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As a fan of the show Mystery Science Theater 3000, I have a great appreciation for Michael J. Nelson. Sure, some people prefer Joel, the first host, but I started with Mike and have always had a soft spot for his dorky delivery and hapless enthusiasm. And as the head writer, his wit was a major force behind the overall flavor of the show’s ten seasons. So I'm happy to say that his skill in crafting funny material transfers well to his books, which include the comedic essay collections Mike Nelson's Movie Megacheese and Mike Nelson's Mind over Matters. While Movie Megacheese focuses

Warning: there is a dog on the cover of this book. There is a dog in the book. There is a dog living in Paul’s apartment, and she is a special dog. Don’t ask me if the dog dies. I already know you don’t want to read another book in which the dog dies. So don’t ask, because the book isn’t about the dog. The book is about Paul. Just as in Garth Stein’s The Art of Racing in the Rain and Susan Wilson’s One Good Dog Nelson has pulled the old bait and switch. There is a dog (and I won’t tell you if he dies, so don’t ask), but the book isn’t about the dog.

Paul is just a regular guy leading a

I recall, as a fairly sheltered college student, traveling to New York City for the wedding of a distant relative. It hadn’t occurred to me that there could be neighborhoods in this crowded place of constant motion. When I supposed that it must get lonely living where you would never serendipitously bump into someone you knew, a cousin tried to set me straight by explaining that people frequent the same places and thus you would often encounter the same people. I don’t think I truly grasped what he was saying until reading The New Yorkers.

The inhabitants of a New York neighborhood, all with

I recall, as a fairly sheltered college student, traveling to New York City for the wedding of a distant relative. It hadn’t occurred to me that there could be neighborhoods in this crowded place of constant motion. When I supposed that it must get lonely living where you would never serendipitously bump into someone you knew, a cousin tried to set me straight by explaining that people frequent the same places and thus you would often encounter the same people. I don’t think I truly grasped what he was saying until reading The New Yorkers.

The inhabitants of a New York neighborhood, all with

Witness to the murder of Marshall and Sylvia Hotle, April needs to find a phone. Joe Pickett needs to get back to Saddlestring, Wyoming and his family. Sheridan, Joe’s daughter, needs to find April. But April is dead. While Joe is working in exile as a game warden in remote Wyoming, Sheridan receives a text from someone claiming to be her step-sister April. As evidence mounts that the texts are coming from the locations of violent crimes Joe and Sheridan track April across Wyoming. Or are they tracking a killer?

There are many things we practice for: a test, an interview, a sports event. In the early and middle part of last century women sometimes practiced being a mother. There were home economic programs at some colleges that offered female students the opportunity to learn about motherhood firsthand. Orphaned babies were loaned to the program for a year or two in order for the student, or practice, mothers to learn about taking care of a real baby. The effect of being raised by, and passed on to, more than one mother is explored in the book The Irresistible Henry House by Lisa Grunwald. The story

The Everafter by Amy Huntley This would be a good read alike for people that enjoyed Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin. Like that book, the subject explored is what happens to a person after they are dead. As the book begins the only thing that Madison Stanton knows for sure is that she is dead. She doesn't remember dying and she doesn't really remember her life. Gradually she realizes that the space is currently occupies is not a void, there are bright "x-ray" versions of objects from her life scattered and that with concentration she can navigate to them and then relive the moments of her life

I suppose I should start by admitting that before I picked up this book I had no idea who Kathy Griffin is. And, having given a celebrity tell-all or two a try I am not usually drawn to them. In fact, I avoid them. Official Book Selection, however, is well worth making an exception for. I got hooked while reading the captions of the photos and belly-laughing in the relative quiet of the public library. I couldn’t put it down. Luckily, the audio was there and Griffin’s reading makes the book that much more enjoyable. Being a professional comedian lends itself to writing and reading an

If The Manhattan Hunt club had a sub-title it would be “vigilante on vigilante justice”. When Jeff Converse stops to help a woman in the subway, she mistakes him for her attacker. He convicted of rape and sentenced to time in prison. Without giving too much away, he finds himself in the tunnels under Manhattan being hunted by vigilantes who are unhappy with the current justice system. While I found the story engaging, and was sufficiently creeped out at the prospect of absolute darkness while rats scurry around your feet, I wasn’t nearly as creeped out by the supernatural elements of Dean

Kansas author Moriarty follows The Center of Everything with a second thoughtful book, The Rest of Her Life. When high school senior Kara accidentally hits and kills a fellow high school student in her car she changes the course of not only her own life, but of family, friends and strangers alike. Moriarty examines the repercussions of the accident from many different perspectives without resorting to fabricated melodrama.

Fans of Jodi Picoult and Chris Bohjalian will appreciate this novel not only for the exploration of character, but the truthful way the story unfolds.

