New at the ‘zoo for July 13
Go Mutants! by Larry Doyle is just a sweet story of a smart nerd and his outcast dealing with the bullies and hormones that come along with high school. If that is not bad enough to be in high school, try being an alien, mutant or other freak and in high school. Our hero is J!m, a teenage alien with problems – and not just of the typical high school variety. He’s got blue skin, a massive cranium with a protruding brain, and, worst of all, he’s going through puberty. For J!m, puberty involves spontaneous combustion. Larry Doyle wrote for the Simpsons and the novel, I Love You, Beth Cooper.
The Thousands Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell. Mitchell’s newest creation is being acclaimed from all over. Having been nominated twice for the Man Booker Prize, could the third time be a charm? The year is 1799, the place Dejima in Nagasaki Harbor, the “high-walled, fan-shaped artificial island” that is the Japanese Empire’s single port and sole window onto the world, designed to keep the West at bay; the farthest outpost of the war-ravaged Dutch East Indies Company; and a de facto prison for the dozen foreigners permitted to live and work there. To this place of devious merchants, deceitful interpreters, costly courtesans, earthquakes, and typhoons comes Jacob de Zoet, a devout and resourceful young clerk who has five years in the East to earn a fortune of sufficient size to win the hand of his wealthy fiancée back in Holland.
But Jacob’s original intentions are eclipsed after a chance encounter with Orito Aibagawa, the disfigured daughter of a samurai doctor and midwife to the city’s powerful magistrate. The borders between propriety, profit, and pleasure blur until Jacob finds his vision clouded, one rash promise made and then fatefully broken. The consequences will extend beyond Jacob’s worst imaginings. As one cynical colleague asks, “Who ain’t a gambler in the glorious Orient, with his very life?”
A magnificent mix of luminous writing, prodigious research, and heedless imagination, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is the most impressive achievement of its eminent author. (from Random House)
The Obama Diaries by Laura Ingraham. If you love or hate this book will come down to what do you think of Laura Ingraham and her politics. If you listen to her radio show, you will love this book. The premise of this book is Ingraham found “Obama’s Diaries” in a manila envelope on her car while it was parked at the Watergate. She felt she had to publish them.
Dr. Emers
on Eggerichs’ book, Love & Respect: The Love She Most Desires, the Respect He Desperately Needs, is based on the biblical passage from Ephesians 5:33. His premise is that communication between a husband and wife is often frustrated because of the vastly different ways in which men and women perceive love. Women are wired to need unconditional love and men need to feel unconditionally respected. Revitalize the love in your marriage!