New Release Spotlight: Change of Heart

Change of Heart, by Jodi Picoult

What would you do? It’s a question often asked in ethical discussions. Would you support the death penalty if the murderer had killed your child and husband? Would you believe in a savior if you saw him with your own eyes?

Jodi Picoult asks these questions and more in Change of Heart, her latest bestselling novel. The fact that she asks these questions, though, isn’t what’s remarkable. What truly shows her skill is her ability to create an entire book around them while still leaving the questions open for readers to make conclusions on their own.

Shay Bourne has been convicted of the murder of a little girl and her stepfather, who was a police officer, and New Hampshire is faced with its first death sentence in decades. As Bourne’s final year before his execution winds down, he pleads with the warden to let him donate his heart to another little girl in need—who happens to be the daughter of the man he murdered, yet unborn at the time of the murder. And somehow, miracles of a Biblical nature seem never too far from Bourne.

Told from the alternating points of view of an unlikely jury member, Bourne’s cell neighbor, the ACLU lawyer who fights for Bourne’s right to donate his heart, and the mother of both little girls, Change of Heart examines the hearts of those mired in battles of grief and hope, anger and regret, ambivalence and belief.

While Picoult addresses heavy topics with impressive research, her writing keeps the story light, an easy bedtime read. “In the beginning,” the book starts—strikingly similar to the Book of Genesis—“I believed in second chances.”

The ease sometimes gets in the way of the quality, however. The story begins to sound familiar, like a cross between The Green Mile and a Danielle Steele novel with its miracle-making death-row prisoner and its dreamy British doctor who falls for the brainiac with no self-esteem—at first sight.

Still, Change of Heart is worth a read and will certainly generate discussion among book groups. Just don’t put it on the syllabus for your literary criticism class.

Review by Ali McCart, Indigo Editing, LLC

ISBN-13: 978-0743496742
Publisher: Atria Books
Pub Date: March 2008
Hardcover: $26.95

Click here for more information, author’s commentary, and book club discussion questions.

Portland Literary Events

Monday, April 14
Paul Pintarich will be reading from his expanded and revised History by the Glass…a Second Round
Where: Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing, 3415 SW Cedar Hills Blvd.
When: 7:00 p.m.
Cost: Free
For more info: http://www.powells.com/

Monday, April 14
Elizabeth Strout will read from her novel Olive Kitteridge
Where: Powell’s Books on Hawthorne, 3723 SE Hawthorne
When: 7:30 p.m.
Cost: Free
For more info: http://www.powells.com/

Tuesday, April 15
Katie Crouch will read from her debut novel Girls in Trucks
Where: Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing, 3415 SW Cedar Hills Blvd
When: 7:00 p.m.
Cost: Free
For more info: http://www.powells.com/

Tuesday, April 15
Local author Tom Spanbauer will read from his first novel Faraway Places
Where: Broadway Books, 1714 NE Broadway
When: 7:00 p.m.
Cost: Free
For more info: http://www.portlandmercury.com/

Tuesday, April 15
Children’s author and illustrator D.B. Johnson will present his most recent book Bear’s Picture
Where: Annie Bloom’s Books, 7834 SW Capitol Hwy
When: 5:00 p.m.
Cost: Free
For more info: http://annieblooms.com/

Wednesday, April 16
Reading Frenzy and IPRC are sponsoring the Triple Dare Reading Series. This second installment will feature Future Tense publisher Kevin Sampsell and writer Suzanne Burns.
Where: Someday Lounge, 125 NW 5th
When: 8:00 p.m.
Cost: $6.00
For more info: http://readingfrenzy.com/

Thursday, April 17
Jane Smiley will be reading from her new novel Ten Days in the Hills
Where: Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
When: 7:00 p.m.
Cost: Free
For more info: http://www.powells.com/

Thursday, April 17
Tobias Wolff will be reading from his new short story collection Our Story Begins
Where: Powell’s City of Books on Burnside, 1005 W Burnside
When: 7:30 p.m.
Cost: Free
For more info: http://www.powells.com/

