Five Quarters of the Orange, Joanne Harris

"Five Quarters of the Orange" is the story of Frambroise and her siblings Reine-Claude and Cassis -- children of a migraine-suffering mother and a killed-in-action soldier. During World War II the three children turn informant on their tiny French village, trading secrets for candy and fishing tackle. As their relationship with their mother deterioriates, so does the situation with the Germans stationed nearby. Harris folds the story of Frambroise's childhood into what's happening years later as Frambroise tries to run a small restaurant in the village under a different name. Harris' writing, as always, makes your mouth water and your nose twitch as the children put down buckwheat pancakes and saucissson. The plot moves forward at a good pace, and the characters are interesting, if not believable. I have one major complaint about the book -- and that has to do with the building of suspense. Harris spends more than 250 pages building toward the childhood and adult climax, promising to reveal a terrible secret when the denouement is finally reached. Sadly, I found both secret and crisis less than they had built up to be, which lessened the overall impact of the book.

Emma's War, Deborah Scroggins

I haven't made Africa a research topic, but I've nonetheless done a lot of reading abou the hopeless, heartrending situations there. I wasn't sure if I could stand another trip down "Feel Bad Lane," but my dad recommended this book to me so it ended up on the must-read list. Scroggins writes knowledgely about Africa, though with a sense of desperation and hopeslessness that wears you down. Her subject is primarily Africa, but through the lens of aid-worker turned (second) wife of a warlord, Emma McCune. McCune, an English artist attracted very young to Africa, arrived first as an aid worker who started schools. She wore mini-skirts, flirted and slept with locals, and cut an unusual and colorful figure in southern Sudan. She was became controversial when she married Riek Machar, a rebel war leader, becoming his second wife. McCune's relationship impacted her aid work, and didn't earn her favor among Machar's men, whose trust in Machar's judgment was undermined. The marriage occurred just before several years of bloody fighting, and McCune quickly lost any objectivity she might have had. She died shortly into the conflict, in a car accident.

Scroggins knew McCune first-hand, though not intimately, and she knew most of those that were part of McCune's life in southern Sudan. Though not a personal look at McCune's life, the book still conveys some of the attitudes and motivations that take aid workers into Africa and send them home again. Scroggins portrays McCune as smart, energetic and compelling, while still managing to convey that ultimately she was misguided, delusional and -- in the end -- insignificant.

Collected Short Fiction of C.J. Cherryh, C.J. Cherryh

Cherryh is a ... comprehensive... writer, and that's true of these short stories as much as it is in Cyteen or Tripoint. Cherryh is never content to set up a situation or a problem and then solve it. No, her stories require inventions of worlds, including social, legal, economic and political systems. These are among the densest short stories you will ever read; on page 466 I found a 125-word sentence describing light hitting books and floor in a hallway. The shortest story in this collection (page 586) takes microbes from reproduction to space travel in the space of a paragraph. For the dedicated fan and hardcore science fiction lover.

Kindred, Octavia E. Butler

"Kindred" is a strange book, but that might be expected from a science fiction novel written in the '70s by a black woman. Our heroine is Dana Franklin, a black woman writer, whose life is hard in all the usual ways, but which suddenly takes a turn for the worse when she is yanked into the past to save a little boy. Hour later, it happens again. It turns out she's going to the aid of an ancestor, which isn't all that odd a science fiction plot, but the ancestor happens to be a white plantation owner's son destined to inherit the plantation and the slaves that go with it. Dana not only doesn't fit in, she's assumed to be a slave, and a very unsatisfactory one at that. Horror ensues over time, and Dana's relationship with her white husband begins to warp as they are both changed by the past. A solid and compelling book of the kind that Oprah will undoubtedly get around to honoring and then force all America to read.

Legends II: New Short Novels By the Masters of Modern Fantasy, Edited by Robert Silverberg

If you like fantasy, you can't go wrong with this book. If fantasy isn't your thing, skip this entry entirely - "Legends II" is all about magic, maidens and swords. Authors included in this anthology are Terry Brooks, Neil Gaiman, Tad Williams and Orson Scott Card, among others. Silverberg has arranged the book so that the strongest material is at the front, which was something of a letdown if you read the book cover to cover. The best inclusion was "The Sworn Sword" in which the hero gets neither the girl nor the glory, but keeps his integrity intact nonetheless. Anne McCaffrey's "Beyond Between" was very weak, and probably doesn't make sense to those unfamiliar with her books about Pern. A good read, overall.

The Book of Salt, Monique Truong

Truong's "The Book of Salt" is the first-person story of Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas' live-in cook, a homosexual Vietnamese man with ghosts in his past and his head. Binh, though we never learn what his real name is, grows up poor, the child of a loving mother and tyrannical father. His older brother apprentices him in the kitchen of the Governor-General's house, a place where no one has value unless he is French, or speaks some. These early lessons resonate through his life, as he travels as a ship's cook and struggles to survive in Paris. His reflections on language and love are strange, the effect of the book troubling. Though we can hear Binh's voice, somehow we can never really see him; he is in hiding, lost.

