Stolen
Ann-Helen Laestadius, translated (beautifully!!) by Rachel Willson-Broyles 

This book has been out in other parts of the world for some time but was just released in the U.S. on Jan. 31. We got special permission to sell the book early, which would have been SO COOL if we'd held Night-In mid-January as planned! The protagonist of Stolen is Elsa, a daughter of Sami reindeer herders. The Sami are an indigenous people of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia (in Elsa's case, above the Arctic Circle.) We first meet Elsa as a 9-year-old. While visiting her family's reindeer herd alone, she encounters a man illegally slaughtering her family's reindeer. The man threatens Elsa into silence. Elsa's family reports the crime to the police, but it's not taken very seriously. According to the police, such an act is "theft" (which is where the title of the book, Stolen, comes from). As Elsa grows up, her family repeatedly files reports and repeatedly, nothing happens. In addition to the killing of the family's reindeer being a hindrance to their livelihood, there is a spiritual connection for the Sami with reindeer. As Elsa becomes an adult, the practice of Sami reindeer being slaughtered continues. Now that she's older, however, she's not as intimidated by the man who threatened her as a child. I think this book will have great appeal to many readers, but especially Scandinavians! The author herself is of Sámi and of Tornedalian descent, two of Sweden's national minorities.

The Girl I Am, Was, and Never Will Be:
A Speculative Memoir of Transracial Adoption
Shannon Gibney

We had the pleasure of hearing Shannon Gibney speak about this book when she recently visited Park Rapids on a library tour by Minnesota Book Award winning authors. We were so intrigued by what she had to say, we could hardly wait to read the book! Shannon Gibney is adopted. She was born in New York to a young white lesbian and an older black man with some health issues. These parents named the baby Erin Powers and put her up for adoption, feeling she would have the best upbringing by other parents with more stability and resources. The baby was adopted by a white couple, Jim and Susan Gibney, of Michigan and renamed Shannon Gibney. That is one part of the book The Girl I Am, Was, and Never Will Be. Another piece of the book is an imagined narrative, imagining what life would have been like if Shannon had remained in New York as Erin Powers. Most chapters contain headers of either "Shannon" or "Erin.” Some bits of each girl's history are the same. For example, the death of the author's birth father would not have likely been any different if she had stayed in New York with her birth mother. This book is both fiction and non-fiction rolled into one. It's been selected by one of our book groups that is currently undergoing a metamorphosis from "The Current Events Book Group" to the "Topics Explored and Discussed Book Group" (TED for short) in which both fiction and nonfiction books will be read and discussed in exploring different topics—in this case, transracial adoption. We'd love to have you join us—the group is open to both men and women. Email jen@beagleandwolf.com to be added to the email list!

Funeral Train
Laurie Loewenstein

A number of years ago, I read a book that I greatly enjoyed called Unmentionables, published by a small press. I was delighted to learn that the author, Laurie Loewenstein, is now writing historical mysteries set during the 1930s in Oklahoma. In Funeral Train, a passenger train derails in a small town. The local hospital becomes overrun by dead and injured passengers. One of the seriously wounded is Etha, the wife of the town's sheriff. In addition to discovering the reason for the derailment, the sheriff must do his best to also be a good and attentive husband. In the mix is the issue of race. In the 1930s, train cars were segregated, with blacks in substandard cars. The author has created a great cast of lively, interesting characters and the police work of the 1930s, pre-CSI, was interesting. A word of caution.... Funeral Train is the second book in a series. Someone wiser than I was would (and should) start with the first book in the series, Death of a Rainmaker. 

