And the Mountains Echo - a new novel by Khaled Hosseini

A new novel from the author of The Kite Runner (This post is from The Book Case - The BookPage Blog) Fans of The Kite Runner (and there are millions of them) will be excited to hear that author Khaled Hosseini will return in the spring with his first new novel in six years. Though publishing company offices were closed throughout New York in advance of Hurricane Sandy, Riverhead Books, a division of Penguin, managed to spread the word this morning that Hosseini’s next novel, And the Mountains Echo, will be published on May 21. KHALED HOSSEINI “I am forever drawn to family as a recurring central theme of my writing,” Hosseini said in the announcement. “My earlier novels were, at heart, tales of fatherhood and motherhood. My new novel is a multi-generational-family story as well, this time revolving around brothers and sisters, and the ways in which they love, wound, betray, honor, and sacrifice for each other. I am thrilled at the chance to share this book with my readers.” An AP report quotes Penguin President Susan Petersen Kennedy as saying the new novel will take place “in different parts of the world” and will offer “a clear experience and characters you can identify with even if their lives are very different from your own.” Hosseini was a practicing physician in California when he wrote The Kite Runner, a surprise hit in 2003 that illuminated Afghanistan’s tortured history through the powerful story of two boys. The novel sold more than 10 million copies in the U.S. and was followed by A Thousand Splendid Sons, his 2007 novel that focused on the suffering of Afghan women. Though American curiosity about Afghanistan has dimmed during the past decade, Hosseini has earned a following with his fine writing, and readers are likely to follow wherever his new novel takes them.

Calico Joe by John Grisham

Amazon Q & A with John Grisham

Q: What's your favorite baseball team?
A: St. Louis Cardinals. My father was a Cardinals fan, as was my grandfather. When I was a kid growing up in the rural south, everyone listened to the Cardinals on the radio. We seldom missed a game.

Q: What's your most memorable game--as player, coach, or fan?
A: I played a lot of baseball when I was a kid and teenager, but I do not recall making any spectacular plays. When I coached baseball, my teams usually lost. As a fan, Game 6 of the World Series last year, Cardinals vs. Rangers, comes to mind.

Q: Have you played or coached baseball? What position?
A: I was an average high school baseball player with big dreams. I tried to play in college, but got myself cut in the fall practices. I was an outfielder with a weak arm.

Q: Why are there seemingly more baseball books--both fiction and nonfiction--than other sports?
A: Baseball is a uniquely American sport, and it is the oldest organized sport in the country. It has a rich and colorful history, and up until the last generation, it was the most popular sport for kids to play. Sadly, that is changing.

Q: Who was the Joe Castle of your childhood--a player you revered? And was there a Warren Tracey?
A: I was never much of a Red Sox fan, but I adored Tony Conigliaro. He was a great player, and a certain Hall of Famer. The beanball that struck him in the eye ruined a great career.

Q: While researching Calico Joe, did you attend or watch games? Did you write any of the book at a stadium?
A: I only write in one place, and that's my office at home. I take a lot of notes when I travel around and research, which I did for Calico Joe.

Q: Did you employ any other behind-the-scenes techniques--watch old footage, interview players, read old issues of Sports Illustrated?
A: Yes, all of the above. I interviewed several former major league players. I read lots of old magazines, news articles, and books about baseball, and specifically, The Code. I found some footage of famous beanball wars of recent times.

Q: Do the beanball or the brushback have a place in today's baseball? Even Joe seemed to accept them as "part of the game."
A: Yes. There are times in baseball when a particular hitter must get hit. There are many reasons for this, but retaliation is always a factor. Problems arise though when the pitch is above the shoulders, and aimed at batter's head. If a pitcher does this intentionally, and they do it all the time, they are fooling around with a player's career. Throwing at a batter's head is never acceptable in baseball, even as retaliation.

Q: Have you ever been hit? Have you ever hit someone else?
A: Every baseball player gets hit. Fortunately, I was never beaned in the head. Our coaches never let me anywhere near the pitcher's mound, so I never hit a batter.

