The Magical Stranger

The Magical Stranger (2013) by Stephen Rodrick. The "magical stranger" of the title is Rodrick's father, a military man who died young. Rodrick spends the book delving into his father's past, trying to figure out who the man was whom he missed so much yet had known so little about. In the process, Rodrick talks to some current Navy pilots, and slowly uncovers the dirty little secret of military service -- that, even at best, it divides and stresses the families of the men (and women) involved. At the same time, Rodrick uncovers the ridiculous aspects of military service, how careers can be made or broken by small acts, how men and women can die because of the smallest of mistakes. It's a story told from the outside looking in, but Rodrick gets to the core of the story, and his book is well written. Grade: B 

The Golem and the Jinni

The Golem and the Jinni (2013) by Helene Wecker. An original and fascinating novel, The Golem and the Jinni tells the story of two supernatural creatures who come to turn-of-the-century America by different routes and who eventually meet and form an alliance. A golem is a creature made of clay and animated by a secret combination of words, and in the case of this book the golem is female. A Jinni is a free-flowing creature who inhabits the deserts of the middle east, only in the case of this book the jinni is held in human form by an iron band around his wrist. The adventures of the golem and the jinni in New York City are told with imagination and verve, and this is ultimately a very entertaining (and scary) book. I would recommend this to anyone who likes tales of the supernatural and tales of mythical creatures mixing in with regular people. Grade: A- 

The Great Santini

The Great Santini (1976) by Pat Conroy. Meet Lieutenant Colonel Bull Meecham, USMC, a fighter pilot and father to four children. The book is told half from Meecham's point of view, half from his son Ben's, and it's one of the most compulsively readable novels I've ever read. I almost literally could not put it down. As father-son relationships go, the Bull-Ben matchup is perhaps typical, but it is also unique, and I identified with it intensely, being the son of a Navy fighter pilot myself. The book rings true from start to finish, and everything in it seems believable and authentic -- as if the author had actually lived it himself. Which in a sense he did, since Conroy himself was also the son of a military man. This book was later made into a motion picture, starring Robert Duvall. A great book. Grade: A  

The 5th Wave

The 5th Wave (2013) by Rick Yancey. The 5th Wave is  a young-adult sci-fi novel about a group of youngsters (mostly teenagers) who are surviving in the wake of the greatest kill-off of human beings ever known. The kill-off is brought about by the Others, an unknown alien race who have arrived in a mother ship that hangs in orbit above the Earth while raining death down on the inhabitants. The 1st Wave is an EMP that knocks out all power on the planet. The 2nd Wave is an induced series of tsunamis that wipes out most of the population that lives near the oceans. The 3rd Wave is a plague, released by the aliens, that kills nearly everyone on Earth. The 4th Wave is called "Silencer," and it consists of humans who have been infested with alien intelligence and who exist only to kill other humans. What the 5th Wave is, I couldn't quite figure out, but the novel ends on a note of optimism as a small band of kids escapes the alien death camp and sets up its own settlement in the forest. Overall, this was a pretty readable book, but it is definitely aimed at younger readers. Grade: B- 

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena (2013) by Anthony Marra. This book takes a look at Chechnya, specifically in the years 1994-2004, and what life was like for the inhabitants of this ravaged region during the two wars waged against Chechnya by Russia. At the beginning of the novel, Russian soldiers burn down the house and abduct the father of Havaa, an innocent eight-year-old girl. Also watching is Akhmed, who decides to take responsibility for the girl and take her under his protection. He takes her to a nearby hospital, where he convinces Sonja, the chief of surgery, to let the little girl hide out in the hospital. The novel then goes deep into the background of all the characters through the years, and explores the ways in which they are all connected. It's a difficult novel to read, covering as it does so many murders and torturings and the everyday ugliness of life in Chechnya. But in the end it is ultimately uplifting and rewarding to read. Grade: B+

