Delmio.com Sidetrips

Edward Kennedy at one time was a name synonymous with “scandal.”  Often regarded as a pampered playboy, Teddy languished in the shadows of his brothers, John and Bobby, whose shadows seemed to have been made longer by their deaths in the 1960s.

But over the decades in the Senate, Kennedy accumulated a substantial body of work. Now, as the senator faces his own mortality with the diagnosis of a brain tumor, the staff of the Boston Globe has crafted Last Lion: The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy.

In his review, Minneapolis Star Tribune writer Tim O’Brien rattles off a list of scandals, enough scandals to keep the tabloids in business for years. The drinking and carousing, the academic misdeeds, and more:

“Last Lion explores all of these incidents, and it doesn’t give Kennedy a hometown discount. Chappaquiddick (the one-word incident that revolved around the death of Mary Jo Kopechne), the writers say, was ‘a failure of princely indulgence, assuming he could do anything and have others clean up, or something closer to the opposite — the faltering of a grief-stricken and damaged psyche, unable to confront his responsibilities.’ ”

The Globe staff, which probably knows Kennedy better than anyone else could, provides a unique view of the Massachusetts senator, the liberal’s liberal who has forged unlikely alliances and deep friendships with the likes of conservative Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah.

No doubt political junkies will love it.

Read more HERE.

Ever-busy John Grisham is back with what made him famous — legal thrillers. His latest, due out this month, might seem reminiscent to his breakout-novel-turned-movie, The Firm. In The Associate, bright and idealistic attorney Kyle McAvoy, fresh out of law school, lands a plum job at a plum firm only to find himself caught in a deadly web of intrigue and deceit.

Publisher DoubleDay has this to say: “With an unforgettable cast of characters and villains—from Baxter Tate, a drug-addled trust fund kid and possible rapist, to Dale, a pretty but seemingly quiet former math teacher who shares Kyle’s “cubicle” at the law firm, to two of the most powerful and fiercely competitive defense contractors in the country—and featuring all the twists and turns that have made John Grisham the most popular storyteller in the world, The Associate is vintage Grisham.”

If this all sounds familiar, rest assured it’s a new cast of characters and a different town, with all-new chase sequences (just a guess here).

For a sneak peek, CLICK HERE.

Of the six titles that list John McCain as an author, the book that gives us the largest window into McCain’s soul and personality is Faith Of My Fathers. Written with longtime staffer Mark Salter and published in 1999, this memoir chronicles the larger-than-life lineage of a family tree whose roots reach back to Scot Presbyterian warriors.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee explains his military ancestors this way: “The McCains, bred to fight as Highland Scots of the Clan McDonald, arrived in the New World shortly after American gained her independence, when Hugh McCain settled his wife and six children in Caswell County, North Carolina, and built his estate, Lenox Castle.”

To see more about John McCain’s Faith of My Fathers, CLICK HERE.

The brilliant Michael Cunningham’s fifth novel is actually three stories vastly separated in time but with commonalities of place and character names.

Also tying together the stories — novellas, actually — is the poetry of Walt Whitman, which is woven through the book.

The book is ambitious not only in structure but in writing style. Like a musical virtuoso so familiar with his instrument that he has to increase the degree of difficulty to remain amused, the Cincinnati native writes each section of the book in a different genre — gothic ghost story, noir thriller, and science fiction.

To learn more about Specimen Days, CLICK HERE.

At its heart, Feathers is about hope, and what it means to face tremendous opposition, and still smile.

Frannie is a middle school-age girl living in the black section of a never-named urban city center in the winter of 1970. She has an older brother, Sean, who is deaf, and a mother who has suffered several miscarriages. One day, a new boy — a white boy — comes to her school as a transfer student. He’s quiet, has long hair and is named Jesus. No one is quite sure what to make of him, or the fact that he as a black father, or that he stands up to the class bully.

The title comes from an Emily Dickinson poem that Frannie and her class read and try to explain one day:

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune — without the words,
And never stops at all …

To learn more about Feathers and author Jacqueline Woodson, CLICK HERE.

The Da Vinci Code took the literary world by storm, though the movie, well, not so much so. It brought gnosticism to public awareness and suggested something unspreakably evil was going on. And how about Tom Hanks’ hair? It certainly had its fans, and it had a few detractors as well. See for yourself.
He tried to hide from it. He tried to ignore it. He dodged. He spun. He parried. But ultimately, Steve Love succumbed to the irresistible force that is The Da Vinci Code.

