In the garden of beasts : love, terror, and an American family in Hitler’s Berlin by Erik Larson.

Stacks E748.D6 L37 2011
Recommended by Colleen Lougen, Librarian

Another riveting read from Erik Larson (Devil in the White City, Isaac's Storm, and Thunderstruck) about Hitler's ascent to power. Told through the real life accounts of William Dodd, the American ambassador to Germany (1933-1937) who moved his wife and two children to Berlin. The story is reconstructed from William and his daughter, Martha's diaries and letters. This book quickly draws you in and makes you feel like you are living in 1930's Berlin. The name of the book comes from the English translation of Tiergarten which is the Central Park of Berlin and where much of the book takes place. Great book for anyone interested in this period of history.

The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk

Stacks PL248.P34 M3713 2009

Recommended by: Ogerta Lala, International student from Albania, Haggerty English Language Program

This special book is one of the most liked and appreciated by the literary critics but very soon it will be a literary icon like “Madam Bovary” and “Anna Karenina”. This novel takes place in Istanbul -- the Istanbul of 1975, divided between modern and archaic mentality. Kemal, a young boy, part of the high society, was engaged with Sibel. She was an aristocratic girl, educated in Paris. They were the perfect couple that had everything -- love, money, and entertainment. But a turning point happened in Kemal’s life when he met a very young girl called Fusun. She was so different from Sibel. She was only an 18-year-old shop girl with a lot of beauty and splendor that Kemal had become obsessed. All his world was overthrown and he became prisoner of his passion for Fusun. He never thought that his love for her was so immense that he could forget Sibel, his family, his business and everything else. This love was impossible as he went through pain, dreams and ended with a museum. The end of this destructive love was incredible and arduous. The book was wonderful and at the end of it you felt like you lost something special. That was what I felt after finishing this book. I felt I lost a best friend and Kemal lost her Fusun. It is a must-read.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

Recommended by: Emily, STL Information Desk student assistant
Call Number: Stacks PS3608.O832 T46 2007
Audiobook Media/Audio Computer Disk PS3608.O832 T456 2007c

This beautifully written novel takes place in Afghanistan
and chronicles two main characters: Miriam and Laila.
Miriam grew up with her mother, a former housekeeper to
the richest man in town who happened to be her father. She
only saw him occasionally, and after her mother committed
suicide he sold her to a man almost forty years older than
her for marriage. As if all she was going through was
not enough, her new husband mistreated her and abused her
repeatedly. Miriam’s husband lives in another village and
she is relocated against her desires to live with him. In
that village, a girl named Laila lives with her family.
She is a beautiful and smart young girl and is madly in
love with her best friend. She has her whole life ahead of
her with countless opportunities, but when war breaks out
in the village, her family is killed by bombs and she is
wounded, she must make the most difficult decision of her
life; in Afghanistan it is socially acceptable for a man
to have several wives, so she decides to marry Rasheed,
Miriam’s husband. After marriage, both women are
frequently abused and must work together to get along with
each other, and try to overcome society’s and their
husband’s harsh rule.

This novel gave great insight as to the struggles women
are forced to go through, and although the story may seem
bleak at times, it is a must-read.

Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman

Call Number: Stacks E169.12 .K56 2004
Recommended by: Rus Springer

In this collection of essays Chuck Klosterman explores popular culture as experienced by people coming of age in the 1980s and 1990s. For the rest of us, he gives insight into the ways in which who we are in reality is often only a reflection of who we are in popular culture.

Along the way he touches upon how, ultimately, no one is able to find real love because of John Cusack; how the Real World changed from being a sample of the youth of America to unintentionally creating the youth of America; the realization that Pamela Anderson, like Marilyn Monroe before her, is the sex symbol for our time largely because times change; that the 1980s rivalry between the Celtics and the Lakers represents not just race in American but “absolutely everything” about America; the fact that Saved by the Bell is an explanation of all things Generation X; and the relationships between the apocalyptic, Christian theology of the Left Behind series and NFL football and “America’s insipid Oprah Culture”—plus much more.

His irreverent and uniquely skewed take on such things may produce a chuckle but, ultimately, he delivers the ideal in criticism: it is less about a specific artifact and more about the culture itself.

Wolves Eat Dogs [sound recording] by Martin Cruz Smith

Media/Audio Computer Disk PS3569.M5377 W65 2005
Recommended by: Susan Kraat, Librarian

Martin Cruz Smith’s Wolves Eat Dogs is a very good listen,
even as it is a sobering account of life in post-Chernobyl
Chernobyl, the Zone of Exclusion in the Ukraine commonly
referred to simply as the “Zone.” Detective Arkady Renko
(remember Gorky Park?) travels from Moscow to the Ukraine,
to solve a crime involving Russian gangsters and
radioactive chemicals. Smith describes the criminal world
of Moscow, the new Russian capitalism, and the regional
apocalypse in the Ukraine that remains since the 1986
nuclear meltdown. The despair is tangible and
unrelenting, bearable because of the author’s compelling
prose and bleak sense of humor. Ron McLarty reads with
exactly the right tone and has a clever ear for dialect.

Magic Land of Toys by Alberto Manguel

Recommended by: Stephan J. Macaluso, Librarian
Oversize NK9509.5.F8 P376 2006

Manguel is a prolific author, translator and anthologist whose interests range from art appreciation to classics to mystery. Magic Land of Toys, however, is really a picture book. Manguel collaborates with photographer Michel Pintado, set designer Jean Haas and (the real star of the show) the toy collection of the Paris Musee des Arts Decoratifs to present a series of vignettes that conjure our childhood playrooms.

The cinematically-rendered images of the toys, posed --sometimes suggestively-- in mid-action, provoke us to reflect on play, collectables, childhood and age-old questions like Are toys really alive? and What do our toys do when we’re not around? While the scenes speak vivdly by themselves, Manguel’s insightful texts comment on memory, identity, lost toys, and the importance of imagination. This is a splendid source of introspection and nostalgia. It also makes a great game of I Spy.

All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren

Recommended by: Susan Kraat, Librarian
Call Number: PS3545.A748 A4 1963

I first read All the King’s Men, while vacationing in Maine this summer. No, I had never been assigned to read it, or picked it up until now. In preparation for our trip, I noticed that more than one “best novel” list included Robert Penn Warren’s classic tale of southern politics, based upon Huey Long, former governor (and senator) of Louisiana. It is a vivid story of ambition, blackmail, deception, hubris, and murder, told by a narrator who attempts to distance himself from the dirty nature of his work, as well as from his past. The poetic language draws you into a world of southern politics and competing ideologies from the first page, and never disappoints. This is a story about a man of humble origins who rises to power, uses his oratory skills and his influence to commit dark deeds in the name of idealism, and who must suffer for his sins in the end. It tells of the struggle between the old South and the new South, and lets us know that politics remains a dirty business. But after the turmoil and bloodshed there is still a bit of hope at the end. Penn Warren quotes Dante at the beginning of the book: “Mentre che la speranza ha fior del verde” I did not look for the translation until the end and I am glad that I waited.