Book News and New Book Reviews
Just a sampling of our new materials (right side)!
by Doug Saunders (Get the Book)
Alarmed by the uptick in anti-Muslim sentiment in the Western world (as horrifically evidenced by Anders Breivik's shootings in Norway in 2011), Saunders, the European bureau chief of The Globe and Mail, sets out to correct the rumors and misinformation that plague the world's second largest religious group. Acknowledging that xenophobia is nothing new (much of the same rhetoric has been lobbied at some point against Catholics, Jews, and other groups), Saunders blames much of the pernicious propaganda on "a large group of writers and political leaders who should have known better," namely Bruce Bawer, Newt Gingrich, Bat Ye'or, and the Financial Times' Christopher Caldwell, whose inflammatory remarks and falsehoods have spread like wildfire, and with significant consequences-Breivik cited Bawer's work as being influential to his beliefs. Saunders (Arrival City) proceeds to systematically denounce numerous alleged "facts" or perceived trends (e.g., the rate of Muslim immigration will increase; Muslims are guided by an ideology rather than a faith; terrorism is inherent in fundamentalist Islam; etc.), and then offers some solutions. Rather than vilifying immigrants, he argues, Western societies should work to ease their integration into society and embrace multiculturalism rather than merely paying lip service to it. Saunders is quick to admit that the vilification of Muslims is a complex problem requiring many big- and small-picture changes, but his argument is nevertheless cogent and timely. --Publishers Weekly
by Gillian Flynn (Get the Book)
This impressive debut novel is fueled by stylish writing and compelling portraits of desperate housewives, southern style. Troubled newspaper reporter Camille Preaker is sent back to her Missouri hometown in a bid to get the inside scoop on the murders of two preteen girls--both were strangled and had their teeth removed. Almost as nasty as the brutal crimes are Camille's twisted family dynamics. She intends to stay with her zombielike mother, whom she has hardly spoken to in 8 years; her cipher of a stepfather; and her twisted, overly precocious 13-year-old half sister. Wading back into the insular social dynamics of the town proves to be a stressful experience for Camille, a reformed cutter whose body is riddled with the scars of words such as wicked and cupcake. In a particularly seductive narrative style, Flynn adopts the cynical, knowing patter of a weary reporter, but it is her portraits of the town's backstabbing, social-climbing, bored, and bitchy females that provoke her sharpest and most entertaining writing. A stylish turn on dark crimes and even darker psyches. --Booklist
C. Brene Brown (Get the Book)
Brown (The Gifts of Imperfection) examines vulnerability and imperfection in her latest, which takes its title from Theodore Roosevelt's speech "Citizenship in a Republic." Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work, is the first to admit that vulnerability makes her uncomfortable, but posits that daring to fail is the only true way to be wholeheartedly engaged in any aspect of life. "Experiencing vulnerability isn't a choice-the only choice we have is how we're going to respond when we are confronted with uncertainty, risk and emotional disclosure," she says. Laying out a roadmap for change, the author includes chapters on eliminating blame and shame from work and education, and daring to be the adults we want our children to be. At the same time, she explores what drives people to feel vulnerable and how to address common coping mechanisms in what she calls the "Vulnerability Armory." But the core of her message is understanding the difference between guilt and shame, and developing "shame resistance." Brown's theories-complete with personal and not always flattering examples from her own life-will draw readers in and have them considering what steps they would dare to take if shame and fear were not present. --Publishers Weekly
by Amanda Coplin, (Get the Book)
Coplin's mesmerizing debut stands out with its depictions of uniquely Western personalities and a stark, gorgeously realized landscape that will settle deeply into readers' bones. In the early twentieth century, Talmadge lives alone amid his huge spread of fruit trees in Washington's Wenatchee Valley. He remains haunted by his teenage sister's disappearance some 50 years earlier, so when two raggedy, smudge-faced girls appear on his land, untrusting, hungry, and pregnant, he feels immediately protective of their safety. Jane and Della have just escaped a terrible situation, and Talmadge aims to do right by them, but tragedy results when their former captor and his thugs come calling. He and a kindly neighbor guide Jane's daughter, Angelene, into young adulthood, and the tender affection this improvised family shares isn't diminished by their reluctance to speak their minds. The prose abounds with poetic imagery, and the quotation-mark-free dialogue, which could seem like an affectation in a different type of story, emphasizes the melding of these solitary characters with the vast, wild place they choose to call home. --Booklist
