What a great story about the depths of a father's love! Part mystery novel...part tribute to the parable of the prodigal son...this book will rope you in, and keep you thinking about what it means to be a parent - especially as your children reach the age when they are clearly no longer "yours." 

 

Music of a Life by Andrei Makine 

This is an intriguing little novel about what endures, and what makes life worth living. The protagonist, Alexei Berg, is a concert pianist just about to come into his own, when he and his parents are caught up in the Stalinist purges of the 1930s. His parents are dragged off to the gulag, and he flees Moscow to seek the protection of a distant relative. There, he is betrayed - by his cousin, and, it seems, by the entire cosmos: "In the middle of the night, he would leave his hiding place. He would get up, change, stretch his legs. The serenity of the fields, the sky, the stars seen through a heat haze, called on him to have faith, to take joy in life. They were all lying." He escapes again, assumes the identity of a dead soldier, and continues his trek through war and peace...alive, but not fully alive, until music returns to his life.  

The Devil's Advocate by Morris West  

When I first read The Devil's Advocate, I was in high school. I thought it was good then...and the intervening decades (ahem!) have only heightened its appeal. The Devil's Advocate of the title is a priest, terminally ill with cancer, who's been sent from Rome to a tiny village in the "toe" of Italy, to examine the case for sainthood of a man executed by revolutionaries just after the end of WWII. But the story hinges less on the canonization process than it does on every character's struggle with (and search for) a faith that can detect the hand of God in the challenges of everyday life. Thought-provoking and inspiring, throughout! 

A Soldier of the Great War by Mark Helprin  

Uncork that bottle of sangiovese you've been saving, and settle in with Helprin's magnum opus - a gripping, often lyrical story about the life and times of one Alessandro Giuliani, a professor of aesthetics whose life spans the better part of the 20^th century. I think you'll be caught up in this ambitious, sweeping exploration of Alessandro's fundamental passions, Beauty and Truth. Others may disagree, but I say Helprin was in top form when writing Soldier. I've read some of his other stuff - Winter's Tale, and Memoir From Antproof Case. The writing's good, often great, in these novels. But in both cases, Helprin's imaginative vision tends to soar a bit over the top for my tastes. 

The Dean's List by Jon Hassler  

I mention this title, but I could have picked any of Hassler's endearing, satisfying and thought-provoking tales set in and around Staggerford, the Yoknapatawtha County of the north. A skilled storyteller, Hassler breathes life into seemingly ordinary characters; his palette consists almost entirely of good people, about whom he makes you care. Other Hassler titles worth a look: The Love Hunter, North of Hope, Dear James, Rookery Blues. 

A Severed Head by Iris Murdoch  

You have to be in the right mood for this odd little novel - a character-driven story in which every character ultimately is exposed as deeply flawed, even reprehensible. We learn early on that the protagonist is a self-centered scoundrel. By novel's end, he very nearly shines in comparison to his sordid circle of acquaintances. Which is not to say that the novel is without its rewards: Murdoch keeps the story moving along at a brisk pace, and she sprinkles deadpan humor throughout. It is, in short, a clever farce - but perhaps a bit too clever to rank among the all-time classics. 

On the Road by Jack Kerouac 

I picked up a copy of On the Road after hearing an homage on National Public Radio one morning on the way to work. (Somehow, this mid-'50s classic had never appeared on reading lists during my school years.) Some compare Kerouac's novel to Huckleberry Finn - since both books recount a hero's journey to discover America's heart. While Twain's vision of America has long since faded from view, Kerouac was in at the beginning of our national neuroses. And the images he draws still ring true, even after nearly 50 years: "It was remarkable how Dean could go mad and then suddenly continue with his soul - which I think was wrapped up in a fast car, a coast to reach, and a woman at the end of the road - calmly and sanely as though nothing had happened." We're still running today - right alongside Kerouac's hero. But do we ever stop to consider the damage we may be doing to our souls?  

