Wichita Eagle: Books

Author Dorothy Wickenden shares grandmother’s frontier teaching adventure

Alice Mannette — Sun, 27 May 2012 09:20 CDT

World War I raged in Europe, Woodrow Wilson was re-elected, and two young, privileged women traveled to teach in a remote village in the Colorado Rockies. That year, 1916, changed the lives of these teachers and the children they taught.

Dorothy Woodruff and Rosamond Underwood documented their stay in beautifully written and wonderfully detailed letters home. Woodruff’s granddaughter and namesake Dorothy Wickenden compiled the letters, oral history and documentation of this school year, 1916-17, into a book “Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West.” Wickenden, executive editor of The New Yorker magazine, will speak Thursday about her newly released paperback, “Nothing Daunted,” at Watermark Books and Cafe.

“It’s kind of a little forgotten moment in U.S. history,” Wickenden said of this time period.

Watermark Books: New & Recommended (May 27)

Sun, 27 May 2012 09:15 CDT

“Canada” by Richard Ford (Ecco, $27.99)

When Dell Parsons’ parents rob a bank, and are subsequently arrested, his life is irreparably altered. A family friend takes Dell in, bringing him to the wilds of Saskatchewan, in hopes of a better life. Once there, Dell struggles to understand, but the search for peace only moves him closer to a harrowing and murderous collision with darkness. Told in spare, elegant prose, “Canada” is another masterpiece by Pulitzer Prize-winner Ford.

“What Dies in Summer” by Tom Wright (W.W. Norton & Co., $25.95)

Book collects two centuries of campaign posters

Lisa McLendon — Sun, 27 May 2012 09:15 CDT

“Presidential Campaign Posters from the Library of Congress” (Quirk Books, 208 pages, $40)

Now that the presidential election is in full swing, it’s fun to take a look back to see how previous candidates have presented themselves and what issues they focused on.

Toni Morrison’s latest is a powerful exploration of the meaning of ‘home.’

Gordon Houser — Sun, 27 May 2012 09:15 CDT

“Home” by Toni Morrison (Knopf, 147 pages, $24)

Nobel Prize-winner Morrison is one our greatest living writers. Her novels combine lyrical prose with haunting stories of African-American life in different historical periods. She reveals both the horrors and the joys people experience at the frayed edges of life and death.

Children’s books: Gardens and animals for summer

Sun, 27 May 2012 09:14 CDT

Gardening and reading are perfect ways to start the summer. For preschoolers, the board book “In the Garden” by Elizabeth Spurr and illustrated by Manelle Oliphant (Peachtree Publishers, ages 2-5, $6.95) is a good choice. Vivid, lifelike illustrations with simple one- and two-word phrases tell a complete and satisfying story.

For older readers, “Secrets of the Garden” by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld and illustrated by Priscilla Lamont (Alfred A. Knopf, ages 5-8, $16.99) is “backyard science at its very best.” Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld writes a straightforward planting-a-garden story. Most pages include a backstory of chickens explaining food webs, sprout identification, photosynthesis, and other scientific principals. The illustrations by Priscilla Lamont are entertaining and educational with expanded details.

Either book is a great choice from planting through harvest time.

Two children’s books win William Allen White awards

Suzanne Perez Tobias — Mon, 21 May 2012 17:58 CDT

Two books about young girls dealing with growing pains are the recipients of the 2011 William Allen White Children’s Book Awards, officials announced Monday.

“11 Birthdays” by Wendy Mass and “Confetti Girl” by Diana Lopez were judged the best by Kansas schoolchildren.

The William Allen White Award program was founded in 1952 and is one of the few book awards decided by young readers. The program is directed by Emporia State University with support from the Trusler Foundation.

Novel of British manor perfect for fans of ‘Downton Abbey’

Mary Pols — Sun, 20 May 2012 08:22 CDT

“The Uninvited Guests” by Sadie Jones (Harper, 262 pages, $24.99)

Sadie Jones’ “The Uninvited Guests,” a novel set at an English country manor called Sterne, landed in my lap just as I’d run out of fresh episodes of “Downton Abbey.” It seemed heaven sent; Jones’ third novel is set in 1912, the very year “Downton” began, on the day and evening of a smallish house party celebrating the 20th birthday of the likable but spoiled eldest daughter of the manor, Emerald Torrington. Lemon cream and leg of lamb are on the menu. Suitors are discussed and people announce they don’t care a fig for things, even, occasionally, the suitors.

