We Recommend...

(You can clisk on a title listing at the top of the page to jump to the recommendation, then click the back button on your browser to jump back to where you started)

The Prodigal Spy by Joseph Kanon reviewed by Craig Shafer

The Reader by Bernard Schlink reviewed by James MacDougall

The Return of Little Big Man by Thomas Berger Reviewed by Warren Onken

Riven Rock by T. C. Boyle reviewed by Richard Lowinger

The River Why by David James Duncan reviewed by Kelley Conaty

Silk by Alessandro Baricco reviewed by James MacDougall

Skipped Parts, Sorrow Floats, and Social Blunders by Tim Sandlin reviewed by Mary McDaniel

Standing in the Shadows by Michelle Spring reviewed by Liesl Freudenstein

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien reviewed by Kirk Uhrlaub

Zabelle by Nancy Kricorian reviewed by Arsen Kashkashian

Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter by J. Nozipo Maraire reviewed by John Galm

The Prodigal Spy
by Joseph Kanon
reviewed by Craig Shafer

McCarthy witch hunts, the Iron Curtain, Vietnam and the Paris peace talks - these are the backdrops for a thrilling novel of betrayal and treachery. At the height of the Red Scare a Soviet spy falls to her death from a Washington hotel window. A State Department official flees to Moscow, leaving his wife and young son behind. After fighting in Vietnam, Nick Koltar, along with a mysterious woman, finds himself in Soviet-occupied Czechoslovakia, searching for his defector father and the se crets he holds. A story of love and intrigue, this novel twists and turns through Cold War loyalties, crimes and treason. Many surprises, wonderful suspense.

The Prodigal Spy ($25.00)

The Reader
by Bernard Schlink
reviewed by James MacDougall

This is a book of secrets. Fifteen year old Michael Berg meets Hanna Schmitz and a new world opens. The book is told by Berg looking back on his life from middle age. He constantly questions identity: his own, that of Hanna, as well as the post-war Germany he grew up in. Are we the sum of our actions, our failings? Hanna represents the Germany of secrets, of things too ugly to reveal, and Michael is the next generation, looking for truth. Bernard Schlink gives us a proud but torn country where the people are its sole identity. In spare, beautiful prose, The Reader begs the question "who are we?"

The Reader ($11.00)

The Return of Little Big Man
by Thomas Berger
reviewed by Warren Onken

Here is reason to celebrate -- the further adventures of Jack Crabb, a.k.a. Little Big Man, in the American West and beyond. Though lacking the moral center that Old Lodge Skins, Jack's surrogate Cheyenne father, provided in the first book, the sequel nonetheless admirably continues Jack's shrewd narrative voice, full of irony and insight and suggestive of an adult Huckleberry Finn out west. Once again, Berger's prodigious research allows him to seamlessly enfold a fictional character into historic events without violating either fact or the spirit of the times, as Jack carouses with Bat Masterson, tours with Buffalo Bill's Wild West and witnesses the last days of Sitting Bull.

The Return of Little Big Man ($25.00)

Riven Rock
by T.C. Boyle
reviewed by Richard Lowinger

Boyle has done it again! He finds humor in the deepest poignancy. For me, his writing is literally satire at its best. Riven Rock is his seventh novel. He has also written four short story collect ions, as well as his most recent T.C. Boyle Stories, an anthology. It's September 15th, 1904. Katherine Dexter, first female graduate of MIT and soon to be suffragette, marries Stanley Mc Cormick, son of the millionaire inventor of the Reaper. Is Katherine's Stanley exquisitely sensitive, or mentally unstable? Unfortunately, it is the latter, yet the relationship will endure. I have read everything Boyle has published. He is my favorite author.

Riven Rock ($13.95)

The River Why
by David James Duncan
reviewed by Kelley Conaty

This is a very unique novel that I recommend to everyone. It is the story of how Gus Orviston reaches into himself and defines his own identity. An Oregon native, Duncan writes with such vivid detail and obvious love for the landscape that he leaves you with an overwhelming desire to see the state for yourself. His characters are hilariously funny and extremely moving: from the fish-crazed father H20 to brother Bill Bob, all of the people Gus encounters are well drawn and skillfully integrated into the narrative. An engrossing and highly entertaining summer read.