The Chrome Suite, Sandra Birdsell

a sweetly crafted little book about the life of amy barber, a strange kid and now an (who isn't) unhappy adult. amy's childhood in small-town canada goes off the rails when her older sister Jill dies of something hideous involving swollen glands in unmentionable places. amy is 9 when her sister dies, and we never learn what jill suffered from. her family falls apart - mother finds religion, father starts collecting junk small and large, older brother becomes a promiscuous asshole. jump forward to amy as an adult, in a relationship with piotr, a younger man from poland. can't reveal more without revealing too much. this was a strange book to read - i responded strongly to the writing and the characters' emotions, but never actually felt sympathy for amy. i liked this one, though if there's a message in the title, i'm too dull today to figure it out.

Kushiel's Dart, Jacqueline Carey

This book is only for the serious fantasy enthusiast, and maybe not for all of those, either. "Kushiel's dart" is the story of PhËdre nÛ Delaunay, who is born into a world of indentured prostitution and trained by a politician to mix sex, spying and sado-masochism. PhËdre quickly becomes a favorite of the court and intrigue follows. This is not the book for you if you're wondering whether you like fantasy or not ñ Carey is highly romantic, and PhËdre is full of "if I knew then what I know now" melodrama. Nonetheless, it's a good, complicated story, fantasy that you can sink your teeth into. And it's kinky.

The Hot House, Pete Earley

Reading this book has inspired me to stay out of jail, by whatever means necessary. Since the easiest way to do that seems to be to obey the law, I'll start there. Earley wrote this book after spending two years visiting Leavenworth prison, talking with prisoners, guards and management. He doesn't attempt to explain why people become prisoners or guards, but does look closely at life inside. There is a parallel universe, folks, and prison is it. Many of the prisoners Earley writes about speak of having integrity and following their principles, while saying at the same time that they have no interest in playing by the rules of the outside world. If you ever had the idea that prison could rehabilitate, this should take care of it. Disturbing, depressing, and should be required reading at a very young age.

Disgrace, J.M. Coetzee

Why is it that the really good books are so sad? J. M. Coetzee's "Disgrace" won the 1999 Booker Prize, as well it should. David Lurie, a lackluster communications professor in Cape Town, engages in a little peccadillo with one of his students, bringing his career to a precipitous end. The novel follows his exploration of the state of disgrace, which he inhabits with deliberation. While visiting his daughter's farm in the Eastern Cape, Lurie and Lucy are attacked -- and Lurie can understand nothing about the reactions of those around him. The book's writing is quietly effective, leaving you genuinely disturbed.

Old School, Tobias Wolff

Old School is the story of a boy's prep school and of one boy's literary aspirations. Our hero is a scholarship boy who works hard to fit in, masking his personality and hiding a secret he seems to feel will have serious social repercussions. During a school literary competition, things go first very right and then very wrong. Will our hero ever become a writer? Wolff's book is beautifully written and his descriptions of life at a boy's school are lyrically beautiful. Nevertheless the book has some plot flaws that distract from the main thrust of the theme, and the book ties up just a little too neatly in excusing the main character's misdeeds. Wolff is to be admired for creating a character a very real set of fears and secrets. The cameo appearances by Ayn Rand and Robert Frost are highly comical.

Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I had high expectations for Love in the Time of Cholera, based on Gabriel Garcia Marquez' lyrical writing in other words. Sadly, I was disappointed. It's always disturbing to be underwhelmed by a book commonly regarded as a classic piece of literature, but I found this book slow moving, overly descriptive and relatively plot-less. It felt very like this was 350 pages of character sketch -- very developed character sketches, but character sketches. This might not be the end of the world if the characters were likable or understandable, but Marquez really isn't exploring real people in this book. Then there's the ending. I won't give it away, but it's frankly bizarre. The book takes a turn into fantasy at its end. Do I recommend it? Love in the Time of Cholera is definitely worth reading, but don't make it the only one of Marquez' works you read.

The Wife, Meg Wolitzer

Another book for the surprise-ending category. "The Wife" is the story of a husband and wife who meet as teacher and graduate student. The husband, a well-known novelist, is receiving a coveted literary prize. His wife has decided to end the marriage as soon as he gets his prize. Much of the book is written as a flashback during the award ceremony and the festivities surrounding it. The husband is clearly guilty of being a prick, the suspense of the book comes in discovering in just how much of a prick he is. I quite enjoyed this book, except for the ending, which seemed to twist the meaning of the book back on itself (I can't say more about this without giving about the entire plot and spoiling the book for you.). Nonetheless, I recommend this one.