To see more, CLICK HERE.

T is for Trespass is the title of Sue Taylor Grafton’s latest marvel of a mystery, but there are plenty of T words to describe the wildly popular novelist herself: tenacious, thorough and timeless are among them. Her literary role models include masters of the classic detective novel Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald. And although her story lines prove topical and terrifying, Grafton herself is an amiable, albeit hardworking, wife, grandmother, fitness buff and cat lover. She maintains a home in her native Louisville, Ky., just about two hours from her sister, Ann, a retired librarian in Cincinnati.

Grafton and her husband of 20-plus years, Steven Humphrey, live part of the year in Southern California, where they met, but the author has made it clear she’s not a Hollywood kind of girl. She had enough of that in the 1970s and ’80s when she made her living writing screenplays for film and television. (Her television movie, Walking through Fire (1979), earned her a Christopher Award.)

To learn more about this book and author, CLICK HERE.

The latest collaboration of Alan Katz and David Catrow is likely to have toddlers singing in delight and their parents and grandparents, well, not so much. The lyrics to classic children’s songs have been altered to fit the theme of, ahem, potty training, and the potty humor is plentiful. A School Library Journal reviewer clearly did not like this book. But that’s OK, school librarians are not the target audience. Small children are. Go ahead, check out our SideTrip to On Top of the Potty. But remember: You’ve been warned. If potty humor isn’t your thing, there are plenty of other books by this dynamic duo. To see other projects by Katz and Catrow or view some, uh, interesting videos, click here.

Writer Chuck Bowen is the producer of this mini exploration, sponsored by the Ohio Center for the Book, which has sponsored several other books and authors with Ohio connections. In the future, look for a blog from Chuck, who was well-qualified for this assignment, as he and his wife are in the process of potty training their daughter. We’ll ask about their daughter’s favorite song.

To visit the SideTrip, CLICK HERE.

“In silence, Love found them.”

Those of you, parents and grandparents, may remember being enchanted as youngsters by Disney’s animated “Cinderella” – all right, boys maybe not so much. The story is familiar. Downtrodden maiden meets charming prince, he falls for her, she flees the scene as the clock strikes 12. He sets out to find her.

Heard it all before? Probably not as told by Cynthia Rylant, and probably not with the exquisite renderings of artist Mary Blair, who created the vision for Walt Disney’s Cinderella.

Even the cover suggests something a little different is afoot. A tiny dot of an eye and puff of blush on a maiden’s face suggest a hurried, harried state as curtains billow in her wake.

Rylant is a gifted and prolific storyteller, whose words are crafted with economy and intelligence. Come see for yourself.

Click here to discover more about the author and Cinderella

A little boy learns the story of his great, great uncle, who loved to fly. As a child, his uncle’s dream landed him in a pile of hay after leaping from a barn, but later spurred him to become an airman with the 322nd, one of just four African-American squadrons during World War II. Author Angela Johnson’s poetic language and illustrator Loren Long’s painterly images evoke the peace of flying as well as the “magic” of soaring among the clouds and “into the wind,” as “Uncle” would say.

“It’s what heaven must be,” Uncle says to me. “With clouds, like soft blankets, saying, ‘Come on in and get warm. Stay a while and be a wind flyer too.’”

To discover more about Angela Johnson and “Wind Flyers,” CLICK HERE

This beach book is the kind of quick, absorbing read that goes down as easily as a glass of iced lemonade (double sugar) after a day in the sun. But that’s not to say author Jan Goldstein doesn’t try to insert some serious issues into the bathos. At book signings, Goldstein has learned that the novel resonates with readers whose lives have been touched by Alzheimer’s and those raising teen-agers, he says.
“Many people who come are moms and wives who are caught between the crunch of taking care of a parent or taking care of a teenager,” Goldstein says.
His protagonist does both while campaigning for a U.S. Senate seat from California. In the waning days of his primary campaign, candidate Teddy Mathison is summoned to his boyhood home on Nantucket, where his estranged mother, Kate, is dying from Alzheimer’s disease. Worse, Mathison is forced to take along his sullen teenage daughter, Zoe, who despises her father for abandoning her.

