Hilda C. Landers Library & Archives

Reading a book that was published over a decade ago, but that takes place nearly 3 decades ago, can really stretch one’s patience. Pay phones? Records searches? I can’t imagine what Kinsey Millhone would do in the world of cell phones and the Internet. But the author has said she wants to move through time in a linear fashion, so will never catch up with real time, and I respect that. So, pretend that you’re just reading a cold case murder mystery and appreciate how painful information gathering was pre-Internet. All of the alphabet books make for good reading; just be aware that technology will be frozen in the dim past (but motives and evil remain current…)

Availability:  COSMOS
Review Submitted by: Jane Kostenko
Rating: Recommended

I’ve read a number or Robin Cook’s books over the years. This one is the second one, that I’ve read, with the same set of characters revolving around the NYPD and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. It’s a relatively easy read with several storylines intertwined until the culmination of the murder investigation. Having just returned from northern NJ, very near some of the locations in the book, I could relate better being able to envision scenery. A nice summer read!

Availability:  COSMOS and USMAI
Review Submitted by: James Tyler Bell
Rating:  Recommended

If you are a fan of foodie mysteries, this is right up your (g)alley! Goldie Schultz is a caterer that seems to frequently stumble upon murders. Fun and easy read and includes recipes!

Availability:  COSMOS
Review Submitted by: Michelle Vandergrift
Rating: Recommended

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John have nothing on this modern retelling of the story of Jesus Christ written by his childhood friend Levi, who is called Biff. In this humorous account, Biff primarily fills in the gaps left by the other evangelists from Jesus birth to the start of his ministry. The novel is told in parallel narratives between Biff’s experience writing the gospel in the 21st century and Biff’s experience being Jesus’s constant companion from his childhood up to his crucifixion.

The novel starts out slow, talking about Jesus and Biff’s childhood in Nazareth, showing the contrasts between Jewish culture and Roman culture. The novel picks up when Jesus and Biff reach adolescence; none of the authors of the gospels cover this part of Jesus’s life in detail, so the author had a lot of liberty with this portion of the narrative, and what he produced was extremely captivating and interesting. During this part of the novel, Jesus and Biff journey to find the three wise men who came to Jesus’s birth, and on their journey learn important lessons from older faiths and philosophies — including Confucianism, Buddhism, and Hinduism — that Jesus later incorporates into his own teachings. After Jesus and Biff return home, the novel chronicles Jesus’s ministry, highlighting many familiar biblical characters including John the Baptist, Mary Magdalene, and the twelve apostles, and culminating in Jesus’s trial and crucifixion.

This novel was brilliantly imaginative and clever, especially the part dedicated to Jesus and Biff’s quest to find the three wise men. Biff’s voice as a narrator was sometimes crude but always hilarious, sarcastic, and unique. Seeing Jesus’s life from his best friend’s point of view made it simple to see Jesus’s humanity in his younger years and how he grew into his role as Son of God. Though it is unnecessary to be a well-learned Christian to enjoy Lamb, I found it was easier to understand much of the humor and foreshadowing having some knowledge of Christian teachings. I would recommend this novel to anyone who can laugh about their religion a bit or anyone who enjoys an offbeat twist on a well-known story.

Availability: USMAI and COSMOS
Review Submitted by: Brianna Glase
Rating: Highly Recommended

A continuation of the All Souls Trilogy also known as The Discovery of Witches trilogy), this book continues to follow Matthew and Diana, as they travel to late 1500’s London (and around Europe as well). It’s an amazing read, though (like the first book) it is quite long.

Read Matthew Lachkovic’s review of A Discovery of Witches.

Availability: SMCM Library and COSMOS
Review Submitted by: Matthew Lachkovic
Rating: Highly Recommended

A one line review from Glamour on the cover of the book says, “Into Thin Air meets Titanic in this truly chilling adventure.” I couldn’t have summed it up better than that! I’m very glad that I was reading this book during the heat of the summer because it would be brutal to read in the winter when you would feel the described Arctic cold in your very bones. Written using actual diary and journal entries, plus newspaper accounts, this story tells itself without interpretation by the author. The hardships endured by the passengers on board the exploration ship Karluk are hard to read, but the well-written story draws you along every bitterly cold minute of their misadventures. I truly couldn’t put the book down.

