long romp of a poem called "Mrs. Bhattacharya’s Chapati Machine," display her talent for zany action and expression.

"Mrs. Rummage’s Muddle-Up Shop," a longer poem, tells about a girl who wants a lollipop in a crazy shop belonging to a very mixed-up lady. The shopkeeper can’t find the confection, which is all the while sticking in her hair, so she tears apart her store in a frenzied search. The mood reminds me of Willy Wonka &and the Chocolate Factory, and once again, the illustrations bring all of the fun to a fever pitch. A simple page of notes at the back of the book provides a wealth of information about various poems. Plum ends on a serenely sweet note, with a graceful poem called "Instructions for Growing Poetry," which begins, "Shut your eyes. Open your mind. Look inside. What do you find?" and ends, "Now those little words are sprouting poetry inside your head." Plum is a richly ripe book just waiting to be picked and added to any child’s library.

Alice Cary writes from Groton, Massachusetts.

Summer reading for the ambitious

Review by bookpagedev

by Stephanie Swilley

I’m planning a trip to Miami, and one of the most important packing decisions involves which books to bring. A gripping story with interesting, unique characters is a must, but I’m not filling my suitcase with fictional thrillers. Instead, I’ve found three new business books that deliver suspense and adventure with real-life stories about a cocky inventor, a fearless road-tripper and a witty mathematician. So put down the Danielle Steel this summer and get the goods without the guilt.

Reinventing the wheel Code Name Ginger delivers the exciting behind-the-scenes story of bringing a dream to the marketplace. At the heart of the book is Dean Kamen, a cocky young inventor and entrepreneur with an ego big enough to match his lofty ideas. Often compared to a modern-day Thomas Edison, Kamen had a passion for the Ginger project, which he believed would revolutionize transportation by developing a self-balancing, electronic “people mover.” He bet his fortune on the top-secret project that took more than nine years to develop and cost more than $100 million in R&andD.

Author Steve Kemper was granted exclusive access to the Ginger project during the 18 months of testing and design, but when his book proposal found its way to the Internet in January 2001, it exposed the heavily guarded project. The press started a firestorm of speculation about the machine that would eventually be dubbed the Segway Human Transporter.

Unfortunately, Kemper’s access to the project was cut just before the Segway went on sale, but consumer reaction thus far has been underwhelming. Not having Kamen’s reaction to the disappointing launch is a sorely missed element of the book. But the glimpse inside the mind of a brilliant inventor, someone always testing new ideas and willing to risk “spectacular failures” to create something great, makes this bumpy journey one well worth taking.

The ultimate road trip Jim Rogers knows how to take a vacation. The man Time calls “the Indiana Jones of Finance” has a passion for exploration, and he’s once again taking readers along for the ride in Adventure Capitalist (Random House, $27.50, 368 pages, ISBN 0375509127). On January 1, 1999, Rogers and his fiancÅ½e began a three-year road trip around the world that took the couple through 116 countries. Ready for anything (like the raging blizzard on Day 3), Rogers chronicles their stories with wit and offers insight on the state of the global economy at the turn of the century.

A former offshore hedge fund manager, Rogers is no ordinary tourist. He has a unique understanding of international politics and economics and describes successful investing as “getting in early, when things are cheap, when everything is distressed, when everyone is demoralized.” Rogers successfully mixes business with pleasure by measuring the economic climate of each country on the itinerary. For example, Turkey in 1999 looked like a great emerging market based on location and population, but a harrowing airport ordeal convinced Rogers that the country hadn’t conquered its Byzantine ways, so he decided not to invest there. Rogers’ contagious enthusiasm for off-the-beaten-path discoveries turned his previous book, Investment Biker, into a bestseller. It chronicled his record-setting 700,000-mile motorcycle journey across six continents. Both are great reading for business lovers and armchair travelers.

Falling in love with WorldCom It’s nice to know that we’re all human and that sometimes even mathematicians get a little irrational. Best-selling author and math master John Allen Paulos begins his new book, A Mathematician Plays the Stock Market (Basic, $25, 224 pages, ISBN 0465054803), by recounting how this “hardheaded fellow” began “falling disastrously in love” with one well-known scandal-ridden company. He lost his shirt, but couldn’t quit buying the stock or force himself to sell. Motivated by his own fear and greed, Paulos learned the painful lesson that emotions and psychology play a big part in stock market volatility.

