Awards Books

jazz poets are a dime a dozen, so when I picked up this slim volume of poetry I had dim hopes. WOw, what a surprise; what verse and verve. Ed Pavlic's work is without a doubt the most profound, original, spirited and unpredictable in the poetry world today. Far beyond jazz, he lifts the word into that rare sphere where music and verse meet. Pass the word; this is a poet to watch and read and tell your friends about.

An excellent mixture of Jazz Rhythms and the spoken word. A true mixture of Art, Music,Emotion, and articulation. A must have for anyone who loves Poetry!

What a pleasure to read an artist who absolutely knows what he is doing! "Part of the Bargain" is distinguished and original. The book seems to celebrate the delicateness of the human condition while recognizing the harshness of the grief that comes with the territory. Without being arcane, archaic, or sentimental, the poems are smart, insightful, and clear. The voice is consistent--even generous. Whether song or story, Hightower is at the top of his game in every poem!

From an invocation to the muse and polio in the childhood landscape to Hightower's take on "Noli Me Tangere" to a meditation on Filicide (which I had to look up) and public execution. The poems in "Part of the Bargain" are clean and deep hitting. I loved every bit of it!

I have not only read this book but I have interviewed her on my radio show twice. This is a must read by all parents and family if you want to begin to know how to protect your children from child sexual predators.

97% of all child predators are in the family inner circle. Unless we begin to understand the minds of these perpetrators we leave our children vulnerable. Go to her website for more helpful information: www.relativedanger.com

Dolgan gets it right - create a calm, sometimes amusing situation comfortable for conversation and questions. Great pictures and poems to be read aloud instead of didactic or boring lessons. Every parent should read this with their children!

Friedman's dramatic, richly detailed book is essential reading for those wanting to understand the Nobel physics and chemistry decisions in their first fifty years.

This is the 100th anniversary of the Nobel prizes, and it's a wonder it took this long for someone to take a good look at what went on behind the scenes in Stockholm for all these years. Friedman's book dishes dirt but does it with white gloves and a magnifying glass. The footnotes are just as much fun as the book itself. The book answers some of the questions about the wierdness associated with the Nobels. For one: What did they have against Einstein? The conspiratorial answer is here in the chapter - "Einstein Must Never Get a Nobel Prize." For another: Who got the money when they didn't award a prize?

This book is eminently readable from several professional angles. It has delicious Nobel trivia hidden on every page. It explains science so that I can understand most of it, even quantum theory. I wish there were photographs of the winners and the major players, and I wish the list of winners would have included descriptions of what they won for, but those are only slight criticisms.

The story of the intrigue and pettiness behind the Nobels is presented chronologically. Most important to me was that Friedman not only explains what happened - and he deserves extra credit for cheerfully explaining the tedious machinations behind Swedish scholarly politics - but presents the motivation, much of it a surprising pro-German bent, behind the events.

I am acquainted with Prof. Friedman, and only a fellow with a deep sense of professionalism and and an equally sharp sense of humor and irony could have pulled this off.

I loved the stories, especially about the dog hair wearables. I've seen some of them over the years on WTNH and the book has the same local feel. Diane was our guest speaker at the Connecticut Junior Women's Spring conference and was wonderful. She is a natural storyteller & I'm looking forward to a follow-up book!!

This book tells us a lot about what is wonderful about living in this part of country. Smith finds people like a man who make wooden toys for sick kids in local hospitals, a personal trainer who volunteers his time to the elderly, the "Nut Lady" who runs the state's only museum dedicated to praising the Nut, etc. She also covers stories over a number of years, something that's rare in news: the New Haven society that started over 10 years ago to erect a monument to the slave ship Amistad; and the retirees who got together to restore a vintage "flying boat".

The latest Beloit College alumni magazine came with class news that included the publication of this book. I knew the author so I decided to purchase this as my first book of poetry. It has been riveting.

I particularly like what he does with rhyme, and also appreciate the fact that the poems are not self-absorbed despite the fact that they are presumably about his life and experiences. The poems are so smooth and seem so effortlessly written.

McHenry's deft work instantly transports the reader to places and emotions that have the familiarity of a loved one's face, and the sweetness of home.

As with all good poems, reading these is a way of connecting to the world in the moment, a way of taking in the beautiful things that are here, now, in each day.

This book should be required reading for American history buffs and students. Hinkle sifted through Lexington's past and managed to find enough of Prince Estabrook to give us a peek into his life as a slave and a revolutionary soldier more than 200 years ago.

