The Book Babes

YOUNG ADULT FICTION SPOTLIGHT

The Book Babes' July radio program celebrates young adult fiction, offering interviews with two celebrated authors of the genre. One lives in Portland, Oregon, and the other in Tampa Bay, Florida. Just like the Book Babes.

You can check the 1/2 hour program out Wednesday, July 15, at 11:30 a.m. by tuning into WMNF-FM 88.5 in Tampa or by listening logging on at wmnf.org as the program streams live on the Internet. 

 

Ellen interviews Virginia Euwer Wolff, whose celebrated Make Lemonade trilogy was completed this year with "This Full House." (Earlier books were "Make Lemonade" and the National Book Award winner "True Believer.") Each book features the continuing story of LaVaughn, a disadvantaged teen who is determined to succeed in school and go to college, and Jolly, a slightly older but definitely not wiser young woman who hires LaVaughn to babysit her two small children.

Margo talks to Tampa-based G. Neri, ALA Notable author of "Chess Rumble," about his latest teen-novel, "Surf Mules." It's the story of two California surfers who find themselves embroiled in a world of disorganized crime. Neri has long been a storyteller. In college, he made an animated film with jazz legend Chick Corea called "A Picasso on the Beach," which became a student Academy Award finalist and aired on HBO and Bravo for seven years. A filmmaker and digital media producer, he taught animation to inner city teens in Los Angeles and was one of the founding members of The Truth teen and anti-smoking campaign. His graphic novel "Yummy" is due out in the fall. Learn more about Neri, whose background is truly global (he alternately calls himself a CrefilicanAmerican or a Nafranishafripinocan) at www.gneri.com.

Continuing this month's Book Babes' radio program's theme is Ellen's book pick of the month. It's not a young adult novel but the young detective featured in the story is sure to attract young readers.

Ellen's July recommendation: "The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie," by Alan Bradley, a first novel from a Canadian journalist who introduces the delightful amateur chemist/ detective, 11-year-old Flavia de Luce.

Margo's July recommendation: "Love Is a Four-Letter Word: True STories of Breakups, Bad Relationsihps, and Broken Hearts," edited by Michael Taeckens, with an introduction by Neal Pollack, an anthology of sometimes dark, sometimes humorous and always wince-producing confessions by the likes of Junot Diaz, Maud Newton and Kate Christensen, including two cartoon/graphic essays by Lynda Barry and Emily Flake. A perfect antidote to too much sunny weather.

Missed the program? You can always find it archived at wmnf.org: Just click on archives, find Book Babes on the grid and click on the July 15 program. Enjoy!

SUMMER'S HIDDEN GEMS

No need for trash reading this summer! Pick some good books, like these five -- all winners in Ellen's book (the one that lists the titles that are worth your time).

1. “Brooklyn,” by Colm Toibin. This critically acclaimed Irish author deserves to find a wider audience with his latest novel, about a young Irish woman who emigrates to New York City to find a job in the 1950s. Toibin captures both how hard it is to start anew and how such experience permanently changes your way of looking at the world. The heroine of this book is true to life, neither beautiful nor ruthlessly ambitious but with too much ability to stay in a place that offered her no opportunity.  A perfect book club book!

 

2. “The Translator,” by Daoud Hari. The author escaped the genocide in Darfur but couldn’t stay away. He returned to work as a translator and guide in hopes of bringing international attention to the terrible crimes that are taking place there. This is as good a primer as you can get about how innocent people get caught up in the power struggles between groups fighting for the same land – in this case, Sudanese Arabs and African tribes. An eye-opening read for anyone high school on up!

 

3. “The Photographer: Into War-Torn Afghanistan with Doctors Without Borders,” by Emmanuel Guibert, Dider Lefevre and Frederic Lemercier. This graphic novel recording a French photographer’s trip through Afghanistan combines his black and white photos, comic strips and words. Together these elements are more than the sum of the parts, showing the primitive and brutal nature of Afghan society and the dedication of those intent on serving as healers there. A bestseller in France, it is newly available in English this year.  

 

4. “The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie,” by Alan Bradley. Fans of the British “cozies” – the kind of mysteries that emphasize unraveling the puzzle, not blood and gore – will love this story of an 11-year-old English girl who lives in a rundown mansion and is constantly tormented by her older sisters. The stakes suddenly get higher when she discovers the corpse in the cucumber patch. “Clue” buffs unite, and remember the name Flavia de Luce – with another book about her already on the way, she could become a household name in the mystery genre. Great beach read!