The River Why ($12.95)

Silk
by Alessandro Baricco
reviewed by James MacDougall

This novel is simply ninety-one of the most beautiful pages of prose I have ever read. Baricco's well-crafted style is beyond compare in sentences like this: "Occasionally, on windy days, he would go down to the lake and spend hours in contemplation of it because he seemed to decry, sketched out on the water, the inexplicable sight that his life had been, in all its lightness." This is a startling and historically compelling novel that tells a story of adventure, sexual enthrallment, and a love so powerful it unhinges a man's life. And so we enter Herve Joncour's world: "The year was 1861. Flaubert was writing Salammbo, electric light remainedhypothetical, and Abraham Lincoln, beyond the Ocean, was fighting a war which he was not to see the finish. Herve Joncour was thirty-two. He bought and sold. Silkworms."

Silk ($10.00)

Skipped Parts, Sorrow Floats, andSocial Blunders
by Tim Sandlin
reviewed by Mary McDaniel

I started reading Tim Sandlin's books a few years ago and had to read everything he wrote. I keep checking Books in Print for a new one! In this newly released paperback trilogy you'll meet some of Sandlin's pathetically wacky characters and follow them throughout the three books. He has quite a way of taking depressing events and ideas and making them hilarious. Equally raunchy and heartwarming, you'll keep the pages turning.

Skipped Parts ($12.00)

Sorrow Floats ($12.00)

Social Blunders ($12.00)

Standing in the Shadows
by Michelle Spring
reviewed by Liesl Freudenstein

For those of you who are eagerly waiting for the next Elizabeth George or Minette Walters, relax! I have discovered Michelle Spring! Standing in the Shadows is about Daryll Flatt, a child who murders his foster mother and the private eye who is hired to discover why. The most fascinating murders are the ones in which the motives are incomprehensible, such as in this case. After 10 years, Daryll's brother wants to understand how the sweet boy he remembers turned into such a monster. Laura Principal doesn't really want to investigate a case in which a child is the villain, but as she does she sees children and the world in which they move with new eyes. With deft writing, Michelle Spring creates a sinister contrast between innocence and the corruption that lingers in the shadows. The only problem is now I have three authors to wait for!

Standing in the Shadows ($23.00)

The Things They Carried
by Tim O'Brien reviewed
by Kirk Uhrlaub

As a work of fiction O'Brien's novel comes as close to feeling like a true story as one would think possible. In fact the truth is something he examines throughout this book of loosely connected allegories. Does it really matter who is to blame in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, or can ambiguity and shared guilt teach us more? The stories are vivid but the lessons are unclear, and in the end what O'Brien unearths through his use of metaphor (and attention to such subtle elements as light and color) is the healing power of storytelling itself.

The Things They Carried ($ 12.95)

Zabelle
by Nancy Kricorian
reviewed by Arsen Kashkashian

Zabelle is an Armenian woman who miraculously survives the Turkish massacres and moves to Boston. Kricorian does a wonderful job in describing both Zabelle's inner life and outer circumstances. She comes to America as part of an arranged marriage. Her husband is indifferent and her mother-in-law cruel. But Zabelle, not surprisingly, is a survivor. She's a narrator who speaks with irony, hope, wisdom and humor. I can also say she speaks with authenticity. Her stories sound a lot like the tales my Armenian grandfather, who ended up in Philadelphia, still recounts around the kitchen table.

Zabelle ($23.00)

Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter
by J. Nozipo Maraire
reviewed by John Galm

How does a mother of Africa relate her ancestral, cultural ways to her Harvard-trained, feminist daughter? In this heartfelt series of letters (reminiscent of Alice Walker's The Color Purple), J. Nozipo Maraire allows the reader to feel between the words the suffering and laughter of her life and the hopes for her daughter. The story, set in the changing country of Zimbabwe, tells not only of family and village survival but also of the continuing transmission of African values and their conflict with Western norms. "Zenzele" is not a polemic or treatise but a beautifully written story told with African literary subtlety.

Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter ($ 9.95)

You'll find these reviews and many more in our award-winning Recommended Reading section on the main floor and in sections throughout the store. If you have a review you'd like us to post either here or in our section, e-mail Bevin Campbell, Recommended Reading Coordinator at info@boulderbookstore.com.