Stories with India as common thread amaze and delight

Joan Frank — Sun, 20 May 2012 08:22 CDT

“Aerogrammes and Other Stories” by Tania James (Alfred A. Knopf, 180 pages, $24)

Sometime in the recent past, I overheard someone remark, “I’ll read anything by Tania James.” And at the time — shame on me — I’d not heard that name before.

Watermark Books: New & Recommended (May 20)

Fri, 25 May 2012 08:47 CDT

“In One Person” by John Irving (Simon & Schuster, $28) In his most political work since the late 1980s, John Irving explores the tragicomic story spanning half a century of one man’s life as a “sexual suspect.” “In One

Person” is a compelling, intimate and unforgettable portrait of a bisexual man longing to make himself worthwhile.

Through a glass darkly

Arlice Davenport — Sun, 13 May 2012 07:51 CDT

“Traveler of the Century” by Andr e s Neuman, translated by Nick Caistor and Lorenza Garcia (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 576 pages, $30)

In a room in an inn in an imaginary city in a 19th-century novel written by a 21st-century author, a solitary traveler peers at an ornately framed watercolor. When the traveler takes down the painting for a closer look, he discovers, to his delight, a small mirror on the back. Every morning thereafter, he uses the mirror to shave by, then returns the painting to its proper place of adornment on the wall of his room.

‘Here Lies Hugh Glass’ analyzes the man and the myth

Sun, 13 May 2012 07:47 CDT

“Here Lies Hugh Glass: A Mountain Man, A Bear, and the Rise of the American Nation” by Jon T. Coleman (Hill and Wang, 252 pages, $28)

In 1823 Hugh Glass, a journeyman hunter and trapper, signed up to serve the American Fur Company as a hunter on its spring expedition up the Missouri River to the Arikara country and beyond, where a hundred men young and old (Glass was old) would find beaver pelts for the New York and European hat trade. Led by William Ashley and Andrew Henry, both members of the St. Louis political and business aristocracy, the American Fur Company was a purely capitalist enterprise and the hundred men young and old were purely the piece-paid proletarians.

Author Geraldine Brooks gives voice to the voiceless

Alice Mannette — Sun, 13 May 2012 07:46 CDT

When Pulitzer Prize-winning author Geraldine Brooks sits down to write, the characters’ voices flow through her mind. If she doesn’t sense them, she doesn’t write their story.

Brooks, the author of “Caleb’s Crossing,” will speak Thursday evening at Watermark Books about how a germ of an idea transformed into a spectacular novel.

“I love to find stories from the past where truth just pushes it at the absolute barriers,” Brooks said. “The fact that it really happened is such a jumping-off point for me.”

Author Geraldine Brooks to visit Wichita this week

Lisa McLendon — Thu, 10 May 2012 09:21 CDT

Foreign correspondents get a window on the world that few other people do: they see what’s happening in remote places, learn about various cultures, and often have a front-row seat to wars and coups and natural disasters. But they don’t always get a sense of the past the way Geraldine Brooks does.

The Australian-born Brooks most recently worked as a foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal before making the shift into fiction. Since then, she’s written four historical novels, all richly detailed, meticulously researched and beautifully written.

“Year of Wonders,” set in England during the plague of 1666, follows the life of a young woman whose life and worldview are forever altered by the illness sweeping her village. “March,” for which Brooks won a Pulitzer Prize, is set during the Civil War and imagines the life of the absent father — away at war — from “Little Women.” “People of the Book” is the centuries-spanning story of a mysterious Jewish manuscript inspired by a real manuscript called the Sarajevo Haggadah.