Poet Warrior
Joy Harjo  

If you haven't heard me gush about this book, you've either been on the moon or you need to get your eyes and ears checked.
Poet Warrior by Joy Harjo is a spectacular memoir, interlaced with poetry and song lyrics, as befits a poet who has been named as the United States Poet Laureate. Much of the poetry in Harjo’s Poet Warrior is her own, but also included are poems by a diverse group of poets—from Emily Dickinson to N. Scott Momaday. The poetry included is necessary to move the narrative forward and it’s done masterfully. At the beginning of Poet Warrior, Harjo’s poems about herself refer to the poet as Girl-Warrior and once she comes of age, switches to Poet Warrior. Along with Harjo’s personal history, a helpful and relevant mini history of the area where she grew up in Oklahoma is included. Particularly relevant is the history of The Trail of Tears. Harjo was the oldest child of a hard-working and beautiful mother and an unreliable father. Once her father was out of the picture, Harjo’s mother remarried, to an unkind white man, who had little interest in his wife’s four “mongrel” children. The book is divided into six parts: Ancestral Roots, Becoming, A Postcolonial Tale, Diamond Light, Teachers, and Sunset. As you might expect, the last part, Sunset, refers to Harjo’s later years as a grandmother. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Poet Warrior, so much that I read it all in one day (one very good day!)

Not the Camilla We Knew: One Woman's Life from Small-Town America to the Symbionese Liberation Army
Rachael Hanel 

Do you remember hearing about the SLA, the Symbionese Liberation Army? If not, it's likely you're familiar with the name Patty Hearst. Patty was kidnapped (and eventually stayed of her own free will) by the SLA in the 1970s. Did you know there was an SLA member from MINNESOTA? (Not to be confused with Sara Jane Olson who was born in California and later moved to St. Paul, MN.) In fact, she went to school at Gustavus for a year. (I asked my Gustie mom if she knew about her, and she confirmed that that info has never been shared in a Gustavus newsletter or engraved on a plaque on campus.) Camilla Hall became involved with the SLA and died in a shootout with the police in Los Angeles in 1974. She was 29 years old. Camilla was shy, artistic, a reluctant lesbian, and the daughter of a Lutheran pastor. She spent a year in school at Gustavus in St. Peter, Minnesota, worked for a year as a social worker in Duluth, Minnesota, and then moved to California and literally got in with the wrong crowd (the really wrong crowd.) The author drew on family materials for the book. Camilla’s parents were willing to share many (but not all, and fair enough) letters that Camilla had written them. In some way, Not the Camilla We Knew is a memoir of the Hall family. Camilla was not the first child of the Halls to die, she was the fourth and the only one who made it to adulthood. The writing is both objective and sympathetic and tells a sad story that you likely never knew about.

What Storm What Thunder
Myriam J.A. Chancy

In 1998, I went to Haiti on a mission trip, and it was life changing. Haiti, the poorest county in the Western Hemisphere, is full of contrasts. Great natural beauty and urban slums; soul-grinding poverty and wealth and privilege; opulent Catholic cathedrals and small voodoo churches.

All this was the backdrop of a 7.0 magnitude earthquake which shook Port-au-Prince, the country’s capital, near the end of a hot day in 2010. In the novel What Storm, What Thunder, Myriam Chancy weaves together the stories of ten of the people affected by that earthquake. The ten were all connected in some way, by ties of family or friendship. Ma Lu, an old woman selling produce in the market; her estranged son, Richard, who abandoned his family years earlier; Anne, the daughter Richard left behind; Sara, driven mad by the deaths of her children in the earthquake; and a number of others. As their stories are told, we see the dysfunction of the government, the prevalence of sexual violence against both men and women, despair, and resilience. The book is beautifully crafted and written.

In the face of the great need in Haiti, the work we did on our mission trip was insignificant. Yet I believe the true value of such trips is to see first-hand what life is like in areas outside our experience: Haiti, Ukraine, India, the Rosebud Indian Reservation, north Minneapolis. In the same way, literature helps us become citizens of the world, sharing the experiences of our fellow humans, no matter how difficult they might be.

If you or a group you’re part of is up to read a book which will open your eyes to the desperate lives of others, What Storm What Thunder may be the book for you.