Paulos uses personal stories and funny, bizarre anecdotes rather than formulas and equations to delve into the market’s “problems, paradoxes, and puzzles.” It’s a rational approach that’s both simple and entertaining.

I'm planning a trip to Miami, and one of the most important packing decisions involves which books to bring. A gripping story with interesting, unique characters is a must, but I'm not filling my suitcase with fictional thrillers. Instead, I've found three new business books…

Memoir

Memoir

A nomad finds home at last

Review by bookpagedev

by Alison Hood

Seventeen-year-old, college-bound Lauralee Summer never thought the details of her life were so extraordinary that they would show up in newspapers and soar over the American airwaves. But after she won a wrestling scholarship and, as a result, got interviewed by the Boston Globe and Associated Press, her story went nationwide. The ubiquitous headlines proclaimed triumphantly: “Homeless to Harvard.” Summer’s curiously titled memoir, Learning Joy from Dogs Without Collars, reveals a fatherless, nomadic life lived with her rarely employed, eccentric though loving mother. Constantly moving through the dreary, often dangerous confines of homeless shelters and flimsy welfare housing, they had no car, no bank account and little money for food or clothing. Summer’s schooling was erratic, but she loved books from an early age. Not until she reached high school did she find the mentors and activities (especially competitive wrestling with an all-male team) that moved her toward self-acceptance and into the privileged realms of Harvard. Requests for network television appearances came pouring in after the surge of front-page press. Summer was aghast when, during a nationally televised interview, the host asked her what it was like to be homeless and gave her only 20 seconds to reply. Being forced to provide an abbreviated response eventually led to the writing of her memoir. And in the telling, Summer admits she has claimed her place in the world and built herself an authentic home. Using the constructs of her life poverty, neglect and isolation and her Harvard education, she has created a clear window into the shadowy, disenfranchised world of impoverished women and children. If the walls of Summer’s house are a bit rough-hewn, hers is a sturdy and honest dwelling. For it houses a young writer who possesses courage, heart and social compassion, who has, in the words of an anonymous, homeless youth, “learned patience from statues in a thousand parks, and joy from dogs without collars.” Alison Hood writes from San Rafael, California.

Medicine

Medicine

Battling a deadly disease

Review by bookpagedev

by Anne Bartlett

The swift, worldwide spread of SARS in recent months provides a small reminder of what life was like before modern medicine largely conquered the most lethal epidemic diseases. Small is the operative word here. Bad as the outbreak is, it pales in comparison to the experiences of our ancestors. Smithsonian writer Jennifer Lee Carrell brings us an engaging account of an early struggle against a deadly epidemic in The Speckled Monster: A Historical Tale of Battling Smallpox.

Focusing on two people who fought smallpox on two different continents during a 1721 outbreak, Carrell tells the stories of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, an aristocrat in England, and Zabdiel Boylston, a Boston doctor. Both were early advocates of inoculation, a practice then ill-understood and feared.

The Speckled Monster, is not history for purists. As Carrell explains clearly in her introduction, she wants to tell us a “tale,” so she turns history into drama, with invented dialogue and scenes. The book is best considered a highly informed historical fiction.

Lady Montagu is a fascinating character, a strong-minded female intellectual and smallpox survivor, whose once-spectacular looks had been ruined by pockmarks. She learned about inoculation from the Turks, when her husband was ambassador to the Ottoman court. Boylston, who learned of inoculation in part from African slaves, was a more prosaic figure. But he faced the greater risk: Boston civic leaders threatened him with prosecution for attempted murder when he started his inoculations. Both Boylston and Montagu advocated introducing a mild form of smallpox virus into the skin. Their work was a crucial step in the advances that protect us today.

Although she combines fictionalized elements with the actual events that occurred, Carrell presents an intriguing story of a timely topic. The Speckled Monster is a narrative that reminds us of how far we’ve come thanks to the diligence and courage of pioneering doctors and ordinary citizens. Anne Bartlett is a journalist who lives in South Florida.