Q: Do you love baseball? If so, why? Any concerns that the sport and its stars (as Warren gripes in the book) have changed?
A: I still love baseball but it's not the game of my youth. The pro game today is dominated by money and, frankly, there is a lot of bad baseball being played. I find it frustrating, but I always get pumped at World Series time. College baseball is far more exciting.

Review
Calico Joe had every kid's baseball fantasy - lightening start in his big league debut, the lifting of a sad-sack team (the Cubs) to contender status, broken records, the adulation of his teammates and fans - and then he didn't. John Grisham has written a very good and captivating story - more than a baseball story, though America's game is the canvass upon which this tragedy is painted.

Warren Tracey was also a big leaguer - a pitcher - with the kind of stats that define most careers in the bigs: occasionally good, usually mediocre and sometimes awful. He was destined to never be remembered except by trivia hounds once his career reached its uncelebrated end - until his involvement in a baseball drama that ensured his name would be written in baseball lore, though not in any manner he would have desired.

The story is told through the eyes of Warren's eleven year old boy Paul and alternates between 1973, the year Calico Joe and Warren were in the game together, and thirty years later when all three characters are still living lives vastly influenced by the events of that year. Warren not only contributed to one of the game's great "what ifs," but also through his wretched performance as a father and husband, ensured that his family would bear the influence of being of and with Warren Tracey.

I won't go into more because detail would give away the drama to this slim book. Although not nearly as long as most Grisham novels, this story is worth the read. It is perfect for a single-evening immersion, so if you are the type of reader who likes to occasionally fully immerse yourself for a couple of hours with a good story and see it through to the end, this is your book. It reminded me somewhat of Grisham's book "The Testament" in that it touches on some of the same themes. It also is in the vein of "Bleachers" and "Painted House."

April Indie Next List

Have you seen the Indie Next List for April? Lots of great-sounding books, including this one...

The Good Father by Noah Hawley

As the Chief of Rheumatology at Columbia Presbyterian, Dr. Paul Allen's specialty is diagnosing patients with conflicting symptoms, patients other doctors have given up on. He lives a contented life in Westport with his second wife and their twin sons—hard won after a failed marriage earlier in his career that produced a son named Daniel. In the harrowing opening scene of this provocative and affecting novel, Dr. Allen is home with his family when a televised news report announces that the Democratic candidate for president has been shot at a rally, and Daniel is caught on video as the assassin.

Daniel Allen has always been a good kid—a decent student, popular—but, as a child of divorce, used to shuttling back and forth between parents, he is also something of a drifter. Which may be why, at the age of nineteen, he quietly drops out of Vassar and begins an aimless journey across the United States, during which he sheds his former skin and eventually even changes his name to Carter Allen Cash.

Told alternately from the point of view of the guilt-ridden, determined father and his meandering, ruminative son, The Good Father is a powerfully emotional page-turner that keeps one guessing until the very end. This is an absorbing and honest novel about the responsibilities—and limitations—of being a parent and our capacity to provide our children with unconditional love in the face of an unthinkable situation.

Noah Hawley is an American film and television producer (Bones), screenwriter, composer, and author. This is his fourth novel.

Remember to keep some books in mind to choose from in December. It's our "Best of 2012" month.

Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy by Caroline Kennedy (Author), Michael Beschloss (Author)

A few weeks ago some of these interviews were shown on television. I found Jacqueline Kennedy to be honest and forthright. I thoroughly enjoyed listen to her, I'm sure that no one will want this for a book club book, but I plan to read it because I loved President Kennedy despite his short-comings and if the interviews with Mrs. Kennedy are true, she loved him also.

In 1964, Jacqueline Kennedy recorded seven historic interviews about her life with John F. Kennedy. Now, for the first time, they can be heard and read in this deluxe, illustrated book and 8-CD set.

