Books that captivate with their exquisite prose and unforgettable storytelling. Perfect for readers who appreciate the art of language.
Belle Cora
Phillip Margulies, 2014
592 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
June, 2014
Margulies has given America our own version of Moll Flanders. His heroine, Belle Cora, a prostitute and madame, is as richly drawn as her 17th-century English progenitor. Like Moll, Belle mesmerizes—and shocks—characters and readers alike with her beauty, intelligence, and endless stratagems.
This is no sedate tale of Victorian manners nor a sentimental glance backward to a golden era. Margulies has stripped away the mythology of a young country to reveal its grittiness and corruption. It is the mid-1800's—when America was raw and earthy—and Belle Cora's story reflects those times.
The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II
Denise Kiernan, 2013
416 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
May 2014
Mud and secrecy are the two most salient facts of this engaging history of the women who thronged to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, during World War II. Thousands of them came—for good-paying jobs, adventure, or to follow husbands. They had no idea what they would be doing—or what they were working on once they got here. (They were enriching uranium.)
They slogged barefoot through mud (often knee-deep), worked hard, kept their heads down and their mouths shut. Their efforts, rarely acknowledged, helped bring about the end of World War II...and the world's deadliest weapon.
Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie
Barbara Goldsmith, 2004
320 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
May, 2014
More than 100 years on, Marie Curie is still the preeminent woman of science, taking her place alongside the likes of Rutherford, Einstein, Ferme, and Bohr (her contemporaries). Her achievements are numerous—and all the more dazzling because they were accomplished in the face of near poverty and an oppressively sexist culture.
This is the struggle told by Barbara Goldsmith in her lucid, wonderfully written biography. The author digs beneath the standard legend—created by headlines, biographies, and history books—to present a more personal portrait of a woman driven by obsession and "melancholy."
Thank You for Your Service
David Finkel, 2013
272 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
March, 2014
About a third of the way into this book, we're taken into a Pentagon conference room where sit generals, a colonel or two, and Peter Chiraelli, the Army's Vice Chief of Staff. They're tying to get a handle on the high rate of military suicide, and so they talk about numbers, review cases and try, always, to arrive at a "lesson learned"—what have we learned from this one death that could help prevent others?
But it's the real lives beneath the statistics—men who return from two Mideast wars and find themselves unable to get on with their lives—that make up the heart of David Finkel's book. They're the men we follow throughout—and whom we come to care about, deeply.
Redeployment (Stories)
Phil Klay, 2014
400 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
March 2014
The twelve stories in this remarkable collection—about soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan—vary in length, but the one thing they have in common are characters struggling to cope with their wounds—wounds that, for the most part, are psychic.
The stories explore the bonds of comradeship, the difficulty of religious faith in war, the unsettling linkage between sex and violence, and the ever presence in war of fear and anger. In one story, the men chant "kill, kill, kill," taking a perverse pride in their company's kill rate. When a fresh recruit makes his first combat hit, they celebrate his loss of "virginity."