‘The Elizabethans’ is an entertaining history of an influential period

Gaylord Dold — Tue, 08 May 2012 17:51 CDT

“The Elizabethans” by A.N. Wilson (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 448 pages, $30)

The queen died unhappy, ravaged by time and illness, her realm disquieted by civil and religious factions which were equally adumbrated by frequent outbreaks of plague. The magistrates and sheriffs were hanging thieves, brigands and cut-purses in droves.

'The Power of Habit' explores what drives our routines

Lisa McLendon — Tue, 08 May 2012 17:52 CDT

“The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business” by Charles Duhigg (Random House, 286 pages, $28)

The cue: The “thwack” of the Sunday newspaper hitting the driveway.

Watermark Books: New & recommended (May 6)

Sun, 06 May 2012 08:56 CDT

“The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Passage of Power” by Robert A. Caro (Alfred A. Knopf, $35) The fourth in Caro’s series on Lyndon Johnson, this book focuses on the years 1958 to 1964, some of the most frustrating and triumphant years in Johnson’s career. From Johnson’s loss of the presidential nomination, to accepting the vice presidency, through Kennedy’s assassination and Johnson’s stepping into the presidency, this is an epic story told with an incredible depth of detail.

“The Newlyweds” by Nell Freudenberger (Alfred A. Knopf, $25.95) Amina is looking for a new life and happiness she can’t find in Bangledesh. George is looking for a woman who doesn’t play games. They meet online, but they each have secrets which threaten to tear their new relationship apart. Revelatory and affecting, “The Newlyweds” explores the exhilarations and complications of getting and staying married.

Watermark Bestsellers

Browsing: Three books, three wars

Lisa McLendon — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 22:18 CDT

“The Faces of World War I” by Max Arthur (Cassell Illustrated, 283 pages, $19.99)

“The Faces of World War II” by Max Hastings (Cassell Illustrated, 283 pages, $19.99)

Wars are often chronicled with battle dates and timelines, maps and statistics, leaving the individual men who fought them as an afterthought. These two new volumes take a look at the First and Second World Wars — as the titles imply — through images of the soldiers and the lives they led while in the thick of combat.

In ‘The Drowned Cities,’ young survivors face a chaotic landscape

Susan Carpenter — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 08:39 CDT

“The Drowned Cities” by Paolo Bacigalupi (Little, Brown, 448 pages, $17.99, ages 14 and up)

Whether it’s a conscious or subliminal reaction to U.S. military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, war is an increasingly common theme in modern young adult literature. But its horrors are rarely so thoroughly detailed as in Paolo Bacigalupi’s “The Drowned Cities.” One of the more graphically violent young adult titles of late, “The Drowned Cities” reads like a dystopian mash-up of the Vietnam War and modern geopolitics, where survivalism battles personal loyalties in a chaotic world.

Watermark Books: New & Recommended (April 29)

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 08:49 CDT

“Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake” by Anna Quindlen (Random House, $26) Using her past, present and future, this memoir is an exploration of what matters most to women at different ages. From marriage, girlfriends, motherhood, faith, and loss, to all the stuff in the closets, Quindlen offers insights on looking back and looking ahead, and celebrating it all.

“True Sisters” by Sandra Dallas (St. Martin’s Press, $24.99) In 1856, Mormon converts, encouraged by Brigham Young, set out to cross the plains from Iowa City to Salt Lake City. For most, the journey was difficult, yet uneventful. For the Martin Handcart Company, the trip proved disastrous. In this setting, Dallas weaves the stories of four women whose lives become linked through hardships and a testing of faith, each one learning the true meaning of survival and friendship along the way.

Watermark Bestsellers

Too much technology: ‘iDisorder’ takes a critical look at the overuse of digital devices

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 08:37 CDT

“iDisorder: Understanding Our Obsession with Technology and Overcoming its Hold on Us” by Larry D. Rosen (Palgrave/Macmillan, 256 pages, $25)

No matter where we go — to a restaurant, a movie, a public restroom, and yes, even a funeral — people are seen clutching and using a slim device that allows them to do just about anything they can do from an Internet-enabled computer at home. Who hasn’t attended a so-called business meeting in which every person is staring at a MacBookPro and talking on a cellphone simultaneously (while someone else plays a PowerPoint)?