When Novella Carpenter and boyfriend Bill move from Seattle to Oakland, they choose their apartment for its cast of eccentric neighbors and the empty lot behind the building. In short order, Novella has taken over the lot, not only with a garden of heirloom vegetables, but chickens, bees, and even pigs. Because she is essentially squatting on another’s property, she is very generous about allowing strangers to partake of the fruits of her labor, while waiting for bulldozers to clear her space for condominiums. Being in the heart of what she describes as “the ghetto”, her neighbors all turn a

Along with the long-forgotten contents of the basement of the Panama Hotel, Henry Lee’s memories of 1940’s Seattle are unearthed.  When new hotel owners start to renovate the boarded up, old Japanese-designed building they discover the personal belongings of numerous Japanese families who were interned during WWII. As a resident of Seattle’s Chinatown, just the other side of the Panama Hotel from Japantown, Henry witnessed first-hand the removal of the Japanese. His friendship with a Japanese classmate leads him to hold a special interest in the dusty belongings of one family in particular

When Charlie Nancy’s estranged father passes away, family secrets come tumbling out at the funeral. Disbelieving that he could possibly be the son of a god, Charlie inadvertently calls the brother he didn’t know he had into his life. Havoc ensues and Charlie must find a way to extricate himself from his brother while learning what it means to be the son of Anansi, the African and Caribbean trickster god. Adult fans of Harry Potter will enjoy the sudden revelation of a secret life and Charlie’s ensuing transformation. Fans of mythology might enjoy the interweaving of the traditional Anansi

Books that don’t match their descriptions are extremely annoying, and this one especially so. The book jacket says, “It is extremely funny, but the African beach scene is horrific.” And the beach scene really is exceedingly horrific. Unfortunately, the comic relief I was led to expect never followed. I failed to be even slightly amused by this story of Little Bee, a Nigerian refugee, whose life becomes entangled with a vacationing English couple.

That isn’t to say this isn’t a good book. After Little Bee’s entire family is killed, her sister in an especially horrid way, Little Bee stows away

Although Williams is primarily a triathlete, her book is really for anyone looking for inspiration on their journey to fitness. According to her, this book is for “real people with jobs and kids and love handles”. As a plus-sized athlete, she advocates concepts like abandoning self-consciousness, being slow, embracing bodily fluids, and becoming an active wear advocate. She asks her readers to examine their motivations for losing weight and to change their focus to being fit.

In Chapter 44, titled “Be a Pit Bull”, Williams says “You’ve got your jaws clamped on to the pants leg of your dreams

When Junior announces that he wants to attend the white school off the reservation he is not only ostracized, but tormented by his own people. As he dips one foot into the strange world of white people and keeps the other firmly planted on the reservation he feels torn between the better life he glimpses at his new school and the life he has always known.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian is simultaneously hopeful and hopeless. Junior is one boy out of an entire reservation who is able to break the pattern that has so firmly gripped his family and friends. At the same time, the

Senna’s narrative is very much in the vein of Walls’ The Glass Castle or Bragg’s All Over But the Shoutin. It surpasses both for its examination, not only of Senna’s parents relationship, but for its exploration of identity today, yesterday and tomorrow.

Carl Senna is a black man born in the south when Jim Crow was alive and well. Fanny Howe, on the other hand, was born of eminent Bostonians whose histories are traceable back to the Mayflower. Of her parents’ divorce Senna says “The divorce was so ugly because the marriage was so unequivocally beautiful. My parents’ marriage had been steeped

According to Wikipedia, a “coming of age” story is one which details a young person's transition from adolescence to adulthood. This describes Every Last Cuckoo, except Sarah Lucas’ transition is one from a comfortable coupled existence as a mature woman to one in which she must make her own way. At seventy-five, Sarah’s husband of fifty years has died unexpectedly leaving Sarah and their two dogs alone in their rural Vermont home. After months of grieving and reminiscing about both good times and bad, Sarah is forced out of her depression when she takes in her troubled grand-daughter, Lottie

Alford’s exploration of what constitutes wisdom and where it comes from read a little more lightly than I would have expected. While Alford has done his research and shares many of the gems he has gleaned from his reading, I didn’t feel enlightened. His experiences during his mother’s divorce and his interviews with the elderly are entertaining, but they impart no wisdom in the end. I would be more impressed with How to Live had I not recently read The Geography of Bliss, in which Eric Weiner visits places deemed happiest by the Institute of World Happiness. The research provided a consistent

David Sheff shares the heart-breaking story of his son Nic’s tenuous life on drugs. Interwoven in the story are the results of research and studies about kids from shared custody homes, the affects of drugs (especially Methamphetamine) on the human body and psyche, and advice from a variety of sources for friends and families of addicts. Beautiful Boy especially resonates with me, as Sheff searches for answers as to how this could have happened to his son and in what ways he might be responsible. As a single mom, I was able to identify sobering parallels between his family situation and my own

In this remarkable story, Dempsey takes birdwatching (which, in his words, serves the social use of “keeping those nerdy kids who have no chance of ever making a real friend out of already overcrowded bars”) and makes it cool. While I probably won’t immediately invest in a pair of binoculars, Dempsey has effectively instilled an appreciation of a pastime to which I had never given a single, solitary thought. On the one hand, the sub-title of this book pretty much sums it up. But on the other, it says nothing. The picture on the cover, if you can see it, only begins to hint at the mirth within

In Cooked, Jeff Henderson tells an inspirational story of triumph over the odds. While growing up in the inner city, he is attracted to the wealth of neighborhood hustlers. Soon he is running drugs himself and making huge sums of money. At 24 he's arrested and spends ten years in prison where, while working as a dishwasher in the prison kitchen, Jeff discovers a passion that ultimately saves him. Drawing on the same tenacity that ensured his success on the streets, Jeff relentlessly pursues his goal of becoming a chef, ultimately earning a place in some of the most exclusive kitchens in

Tobias Wolff, who teaches creative writing at Stanford, has led an interesting life. His success comes despite a precarious childhood, from which he escaped through a combination of quick wit and good luck. So it’s no surprise that his novel Old School, which draws on his personal experience, is a fascinating exploration of the precarious nature of class and social status.

During his last year at an elite prep school, the nameless narrator in the novel is desperate to win one of three contests. The winner gains an exclusive audience with a visiting writer. The narrator fails to impress Robert