The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

The world was made up of people putting one foot in front of the other; and a life might appear ordinary simply because the person living it had been doing so for a long time. Harold could no longer pass a stranger without acknowledging the truth that everyone was the same, and also unique; and that this was the dilemma of being human. -- from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

Harold Fry, a sixty-five year old British retiree receives a letter from Queenie Hennessy, a long lost friend and former coworker who once did Harold a big favor. The letter reveals that Queenie is in a hospice center, dying.  

Shaken by the news, Harold pens a response. But when he sets off to mail his reply at the corner post box, he is suddenly inspired to deliver the letter in person - 500 miles away. Leaving behind his stale, stagnant life, including a wife, Maureen, who is bothered by practically everything Harold says and does, he impulsively leaves his small English village--on foot, without a map or his mobile phone; he's wearing shoddy sneakers--and begins the journey to reach his dying friend. He comes to believe that as long as he keeps walking, Queenie will wait for him and continue to live.

Harold isn't the only pilgrim in this story. Queenie is taking her own solitary pilgrimage through a fatal illness. In Harold's absence, Maureen begins to sort through the past in order to discover the real reason why she and Harold have grown apart. And the people Harold meets along the way, those with stories of their own hardships and struggles, encourage Harold to reflect and delve deeper into the meaning of his existence and as a result, reconcile the deeply repressed regrets of his own life. 

Pretty soon, Harold is no longer walking the length of England alone. When the press gets wind of his quest, other people join the pilgrimage and Harold begins to feel crowded out by all the fuss. Can Harold maintain his focus on what he originally set out to do? Does he have the physical stamina? And can his walking, an act of faith, save Queenie Hennessy?

Rachel Joyce has written a moving, compulsively readable novel infused with a well-balanced combination of humor and pathos. By exposing the emotional wounds of a host of ordinary people who are all trying to navigate through the challenges of life, Joyce taps into universal themes about the moral and spiritual ways in which we atone and seek to save ourselves...insights that stretch far beyond the ultimate 87 days and 627 miles of Harold's journey.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

Random House, $25, Hardcover, 978081299395, 336 pp

Publication Date: July 24, 2012

To order this book via INDIEBOUND link HERE

A Gift for My Sister

Take two, fatherless half-sisters. Make one sister, Sky, an obedient, play-it-safe type. Portray the other, Tara, as a reckless, no-holds-barred younger sister rebel. Reinforce their differences by designating different typeface fonts that reflect the distinct voice of each sister as they narrate this story via alternating, first person points of view and what emerges is A Gift for My Sister by Ann Pearlman (The Christmas Cookie Club), a moving, deeply resonant novel.

The story begins with Sky, a happily married lawyer with a young daughter who resides in a California beachfront condo. Beyond her seemingly idyllic life, 30-something Sky is riddled with bitterness and worry incurred from a past marred by challenges and loss--the death of her father when she was a teenager, miscarriages and the passing of her best friend. Tara, on the other hand, is a free spirit whose father abandoned her. In high school, she entered into an interracial romance with an ex-juvenile prison inmate and became pregnant. With beau and baby in tow, Troy took off to pursue her dreams of becoming a musician and is now on the verge rap music superstardom.

When tragedy strikes, Sky and Tara are forced to reunite. By rendering shared experiences via their opposing personalities and viewpoints, Pearlman skillfully evokes empathy on both sides. Resentment, rivalry, fear of love and loss and the idea of forgiveness infuse what ultimately becomes a road-trip novel--from California to Michigan--where the sisters try to understand each other, the complications of their own lives and the larger ramifications of family.

A Gift for My Sister by Ann Pearlman

Atria/Emily Bestler Books, $24.99, Hardcover, 9781439159491, 288 pp

Publication Date: May 1, 2012

To order this book via INDIEBOUND link HERE

Please note: This review is a reprint and is being posted (in a slightly different form) with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (5/29/12), click HERE.