 

5. “Fragment,” by Warren Fahy. Alas, Michael Crichton is no longer with us. But this first novel by a writer from California promises life after “Jurassic Park.” Think Darwin on steroids, and you end up with a novel about scientists in the field who are grappling with natural selection in a new way. Their locale: a remote island in the South Pacific where life forms evolved on a whole different track. Fahy has cleverly wrapped evolutionary science in a package of suspense and even humor… As one of the characters says, “My God, this planet will be lucky enough to survive one intelligent species – but two? Are you all mad?” 

HOW DOES YOUR GARDEN GROW? ...BOOK BY BOOK

For the next installment of the Book Babes´more.com column, Margo Hammond writes about her current obsession: plants and flowers and books about flowers and plants. Check it out at  http://www.more.com/2053/5641-how-does-your-garden-grow-

Then send us your own favorite garden book. 

Alice Munro, Free Books, Wicked Video and Family Secrets

Missed this month’s Book Babes’ radio program? No worries. It’s archived at wmnf.org. Just hit On Demand and then Book Babes on the calendar (Wednesdays at 11:30 a.m.). It's the June 17 program.

Here are some of the highlights: 

Ellen talks about the hometown values of one her favorite authors, short story writer Alice Munro, who just won the $95,000 Man Booker International Prize. The Book Babes discuss two unusual publishing stories: 

The Concord Free Press, a publishing enterprise, is giving its books away free. The deal: Get a novel for free and then pay forward by donating to a charity. The next one out will be from mega bestseller Gregory Maguire of Wicked fame.

Author Amy Stewart shot a video to promote her latest book, Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln’s Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities. Check it out at www.wickedplants.com 

(Stewart’s book Flower Confidential: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful in the Business of Flowers is one of the Book Babes’ picks in their book Between the Covers: The Book Babes’ Guide to a Woman’s Reading Pleasures, under 10 That Put You On the Garden Path.) 

Margo interviews Washington Post journalist Steve Luxenberg about his latest book, Annie’s Ghost: A Journey Into a Family Secret (Hyperion).

Books mentioned on the show: 

Open Secrets, by Alice Munro (Knopf) 

The Love of a Good Woman, by Alice Munro (Knopf) 

View From Castle Rock, by Alice Munro (Knopf) 

The Next Queen of Heaven, by Gregory Maguire, coming out in October FREE from Concord Free Press. Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln’s Mother and Other Atrocities, by Amy Stewart (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill) 

Annie’s Ghost: A Journey Into a Family Secret, by Steve Luxenberg (Hyperion)

Found: A 90-year-old "Blog" on Health Care Reform

From Book Babe Margo Hammond:

Check out my latest posting "LIfe, Liberty and the Right to Be Sick" on Huffington Post It's about an interesting "blog" on health care reform that I came across while reading  Democracy in Print: The Best of The Progressive Magazine, 1909-2009, just out from the University of Wisconsin Press.

The author, Irving Fisher, president of the American Association for Labor Legislation, began by lamenting the fact that the U.S. was the only industrial nation without universal health insurance. Says Fisher: Even Bismarck and Lloyd George have gotten behind universal health care.

Bismarck? Oh, did I mention that this  "blog" was written in 1917?  Gawd, we have been waiting for health care reform for more than 90 years!

The anthology Democracy in Print was published to coincide with the 100th anniversary of The Progressive, a magazine founded by Robert "Fighting Bob" LaFollette and his suffragist wife, Belle Case LaFollette. As a native of Wisconsin and a one-time contributor to that magazine (back in my university salad days), I have always been proud that my state produced someone as independent as LaFollette. But, as I say on Huffington Post, I'm afraid it will be McCarthy, that other political renegade produced by my state, who will have the last laugh in the health care reform debate as the specter of "un-American" activities is raised once again to scare people into giving up their right to be healthy.

FATHERS BY THE BOOK, 2009-STYLE

FROM ELLEN: As Father's Day barrels down on us, here are a few of the latest books that hold up a mirror to our view of what it means to be a dad in 2009. We've come a long way, baby, from the paternal wisdom of "Father Knows Best." And notice that not only has the tough, macho Pop fallen by the wayside, but the critiques of such a father figure (famously portrayed in novels such as "Prince of Tides") seem somewhat passe now, too.  Fathers these days are judged as much by their emotional connectedness as their ability to provide and discipline -- a tough balancing act, when you think about it. 

