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What Our Staff is Reading
The following are fiction and non-fiction titles that have been read and recommended by members of our staff. The initials or pen name of the contributing staff member are noted after each review. The titles may include award winners, not-so-recent bestsellers or a new look at the classics.
August 2008
90 Minutes in Heaven: A True Story of Death and Life by Don Piper
Nonfiction 2004
This non-fiction title chronicles the near death experience and subsequent life-changing events that impact a Texas man and all the people he encounters after his severe auto accident. I highly recommend this title which gives us a glorious description of heaven while being a very interesting book.
Reviewed by TY
Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach
Nonfiction 2008
As she did with Stiff: The curious lives of human cadavers, Mary Roach again focuses her unique sense of humor on a branch of science. Often laugh-out-loud funny, be careful where you read this, and who's nearby- because you may not want to admit to what you're finding so obviously amusing!
Reviewed by sjc
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
Fiction 1980
HILARIOUS!! This book could make a coma patient grin. In fact, it's truly impossible not to be amused by Toole's wonderfully crafted, clever dialogue and ridiculous situations. Ignatius J. Reilly may be the most enjoyable main character of all time.
Reviewed by ED
Dinner with a Perfect Stranger: An Invitation Worth Considering by Gregory David
Fiction 2005
This recent fiction title has a middle-aged man accepting a dinner invitation with a perfect stranger in modern suburbia and how this stranger knows all past events in his life and raises questions about the man's present life. This leads the man to examine the way he interacts with his wife and everyone he encounters. This book was a fast read, interesting, and I highly recommend it.
Reviewed by ty
Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby, Jr.
Fiction 1964
Selby's novel - really a series of vignettes - explores tumultuous, crime ridden, violent, drug infested lower class Brooklyn in the 1950s. Powerful and compelling, this book is not easily forgotten.
Reviewed by ED
Need More Love by Aline Kominsky-Crumb
Graphic Novel 2007
Although probably best known as muse and wife of cartoonist Robert Crumb, Aline is a pioneering underground comics artist in her own right. This book takes you through her bourgeois 1950's Long Island childhood, her California counterculture days, and life in Southern France. Discover R. Crumb's better half in a grandly illustrated memoir.
Reviewed by Barbara Gordon
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
Fiction 2003
Atwood explores the dangerous nature of human interaction with science and warns of what man as god is capable.
Reviewed by ED
This is how it happened: (not a love story) by Jo Barrett
Fiction 2007
Have you ever wanted to seek revenge on an ex? In this book, Madeline (Maddy) Piatro is not only mad, she goes a little insane. So obsessed with her ex, she literally wants to kill him. Funny, and a little over-the-top, this book is about the process of healing from a bad breakup. Poisonous brownies, anyone?
Reviewed by AP
The Wall (Intimacy) and Other Stories by Jean-Paul Sartre
Fiction 1975
By turns frightening and funny, these stories by the late existentialist philosopher offer a portrait of life unmasked, raw and reeling. Dealing with issues of identity, self-deception, and person-person/person-environment interaction, the stories keep the reader engaged and leave her altered.
Reviewed by ED