Memoir

Memoir

The struggle to stay clean and sober

Review by bookpagedev

by Martin Brady

There was a time when the art of memoir-writing was generally relegated to the rich, famous and powerful. Not so nowadays, when complete unknowns if their tales of dysfunction or triumph over challenges are resonant enough get published fairly readily. Augusten Burroughs fits the new mold, having gained recognition with 2002’s Running With Scissors, the true-life account of his strange upbringing and nightmarish youthful experiences that was a national bestseller. Burroughs’ follow-up memoir, Dry, charts his recent struggle with substance abuse. The topic here is not a new one, but the author’s flippant, knowing style makes this book a cut above other entries in the genre.

Dry finds the author in his mid-20s and carving out a high-paying career in New York advertising. After mounting episodes of personal irresponsibility force his colleagues to hold an in-office intervention, he is whisked away to the Proud Institute in Duluth, Minnesota, where he undergoes a recovery regimen tailored to the needs of homosexuals. Burroughs completes the program and returns to the Big Apple, sober but cautious. He reclaims his job and attends AA meetings with the appropriate enthusiasm. Alas, he also meets a fellow recovering addict named Foster, who entices him back into addictive behavior. When a dear old friend finally succumbs to AIDS, Burroughs falls completely off the wagon. But once again, he dedicates himself to getting straight, armed with hard-won knowledge. “The good news is you do learn to live without it,” he writes. “You miss it. You want it. You hang out with a bunch of other crazy people who feel the same way and you live with it. And eventually, you start to sound like a cloying self-help book, like me.” In truth, Dry is anything but cloying. It’s a smart, revealing book that should please those readers who enjoyed Burroughs’ previous memoir. Martin Brady is a freelance writer in Nashville.

Biography

Biography

A behind-the-scenes portrait of Ike

Review by bookpagedev

by Roger Bishop

John Eisenhower believes that his father’s military career was much more important to him and to history than his eight years as a popular president. “Ike,” as the author’s father was universally known, passionately defended his military judgments, and late in life, when he was asked to name the greatest men he had worked with, most of them came from his pre-presidential years.

General Ike: A Personal Reminiscence is a fascinating look behind the scenes at Eisenhower and his relationships with the generals and statesmen whose decisions led the Allies to victory in Europe and Africa. The author brings unique credentials to this task. In addition to being Eisenhower’s son, he is a retired brigadier general, former ambassador to Belgium and a best-selling military historian. His portraits of the principle figures and comprehensive historical background regarding tactical, diplomatic and political decisions add much to the value and enjoyment of the book.

As the author shows, Ike was modest but also ambitious. He and George Patton were longtime friends, and Ike was willing to defend Patton’s inappropriate conduct because Patton’s effective leadership was crucial to the Allied cause. But Ike’s biggest burden was British Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery, or “Monty.” John Eisenhower details some of their major differences and concludes that Monty “probably did more than any other figure of World War II to damage Anglo-American friendship.” Despite this, their disagreements did no serious harm to the war effort.

The author discusses the American officers who influenced Ike: Fox Conner, who recognized his potential; Douglas MacArthur, with whom he worked in the Philippines; and George Marshall, to whom Ike felt indebted for his extraordinary rise and for whom “he never lost a touch of veneration.” But Ike had a particularly important relationship with Winston Churchill. Both played many different roles in wartime that occasionally led to sharp differences; still, their friendship survived. This insightful and carefully crafted gem of a book demonstrates what Ike’s son told Congress in 1990: “Ike’s hands were always on the task at hand . . . he thought of himself primarily as a dedicated public servant, one who placed his country above himself.” Roger Bishop is a Nashville bookseller and a regular contributor to BookPage.

John Eisenhower believes that his father's military career was much more important to him and to history than his eight years as a popular president. "Ike," as the author's father was universally known, passionately defended his military judgments, and late in life, when he was…

