Oakland Tribune from Oakland, California • 45

SUNDAY EBRUARY 23 2014 AUTHOR ALERT BOOKS BY THE BAY A LIT BIT Sia isl GEORGIA ROWE KINDER SOLITUDE PIONEER GIRL X5 I 001 BAY AREA NEWS GROUP D5 REI) JGUI Ar? Contact Georgia Rowe at growepacbellnet until the poisoning of Shaoai sends them into the world on divergent paths Twenty years later Ruyu is living in California and working as a housekeeper Moran has also moved to the US while Boyang a successful businessman remains in Beijing Ruyu and Moran have married and divorced Boyang stays angle and all three seem unable to con nect Li a native of Beijing who lives in Oakland creates a potent atmosphere of mys tery around death Yet even as she resolves its lingering questions the au thor suggests that innocence lost can never be regained NORTHERN CALIORNIA BEST SELLERS Data from Northern California Independent Booksellers Association for the week ending eb16 ICTION The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt 2 Ripper by Isabel Allende 3 The Days of Anna Madrigal by Armistead Maupin i 4 The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd 5 One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories by Novak 6 Still Life With Bread Crumbs by Arma Quindlen 7 The Martian by Andy Weir 8 The Circle by Dave Eggers 9 Dog Songs by Mary Oliver 10 The Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan NONICTION i LThe Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert 2 Everything I Need to Know I Learned rom a Little Golden Book by Diane Muldrow and laugh unfettered by prejudice but held in a com pound from which they cannot escape Parents drugged into oblivion if they resist are kept separate from the children un der the rule that all adults are parents to Novelist examines warped tactics used to oppress people By Amy Driscoll Miami Herald Through the eyes of a young girl and her mother plotting to escape the story of the 1978 Jon estown massacre takes on new dimensions in a surprising novel all children And at In Eat Drink Play section in the paper we have a lead Play story about a tour bus company that takes i you to the sites of locations where movies were made in San ranciscd1 or quite a bit less money and for free if you are a member of the Meehan ics Institute you can hear author Christopher Pollock expound on his San rancisco Stories: An Annotated ilmography of the Bay (Castor Pollux $2495 248 pages) Published in October the book covers more than 600 movies blockbusters to foigotten indies from 1927 on that were set or partially set in the Bay Area Hear him talk at 6 pm Tuesday at the Institute 57 Post St in San rancisco Admission for nonmembers is $15 Reservations and more information available at 415 393 0100 or wwwjnilibraryorgevents Continuing on the movie theme author Roberts Murillo will dis cuss his novel (Cre ateSpace $1495 279 pages) at 1 pm Saturday at Orinda Books 276 Village Square acilitator of the dis cussion is Thomas Gladys? founder of the Louise Brooks Society which is entirely appropriate since the silent film star is the time traveling heroine of new mystery Sue Gilmore staff the Art of Battling Giants by Malcolm Gladwell 4 AD Joy and No un: The Paradox of Modem Parenthood by Jennifer Senior 5 The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown 6 Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War by Robert Gates 7 Glitter and Glue: A Memoir by Kelly Conigan i 8 Cool Gray City of Love: 49 Views of San rancisco by Gary Kamiya 9 1 Am Malala: The Girt Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai i i 10 Jerusalem: A CookbookbyYotam Ottolengtii SarmTamimi TRADE ICTION Life After Life by Kate Atkinson 2 Dear Life by Alice Munro a Cockroaches by Jo Nesbo 4 Mr 24 Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan 5 Ybu Go Bernadette by Maria Semple 6 The Golem and the Jirmi by Helene Wetter 7 The lamethrowers by Rachel Kushner 8 A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki 9 The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud ID Tenth of December Stories by George Saunders TRADE NONICTION The Monuments Men by Robert Edsel 2 Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh a Wild by Cheryl Strayed 4 What Should We Be Worried Real Scenarios That Keep Scientists Up at Night by John Brockman 5 My Beloved World by Sonia Sotomayor 6 Season of the Witch: Enchantment Terror and Deliverance in the City of Love byDavidTalbot 7 2014 San rancisco Bay Area Restaurants The Power of Habit Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg 9 Proof of Heaven by Eben Alexander MD 10 The Snowden Hies: The Inside Story of the Most Wanted Man by Luke Harding they have one ally the preacher know about: the gorilla named Adam who understands more than the preacher real izes The line between magical eddine (Grove $25 320 pages) Loneliness also per vades Rabih new novel the first since his best seller The woman of the title is 72 year old Aaliya Sohbi an introverted former bookstore clerk who is fond of Divorced and childless living alone in the ruins of Beirut she is her but her mind The central charac ter Lee Lien has just earnedh her doctorate in 19th century English literature with no job in sight moved in with her difficult mother and is working in the family noodle house Everything i changes when she comes across a gold brooch left at her cafe in Saigon 40 years