How to Turn Into a Bird
Maria Jose Ferrada

Maria Ferrada, a Chilean writer, is the author of How to Turn into a Bird, which has been skillfully and sensitively translated into English.

Eleven-year-old Miguel and his mother live in a huge housing project in an unnamed city in Chile. His mother’s sister, Paulina, and her husband Ramon, live in the same project. As the book opens, Ramon has left the job at the PVC factory where he’d worked for ten years. His new job is working for a company which puts up billboards along highways throughout Latin America. He is to guard a billboard for Coca Cola which is close to the housing project. His primary responsibility is to ensure that the lights on the billboard aren’t stolen. Soon, Ramon turns the job into a 24/7 commitment, and actually moves into the billboard. His new home is a narrow platform at the back of the billboard, accessible by climbing up the structure.

The neighbors think Ramon’s crazy, but Miguel and Paulina, together and separately, visit him frequently. Miguel is enchanted with his uncle and his unusual living arrangement.

The story has qualities of a fairy tale or fable. Soon, the attention of the housing project residents turns from Ramon to children from nearby mud shanties and a grandfatherly figure who protects them. This man was to have moved into the project but chose to live on the streets instead. Not even Ramon living up in the billboard, can escape the conflict which develops between the street dwellers and the residents of the housing project.

Miguel, our young narrator, sympathetically describes Ramon and the Bag Man, both of whom live outside the norms of the housing project residents, including Miguel’s mother.

While the book is short and written in a deceptively simple manner, it addresses important themes of societal expectations, acceptance, and conformity. It would be a particularly good choice for a group interested in expanding its horizons by reading a book in translation which is set in another part of the world.

The Family Chao
Lan Samantha Chang

If you’re in the mood to explore complicated family dynamics, The Family Chao is the book for you.

Leo and Winnie Chang emigrated from China and, through brutally hard work, established the Fine Chao, a restaurant in Haven Wisconsin. When the book opens, members of the family have gathered at the request of Winnie. Leo is a tyrant, and she has left their home to join a nearby Buddhist monastery. Son James has journeyed home from college. His older brother, Ming, has reluctantly come from New York where he’s successful in business. The third brother, Dagau, returned home six years ago. He’s been toiling in the restaurant and hopes Leo will make him a partner. Each family member has complicated relationships with the others.

A good portion of the beginning of the book deals with Dagau’s preparations for the restaurant’s annual Christmas party. He hopes the party will be so impressive that Leo will have to acknowledge his work in the restaurant.

As these things go, the party doesn’t turn out the way Dagau had hoped, and his father humiliates him publicly.

Nor only that, soon after the party Leo is discovered dead, frozen in the restaurant’s freezer, with the key missing from its place inside the freezer.

The remainder of the book deals with the trial of one of the sons for his father’s murder. None of this is a spoiler—it’s on the back cover of the book.

There’s plenty of plot in this book, but it’s essentially character-driven, exploring each member of the Chao family and their relationships with the others. There’s also an exploration of what it means to be an immigrant and the child of immigrants.

This is a book which is sure to generate lots of discussion.

The Torqued Man
Peter Mann

I’d forgotten how much I like spy thrillers until I read this book. Thanks to Tim for reminding me!

The book is set primarily in Nazi Germany during World War Two. An Irish resistance fighter, Frank Pike, has been released from a Spanish prison in 1940 through the intervention of Adrian de Groot, who is part of German intelligence. Initially, it’s hoped that Pike will help turn Ireland against the English, and secure Ireland’s support for Germany. This never develops, however, and meanwhile, Pike has his own plans. He devises an elaborate plot to assassinate German medical doctors in the belief that this will eventually eliminate Hitler. Two narratives describe their work. One is de Groot’s journal, which candidly assesses the war, his work, and personal struggles. The other is a third person account of Pike’s escapades. Often the two narratives cover the same ground, offering wildly different perspectives.