To learn more about The Prince of Nantucket, CLICK HERE

Everyone is weird.
That’s what John Ortberg writes in Everybody’s Normal Till You Get to Know Them.
He doesn’t mean just a little off-center, slightly quirky or a bit of flake.
He means all of us have a very weird side that can make us hard to love. If you don’t think so, just wait until you get to know us better.
Ortberg cuts against the grain in Christianity that sometimes claims once you have given your heart to Christ, you not only are “saved” into the kingdom of God, your problems seem to fly away like angels heading for the clouds. In fact, being a true Christian sometimes means even more heartache because now we have to really deal with the goofballs around us.

To learn more, CLICK HERE.

For Thomas L. Friedman, it’s not a fancy turn of phrase to declare “The world is flat.” It’s unvarnished fact.

That said, if his updated version of The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century is, indeed, an accurate warning of the life ahead, it is a volume worthy of every American’s attention.

Maybe it was a grandparent, or a teacher, or a colleague. Someone older, patient and wise, who understood you when you were young and searching, helped you see the world as a more profound place, gave you sound advice to help you make your way through it.
For Mitch Albom, that person was Morrie Schwartz, his college professor from nearly twenty years ago.
Maybe, like Mitch, you lost track of this mentor as you made your way, and the insights faded, and the world seemed colder.
Mitch Albom rediscovered Morrie in the last months of the older man’s life. Knowing he was dying, Morrie visited with Mitch in his study every Tuesday, just as they used to back in college. Their rekindled relationship turned into one final “class”: lessons in how to live.

To discover more, CLICK HERE

Sweet, savage and haunting, Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones takes readers into a tragic corner of the world in a coming- of -age story like no other.

The novel takes place in a village on the real island of Bougainville, just north of Australia. Part of Papua New Guinea since Colonial times, the island’s residents rebel during the 1990s period in which the novel takes place. Civil war rages around and, finally, within an island village. Rebels battle soldiers trying to re-establish New Guinea’s sovereignty over the island.

Only one white man, Mr. Watts, stays on the island during the conflict. He is a New Zealander married to a local woman named Grace. Because the white teacher has fled along with the others, Mr. Watts offers to reopen the village school. His only tools are the wisdom of the island women and a copy of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, which he begins to read aloud to the children.

Learn more, CLICK HERE

Rick Dockery has found himself in a tight spot. A backup quarterback for the Cleveland Browns, he ends up on the field when the two QBs in front of him get hurt. Spotted with a nice lead and a chance to propel the Browns to the Super Bowl, he manages to lose the game anyway and gets a concussion to boot. An angry and drunk mob of Browns fans tries to storm the hospital where Rick is being treated, and it becomes abundantly clear that Rick’s career in Cleveland, and probably the NFL, is over. Grisham takes a side trip from his famous legal thrillers in Playing for Pizza, a story that harnesses the author’s other passion: sports.

CLICK HERE

Read a blog posting from editor Dave Wilson.

Another posting from Dave.

The Da Vinci Code took the literary world by storm, though the movie, well, not so much so. It brought gnosticism to public awareness and suggested something unspreakably evil was going on. And how about Tom Hanks’ hair? It certainly had its fans, and it had a few detractors as well. See for yourself. CLICK HERE

In this charming tale of a pet pig, Sy Montgomery weaves the stories of the healing transformations – hers and others – Chris effects in his legion of fans. “This huge, adored pig,’’ she writes, “who had given so many people delight, was proof that no matter what nature or history hands you, with love, anything is possible.”

Click here for the Sidetrips Exploration       Our One Book, One Community page

The story of John Bul Dau’s childhood and early adulthood could be summarized by this prophesy: “This will be a black-haired time.” Which means: None of the people in Sudan will live long enough to have gray hair. Reading God Grew Tired of Us cuts through any desensitization and brings those feelings of sorrow and happiness, of pain and love, back into focus again.

Click here for the Sidetrips Exploration        Our One Book, One Community page

The life and circumstances of the central character of A Far County, the second novel of Daniel Mason, are undoubtedly alien to most of its readers. Isabel is a teenager in a Third World country that has been traumatized by drought, civil unrest and poverty. She also has a preternatural ability to see “further” than others – a sixth sense that sometimes frightens and confuses her. But author Mason leads readers into Isabel’s external and internal lives with expert skill, allowing a quick embrace of her circumstances and spirit.

Click here for the Sidetrips Exploration      Our One Book, One Community page