Shortly after President John F. Kennedy's assassination, with a nation deep in mourning and the world looking on in stunned disbelief, Jacqueline Kennedy found the strength to set aside her own personal grief for the sake of posterity and begin the task of documenting and preserving her husband's legacy. In January of 1964, she and Robert F. Kennedy approved a planned oral-history project that would capture their first-hand accounts of the late President as well as the recollections of those closest to him throughout his extraordinary political career. For the rest of her life, the famously private Jacqueline Kennedy steadfastly refused to discuss her memories of those years, but beginning that March, she fulfilled her obligation to future generations of Americans by sitting down with historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and recording an astonishingly detailed and unvarnished account of her experiences and impressions as the wife and confidante of John F. Kennedy. The tapes of those sessions were then sealed and later deposited in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum upon its completion, in accordance with Mrs. Kennedy's wishes.

The resulting eight and a half hours of material comprises a unique and compelling record of a tumultuous era, providing fresh insights on the many significant people and events that shaped JFK's presidency but also shedding new light on the man behind the momentous decisions. Here are JFK's unscripted opinions on a host of revealing subjects, including his thoughts and feelings about his brothers Robert and Ted, and his take on world leaders past and present, giving us perhaps the most informed, genuine, and immediate portrait of John Fitzgerald Kennedy we shall ever have. Mrs. Kennedy's urbane perspective, her candor, and her flashes of wit also give us our clearest glimpse into the active mind of a remarkable First Lady.

In conjunction with the fiftieth anniversary of President Kennedy's Inauguration, Caroline Kennedy and the Kennedy family are now releasing these beautifully restored recordings on CDs with accompanying transcripts. Introduced and annotated by renowned presidential historian Michael Beschloss, these interviews will add an exciting new dimension to our understanding and appreciation of President Kennedy and his time and make the past come alive through the words and voice of an eloquent eyewitness to history.


About the Author
Caroline Kennedy is the author/editor of eight bestselling books on constitutional law, American history, politics, and poetry. A graduate of Harvard University and Columbia Law School, Kennedy is the Vice Chair of the New York City Fund for Public Schools. She is the President of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., the most distinguished historian of his times, was also renowned as a Public Intellectual and a political activist. Author of more than twenty-five books, he was twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize. The eloquence, insight, and power that characterized his style continue to influence the generations of historians who follow him. Arthur Schlesinger was the author of major biographies of Andrew Jackson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt as well as John and Robert Kennedy, books that significantly defined the modern presidency. He served as Special Assistant to the President during the Administration of John F. Kennedy.

Michael Beschloss has been called "the nation's leading Presidential historian" by Newsweek. He is the author of nine books, including, most recently, The Conquerors and Presidential Courage and two volumes on Lyndon Johnson's presidential tapes. He is a graduate of Williams College and the Harvard Business School and holds five honorary degrees, as well as an Emmy award. He is a regular commentator on the PBS NewsHour. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife and two sons.

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson (available October 24th)

In my humble opinion, Steve Jobs is a hero. He saved a failing company with his insight and savvy. His dedication to this company created jobs, opportunity and made the world of Internet within everyone's reach. There are critics who will say that he wasn't a philanthropist like Gates and Buffet...well that was his choice; it was his money. It doesn't change the fact that he was a marketing genius. I personally will miss his innovativations and his way of making me want every single product that Apple produces.

Based on more than forty interviews with Jobs conducted over two years—as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues—Walter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing.

At a time when America is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, and when societies around the world are trying to build digital-age economies, Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. He knew that the best way to create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology. He built a company where leaps of the imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering.

Although Jobs cooperated with this book, he asked for no control over what was written nor even the right to read it before it was published. He put nothing off-limits. He encouraged the people he knew to speak honestly. And Jobs speaks candidly, sometimes brutally so, about the people he worked with and competed against. His friends, foes, and colleagues provide an unvarnished view of the passions, perfectionism, obsessions, artistry, devilry, and compulsion for control that shaped his approach to business and the innovative products that resulted.

Driven by demons, Jobs could drive those around him to fury and despair. But his personality and products were interrelated, just as Apple’s hardware and software tended to be, as if part of an integrated system. His tale is instructive and cautionary, filled with lessons about innovation, character, leadership, and values.

Only Time Will Tell by Jeffrey Archer

When I was in college I read the entire series by John Jakes that chronicled the lives of one family. I saw this book at Costco and came home and downloaded it. I loved the John Jakes series; hoping I will also love this.