by Stuart Firestein (Get the Book)
This profound book, a quick read, reverses the perception of science. It is based on a course that neuroscientist Firestein gives at Columbia University, where he makes an excellent case for the following proposition. The driving force behind how scientific research is conducted and how the results are perceived is based more on ignorance than knowledge of what is factual. Science is more than a collection of facts--what is known--but more about what is unknown--ignorance--and what needs to be done. Showing the possibility of an achievement can motivate accomplishment. However, ignorance is not an excuse for poor planning. The eight-chapter book begins with a brief introduction to ignorance. Other chapters include "Limits, Uncertainty, Impossibility, and Other Minor Problems," "Unpredicting" (perils of predictions in science), "The Quality of Ignorance," and "Coda" (applications to public discussions of science and education). The author also provides four case studies related to cognitive psychology, theoretical physics, astronomy, and neuroscience, the author's educational and career path. Brief notes, a reading list, and a bibliography support the text. A valuable acquisition for academic libraries, given the current emphasis on STEM education and undergraduate research. --Choice
by Jonathan Evison (Get the Book)
Evison's follow up to West of Here is a personal, focused work rather than a sweeping epic. Benjamin Benjamin Jr. is a former stay-at-home dad. His two young children died in a tragic accident after which his wife left him. Broke and grieving, Ben signs up for a caregiver class and lands a job tending Trev, a teenage boy with muscular dystrophy. The unlikely duo set out on a cross-country road trip to take in as many bizarre highway attractions as possible en route to visiting Trev's estranged father. They pick up Dot, a runaway, and Peaches, a pregnant farm girl, and learn about forgiveness, especially about forgiving oneself. VERDICT Evison injects some levity with Trev's horny commentary and Ben's wry retorts, blending humor, sharp dialog, and a rich and detailed backstory into a sympathetic, bittersweet novel. This is one of the more successful entries in the "Sad Dad Lit" subgenre (think Thelma Adams's Playdate, Greg Olear's Fathermucker, or Emily Jane Miller's Brand New Human Being). A worthy purchase. --Library journal
by Dennis Drabelle (Get the Book)
Both the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads were beneficiaries of immense federal government largesse as incentives and rewards for building the transcontinental railroad. For example, the Central Pacific received a series of huge long-term government loans. By 1896 payment was due, and the railroad, aided by an army of lobbyists and a bankroll generously distributed to legislators, sought to gain extended payment terms. When William Randolph Hearst got wind of the dodge, he tapped Ambrose Bierce to write a series of scorching muckraking articles attacking railroad practices. A decade later, the novelist Frank Norris wrote a fictionalized account of these abuses in his classic The Octopus. Drabelle, a contributing editor to the Washington Post Book World, places this war within the context of the reformist impulses that characterized the progressive movement at the turn of the twentieth century. He also offers interesting background on the careers of Bierce and Norris as well as the growth of the railroad industry. This is a fast-moving account and a paean to investigative journalism. --Booklist
by Ivan Doig (Get the Book)
If we were to expand the definition of the traditional western to include historical fiction about the American West, then Doig's acclaimed body of work would fit squarely within the genre's redefined borders. His latest stars Tom Harry, owner and chief barkeep (a classic western archetype) of a saloon called Medicine Lodge in Gros Ventre, Montana, which itself lies in the heart of Doig's version of Yoknapatawpha County, the Two Medicine country, which straddles the Continental Divide in northern Montana and is the setting for many of the author's best novels (including English River, 1985). Tom's story, narrated by his precocious, 12-year-old son, Rusty, begins in 1960 but quickly flashes back to the Depression, when Harry ran another bar at the site of the Fort Peck dam construction (the subject of Doig's Bucking the Sun, 1996). Tom and Rusty enjoy an unconventional but loving and mutually supportive relationship until Proxy, a dancer Tom knew at Fort Peck, and her hippie daughter, Francine, show up, with Proxy claiming that Francine is Tom's child. A reunion of dam workers draws all the principals back to Fort Peck, where past and present collide. Rusty's coming-of-age drama is involving and subtly portrayed, but Doig fans will be especially drawn to the set-pieces that surround the action: a fishing contest, a mudslide, a trip to a brewery, and, most of all, daily life at the saloon, including a delightful seminar on pouring a beer ( For without a basic good glass of beer, properly drawn and presented, a saloon was merely a booze trough ). It's that kind of detail that has made Doig essential reading for anyone who cares about western literature. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Doig rarely hits best-seller lists, but he has a strong, devoted readership, especially in libraries, and his books are book-club naturals. --Booklist
