The Tender Bar: A Memoir by J.R. Moehringer

This is the true story of a young boy growing up without a father. His father abused his mother when he was a baby, so she left the father. J.R. and his mother moved in with his grandparents, his aunt, his uncle, and his six cousins, all living in a small, falling-apart home. The atmosphere was chaotic, the grandfather was verbally abusive to his wife, there was much fighting going on, and so, understandably, this young, sensitive boy needed some positive male role models in his life. He found them a couple blocks away, at the local pub.

This story takes place on Long Island, in the small town of Manhasset (where The Great Gatsby was based). J.R.'s Uncle Charlie, a bartender at the bar, introduces him to the regular patrons of the bar, and they take the poor young boy under their wings and, for the next 20 years, are there for him whenever he needs support, advice, teaching, or just an ear to listen.

Someone might think that a bar is no place for a young boy, and he certainly grew up amongst alcoholics, chronic smokers, addicted gamblers, and raunchy language. But the men in the bar, and the bar itself, were more special to him than anyone could imagine. He grew up to win a Pulitzer Prize for journalism, and he currently works as a writer for the Los Angeles Times.

His was a fascinating story, filled with characters who, on the outside, might have appeared one way, but on the inside, where it counts, they were a wonderful influence on a young boy.

Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer

Everything Is Illuminated is different kind of love story, and it encompasses love in all it's many forms. Alex Perchov, a young Ukraniana, "a very premium person" as he describes himself, posturing as both translator and travel guide delightfully butchers the English language as he helps Jonathan Safran Foer locate Augustine, a woman whom Jonathan believes may have saved his grandfather from the Nazis. In search of the village Trachimbrod, driven by Alex's grandfather and his bitch named Sammy Davis Junior, Junior we bear witness to humor, tenderness, grief, and tragedy.
Jonathan Safran Foer, the author not the protagonist navigates multiple story threads through time in a sometimes dizzying fashion, and leaves us breathless for more. We find the Jonathan Safran Foer in the book, writing about the history of Trachimbrod and the life of his great great great great great grandmother, while receiving letters from Alex in his fractured English in the present, all interspersed with the adventure to locate a woman in a photograph. While it does require close reading, it is well worth the effort.
This is a laugh out loud, belly aching book, but is also a heartbreaking story, and in a sense a coming to terms with the search for self. I adored this novel. Having also watched the movie three times I must also add that I loved that too! This should be in your TBR pile.
PS.. I've heard that his wife is Nicole Krauss my last month's choice for review aka The History of Love. I liked him better!!!

Barnes & Noble's Meet the Writer:
Harper Collins Author Interview:

Mary
http://www.bookmooch.com/m/inventory/mjones8727

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

As the winner of the Pulitzer Prize The Road by Cormac McCarthy, was surrounded with much fanfare, and lots of press, but I don't believe it lived up to its promise. It could have been more. In a bleak post apocalpytic world a boy and his father keep pressing on in a grey world of ash, daily exposed to starvation both of the flesh and the mind. The barreness of the landscape matches that of the mind of the father, as he lets go of the memory of the 'old world.' Cormac McCarthy does a wonderful job of making his characters inner life as skeletal as their frames, and only part of that statement is sarcasm. I am sure as an author he accomplished exactly what he wanted to accomplish, his bare bones characters were a stark contrast to all that misery, darkness, ash and snow that they had to slosh through on the road. But as a reader I wanted more, I wanted to know what the boy understood of his mother's death, what faith did he have in his father, when often it seemed that this child was the moral guide for the two of them, what did this boy understand of love in a world littered with roaming bands of 'bad guys' whose ultimate goals may be to have you for dinner. I do believe in survival, but not at any price, I just couldn't 'swallow' the idea that many survivors would fall into cannibalism. To me, this part of the novel felt like a cheap trick, yes I can believe that someone would kill me for a can of beans, or the shoes on my feet, but how many would cook me for dinner? While I found his stark words often beautiful and understated, this detail left me as cold as his characters in the black night.The promise of McCarthy's writing, and the beauty of his phrases are masterful, and haunting. But again, I wanted more.

Mary
My wishlist

Children of God : a novel by Mary Doria Russell

In this sequel to The Sparrow, which won the Arthur C. Clarke prize in Britain, we find that Father Emilio Sandoz, a Jesuit who barely survived his trip to Rakhat where he watched the remains of his expedition massacred by the Jana'ata, and was physically brutalized by Hlavin Kitheri, has lost his faith. Russell uses not only the schism between the Runa and the Ja'anata in this Rakhatian society to explore existential questions of life, but adds more fuel to the fire as we feel Sandoz' internal war with his god. As in the Sparrow we meet new characters that are complex but not quite as memorable as in her first work. While I think this is a great sequel, I personally preferred his first work. The depth and range of the issues that Russell addresses are astonishing, including slavery, abuse, faith, meaning, friendship, and duty, and it didn't hurt that the Jesuits were known to utter a few curses. I enjoyed it and look forward to her next work.
I love her writing, all of her characters and her ideas are well developed. She is a great read! Highly recommended!

Here are a couple of interesting links about the author:
Literati.Net About the Author
Mary Doria Russell Web Site:

Mary
aka 'tobiejonzarelli!
My bio

Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury

This sci-fi classic, first published in 1951, takes place in the "future" (actually one source says 1999) when books are outlawed and burned. In this frightening and violent society, those who try to hide books have their entire homes burned down by firemen, whose jobs are no longer to put out fires, but to start them. (Book paper burns at 451 degrees Fahrenheit, hence the title.)

The main character is one of these firemen, who becomes very curious about books. Turns out there is a subculture of people who want to preserve whole books in their memories so they are not lost. But I won't give away any more!

It is always interesting to read how people from the past imagined the future to be. Obviously, in the 1950's Bradbury had no inkling of the internet, and his money-related examples are way off (a fireman's yearly salary is $6,000). But he does incorporate big-screen TVs taking up entire walls in people's homes and, as one blogger wrote on another site, "A mindless virtual reality, much like TV today, took care of everyone’s needs and killed their curiosity. Also, an intense athletics and action-based culture made sure no one had the leisure to think or examine life." Independent thinking is quashed because it's "dangerous."

Reading this as an adult is so much different from reading it as a high school assignment. I have a completely different viewpoint of it now, a much richer understanding of its meanings and implications.

It's not a long book, and I didn't feel it was a GREAT book, but I did enjoy it. There was also a movie and a play based on the book, but with differences.