When envisioning the tense faces of Lexington militia on April 19, 1775 staring at the British regulars as they approach the green, rarely does one place a black face among them. None of the subsequent paintings of the Battle of Lexington included black participation. Through careful research, Alice Hinkle has pieced together into a lively narrative the shards of evidence extant on one such African American. Prince Estabrook's life and those of other local African American patriots of the American Revolution are illuminated in her book--Prince Estabrook, Slave and Soldier. In elevating the visibility of African Americans in colonial Lexington and surrounding towns, she has done a great service. New England slavery and military service are research topics that have yet to be thoroughly explored. Alice Hinkle shows presence of the past by interviewing Charlie Price the Lexington citizen that has taken on Prince Estabrook's role for a number of years in the April 19th town reenactment of the Battle of Lexington. In addition, an appendix offers a black patriots' trail for those who would like to visit sites in the Boston area connected with black patriots. A thoroughly enjoyable read, Prince Estabrook, Slave and Soldier, inspires one to want to delve further into the topic.

Like E. Annie Proulx, Charlotte Bacon's writing is fresh and compelling, sprinkled liberally with incandescent imagery. Like Cheever, seemingly small events, like a weekend in the country, a troubling discovery made by a daughter in her father's apartment, or a whale-watching trip, all mark tidal points in the lives of her characters. With nary a false note, this young writer carries us through the lives of men and women facing the end of marriage, the beginning of a pregnancy, the repercussions of the loss of a job on a wealthy family. Such grace and assured prose is rare in young writers, and I'm already waiting for her next. An excellent collection of stories (and prize-winning, too, if you check the book jacket).

All our old elusive friends from English Class -- Psychological Depth, Moral Complexity, Wit (sparkling of course), Astute Observation, Lucidity and Grace -- are evident in these fine tales of women sliding into nuances of awareness they never sought and perhaps wouldn't have welcomed. Reminiscent of Cheever, yes; but also Chekhov and (at their very best) Ann Beattie and Alice Munro. Rather impressive stuff.

In T.M. McNally's "Quick," you will find an array of characters struggling. Whether it's with their addictions, their propensity toward violence, their immortality, or simply their own pasts, these struggles rise off the page and make themselves known without embarrassment or apology. Complex and richly layered, McNally doesn't shy away from difficult images or emotions. And although at times it seemed to me to be trying too hard, it's easy to see why this collection won the Michigan Literary Fiction Award.

T. M. McNally is a wildly talented writer from Arizona of whom I had never heard till a friend urged me to read his collection, QUICK. "This is just the sort of book you should be reading," she said. "And writing." When she had gone I opened it up and plunged right in, as if to the bottom of one of the Tempe swimming pools McNally specializes in. My friend was correct. This writing is intense, with sordid encounters and strange, almost surreal things happening to his leading characters as a matter of course. I thought things were crazy here in SF, but the "Copper State" has us beat by a country mile.

In "Insomnia" a man wonders if his wife is having some kind of affair with their pool boy. He switches addictions, from cigarettes to booze, and takes a second honeymoon trip to St. Louis to celebrate. The vertiginous span of the Arch is perfect McNally material, and he makes the most of it. "The Last Year of the Soapbox" is a sad tale of a boy teased in school, pissed on in the showers and the target end of many a snapped jock. When he asks his father to help him defend himself he uncovers his dad's bruised, stoic masculinity, and he grows up with a certain wariness about his body which leads him to wear underwear in the jacuzzi and three condoms at the same time. Tellingly, he becomes an ace race driver, counting on speed to help him make the escape his father never could. Other stories tell equally heartbreaking tales of American life, often with women's lives, an arena in which he seems only slightly less familiar.

I sort of figured out how to write one of McNally's short stories. You divide your material into a series of two page "scenes." Half of these will take place in the past, the other half in the present tense. You can jumble them up if you like. Half of the scenes will begin with a proverb-like general statement that has something a little askew to it, like "Tragedy is what happens when you don't think anything will." The other half will be direct, first person, and often from somewhere deep in the narrator's past, such as, "Of course no one had ever touched my balls." Separate these scenes with some cryptic asterisks-in this case, three or four black squares. All your narrators use them. Add in some hot weather, a saguaro or two, and you're pretty much there.

Our class learned how to make canoes by reading this book. The book was very funny when the bear ate all of the fish. We learned about many different types of animals. Having something bigger is not always better. This book would be good for kids to read because you can learn about a lot of things.

The time has come for Red Fox to have his own canoe. He decides that it must be from the largest tree he can find. But when the canoe is finished, and he begins picking up hitchhikers, he learns that more is not always better! This was one of my favorite books as a child, and I am very lucky to have found it to share with my own children.