by Jeanne Marie Laskas (Get the Book)
In this thoroughly entertaining study of what some people do that other people would never do, journalist Laskas (The Balloon Lady and Other People I Knew) makes her subjects sing. She homes in on jobs that the rest of us take for granted-or deny exist-interviewing the people who perform and even like onerous tasks: coal miners, Latino migrant laborers, La Guardia air traffic controllers, Arizona gun dealers, Texas ranchers, Alaska oil-rig roughnecks, a rare female long-hauling trucker, and California landfill workers. Refreshingly, Laskas eschews sentimentality but imbues her portraits with humanity and authenticity: guided by veteran landfill workers, for example, she confronts a mountain of rubbish and learns all about the wonders of alternative electricity and recycling. Waddling through Hopedale Mining Company's Cadiz, Ohio coal tunnels, she gets lessons on pride in accomplishment from such workers as Pap, Ragu, and Foot. The Ben-Gal cheerleaders are shown to be disciplined professional women who, in their other lives, attend school and toil as single moms. Laskas's depictions are sharply delineated, fully fleshed, and enormously affecting. --Publishers Weekly
by Junot Diaz (Get the Book)
Diaz continues to keep company with his alter ego, Yunior, a Dominican turned New Jerseyan, in his second short story collection. Drown (1996), his first, introduced Yunior and established Diaz as a writer of promise. His first novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007), won the Pulitzer Prize and galvanized a world of new readers. Diaz's standout fiction remains pinpoint, sinuous, gutsy, and imaginative. Yunior kicks things off by stating, I'm not a bad guy. The women in his life would caustically disagree. We see Yunior as a boy new to America and his long-absent father's temper, a teenager and college student forever infatuated and forever cheating, and a lonely adult confronted by aggressive racism. Each taut tale of unrequited and betrayed love and family crises is electric with passionate observations and off-the-charts emotional and social intelligence. Diaz's involving, diverse characters include Yunior's combative brother Rafa, Magda the coldhearted, Nilda the young man-magnet, and a sexy older woman. Fast paced, unflinching, complexly funny, street-talking tough, perfectly made, and deeply sensitive, Diaz's gripping stories unveil lives shadowed by prejudice and poverty and bereft of reliable love and trust. These are precarious, unappreciated, precious lives in which intimacy is a lost art, masculinity a parody, and kindness, reason, and hope struggle to survive like seedlings in a war zone. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Diaz, as compelling in person as on the page, will connect with his large and loyal readership via a national author tour, extensive media interviews, and a social media campaign. --Booklist
by Akhil Reed Amar (Get the Book)
In America's Constitution: A Biography (2005), constitutional law scholar Amar showed that a close reading of the Constitution need not lead to a politically conservative interpretation of it. He expands upon that argument to suggest that, if we read between its lines, the Constitution actually invites interpreters to consider certain principles and concepts that exist outside of its text, such as in the practices of the Founding Fathers and of American citizens, certain key judicial decisions, and other texts, like the Federalist Papers and the Gettysburg Address. This unwritten Constitution, says Amar, supports and supplements the written Constitution without supplanting it. It allows the written Constitution to make sense and remain strong and resilient despite its terse language. Deeply researched and carefully argued, this book is nothing less than a sophisticated and comprehensive theory of constitutional jurisprudence that resists being construed along narrow political lines. Indispensable for law students and scholars, this will also be enjoyed by general readers who are passionate about constitutional law and comfortable with Amar's somewhat textbook-like approach. --Booklist
by Lee Child (Get the Book)