Heading Out to Wonderful

Secrets are buried in a small town in 1948. In Heading Out to Wonderful by Robert Goolrick (A Reliable Wife), Charlie Beale, an attractive, athletic 39 year-old loner and veteran of WWII wanders into a quiet community in the Shenandoah Valley of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Charlie is in search of a new life when he arrives in Brownsburg, Virginia carrying only two suitcases - one is packed with all of his worldly possessions, including a set of butcher knives; the other is stuffed with money. Offered a job by the local butcher, Charlie is befriended by the shop owner's family, including his precocious five year-old son, Sam. Charlie and the boy instantly bond, but when Charlie's path intersects with Sylvan Glass, a hillbilly turned stunning teenaged bride of the richest man in town, life for the three main characters will be forever changed by the ache and storm of love.

Goolrick is masterful in ratcheting up the tension in this unforgettable story of lost and displaced souls in search of identity, acceptance and belonging. Charlie longs to put down roots. Sylvan, in a loveless marriage, tries to carve out a persona for herself via images of captivating Hollywood starlets from the Silver Screen. While Sam, drawn away from his safe and secure familial environment, bears witness, many years later, to the all-consuming relationship of the star-crossed lovers. Evocative sensory detail and spiritual overtones infuse the emotional landscape of this powerful, climactic narrative that seeks to define and explore the meaning of love and goodness.

Heading Out to Wonderful by Robert Goolrick

Algonquin Books, $24.95, Hardcover, 978156129238, 296 pp

Publication Date: June 12, 2012

To order this book via INDIEBOUND link HERE

Please note: This review is a reprint and is being posted (in a slightly different form) with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (6/15/12), click HERE.

Nora Ephron 1941-2012

"Reading is everything. Reading makes me feel like I've accomplished something, learned something, become a better person. Reading makes me smarter. Reading gives me something to talk about later on. Reading is the unbelievably healthy way my attention deficit disorder medicates itself. Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it's a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it's a way of making contact with someone else's imagination after a day that's all too real. Reading is grist. Reading is bliss." ― Nora Ephron, I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman

Also recommended: I Remember Nothing: And Other Reflections by Nora Ephron

Gardening Literature for Green and Non-Green Thumbs

Whether you're the type who likes to get your hands dirty in the garden or you simply wish to dig out some free time to turn the pages of gardening-inspired literature, bookstores are blooming with a host of titles.

In Why Every Man Needs a Tractor, Charles Elliott, former publisher at Knopf, details his gardening labors in Wales. Elliott's essays combine personal experience with interesting tidbits and facts about some of the world's most notable, history-making gardens and gardeners.

The World of Wild Orchids by Christian Ziegler contains dazzling color photographs and a fascinating text accompaniment exploring the mysterious aura of these exotic beauties.

Lane Smith's illustrated children's book Grandpa Green, while aimed at ages 4-8, translates across generations. A young boy shares a poignant, heart-tugging narrative that bears witness to his forgetful grandfather's love for topiary gardening.


Family secrets take center stage in the novel The Girl in the Garden by Kamala Nair. In this tale, told via an extended flashback, an off-limits, walled garden in India might hold the key to one woman's search to reclaim her past and reinvent her future.

A foster mother inspires a troubled girl by planting seeds, both literal and figurative, in The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh. This heartbreaking, yet hopeful debut novel resonates with the way flowers can become symbols that inspire us to believe in the power of tomorrow. 

In the mood for a great whodunnit? Dig into the quirky, original gardening mystery series by Rosemary Harris (Pushing Up Daisies, The Big Dirt Nap, Dead-Head, Slugfest). Her lovable protagonist, Paula Holliday, gives up a high-powered job in New York City and sets off to Connecticut to finally cultivate her life-long passion for professional gardening. In each installment, Holliday not only winds up pulling weeds but also rooting out killers.

Note: This article is a reprint and is being posted (in a slightly longer form) with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this piece as published on Shelf Awareness for Readers (5/8/12), link HERE

The First Warm Evening of the Year

Forty-something Geoffrey Tremont thought he was settled in his life in New York City - he has many friends, a successful career doing voice-over spots and a relationship with a woman who offers him companionship. But when Tremont is notified that he has been named the executor of a will for an old college friend, Laura Wells, whom he hasn't seen in twenty years, and he sets off to reconcile her estate in Shady Grove, a small town in upstate New York in the Berkshire Mountains, his life is suddenly upended. He falls, love at first sight, for Marian Ballantine, a dear friend of the departed, a woman living in a perpetual state of mourning since her husband's death and stuck in a repressed relationship of her own.