The opening chapters of the adventure, in the 1920s and 1930s, tells the same events from the perspectives of several different people, each adding or changing what had been told before, and thereby deepening the understanding of the events and the people involved. This style had been used effectively before by William Faulkner in The Sound and the Fury - who people call "the greatest author the US South produced" - and by the editors of the four New Testament Gospels, where each Gospel writer revisits what the others told, with changes, deepening the readers' interest and understanding.

The story hangs on the mystery of Harry Clifton's parentage: who was his father? This mystery, in turn, creates others. What difference does it make who Harry's father is? What happened to Harry's mother's husband? Why do people keep her husband's whereabouts secret? If the mystery of Harry's parentage is not resolved, will it destroy his life?

We read about the extraordinary sacrifices of Harry's mother. She is poor. She is determined that Harry will get schooling, even though she lacks money to pay for the schooling, and even though someone is repeatedly sabotaging her efforts. We read about the very rich Barrington family, the grandfather who is a paragon of goodness, his son Hugo who is clearly evil, and his grandchildren Giles and Emma, and the strong positive emotional feelings that the two have toward Harry. We read also of the people who help Harry, people who travel distances to see his accomplishments even after they retire. These men and women include the poor disheveled bum Old Jack Tarr, a recluse, an eccentric, who everyone knows is crazy, who Harry comes to love, who despite having virtually no money makes sure that Harry has what he needs. And there is the famed Captain Tarrant, winner of the prestigious Victorian Cross, the man who saved many of his comrade's lives during the First World War by killing close to a dozen enemy soldiers, the man whom his comrades respect, a man readers will admire. We see how the onset of the Second World War affects these people.

This, in short, is a splendid well-told tale of generally very likable people who provoke our emotions, people who we like and want to know about.

Escape by Barbara Delinsky

Emily can't take another day of answering the phone, sitting in her cubicle, worrying about whether she is doing the right thing by her clients or if the dream she has been chasing has crumbled in her hands. She loves her husband but suspects he may be cheating on her, likes being a lawyer, but hates the type she is practicing and adores her parents but is tired of worrying that she is a disappointment to them.

One day she decides she has had enough and drives away in her husband's car to figure out if the past is what is stopping her from loving the present and unable to work on a future. Emily reconnects with her college friend, which is yet another relationship she stopped nurturing and finds she cannot live without. But going back to a place that provided peace in the past and calm during the storm may turn out to be a nightmare if the reason she left this little slice of heaven shows up. Everyone has a secret they hold close to their heart and this one broke Emily's heart and she is not looking to repeat any mistakes when the man she is married to has fulfilled her expectations but keeping this secret from her husband is as sinful as the ones she is accusing him of.

At some point Emily is going to have to face her husband and family, which is not going to be easy. She has to tell them why she ran away but still can't decide when she will be home or how she is going to mesh the life she wants with the life she has and still be able to afford to have a baby.

The reward for Emily is the joy she receives every time she walks into The Rescue and sees all the animals that have faced much pain and misery than working too many hours and not getting enough sleep.

The main character is like every other woman who does not want to throw the life she has away, she wants to make it work and just cannot figure out how. Her husband has his ideas, her parents another and work is what you do to pay for the life you have. This story will hit everyone that reads it regardless of your age because at some point we all want to hit the button that gets us off the bus and lets us walk for a while.

Unsaid by Neil Abramson

UNSAID is told from the perspective of Helena Colden, a veterinarian who has just died of breast cancer. Helena is forced to witness the rapid emotional deterioration of her husband David. With Helena's passing, David, a successful Manhattan attorney, loses the only connection that made his life full. He tries to carry on the life that Helena had created for them, but he is too grief-stricken, too angry, and too quickly reabsorbed into the demands of his career. Helena's animals likewise struggle with the loss of their understanding and compassionate human companion. Because of Helena, David becomes involved in a court case to save the life of a chimpanzee that may hold the key to unlocking the mysteries of animals consciousness. Through this case all the threads of Helena's life entwine and explode - unexpectedly, painfully, beautifully.