If a Lee Child novel begins with Jack Reacher standing by the side of a highway with his thumb out, you can be sure that the wrong guy is going to pick him up. You can also be sure that the novel will end with Reacher standing by the side of another highway, again with his thumb out. In between, all hell will break loose, with the mysterious Reacher, the man with no home, in the middle of it, subduing bad guys one bullet, or one head butt, at a time. In this seventeenth series installment, the wrong guys who pick Reacher up on a lonely Nebraska highway turn out to be two murderers and their female hostage or at least that's who we think they are, for a while. We think a lot of things for a while about terrorists, Homeland Security bumblers, warring FBI factions, and undercover agents but almost all our assumptions turn out to be false. Mostly, though, we don't have much time for thinking, since we're strapped into various Ford Crown Victorias the standard-issue automobile of local cops and the FBI alike careening down midwestern interstates as Reacher, sometimes a captive, sometimes a pursuer, plots to save the endangered and smite those who do the endangering. There may not be as much actual violence in this novel as in other Reachers, but when it comes, it comes in thunder, and the tension leading up to it feels never-ending. Our mothers were surely right to warn us against hitchhiking, both because the wrong guys might pick us up and, especially, because we're not Jack Reacher, much as we'd like to be. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Jack Reacher prefers to come and go across the country anonymously, but that's not at all true of the novels in which he appears. The publication of every new Reacher is heralded through every possible form of mass communication. Boy, would Reacher hate that. --Boooklist
by Shasha Issenberg (Get the Book)
Turns out there's plenty of actual science in political science, and Issenberg's first full-length book shows how it's being deployed with increasing sophistication in nearly every significant election. Born from an aptly titled e-book, Rick Perry and His Eggheads, this bipartisan examination of behavioral science and high-level campaign strategy takes the Moneyball approach to the clashes between polling strategists' quantitative methodologies of get-out-the vote and the gut-level instincts of old campaigners. Issenberg's early history of political data collection and data-crunching, from the 1920s to the mid 1960s, is particularly deft. There are closely drawn portraits of generally unknown number crunchers and hidden strategies, including the behavioral insights of Todd Rogers, whose Analyst Institute gave rise to a sophisticated persuasion and get-out-the-vote infrastructure for Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, and the approach of Dave Carney, whose explorations of Republican voter behavior guided races from George H.W. Bush's 1992 loss to Rick Perry's successful Texas gubernatorial race. Issenberg's thorough analysis of the transformation of the smoke-filled campaign backroom to a data-rich network would delight a budding political statistician. However, only the most hard-core political junkies will find book-length resonance in discussions of research methods and software development for political ends. --Publishers Weekly
by Michael Chabon (Get the Book)
Even though protean and wizardly Chabon has written an array of stellar books since The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (2000), it has reigned supreme as his magnum opus. Until, perhaps, the advent of this even more magnificently crafted, exuberantly alive, emotionally lustrous, and socially intricate saga anchored to Brokeland Records, a funky used-vinyl paradise on the border of Oakland and Berkeley. The proprietors are mountainous Archy Stallings and high-strung Nat Jaffe, whose wives, too, work together, in a midwifery partnership. Gwen is pregnant with her and Archy's first child. Aviva and Nat have a smart, artistic, gay teenage son. A difficult birth puts Gwen and Aviva's business in jeopardy, just as Archy and Nat face potentially insurmountable competition in the form of a planned megastore. Archy also finds himself contending with a teenage son he's never met before and his down-and-out father, a former blaxploitation film star. This core group of African American and Jewish friends is surrounded by a vivid, scheming supporting cast. Bubbling with lovingly curated knowledge about everything from jazz to pregnancy to airships, Chabon's rhapsodically detailed, buoyantly plotted, warmly intimate cross-cultural tale of metamorphoses is electric with suspense, humor, and bebop dialogue. A virtuoso, soulful, and wise story of fathers and sons, friendship and marriage, music and meaningful work, and the spirit of a storied American neighborhood. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Chabon's embracing, radiant masterpiece will be the talk of the season. --Booklist
by Quinn Cummings (Get the Book)
Cummings (Notes from the Underwire: Adventures from My Awkward and Lovely Life) and her partner, Daniel, were frustrated when their daughter Alice had difficulties in public school. After much thought and debate, they decided to homeschool her. Most of the burden fell on Cummings, whose insecurities often had her second-guessing their decision. Cummings discovered various homeschooling methods--online charter schools, Radical Unschooling, the Fundamentalists, Gothardites. She enrolled Alice in an online course, only to abandon it six weeks later, and went to conferences to check out other homeschooling groups. In the end, they stuck with Cummings's original curriculum, and Alice flourished both personally and academically in the process. V-ERDICT Professional educators may dismiss this as fluff. But along with her wit, Cummings offers concrete proposals for the future of education. Her book should have wide appeal and is likely to give readers a more positive view of homeschooling .-Library Journal
