Events Calendar
In This Section
Most Read Stories
Police accuse bank robbery suspect of gobbling up note (with dashcam video)
Victim of beating in Kent last week is declared dead at Akron hospital
Dad accused of forcing son into field, killing him
Man found dead in North Akron home is identified
Can DNA tests free ex-Akron captain?
Browns' roster nearly devoid of consistent players
Coventry man killed in crash at I-77 ramp
Review: You've never seen 'Sound of Music' like this
Blogs:
Pets:
Cat-loving chihuahua suckles seven abandoned kittens
The Heldenfiles:
Friday Night Notebook
Patrick McManamon:
Browns vs. Lions live …
Akron Zips:
Akron trounces Howard to reach .500
Tribe Matters:
Seven players added to Tribe’s 40-man roster
Cleveland Browns:
Robiskie, Harrison inactive
Kent State Sports:
Kent State blown out in second half, loses to Temple 47-13
Cleveland Cavaliers:
Gameblog: Cavs vs. Philadelphia 76ers
Buckeye Blogging:
OSU – Michigan college football rivals meet in Baghdad
Varsity Letters:
Four area football teams play tonight
All Da King's Men:
The Sunday Sanity Challenge
Blog of Mass Destruction:
Will Health Care Reform Pass?
Akron Law Café:
Health Care Financing Reform: (69) The Brookings Institute Study on "Bending the Curve" – Four General Strategies
See Jane Style:
Vintage Chic
Car Chase:
TIME TO GET YOUR COLLECTOR CARS WINTERIZED
Let's Talk Real Estate:
Silverdome Potentially SOLD!
Ohio Travels with Betty:
George is looking for a Thanksgiving buffet in Akron.
Sound Check:
Steely Dan Plays "The Royal Scam" at E.J. Thomas Hall
HRLite House:
A Random Rant on Testing
Akron Gamer:
Nintendo's Mario endures even as games come and go
By Barbara McIntyre
Special to the Beacon Journal
Published on Sunday, Dec 30, 2007
Authors with area connections came through with fine work this year. Here's a look at some of the best.
Former Akronite Renee Rosen succeeds brilliantly in re-creating a 1960s family with her novel Every Crooked Pot. Her narrator, Nina, has a troublesome facial birthmark and a father with a desperate need for attention. This marvelous book is designated by its publisher as teen fiction, but adult readers will be captivated by Rosen's flair for observation and character.
Cynthia Mills of Mentor concluded her Upper Marstone trilogy with Bind Up Your Broken Hearts. The finale takes amnesiac soldier Robert Morne and his devoted nurse Louise Whiting from the end of World War I to 1936, when the veterans' hospital is closing and Robbie must find a home. When his brother, who's been married to Robbie's former sweetheart all this time, finds out, he goes to great lengths to prevent Robbie from knowing the truth . . . and ends up dead for his trouble. A fine Georgian romance.
Creston Mapes, an alumnus of Revere High School, took a temporary departure from his ''Rock Star Chronicles'' series for Nobody, the compelling tale of a detached Las Vegas reporter who discovers a murder victim at a bus stop, and becomes drawn to the story of the man's life and faith.
Thrity Umrigar, a former Beacon Journal reporter, has a clear winner in If Today Be Sweet, about a Bombay widow who comes to visit her son and his family in a Cleveland suburb and must decide whether to stay permanently. Her late husband is present only as an apparition, but his character is so magnetic that it fills the narrative. The reader misses him as a family member.
In nonfiction, Growing Season: The Life of a Migrant Community gives readers a look at neighbors they see but don't know — the agricultural workers who spend about five months a year at a family farm in Hartville. Kent State University staffers Gary Harwood, the photographer, and David Hassler, who wrote the text, provide a rich portrait of community.
Joe Mackall, a West Salem writer, is a friend of the Shetler family, who belong to the strict Swartzentruber Amish sect, but he writes with objectivity about his relationship with them in Plain Secrets: An Outsider Among the Amish. Daniel Shetler, his devout neighbor, has unwavering faith and took a chance in allowing Mackall to write about his family (though his name has been changed).
Cuyahoga Falls photographer Jim Roetzel's outstanding Birds of North America has little text, and needs little — the pictures are all that are needed for, in Roetzel's words, ''communicating the joy of birds.'' From a drab winter wren to an exotic pink flamingo, these birds are well represented.
When you think of Eric Nuzum, you'll think of bloodsucking creeps. Not that Nuzum isn't a nice guy — he is, and he's from Canton — but his book, The Dead Travel Fast: Stalking Vampires From Nosferatu to Count Chocula, will so immerse you in his fascination with the evil fiends that you, too, will want to visit Dracula's castle and watch sleazy horror films. It's both funny and enlightening.
In the same vein, Youngstown native Bill Keaggy has fun with other people's shopping in Milk Eggs Vodka: Grocery Lists Lost and Found, in which he finds discarded lists and comments on them. He's ruled that the food item most misspelled by Americans is ''banana,'' and now the cashiers at his neighborhood grocers save lists left in carts for him.
Former Beacon Journal sportswriter Michael Weinreb covers a whole new game in The Kings of New York: A Year Among the Geeks, Oddballs, and Geniuses Who Make Up America's Top High School Chess Team, a book that will intrigue even readers who aren't chess-savvy. Weinreb is sensitive to the students' many problems, but reports impartially on their failings. (The newly released paperback edition carries the title Game of Kings.)
In children's literature, the delightful Me and the Pumpkin Queen by Wooster author Marlane Kennedy will have young readers eager to grow giant vegetables in their yards, like the book's narrator Mildred does. Her late mother, a former Pumpkin Queen at the Circleville Pumpkin Show, has inspired Mildred to enter the weigh-off.
Cinda Williams Chima of Strongsville follows up The Warrior Heir with The Wizard Heir, introducing a teen wizard who needs to learn how to channel his powers and avoid being a pawn in a magical war. Chima's gift for realistic characters and dialogue makes this series one for parents to enjoy as much as their kids do.
Signing
Terry Pluto, sports columnist for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, will sign The Franchise: LeBron James and the Remaking of the Cleveland Cavaliers, co-authored with Brian Windhorst, at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Barnes & Noble, 4015 Medina Road, Bath Township, and at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Learned Owl, 204 N. Main Street, Hudson, where refreshments will be served.
Send information about books of local interest to Lynne Sherwin, Features Department, Akron Beacon Journal, P.O. Box 640, Akron, OH 44309 or lsherwin@thebeaconjournal.com. Event notices should be sent at least two weeks in advance.
Authors with area connections came through with fine work this year. Here's a look at some of the best.
Get the full article here.
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