History

History

A divisive conflict remembered

Review by bookpagedev

by Edward Morris

Possibly the most comprehensive and balanced account of the Vietnam War that has yet been written, Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from All Sides will not satisfy those who want a strict political history of the conflict, or a battle-by-battle narration, or even a statistical summation of the war’s human and material costs. There are elements of all these approaches in the book, but its great value lies in its multiplicity of perspectives. Appy, a former history teacher at Harvard and MIT, and the author of Working-Class War: American Combat Soldiers and Vietnam, presents the views of 138 people who were intimately involved in the war and/or the events leading up to it. Determined to show all sides, Appy interviews former generals and foot soldiers, political advisers, war protesters, battlefield entertainers, ex-prisoners of war, children who lost parents, parents who lost children, nurses, doctors, victims of the Kent State shooting and witnesses to the My Lai massacre. In addition to the dozens of interviewees whose names most readers won’t recognize, we hear from such famous folk as opposing generals Vo Nguyen Giap and William Westmoreland, Daniel Ellsberg (purveyor of the incriminating Pentagon Papers), soul singer James Brown and protest singer “Country” Joe McDonald, ex-POW John McCain, ex-GI Oliver Stone and the ubiquitous Alexander Haig. Instead of adopting a tedious question-and-answer format, Appy edits each subject’s remarks into a single speech. And he holds the disparate points-of-view together by arranging them as commentaries on the war as it evolved from the French occupation of the country directly after World War II to the defeat of the U.S. and its surrogates in 1975.

Although Appy is vigilantly impartial in his presentation, it is impossible to read these tales of duplicity, hubris, courage, cynicism, sacrifice, hope, love, desperation and horror without concluding that the war was one of the most ill-conceived and colossal wastes of lives in modern history. Edward Morris is a Nashville-based writer.

History

History

One town’s wrenching WWII sacrifice

Review by bookpagedev

by Alan Prince

The worst event in the history of Bedford, Virginia, occurred 4,000 miles away. In the first minutes of D-Day, 19 Bedford soldiers were slaughtered by Nazi gunfire on the coast of Normandy, France. Two others died before the month was out, and two more were killed before the war ended a year later. No other community suffered a heavier proportionate share of loss than Bedford (its population was 3,200), so it was fitting that the town was selected to be home of the National D-Day Memorial, dedicated two years ago. Now, with the publication of Alex Kershaw’s The Bedford Boys: One American Town’s Ultimate D-Day Sacrifice, their story is told in more detail than ever before.

The adage that no military plan survives contact with the enemy was demonstrated at 6:30 a.m. on June 6, 1944, when the invasion at Omaha Beach began. Partly because Allied bombardments had failed to eliminate or effectively blunt the Nazi machine-gun and mortar crews, the Bedford boys of Company A of the 29th Infantry Division’s 116th Infantry Regiment never had a chance. The author takes us from their local National Guard duty to their intensive training in England, to the battlefield in France and then to their survivors back in Bedford. The whole world knew immediately about the invasion, of course, but no one at home had details. Mail from the slain soldiers ceased. After a month, one family received a War Department telegram ("I am saddened to inform you . . . "). Then, similar telegrams arrived, one after another, filling the small town with grief. As he recounts the families’ reactions then and their recollections today, the author makes no attempt to be melodramatic; he does not have to.

Other books by Kershaw are Jack London: A Life and Blood and Champagne, detailing the life of Robert Capa, the only photographer to cover the first-wave assault on Omaha Beach. Capa excelled in recording the cruelty of war with his camera; in The Bedford Boys, Kershaw has done the same thing with his pen.

Ex-newsman Alan Prince lectures at the University of Miami.

Fiction, Horror

Fiction Horror

Werewolves on the run

Review by bookpagedev

by Paul Allen

Stolen, the second book in Canadian author Kelley Armstrong’s Women of the Otherworld saga, continues the story of Elena Michaels, the world’s only living female werewolf. Elena, who first appeared in Armstrong’s popular debut Bitten, monitors the Internet for signs that rogue werewolves are calling attention to themselves, be it a brutal unsolved murder, a strange animal sighting or a sensationalized tabloid story. The safety and anonymity of her pack are her main concerns and when Elena finds a posting on a website selling valuable information on werewolves, she investigates by posing as a journalist. Upon meeting the sellers, an elderly woman and her niece, Elena is shocked to find out that the two women who claim to be coven witches know exactly who and what Elena is. They warn her that a demented billionaire named Ty Winsloe has been secretly abducting people with supernatural powers vampires, witches, sorcerers, shamans for supposed scientific research. The abducted are never heard from again.

Elena disregards the warning and is soon after kidnapped and taken to a subterranean laboratory hidden somewhere in the forests of northern Maine. Also imprisoned are a Voodoo priest, a half demon, a rogue werewolf and a 12-year-old girl who is allegedly a witch with deadly powers. It soon becomes clear that the research center is really just a human game preserve for Winsloe, who likes to track and kill the supernaturals for sport. With its strong supernatural female character and generous helpings of unadulterated violence and sensuality, Armstrong’s series is reminiscent of Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake novels and Alice Borchardt’s Legend of the Wolves saga. Fans of those series should thoroughly enjoy Armstrong’s captivating mix of fantasy, horror and romance. Paul Goat Allen is a freelance editor and writer who lives in Syracuse, New York.