All books here are mentioned on KATU-TV's "AM NW" on June 10.

1. DAD AS PAL: "The Film Club," by David Gilmour. Memoir about father who happens to be a film critic and lets slacker son drop out of school on condition that he watch three movies of his choosing every week. The deal brings Pop and teen together like no other experience could, and in the process the son matures from an aimless kid into a decent young man.

2. DAD AS CAREGIVER: "Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction," by David Sheff. Sheff's story is about the challenge of loving a child who seems beyond your help. In this case it was a son who, at 18, became addicted to methamphetamines. Sheff shows how his son's addiction to drugs and alcohol wreaked havoc on his family. He details his mistakes but also demonstrates the power of not giving up.

3. DAD ON THE MARGINS: "The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood," by Ta-Nehisi Coates. This story about growing up as the son of a counter-culture former Black Panther has some of the rhythms of a rap song. Coates' father was lousy as a husband -- he seemed to switch women like some change suits -- but with his sons he was a tiger, fighting to keep them off the streets and find their place in the world.

2. DAD AS MYSTERY: "Go Ask Your Father: One Man's Obsession with Finding His Origins Through DNA Testing," by Lennard J. Davis. In the old days, paternity was a guessing game. Now it's just a lab test away, which became important to Davis after his aging uncle claimed that he was his biological father, courtesy of artificial insemination. Proof is in the lab test that becomes part of this discussion of what genetic inheritance means, scientifically and emotionally.

5. DAD AS CELEBRITY: "Losing Mum and Pup," by Christopher Buckley. The only child of conservative commentator William Buckley and socialite Pat Buckley reports on his life with them in a memoir that's alternately witty and wrenching. Conclusion: People with bigger-than-life personalities make better party guests than they do parents.

6. DAD ON THE EDGE: "My Abandonment," by Peter Rock. This novel by a Reed College professor (previously applauded by AM NW host Helen Raptis) is taken from the local headlines and tells the fictionalized story of the father and daughter who were found making their home in Forest Park. A touching tribute to parent-child devotion in the oddest of circumstances, with a motherless household that brings to mind Cormac McCarthy's novel/movie "The Road."

MORE BOOK BABES ON MORE

The Book Babes have started a weekly blog on MORE magazine's website. You can find us under Passions/Books. Margo weighed in first with a nod to one of her favorite novel niches. (Hint: Think blood and snow).

We have a soft spot in our hearts for MORE. The magazine devoted nearly an entire page to "Between the Covers: The Book Babes' Guide to a Woman's Reading Pleasures."

RADIO TALK: FROM PBS's SWEDISH CRIME ADAPTATION to FOX-TV's LIS WIEHL'S MYSTERY COLLABORATION

It would be a crime to miss this week's Book Babes Radio Show, which airs at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, May 20, on WMNF-FM 88.5 in Tampa and streams at the same time on the Internet at wmnf.org.(You can also hear a podcast of the show by going to the site.) Throughout the half-hour show, the Book Babes go to the dark side.

BOOK NEWS: Margo starts the program with a thumbs up (which you won't see, of course -- hey, it's radio) for "Wallander," the latest  PBS "Masterpiece: Mystery!" series, based on three brooding tales by Swedish crime novelist Henning Mankel. The main character of those novels is Kurt Wallander, a grumpy and moody detective played by Irish actor Kenneth Branagh. He does Swedish melancholy quite well, says Margo. She should know. Wallander works out of a Baltic seaport in the southern Swedish province of Skane, where Margo's maternal  grandfather was born. The Book Babes ruminate on the reason for the growing popularity of Swedish crime novels throughout the world. The late Stieg Larsson is currently the most widely read adult novelist in Europe. In the U.S. Knopf publishes his latest, "The Girl Who Played with Fire," in July.