Saturday, April 19
Photographer Rosanne Olson will present her book This Is Who I Am: Our Beauty in All Shapes and Sizes
Where: In Other Words Bookstore, 8 NE Killingsworth
When: 2:00 p.m.
Cost: Free
For more info: http://inotherwords.org/

Sunday, April 20
Nina Renvoyr will be reading from her novel The Age of Dreaming, Abraham Rodriguez from his South by South Bronx, and Elizabeth Crane from her You Must Be This Happy to Enter
Where: Powell’s City of Books on Burnside, 1005 W Burnside
When: 7:30 p.m.
Cost: Free
For more info: http://www.powells.com/

New Release Spotlight: Wolves of the Crescent Moon

Wolves of the Crescent Moon, by Yousef Al-Mohaimeed

It’s hard not to talk about the Middle East at this time, the fifth anniversary of the war. That’s not true, of course. It’s quite easy to speak instead of bills and chores, upcoming vacations, what we saw on television last night, our own private and community battles. Life appears still to be life, for most of us.

Yousef Al-Mohaimeed’s novel Wolves of the Crescent Moon is an important book, especially at this time. It’s not about the war, it’s not even set in Iraq or Afghanistan—this story takes place in Saudi Arabia—but it focuses readers on that closely interwoven region and on the individuals there. It’s one thing to encourage a Western audience to relate to a Middle Eastern version of well-done chick lit; it’s quite another with what Al-Mohaimeed does.

Turad is a Bedouin who used to be a thief, until he and his partner were caught. Their intended victims buried them up to their necks and left them. Turad had a special relationship with animals, so when a wolf sniffed them out, the wolf ate Turad’s partner and then curled up asleep under Turad’s chin. Overcome with sadness and relief, Turad cannot contain “the decisive and terrible moment” when a tear “moved slowly down the side of his nose, slid over his dry cheek, and trickled around the edge of his mustache before it dripped suddenly, tantalizingly, onto the wolf’s face.” The animal leaps up and rips off Turad’s left ear, leaving him to a life of unique misery.

Amm Tawfiq served tea and coffee with Turad at the Saudi ministry. He responds to Turad with, “You’ve lost your ear, man, but the real problem is when someone loses his life and his future, his happiness and his stability”—Tawfiq was taken by slave traders, after staying on the run in the jungle and in the urban slum for more than a month, and turned into a eunuch. And finally Turad learns of an orphan, abandoned outside a mosque and suffering injury and disease. He and his mother are named by officials consulting “the list of official names for newborn males and the list for Mothers.”

“Imagine that your father and grandfather and mother all had made-up names, that you were given a made-up life, like a hero in a film or novel,” Turad narrates. “The name is nothing like people’s real names in this infernal city. It stretches out like a wild endless track, like a dark corridor in which you can’t see anything, not even your hand. There’s no goddamn definite article at the end…How can you be made definite…if you are indefinite?”

This is a novel of much sadness, but it’s not depressive, and the stories are so unique—beyond merely dating experiences that differ from Western custom or coming-of-age in a different kind of mall—yet the emotion so universally human that it’s a page-turner.

Review by Kristin Thiel, Indigo Editing, LLC

ISBN: 978-0-14-311321-8
Publisher: Penguin
Pub Date: December 2007
Paperback: $14.00

Portland Literary Events

Monday, April 7
Portland’s Arts and Lectures series will present Marjane Satrapi, author of the graphic novels Persepolis and Persepolis 2
Where: Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway
When: 7:30 p.m.
Cost: $5 - $26
For more info: http://www.literary-arts.org/

Monday, April 7
Vincent Louis Carrella will be reading from his debut novel Serpent Box
Where: Powell’s Books on Hawthorne, 3723 SE Hawthorne
When: 7:30 p.m.
Cost: Free
For more info: http://www.powells.com/

