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.

December 2007

Crisis, Pursued by Disaster, Followed Closely by Catastrophe: A Memoir of Life on the Run by Mike O'Connor
Nonfiction 2007
This book kept me intrigued to the very end as the author searches to explain his childhood. Raised by parents who never explained their actions, the author’s life was an amazing series of choices that seem incomprehensible. With moments of laughter, and heartbreak this is an interesting story of interesting times, and how a family responds to stress.
Reviewed by sjc

Hillbilly Gothic: A Memoir of Madness and Motherhood by Adrienne Martini
Nonfiction 2006
I chose this book solely because of the title, and was surprised to discover that it was an informative- yet laugh-out-loud funny story of the author's experience with postpartum depression. A very enjoyable way to learn something!
Reviewed by sjc

The Hot Zone by Richard Preston
Nonfiction 1994
Recent articles in the world press have reported that a new strain of the Ebola virus has been identified. Preston's classic book grabs the reader and won't let go, exposing the world of deadly viruses and how they spread, what they do to humans and animals and how they are (hopefully) contained in research labs ... for now.
Reviewed by Mrs Messy

March by Geraldine Brooks
Fiction 2004
When you first read Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, did you ever wonder about Mr. March, the girls' absent father who had gone to be a chaplain in the Civil War? This is the story of Mr. March as he experiences the horrors of the Civil War battlefields, the treatment of slaves and the many tactics of the abolitionist movement, far from his beloved wife and his little women. Reviewed by Jack

One Drop: My Father’s Hidden Life--A Story of Race and Family Secrets by Bliss Broyard
Nonfiction 2007
Right before the death of her father, a renowned NY Times critic, the author discovers a family secret. Her father and some of his family members were light-skinned blacks who chose to "pass" as white. The author investigates her family's history and learns the prices paid for such choices as she and her brother rediscover themselves under a new paradigm. The thought processes she finds herself going through have much to say about our culture and what race and racism can mean.
Reviewed by sjc

Sick Girl by Amy Silverstein
Nonfiction 2007
After reading this interesting and informative autobiography of a heart transplant survivor, my perceptions are forever changed. This is a brutally honest, well-written story behind the story we usually hear.
Reviewed by sjc