Availability:  COSMOS and USMAI
Review Submitted by: Jane Kostenko
Rating: Must Read

An older book (copyright 2000), this is an ugly story of kidnapping and revenge. Unlikable characters, lots of sexually explicit action, and far-fetched storylines make it a distasteful and unpleasant read. I can’t recall now whether this is typical of Greg Iles or not, but I won’t be seeking his books out in the future.

Availability:  COSMOS
Review Submitted by: Jane Kostenko
Rating: Not Recommended

Continuing my binge reading of Nevada Barr, I was dismayed to find the main character still in the throes of emotional recovery (odd that she’s had similar experiences in the past without so much as a twinge of conscience…), but at least her sense of humor is in full force. Burn was a good read by an intelligent author who writes for a higher level of readership than your usual murder mystery writer. I do look forward, frankly, to the main character’s return to the great outdoors and leaving the more sordid escapades of humans behind…

Availability:  COSMOS
Review Submitted by: Jane Kostenko
Rating: Highly Recommended

In this autobiography of a simple Midwestern boy, actor Rob Lowe tells the tales of his journey to award-winning fame, his story beginning very early in his life with his family struggles and problems fitting in at school. After becoming a child star, Lowe’s fame rockets after starring in The Outsiders and St. Elmo’s Fire and becoming a member of the infamous media-spawned Brat Pack, a group of young stars in the 80s recognized for partying and debauchery. Lowe tells of his career successes and failures and his struggles with alcoholism, romance, and discovering himself as an actor, culminating in his experience of what he describes as one of the best roles of his lifetime: starring as Sam Seaborn in the critically acclaimed TV series The West Wing.

This autobiography is different from what I expected it to be, but I have nothing but positive things to say about it. It is amazing to read about all the people Rob Lowe met that would go on to become just as famous (Charlie Sheen and Janet Jackson are only two of many examples). I also delighted in reading about all the hard times Lowe has been through in his life; I had no idea everything that he had been through just from watching his film and TV work. Stories I Only Tell My Friends is a triumph of nonfiction that is just as captivating as any fictional novel, and I recommend it to any fan of Rob Lowe or anyone who enjoys a great coming-of-age story.

Availability: COSMOS
Review Submitted by: Brianna Glase
Rating: Highly Recommended

Today (7/13/14) I was saddened to learn that Nadine Gordimer passed away at the age of 90. It has been nearly a year since I have read one of her many novels, but I thought I’d share my favorite Gordimer with the SMC family in hopes that more people will get to know her writing better.

The Conservationist won the Man Booker Prize. The book tells the story of a conservative, white, South African “developmentalist” business-tycoon named Mehring who decides to buy a large ranch/farm outside of Johannesburg. At the beginning of the novel Mehring justifies his purchase as a matter of keeping up a certain level of conspicuous consumption and creating a remote place to seduce married women. While he continuously tries to imagine and live the farm as a kind of edenic nature retreat, his fantasies continuously run afoul of the realities of an apartheid-era farm. He is unable to see past his arrogant delusions of romantic nature without people, even though his farm is created and maintained through the labor of a large number of (black African) people who live and work on the land for a pittance. Mehring appears only on weekends and holidays, but this does not stop him from ordering his farm manager, Jacobus, to do all sorts of bizarre, misinformed, or detrimental work on the farm (which Jacobus quietly resists). The bounds of Mehring’s narrow, small imagination are pushed at through his illusions of his liberal ex-lover, who taunts his judgements and opinions at every turn, yet fails to pierce his studied obstructionism and willfully blind privilege. Mehring’s obliviousness is challenged most acutely by the existence of an unnamed, unmarked dead black man on the farm, who was found dead on his property. The police, having little concern for the victim because of his race, force Jacobus and the other farm hands to bury the man. The man serves as a powerful symbol of the histories Merhing’s colonial farm attempts to shove out of sight and out of mind, only to reemerge.

In what ways is Mehring “a conservationist”? What does he “conserve?” Turn to this powerful meditation on the ideologies of development, capitalism, and apartheid to find out.

Rating: I’ve veld many good books in my hands, but seldom velt so good reading one as when reading about the farm in Gordimer’s The Conservationist.

Availability: SMCM Library, USMAI
Review Submitted by:  Shane D. Hall
Rating: Highly Recommended