Stolen, the second book in Canadian author Kelley Armstrong's Women of the Otherworld saga, continues the story of Elena Michaels, the world's only living female werewolf. Elena, who first appeared in Armstrong's popular debut Bitten, monitors the Internet for signs that rogue werewolves are calling…

Fiction

Fiction

A fantastic tale to swallow whole

Review by bookpagedev

by Linda M. Castellitto

Fluke features a cast of eccentric and endearing characters, an exotic setting (the whaling town of Lahaina, Hawaii) and a story that is hilarious, educational and original. Christopher Moore’s latest comic offering comes on the heels of Lamb, his interpretation of the life of Jesus. Jesus is not in this novel, but readers will find a veteran biologist who thinks he is the god of the underworld, as well as a pot-smoking Rasta-guy from New Jersey, a local woman who claims to speak to whales via telephone and numerous other unusual sorts.

Our hero is Nate Quinn, a middle-aged, divorced biologist who is determined to interpret the whales’ song, but finds himself distracted by his irreverent, shapely intern Amy . . . and the fact that he just saw the words “Bite Me” written on a whale’s flukes, or tail-sections. Was it real, he wonders, or is he losing his mind? While seriously pondering both options, Nate enlists the aid of his friend/partner/photographer, Clay, to help him get clearer photos of the whale in question. First, however, they must find out who ransacked their office, attend a pivotal meeting with other whale researchers (where they encounter Nate’s ex-wife, who is now a lesbian) and wonder what a military research team is doing in the waters off Lahaina.

Despite the bizarre events that come one after another, and the unusual individuals Nate encounters, the story remains engaging, the characters sympathetic. Moore does a fine job of building suspense: by the time Nate embarks on one of the strangest and most enlightening experiences of his life, it is difficult to put the book down, for there are astonishing new developments on every page. Fluke also offers a detailed depiction of the scientists’ work, and the lives and habits of the whales. Just as I learned a great deal about commercial fishing from The Perfect Storm, I turned the last page of Fluke feeling I’d absorbed a lot of information about whales and mightily relieved I’ve never been absorbed into one. Linda Castellitto writes from her home in Rhode Island.

Mystery & Suspense, Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Suspense

A Russian Sherlock Holmes

Review by bookpagedev

by Mike Parker

For Pyotr Alexandrovich Kokorin, Monday, the 15th of May in the year 1876 is a good day to die. The fashionably dressed young swag, inheritor of an immense fortune, strolls through the lush thoroughfares of Moscow’s Alexander Gardens, requests a kiss from a total stranger and, being rejected, pulls a small revolver from his pocket and dispatches himself before a crowd of horrified onlookers.

The event is written off by the police as an open-and-shut case: a bored young aristocrat played a game of roulette and lost. However, Xavier Grushin, detective superintendent of the Moscow Police, decides to use the event as a training exercise for his new clerk Erast Fandorin. Unwilling to dismiss the case as a mere suicide, Fandorin pursues leads ignored by his superiors and finds himself embroiled in intrigues of global proportions. The Winter Queen is the first of Russian author Boris Akunin’s novels to be translated into English. All nine Erast Fandorin books have been bestsellers in Russia, where the series’ popularity is described as Erastomania. Combining canny intuition, keen observation and dumb luck, Fandorin resembles a 19th century Russian amalgam of Sherlock Holmes, James Bond and Samurai Jack.

Akunin writes in a charming, lyrical style that moves the story along briskly. American readers will find The Winter Queen deliciously nostalgic, distinctly Russian and surprisingly cosmopolitan in its appeal. Mike Parker is a writer in Nashville.

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bookpagedev

A tasty adventure

Please don’t feed the dragons

Poetry collection bears fruit

Summer reading for the ambitious

A nomad finds home at last

Battling a deadly disease

The struggle to stay clean and sober

A behind-the-scenes portrait of Ike

A divisive conflict remembered

One town’s wrenching WWII sacrifice

Werewolves on the run

A fantastic tale to swallow whole

A Russian Sherlock Holmes

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