Tuesday, April 8
In celebration of National Poetry Month, poets published in Portland’s semiannual poetry journal, Windfall, will be reading, including Bill Siverly, Michael McDowell, James Grabill, David Filer, Carol Ellis, and Katy McKinney
Where: Broadway Books, 1714 NE Broadway
When: 7:00 p.m.
Cost: Free
For more info: http://www.powells.com/

Tuesday, April 8
Loretta Napoleoni will be reading from her new book Rogue Economics
Where: Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside
When: 7:30 p.m.
Cost: Free
For more info: http://www.powells.com/

Tuesday, April 8
Gerard Way, author of the comic book series The Umbrella Academy (and frontman for My Chemical Romance) will be doing a book-signing
Where: Things from Another World, 4133 NE Sandy
When: 4:00-6:00 p.m.
Cost: Free
For more info: http://www.tfaw.com/

Wednesday, April 9
Jim Hightower will be speaking, and a copy of his book Swim Against the Current: Even a Dead Fish Can Go with the Flow, is part of the admission fee
Where: Bagdad Theater, 3702 SE Hawthorne
When: 7:00 p.m.
Cost: $25.95
For more info: http://www.portlandmercury.com/

Wednesday, April 9
Daniel Mason will be presenting his book A Far Country
Where: Annie Bloom’s Books, 7834 SW Capitol Hwy
When: 7:30 p.m.
Cost: Free
For more info: http://www.annieblooms.com/

Thursday, April 10
Jeff Gordinier will read from his book X Saves the World
Where: Powell’s City of Books on Burnside, 1005 W Burnside
When: 7:30 p.m.
Cost: Free
For more info: http://www.powells.com/

Thursday, April 10
The journals of Rachel Corrie, Let Me Stand Alone, will be presented by her mother, father, and sister
Where: Powell’s Books on Hawthorne, 3723 SE Hawthorne
When: 7:30 p.m.
Cost: Free
For more info: http://www.powells.com/

Friday, April 11
Gary W. Moore will be presenting his book Playing with the Enemy
Where: Powell’s City of Books on Burnside, 1005 W Burnside
When: 7:30 p.m.
Cost: Free
For more info: http://www.powells.com/

New Release Spotlight: The Geography of Bliss

The Geography of Bliss, by Eric Weiner

Are you happy?

This is the question Eric Weiner, a self-described “unhappy” reporter, travels the world asking people in his humorous, philosophical travel-memoir, The Geography of Bliss. Weiner visits ten different countries, from Bhutan to Iceland, to discover if happiness is indeed a location.

The results?

“I am no philosopher, so here goes: Money matters but less than we think and not in the way that we think. Family is important. So are friends. Envy is toxic. So is excessive thinking. Beaches are optional. Trust is not. Neither is gratitude.”

This list is a paltry substitution for Weiner’s travels, which is what makes this book worthy of a full reading—statistics only tell so much. Weiner’s book is the story behind the studies. For example: “Happiness is more than animal pleasure.” Duh. But couch this line in a story comparing Swiss rats to middle-aged foreign men living in Bangkok and you’ve got something interesting.

Reading this book is like traveling the world, one country per chapter, meeting people and immediately getting beyond the small talk. Conversational and informed, Weiner is also an expert at creating inside jokes for his readers. (One gem is about the fruits and vegetables in Moldova. They’re very fresh.)

Each person—and each country—presents a new part of the happiness equation. For the Swiss, it’s related to clean toilets. In Iceland, happiness is a choice (according to Weiner, Icelanders choose to be drunk and happy, whereas the Russians choose drunk and miserable.) For Thais, it’s the mai pen lai attitude, or the ability to “let it go.” In the end, Weiner concludes, “All miserable countries are alike; happy ones are happy in their own way.” Learning about all those different ways makes reading this book…well, blissful.

Review by Mel Wells, Indigo Editing, LLC

ISBN-13: 978-0446580267
Publisher: Twelve
Pub Date: January 2008
Hardcover: $25.99