Cooked

Cooked (2013) by Michael Pollan. Pollan explores cooking by relating it to the "four elements": Fire, Water, Air and Earth. For Fire, he looks into the art of barbecue as practiced in North Carolina. For Water, he checks out the art of cooking stews and soups in pots, usually on a stove. In regard to Air, he explores the art of baking bread. and for Earth, he looks into various uses of fermentation, including cheese and beer. It's a pretty entertaining book, although a bit wordy, but he gets into the philosophy behind food and makes it interesting. Very very good. Grade: B+

A Curious Man

A Curious Man: The Strange and Brilliant Life of Robert "Believe It or Not" Ripley (2013) by Neal Thompson. This, it turns out, is the only full-length biography written about Robert Ripley, arguably the 20th century's most popular (and highest paid) cartoonist. His life was nearly as weird as one of his cartoon panels, involving starting from nothing and nowhere and rising to great fame and fortune. Many examples are given of his "Believe It or Not" articles, and it turns out that he also did radio, television and motion pictures at different times during his career. Ripley had extremely mangled front teeth and a severe stutter, but he overcame these problems with his talent and dedication to seeking out the weird and the wonderful, traveling all over the world during his lifetime to seek out oddities and freaks wherever they were to be found. (He found a lot of material in China and India.) More than anything, this book is just plain fun, and I had a great time reading it. I would recommend it to anyone. Grade: A

Enon

Enon (2013) by Paul Harding. Charlie Crosby's 13-year-old daughter Kate is killed in a car accident, and Crosby spends the rest of this book trying to deal with his pain, mostly through drugs. His wife, unable to deal with the pain, leaves him, and he is left to struggle alone with his grief. How he supports himself during this period is not made clear, but he retreats into a drug-hazed stupor, where he takes to wandering around the small New England town of Enon alone at night. He even goes so far as to break into a neighbor's house in search of pain-killers, a fact which he thinks is secret but which is actually public knowledge. It's an interesting novel, and it holds the reader's attention all the way through to the end, in which Charlie finally goes to the doctor to get help and begins to rebuild his life. Grade: A- 

Frozen in Time

Frozen in Time (2013) by Mitchell Zuckoff. In 1942, an American cargo plane crashed on Greenland. A B-17, sent out to search for survivors, also crashed into the ice. Miraculously, the men aboard these planes survived the crashes, only to face the prospect of dying in the Greenland winter. Several rescue missions were launched, and several men on the rescue missions were killed in the attempt. This book is billed as "An epic story of survival and a modern quest for lost heroes of World War II." But it struck me more as an epic story of the futility of trying to challenge Greenland with 1940s technology. It was a grueling book to read, and even though many of the men in the crashed planes were rescued, many were lost. It's a good book, but does not live up to Zuckoff's previous effort, Lost in Shangri-La. Grade: B+ 

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (1955) by J.R.R. Tolkien. Best. Book. Ever. Tolkien's fantasy masterpiece follows the adventures of Frodo and Sam in Mordor as they quest to destroy the evil One Ring in the cracks of doom, while also following the battles of Men against the evil forces of Sauron in the battle for Gondor. The struggle is long and difficult, but the happy endings cascade over one another in a most satisfying way. The main body of the book is followed by extensive appendixes which trace the history of all the races of Middle Earth; provide extensive timelines of the events before, during and after the book; and explicate the languages and alphabets  used by the different races in the book. Overall, it's a real tour-de-force of creation of an alternate world in which the reader can get lost and enjoy the fruits of a story in which all comes right in the end. Simply gorgeous. Grade: A

Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls

Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls (2013) by David Sedaris. The wry humorist strikes again with a series of essays, some of them funny. Most are reflective, and all have  something to say about life in the world today. The book makes for almost effortless reading, and for the most part is quite entertaining. I don't think it measures up to some of Sedaris' previous work, but that's a mild criticism. Sedaris is certainly a good writer, and quite prolific. Grade: B