The inherent risks--and joys--of love and loving are the cornerstones of The First Warm Evening of the Year by Jamie M. Saul (Light of Day).  This is a psychologically astute and emotionally evocative novel about death (literal and figurative), the nature of grief, passion, self-knowledge and the complexities of love. Laura's passing assembles a cast of deeply drawn supporting characters forced to examine their own intimate associations - or lack thereof. Sometimes people settle and use substitutes for cultivating more substantial relationships in their lives. But as one character remarks when considering the risks of love despite the consequences of heartbreak, "What's the point of having a heart, if you're not going to use it?" Those in this absorbing, beautifully written novel ultimately discover that sometimes love is not a choice, but rather a matter of having no choice. 

The First Warm Evening of the Year by Jamie M. Saul

William Morrow, $24.99, Hardcover, 9780061449727, 304 pp

Publication Date: April 24, 2012

To order this book via INDIEBOUND link HERE

Please note:  This review is a reprint and is being posted (in a slightly different form) with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (4/27/12), click HERE.

The Life Lessons of Baseball

"Get your peanuts, Cracker Jacks, hot dogs, beer... and books?"

There is so much more to the game of baseball than stats or what's witnessed via your TV or even among a crowd of thousands cheering in the stands. Baseball embodies universal stories and life lessons that can be found on the field and off--especially in the pages of baseball-inspired books.

The theme of "life isn't always fair" is the idea captured in Nobody's Perfect: Two Men, One Call, and a Game for Baseball History by Armando Galarraga and Jim Joyce with Daniel Paisner. The story is a detailed, factual retelling of a first-base umpire's call that shattered a historical, almost perfect game played between the Detroit Tigers and Cleveland Indians on June 2, 2010.

"You win some, you lose some" resounds in The Game from Where I Stand. Doug Glanville's memoir, now in paperback, is an eye-opening, gritty, insider's perspective of a life spent working toward building a career in the Major Leagues and rubbing elbows with a host of big-name ballplayers.

"Practice makes perfect, but be careful what you wish for" is the embodiment ofThe Art of Fielding, Chad Harbach's debut novel about baseball. A small, scrawny high school kid, with a major league talent for playing short stop, is recruited by a private college on the shores of Lake Michigan. But when a throw by the young infielder goes dreadfully awry, his life and the lives of those around him are suddenly changed in unexpected ways.

"Money talks--but not always" is the overriding theme in Moneyball, a mega-hit on page and screen. Michael Lewis details the story of how the Oakland Athletics reinvented their baseball team on a budget. And in Hot Stove Economics: Understanding Baseball's Second Season, economist J.C. Bradbury examines what constitutes a first-rate ball club and how the worth of baseball players--and success--is calculated. 

Note: This article is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this piece as published on Shelf Awareness for Readers (4/13/12), link HERE

Writers on the Edge

In the Foreward to the book Writers on The Edge: 22 Writers Speak About Addiction and Dependency, edited by Diana M. Raab and James Brown, writer Jerry Stahl (Permanent Midnight) tells the reader that, "America, at this point in time, may not manufacture much. But we do manufacture addicts." He goes on to state that approximately one out of four Americans qualifies as an addict of some kind, be it a compulsion to alcohol, drugs, gambling, sex, overeating or even love. Amazing, isn't it?  And what's even more amazing are the 22 first person narratives, by accomplished writers, that illuminate personal experiences with addiction and dependency. The editors also weave in stories of depression and suicide stating that they "feed into the same tributary."

Most of the selections in the anthology are essays, but also included are moving, often heartbreaking, poems by Molly Peacock and John Amen to name just a few.