As is common in this genre, no one is exactly whom they appear to be.

This is great escapist literature. The plot is well constructed and moves right along. The writing is good, and the characters have great appeal. The right group of readers will enjoy picking the plot apart and may also enjoy talking about the role of espionage.

The Library Book
Susan Orlean

Orlean, author of The Orchid Thief, spent years researching the Los Angeles Central Library and libraries in general. It started when she found out about the devastating fire that destroyed millions of books and much of the building’s infrastructure in 1986. Few people, even library lovers, knew about the fire because the day it happened the nuclear accident at Chernobyl bumped everything else off of the national news. This is a fascinating book, both because the subject is so rich and because Orlean is such a fine writer. Readers feel like they’ve gotten to know her; and everyone who cares about books or libraries as community resources will be enthralled.

Convenience Store Woman
Sayaka Mutata

This is a (literally) little novel about a (figuratively) small woman who has worked at a convenience store for 18 years. She doesn’t understand other people, the rules of behavior and how to present herself. As a child this got her into trouble, so she learned to keep her mouth shut and soldier on. When she was half way through college she started a part time job in a convenience store and discovered that this is a world where she knows what to do at all times. And by studying the mannerisms and dress of her coworkers she feels she can fit in. However, her loving family and the one friend she’s managed to make are pressuring her to fit into society’s expectations, to get married and/or to get a proper job. The dilemma provides suspense while you get to experience a totally different way to view the world.

The Maid
Nita Prose

I had no idea when I started this that The Maid, like Convenience Store Woman, is about a woman on the autism spectrum who loves her job because it has clear rules that allow her to excel and to know how to interact with others while on the job. However, The Maid is a classic whodunnit, a murder mystery with flair. The author was inspired by an incident in a hotel when she realized how little she noticed the maid as a person. She set out to create the imaginative environments and characters she has enjoyed playing Clue. Her novel is quite fun. I didn’t guess the murderer but enjoyed the enfolding story and, especially, being in the title character’s mind.

Clytemnestra
Costanza Casati

"You can't have Justice and everyone's approval."

One of the most uncomfortable truths of Greek Mythology is the fact that one NEVER meets with perfection. Not in the Gods, not in people, not in the world. Yet the Greek consciousness is obsessed (definition - to haunt or trouble the mind) with gaining the ideals of perfection, goodness, beauty, justice, and truth. This noble struggle, in the face of certain unattainability, provides equally endless possibilities in drama and storytelling to explore this human aspiration and, most importantly, its complexity. Casati's Clytemnestra is an entertaining marvel of insight into one of Greek Mythology's lesser-known women. Clytemnestra is most known for her rage. How did she come to embrace her rage and direct it so savagely at her husband, Agamemnon? Casati tells the complex layered story of Clytemnestra's life as I've never heard it told before, as that of a powerful woman's struggle for personal dignity/integrity, and to do what is right and just. This is an excellent book!

Note: this book will be released in paperback on March 7.

Dreadnought
Robert K. Massie

I've been interested in the huge, vastly expensive warships so popular with the navies of the early 20th century. It seems odd that these huge metal beasts could float, either on water, or in the imagination, as representations of a nation's military might and prestige. They were the I.C.B.M. systems of that age. Massie has written this Pulitzer Prize winning 'dreadnought' of a book that lays before the reader the politics and personalities of an age moving steadily towards the inexorable cataclysm of World War I. For a serious reader of History, this book is a must.

The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi
Shannon Chakraborty

This book was just fun! A retired female pirate is lured onto a quest to retrieve an abducted scholar and magician, and finds herself confronting her own past, a wicked wizard, and the unseen world of demons and sorcery. Sort of a Sinbad the Sailor run amok! Set in the Arabian Seas, around the time of the Crusades, I found it a perfect escape from the spell of deep winter. Want to get away to warm tropical seas and some serious adventure... even some magic? Well, here’s your ticket!