BABES BOOK OF THE MONTH PICKS: For their monthly book picks, Margo recommends any book by Mankel. The PBS series consists of three 90-minute shows based on three books: "Sidetracked," "Firewall" and "One Step Behind," all available stateside from the New Press. Margo also recommends the latest books by two of her favorite Swedish women crime novelists featuring women sleuths: Asa Larsson's "The Black Path" (Delta Trade Paperback Original) and Helene Tursten's "The Torso" (Soho). Ellen's picks are also set abroad. But rather than crime novels, both into the dark side of human nature and the corruption of government institutions: "Secret Son," by Laila Lalami (Algonquin Books), is set in Morocco and could be subtitled "The Making of a Terrorist." "The Vagrants," by Yiyun Li (Random House), portrays Communist China at the end of the Cultural Revolution through the lens of a small town called Muddy River, where officials rely on citizens betraying citizens in order to maintain their power.      

Ellen ends the program with an interview with April Henry, a Portland-based mystery writer who recently collaborated on a mystery with FOX-TV legal analyst Lis Wiehl. Henry discusses the art of collaboration and the state of writing and reading today and comes clean about killing off a famous TV commentator in "Face of Betrayal" (Thomas Nelson).

 

LEARNING CURVE

ELLEN'S PLAY DATES: Maybe it's obvious that a newly minted author has to get out there and promote her book, but to be honest, I didn't see the whole thing coming. I supposed that Margo and I would do our little dance through her neighborhood, Tampa; then waltz to the three big book-loving cities (Portland, Seattle, San Francisco) in my region, and we'd be done with it. Not so. Both of us have continued with public or not-so-public appearances since our book hit bookstores in early November.

My latest travels have taken me to the Multnomah County Library, Albertina Kerr Center (a Portland children's services provider) and one of numerous book clubs that have extended their hospitality to me since "Between the Covers" was published. All have proved that the community of readers is alive, well and extremely varied.

At the library, for example, I was on a panel that recommended favorite books with independent filmmaker Joss Antonio Millian, who reads screenplays for the fun of it; Sara Ryan, who writes and reads graphic novels; and Lloyd Cohn, seller of vintage DVDs, who mentioned his literary keepsake -- a reply from James Cain after he wrote a fan letter years ago to the author who helped create crime noir and Hollywood's film version of it and died in 1977. One of Cohn's favorite vintage reads is "Fake!", by Clifford Irving -- a book about an art forger by a man who forged the biography of Howard Hughes. Call it "layered duplicity."

My next public appearance will be on KATU-TV's "AM Northwest" at 9 a.m. on Wednesday, June 10. A book club and two mother-daughter teas will round out the roster for that month. And the beat goes on...

     

MOMMY NOT SO DEAREST

FROM ELLEN: It's old news that fathers get trashed with impunity in contemporary American culture. But what about the moms? On the eve of yet another Hallmark-inspired holiday, that annual observance of mothers as the most cherished people in our lives, it's worth looking at some of the books out there that say motherhood looks more like rotten apples than apple pie.

Exhibit A: Ruth Reichl's latest memoir, "Not Becoming My Mother: And Other Things She Taught Me Along the Way." To be fair to Reichl, in this book she treats her mother more sympathetically than in the previous two, in which Mother Miriam is cast as an unbalanced stage mother who put down her daughter's work as a food critic as barely the work of a real writer. Here, Reichl understands that her mom was an Auntie Mame figure born in an era of Betty Crocker, and how the fit figuratively and literally threw her off balance. All the same, the book is based on the idea that traditional homemaking is a pretty limited sport. I happen to agree, and so did my mother, who traded her career in apparel merchandising for the chance to raise four children. After my first son was born, I told her what a struggle it would be for me to return to work. "You have to," she said. "All I had was duplicate bridge."

Exhibit B: Ayelet Waldman's "Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace." This is a book about guilt. If you believe Waldman, young mothers (the kind who still have kids underfoot) are so suffused with it that they're obsessed with the absolute worst mothers, like Andrea Yates (who drowned all her kids) and Britney Spears (who can't get a grip). Today's mother, in her view, wants the perfect children and the perfect marriage. But no can do, she says. I relate to Waldman's high-strung,  driven self and, to be sure, you can't read these essays without realizing how much she loves her family. But I wager that a lot of women find more fulfillment in the marriage/children/homemaking triumvirate than her neurotic view of the subject suggests.

One thing I know for sure: Motherhood is not for sissies. And maybe that's what we should honor this Sunday, on the Hallmark holiday that is upon us -- the courage it takes to give it a go. Perfection, who needs it?