Each entry depicts the painful, often harrowing, consequences of addictive behaviors. Raab (Writers and Their Notebooks) states in her introduction that the anthology aims to "be helpful to all artistic personalities who wish to gain a stronger sense of how their colleagues navigate their way through addiction, mental illness, suicide and other obsessive, self-destructive behaviors."  She hopes the stories will offer "insight and hope to artists themselves and loved ones who also have to bear the consequences." The anthology ultimately asks the reader to consider if addiction might be an occupational hazard of the creative life.

Ruth Fowler (No Man's Land) who, in her essay, finds herself forced to chose between being a drinker or a writer, offers insight into the creative personality by eloquently stating, "Sometimes feeling everything so acutely is unbearably painful."

With unflinching honesty and courage these narratives and poems ultimately shine light into some very dark and ominous corners.

Some essays take an outsider's perspective. Scott Russell Sanders (A Private History of Awe) views his alcoholic father over the course of a lifetime. A suicide, in the poignant essay by Kera Bolonik (Salon), shows how addictions can inspire others to change their own lives. Maud Casey (The Shape of Things to Come) peruses a journal her mother kept during Casey's depressive collapse and begins to understand how hard it is to watch someone you love succumb to addictive behavior. And Victoria Patterson (The Vacant Paradise) bears witness to an alcoholic grandfather only to realize, most chillingly, that the two share many of the same traits.

Other essays, jump head-first into the mire of addictive behavior. Margaret-Bullitt Jonas (Draftjournal) offers an affecting analysis of an unhealthy love relationship. Steven and Frederick Barthelme (Double Down) detail how two brothers, respected authors and college professors, descended into a gripping world of slot machines and blackjack tables.  And Stephen Jay Schwartz (Boulevard) struggles to conquer a sex addiction only to be tempted by new pitfalls. 

What all the writers have in common is the daring ability to face overwhelming truths - and live to tell about them. I'm sure the anthology was not accidentally subtitled with the word "speak" as in 22 Writers Speak About Addiction and Dependency. In the end, Raab and Brown have assembled a host of accomplished writers and thinkers allowing them to finally give "voice," on the page, to their unique stories of healing and survival. 

Writers on The Edge: 22 Writers Speak About Addiction and Dependency

Edited by Diana M. Raab and James Brown

Modern History Press (an imprint of Loving Healing Press), $19.95, Trade Paper, 9781615991082, 185 pp; Publication Date: January 1, 2012
To order this book via INDIEBOUND link HERE

Dark Side of Valor

Lelia Freeman hasn't had an easy life and the broad, sweeping arc of her experience sets up the Dark Side of Valor, a debut suspense novel by Alicia Singleton. The first half of the book delves into Lelia's childhood, where she is raised by an alcoholic, single mother. When Lelia turns sixteen, she runs away, determined to make a better life for herself. Setting off from New York to Los Angeles, she lives on the streets, vowing to avert the lure of drugs and prostitution. She survives, fending for herself, ultimately empowered by congregants of a Christian church who encourage her to help other homeless runaways.

The novel then fast-forwards ten years. Courageous Lelia has been transformed into a prominent child advocate. When Washington D.C. appoints her to a task force in search of orphans in the war-torn African Sudan, Lelia sets off only to discover the greater political implications of her mission. Things take a dangerous turn when the corrupt president of the Sudan takes Lelia prisoner. Can Elijah Dune, a mercenary grappling with skeletons from his own past, rescue Lelia from a deadly fate?

Singleton has created authentic characters and has embroiled them inside a chilling, complicated story. As rats crawl along tenement baseboards, readers will shiver and feel the palpable depths of predatory evil--and compassion--that lurks inside the hearts of many who cross Lelia's path. The human instinct toward triumph and striving to do the right thing, despite personal cost, are the major threads running through this haunting, suspenseful novel.

Dark Side of Valor by Alicia Singleton

Strebor Books (A Division of Simon & Schuster), $15, Trade Paper, 9781593093853, 352 pp

Publication Date: February 7, 2012

To order this book via INDIEBOUND link HERE

Please note:  This review is a reprint and is being posted (in a slightly different form) with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (2/17/12), click HERE.

"Hey, Boo"

If you're a fan of the novel, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, then you won't want to miss, "Hey, Boo," a documentary now being aired via the PBS American Masters series. The film delves into the process of how the book came to be written, offers insight into the life of author, Harper Lee, and depicts how "Mockingbird phenomenon" has touched the lives of millions.  

