Goodbye Winter, Welcome Spring

Good Reads, March 2012

• Rules of Civility by Amor Towles. A sophisticated and entertaining love "letter" to New York City at the end of the Depression and pre-WWII. $26.95
  
  
• The Paris Wife by Paula McLain. A remarkable novel about Ernest Hemingway’s first marriage to Hadley. Her story needed to be told and it is a powerful and devastating one – a tale of love and loss. $25.00
  
  
• The Sense Of An Ending by Julian Barnes. A wonderful story about a middle-aged man, Toby Webster, who foresees his legacy and the end of his life through flashbacks to his youth. The Man-Booker Prize winner. $23.95
  
  
• Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks. The subject is the first Native-American boy who graduates from Harvard – in 1661. The voice is that of a young girl, Methia Mayfield, from a small group of English Puritans. $26.95
  
  
• The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach. A baseball star at a small college in Wisconsin makes one errant throw that upends the fate of five people. $25.99
  
  
• The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh. An abandoned child learns to communicate through flowers – a gift that eventually helps her overcome her troubled past. $25.00
  
  
• 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. A take on 1984 by George Orwell, the reader is grabbed from the very first sentence. One does need time to sit down and read this. $30.50
  
  
• To Be Sung Underwater by Tom McNeal. A sweeping saga, taking place in Nebraska, with a young girl and her high school boyfriend who love each other, but along the way, the girl goes off to college and finds another husband. The landscape is as much a part of the plot as the story. $24.99
  
  
• The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides. A coming of age story - following one young woman and two men who are all in a triangle - circling around the world. “What is love?” is the central theme. $28.00
  
  
• The All of It by Jeannette Haien. A book we all read in 1985, and now can enjoy it even more. Ireland, and a love affair, or two, play a major role in this wonderful story. Paperback $12.99
  
  
• American Dervish by Ayad Akhtar. Ayad grew up in Milwaukee and has gone on to be a young and noticed playwright (his play, “Disgraced,” just premiered in Chicago) and an actor and a writer. While the story is told as a novel, Ayad describes the emotional and real world of a Muslim growing up in America—the struggle between religion and modern life. $24.99
  
  
• Bond Girl by Erin Duffy. (She will be at The Book Stall on Friday, March 2nd!) Erin’s roman à clef tells the story of a young woman who aspires to be a bond salesman in the high-powered world of Wall Street. She goes from a lowly analyst to a slightly-less-lowly associate. It is fast paced—and very funny! A great read! $24.99
  
  
• Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson. Beginning in 1915, African Americans, in huge numbers, began to move out of the South in search of the American dream. Wilkerson traces the journeys of four families of different social strata as they migrate into northern cities. paperback $16.95
  
  
• Thinking the Twentieth Century by Tony Judt (with Timothy Snyder). In this marvelous conversation with one of the 20th century's foremost thinkers and historians, Judt examines the ideas that shaped, for better or worse, the political and intellectual history of the period. It is also a telling of Judt's own intellectual journey. It is brilliantly written and very accessible. $36
  
  
• Jerusalem: The Biography by Simon Montefiore. The story of Jerusalem is the story of both a place and an idea. It is the focus of religious hope and promise, along with a place that has seen unimaginable violence and sectarian hatred. Montefiore writes her history in a masterful and engaging biography. $35
  
  
• The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War by Andrew Roberts. From one of Britain's finest military historians comes a new look at World War II and the flawed strategy of the Axis countries. Why were more than 50 million people killed and the cost was 1.5 trillion dollars? Roberts has meticulously researched this momentous event. $29.99
  

The Book Stall at Chestnut Court  •  811 Elm St.  •  Winnetka, IL 60093
847 446-8880  •  www.thebookstall.com