by Linwood Barclay (Get the Book)
His father's death left Ray Kilbride in the role of caretaker for his younger brother, Thomas, but Ray never imagined the enormity of his responsibilities. Thomas, a high-functioning schizophrenic, is completely dependent on Ray and prefers to spend his time holed up in his room preparing for secret missions by studying the street views of a map website and memorizing the details of the scenes captured there. When Thomas notices a woman in a window of a building he's examining, apparently being murdered as the photo was taken, what he and Ray choose to do about it will land them in the middle of a mystery and unwittingly set off a chain reaction that could ultimately cost them their lives. VERDICT A resounding hit, Barclay's (Fear the Worst) latest thriller is at once exhilaratingly fast paced and intriguing. The author is a master of plot development and has the ability to captivate readers with the complexity of the family dynamics between Thomas and Ray and excite them with each layer of mystery he uncovers. Fans of the genre will be entertained down to the last sentence and new fans will be compelled to check out Barclay's earlier books after they finish this thrill ride. --Library Journal
by Caitlin Moran (Get the Book)
Part memoir, part postmodern feminist rant, this award-winning British TV critic and celebrity writer brings her ingeniously funny views to the States. Moran's journey into womanhood begins on her 13th birthday when boys throw rocks at her 182-pound body, and her only friend, her sister Caz, hands her a homemade card reminding her to please turn 18 or die soon so Caz can inherit her bedroom. Always resourceful-as the eldest of eight children from Wolverhampton-the author embarrasses herself often enough to become an authority on how to masturbate; name one's breasts; and forgo a Brazilian bikini wax. She doesn't politicize feminism; she humanizes it. Everyone, she writes, is automatically an F-word if they own a vagina and want "to be in charge of it." Empowering women is as easy as saying-without reservation-the word "fat" and filling our handbags with necessities like a safety pin, biscuit, and "something that can absorb huge amounts of liquid." Beneath the laugh-out-loud humor is genuine insight about the blessings of having-or not having-children. With brutal honesty, she explains why she chose to have an abortion after birthing two healthy daughters with her longtime husband, Pete. Her story is as touching as it is timely. In her brilliant, original voice, Moran successfully entertains and enlightens her audience with hard-won wisdom and wit. --Publishers Weekly
by Lee Woodruff (Get the Book)
In her debut novel, Woodruff (coauthor with her husband, ABC news anchor Bob Woodroff, of In an Instant) sheds light on the imperfections and vulnerabilities of shattered, stunned family members following a tragic loss. Adoring mother to three robust children, Maura Corrigan watches her life crumble in the aftermath of an accident involving her oldest son. The novel unfolds with several different viewpoints, but the author focuses on the undone Maura, who struggles to find joy and meaning in what remains of her life. VERDICT Maura's haunting Chagall-like dream is a wonderful touch, as is commentary on seasonal gifts of nature; surely some of this heartfelt, honest novel stems from the author's own real-life journey with her husband, who was severely injured while reporting on the war in Iraq. Overall, this is solid contemporary fiction, sure to please readers who enjoy Sue Monk Kidd and Anna Quindlen. --Library Journal
by Rick Bass (Get the Book)
Bass, a geologist turned celebrated writer, channels his knowledge of and concern for the planet into works of rhapsodic precision, cosmic imagination, and moral inquiry. He has devoted books to grizzlies, caribou, and wolves and now chronicles his encounters with the imperiled black rhino in Namibia, where a stalwart band of wildlife conservationists, including reformed poachers, endure walloping heat and assorted hazards to protect these ancient and powerful animals. Bass is in a state of perpetual wonder as he traverses the quartz-bejeweled Namib Desert and witnesses the surprising grace and dignified fierceness of this mighty animal that has been hunted to near extinction for its horns. Scenes of astonishment and suspense alternate with meditative reflections as Bass marvels at how perfectly adapted the black rhino is to this exacting land and how terribly vulnerable it is to men with guns and no understanding of the species' true value. As Bass contemplates humanity's disruption of the intricate workings of nature, the tough choices conservationists must make, and how the rhino changes our perception of time, he questions our definitions of sacred. --Booklist
by Tana French (Get the Book)