Link HERE to view the program in its entirety.

Take a sneak peek at the promo trailer below:

Further Reading: Forensic Scientists in Contemporary Fiction

Novels about the study of bones and human remains in relationship to crime solving continue to fascinate and entertain readers - and top best seller lists. On the page or in real life, forensic scientists, those who perform chemical and physical analyses of evidence submitted by law enforcement officials, are crucial in piecing together a cohesive storyline between victims and suspects.

A host of contemporary authors are currently spinning tales about the role and lifestyles of forensic scientists:

Kathy Reichs, who is, herself, a practicing forensic anthropologist, has emerged as the leader of the pack. Her popular thrillers (Flash and Bones, Spider Bones) are filled with stories culled from her own work experience. Dr. Temperance Brennan, Reichs' protagonist and alter-ego, is a highly skilled forensic anthropologist who works at the Jeffersonian Institute in Washington, D.C. and writes novels on the side. Reichs's series has even inspired the long-running FOX-TV show, Bones.

Thorough scientific research gives credence and authenticity to books in this mystery and thriller sub-genre. Multi-faceted protagonists, often women faced with complex personal lives, add an additional level of engagement to these intricately plotted novels of suspense.

In The House at Sea's End by Elly Griffiths, forensic archeologist and college professor Ruth Galloway lends her expertise to the discovery of a mass grave of skeletal remains found on Britain's Norwalk Beach. In this third novel featuring Galloway, secrets are unearthed that may stem from World War II. Readers become embroiled in a plot that may hold deadly consequences, while they are also swept up in the intricacies of Galloway's personal life. She struggles to juggle the demands of her job and the investigation, her life as a single mother and a secret intimate liaison with married DCI (Detective Chief Inspector) Harry Nelson.

Other Eyes, a carefully structured, stand-alone forensic mystery by Chicago-based writer, Barbara D'Amato, features Blue Eriksen, a divorced single mother and a noted Northwestern University forensic archeologist. In this novel, Blue and her team travel the globe, studying and testing mummies in ancient cultures and religions seeking to identify a scientific compound that may actually cure people of drug addictions. Their work is suddenly deemed as a threat, and Blue becomes stalked by an assassin who may be working for a powerful drug cartel.

Note: This article is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this piece (in a slightly shorter form) as published on Shelf Awareness for Readers (3/13/12), link HERE

The Dog That Talked to God

How does a person of faith go on living after tragedy strikes? This is the major question facing 43 year-old, recently widowed, burned-out novelist, Mary Fassler in The Dog That Talked to God by Jim Kraus (The Silence). Disillusioned by the platitudes offered by well-meaning friends and family in an effort to ease her inconsolable grief, Mary--shaken, lost and confused--decides to adopt Rufus, a Schnauzer puppy, in the hope he will offer her companionship. During their daily walks through the suburbs of Chicago, Mary talks to Rufus, railing against a God from whom she feels estranged and abandoned while trying to make sense of a past she can't let go of and the prospect of a lonely, uncertain future. One day, Rufus unexpectedly talks back to Mary and informs her that he is in regular communication with The Almighty. When he begins to relay messages from God, Mary begins to pine less and listen more.

Rufus becomes the impetus for Mary to reconcile her life. This dog-savior scenario is plausible because Rufus is a lovable, quirky, gentle soul, and Mary's philosophical, humorous, and refreshingly honest narrative buoys an otherwise heartbreaking predicament. As Mary interacts with family, friends, her literary agent and new love interests, her unwitting spiritual recovery propels her to pack up and set off, with Rufus, on a pilgrimage in search of a whole new life. Kraus's novel is an entertaining, deeply engrossing portrait of what it means to be fully human and fully alive.

The Dog That Talked to God by Jim Kraus

Abingdon Press, $14.99, Trade Paper, 9781426742569, 278 pp

Publication Date: November 15, 2011

To order this book via INDIEBOUND link HERE

Please note: This review is a reprint and is being posted (in a slightly different form) with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (3/9/12), click HERE.