Nonfiction  

The Extravagant Universe by Robert Kirshner 

Kirshner is a Harvard professor who gets to play all day (or is it 'all night'?) with the Hubble Space Telescope. It's our good fortune that he likes to share what he's learned, and that he's quite accomplished at making modern astrophysics digestible. Kirshner likens the telescope to Sherlock Holmes' magnifying glass - and takes us along, as he recounts some astonishing evidence collected about the cosmos over the past half-decade. His conclusion: we live in an extravagant universe - one comprised of much more stuff than the eye can see. There's ordinary matter; at least three kinds of dark matter (including the delightfully named 'weakly interacting massive particles' - or WIMPs); and a large dollop of dark energy that continues to drive cosmic acceleration today. The details may be confounding at times, but it's worth the effort to get this introduction to the many magnificent worlds beyond our solar system and galaxy.  

Reagan's War by Peter Schweizer 

Don't be put off by this book's title. It's not so much a polemic as a fascinating look behind the scenes at the vision and leadership of Ronald Reagan. Schweizer, a Stanford University Fellow, unearths an amazing amount of detail about Reagan's 40-year fight against communism - including much eye-opening information about the Soviets' actions and intentions during the '70s and '80s. I came away from the book grateful that our world had been blessed with such a leader - and with a new appreciation for the importance of courage and moral clarity in the face of demonstrable evil. 

The Life You Save May Be Your Own by Paul Elie 

A wonderful introduction to four American Catholic writers of the mid-20^th century: Thomas Merton, Walker Percy, Flannery O'Connor and Dorothy Day. Elie explores how their work as writers was, in fact, a pilgrimage - "a journey in which art, life and religious faith converge; it is a story of readers and writers - of four individuals who glimpsed a way of life in their reading and evoked it in their writing, so as to make their readers yearn to go and do likewise." In the process, Elie says, these writers help us overcome our suspicions of religious experience. Through their eyes, through their experience, through their journeys...we can begin to make sense of an otherwise absurd world. 

Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith by Kathleen Norris  

Kathleen Norris may be an acquired taste: A priest friend of mine read this book on my recommendation, and found little of value. But I'm now reading it for the third time, and finding fresh insights on almost every page. Norris has a poet's gift - assembling ordinary words and everyday circumstances into images that can take your breath away. She is also deeply schooled in the writings and traditions of Catholic monastic spirituality - a background that enables her to unearth timeless truths in unexpected places. 

Radical Innovation: How Mature Companies Can Outsmart Upstarts by Gina Colarelli O'Connor, Richard Leifer, Christopher McDermott, et. al  

I've broken with convention here, by listing Gina's name first among the six authors who appear on the cover of this book. The reason? We go way back. Gina was my wife's roommate in college, and because I know her to be "good people", I wanted to give her top billing. Gina has teamed up with a number of her colleagues at RPI to present case studies in "white space" innovation at a handful of major corporations. It's a useful book, providing many insights into the often-plodding pace of innovation at big companies. However, I think the title is a bit misleading. The authors really hit the nail on the head in their final chapter, when they describe impermanence as the Achilles heel of start-up firms. As a rule, the big guys don't outsmart upstarts. They outlast them...and out-scale them. Not a radical approach to innovation, perhaps...but certainly an effective one. 

Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 by John Barry  

Having lived through the great flood of 1993 - often reported locally as a "500-year flood" - I was fascinated to learn from Barry's book that a much larger deluge had scoured the same ground only a few generations before. Barry's at his best when he's describing the awesome power of a raging Mississippi. But he also does a great job dissecting the politics of levees, agriculture and flood control - issues that continue to garner headlines today. A must-read for anyone who's spent time on the banks of the Big Muddy, pondering the tales that surely must swirl in its unpredictable currents. 

Grammatical Man by Jeremy Campbell  

Campbell provides an intriguing introduction to information theory, and mankind's place in what appears to be a grammatical cosmos. It's a great book, in large part because Campbell makes a compelling case for a universe in which entropy won't necessarily win.