Each of French's novels (Faithful Place, 2010) offers wonderfully complex and fully realized characters. Broken Harbor offers half a dozen, not least Mick Scorcher Kennedy, the Dublin Garda's top homicide detective. Scorcher is smart, tireless, dutiful, and by-the-book, and he demands no less from coworkers. But when he and his brand-new partner are assigned a savage triple homicide in a distant housing development, abandoned before completion when the Irish housing bubble burst, Scorcher is shaken; the development is located in a place that gave him the best and worst moments of his life. Broken Harbor begins as a compelling and detailed procedural but soon shifts focus to the character of its characters. Whether cops, victims, survivors, witnesses, or suspects, all are brilliantly drawn and ultimately broken by the crime and the events in their lives. Although too little known to U.S. readers, Ireland's ghost estates are a key motif: hundreds of large, abandoned developments with few occupied homes, often shabbily built and lacking critical infrastructure, far from workplaces, being reclaimed by feral nature. French's descriptive powers are both vivid and nuanced, and her deeply creepy ghost estate inspires madness and a subtle kind of gothic horror. French has never been less than very good, but Broken Harbor is a spellbinder. --Booklist
by Jonathan Kozol (Get the Book)
The children portrayed in Kozol's award-winning Rachel and Her Children (1987) and Amazing Grace (1995) have gone on to overcome or not the cruel inequities facing families marginalized by poverty, homelessness, and woefully inadequate public schools. Here Kozol returns to the scene of his previous work to trace the lives of Vicky and her children, Eric and Lisette, who moved from the Bronx to Montana with mixed success, and Alice, who struggles with HIV but maintains an abiding zest for life that she tempers with skepticism. He chronicles the lives of young boys who couldn't escape the low expectations of schools and the lure of the streets, landing in prison and meeting death at an early age while other young boys and girls went on to college and careers. Kozol reveals his own vulnerabilities during the 25 years he knew the families, including facing the illnesses and deaths of his parents. Through letters, phone calls, and visits, Kozol maintained close relationships over the years, mourning with families in their woes and rejoicing in their triumphs. This is an engaging look at the broader social implications of ignoring poverty as well as a very personal look at individuals struggling to overcome it. --Booklist
by Liza Klaussmann (Get the Book)
Nick and Helena are cousins who are close as sisters, having grown up summering together on Martha's Vineyard. They are also opposites: one dark, one fair; one rich, one poor; one beguiling, one naOve. As the book opens at the end of World War II, the young women share an apartment in Cambridge, MA. Nick awaits the return of her husband, Hughes, while Helena, a war widow, is planning to marry again and move to California. The story takes place over 24 years, much of it at Tiger House, the stately family summer home Nick inherited. Divided into five sections, each narrated from the point of view of Nick, Helena, Hughes, Nick's daughter Daisy, and Helena's son Ed, the action pivots on a murder on the island, the details and aftereffects of which are not clear until each character has spoken. Verdict A meditation on love, desire, and personal choices, this rich and compelling literary debut novel by a former New York Times journalist and the great-great-great-granddaughter of Herman Melville is sure to appeal to a variety of readers. --Library Journal
by Peter Heller (Get the Book)
Outdoor life has been the focus of Heller's award-winning nonfiction. In his gripping first novel, his gift for action and appreciation for prowess and courage fuel a harrowing yet charming postapocalyptic tale. The book's complex spell is cast by its tough yet sensitive can-do narrator, Hig. Happiest while trout fishing, he's a skilled hunter, daring pilot, and poet turned outdoorsy writer. Hig misses his wife, who died in the nation-crushing pandemic, dearly loves his dog, and is both leery of and grateful for Bangley, an older guy of few words but immense tenacity, military know-how, and firepower. They are holed up in a small Colorado airport, fighting off intermittent assaults by bands of murderous survivors. Richly evocative yet streamlined journal entries propel the high-stakes plot while simultaneously illuminating Hig's nuanced states of mind as isolation and constant vigilance exact their toll, along with his sorrow for the dying world as global warming worsens. Hig takes long, risky, meditative walks; tends the garden; and stubbornly takes to the air in a 1956 Cessna, searching for some remnant of civilization. Heller's surprising and irresistible blend of suspense, romance, social insight, and humor creates a cunning form of cognitive dissonance neatly pegged by Hig as an apocalyptic parody of Norman Rockwell a novel, that is, of spiky pleasure and signal resonance. --Booklist