earlier Convinced that it once belonged to Rose Wilder Laura Ingalls journalist daughter Lee leaves her Chicago home and embarks on a journey to frontier Nguyen who recently moved from the Midwest to the Bay Area peppers her tale with sharp your basic book club on ste roids what they have going down on the Stanford University campus a seasonal series called Another Look and at 7:30 pm installment in Levinthal Hall the book under dis cussion is Philip Ghost a short novel that was the first in his Zuckerman series The discussion leader is Stanford profes sor and celebrated author Tobias Wolff who will have help on handfrom literary power couple Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman The Another Look series teams Stanford luminaries from the English department with recognized liter ary figures from throughout the Bay Area The event is free with seats available on a first come basis ind more information at lookstanfordedu daughters! She will read from the book March 19 at Towne Center Books in Pleasanton at Butternut by Mary McNear (William Morrow $1499 384 pages) San rancisco writer Mary McNear intro duces Allie Beckett a young mother still reeling from her soldier death in Afghanistan Pledging to make a new life for herself and her 5 year old son she moves to her cabin in Butternut Lake Minn re connecting with old friends Jax and Caroline and meeting the most eligible bachelor at But temut is the first of a series a sequel is due in August Bich Minh second novel starts withan intrigu ing premise aViet namese Ameri can student tracing the westward progress of iconic House on the novels by Yiyun Li Rabih Al ameddine Bich Minh Nguyen and Mary McNear traverse multiple eras and time zones Than by Yiyun Li (Random House $26 336 paces) Award winning author Yiyun Li returns this Beautifully written man bontuae is a moving meditation on profound and perplexing loneliness in which every human heart The author will read from the book Wednesday at Mrs in Berke ley and Thursday at the Institute in San rancisco presented by the Asia Society and Litquake Unnecessary mission led by Cali contemplate fleeing on a riv fomia Rep Leo Ryan erboat that makes occasional Ryan was killed along trips to the compound And with an NBU corre spondent a camera man a newspaper photographer and a family member And so Aguiar keeps us wondering: Will thinking and reality becomes I Trina and her mother increasingly hard to discern as Joyce be among the explores the power of i Trina has become under the utmost deprivation the favorite exhibit He uses a lyricism to cre to keep the people under con ate a world in which every rustle trol after she seemingly defies in the jungle could spell safety death twice Once she walked or menace playing with per too close to the cage that holds a gorilla the preacher keeps as a dangerous pet yet another larger than life demonstration of his power The gorilla grabs Authors explore three become inseparable Beirut Beijing and Butternut Lake With settings in Beijing and Beirut California and the Midwest these new cult leader they call ather or the preacher wears custom tailored Elvis style out fits while indulging his own ma niacal whims inflicting vicious punishments for the slightest doubt that he is carrying out will a socialist paradise from outside and a slave camo inside and into that dreadful space Trina mostly out of curiosity JJ Aguiar introduces a actional girl and her mother ception Are they escaping or just imagining they are? Is the gorilla helping or does he repre sent a break with reality? creates a suffocat ing atmosphere that explores and she faints in his grasp the use of charisma and religious The nreacher makes evervone fanaticism as tools of repression Thirty three people escaped believe she has died and then Most powerful of all he takes a from the commune on the day of he her for the well documented atrocity and the mass suicide some by walk crowds tells it in a new and arresting HarperCollins that contrasts a dreamlike style the center of it all the $2599 384 pages handfill who survive? the mind to remain free even with the temiying paranoia oi the Guyana jungle compound where 909 Americans died in a murder suicide pact red a novelist raised in Guyana until he was 12 re imagines the tragedy that stunned the world in of wrapping the Jim Jones led commune in a gauzy magical realism that leaves much of the horror justi off the page: The result is a slow ratch eting up of dread leavened by enough hope to keep us riveted 4 rt rxrizn drives thestory ing miles through the jungle oth Directly under the gaze of a way You teach if the peo with unspoken tension The ers surviving an airport ambush madman Trina is in a precari pie listen and multihued schoolchildren chant of an American investigative ous spot She and her mother demands that we listen BOOKREVIEW A retelling of Jonestown massacre month with a haunting new novel about three young Chinese students whose lives are altered when anoIder girlin by Rabih Alam tneir circle of friends is murdered The book begins in 2010 Shaoai who lived horribly maimed for nearly 20 years after being poisoned has finally died The story then loops back to 1989 as Ruyu a 15 year old orphan comes to live with family in Beijing Acutely uncom fortable with Shaoai Ruyu befriends Moran a girl in her class and Boyang the bov Moran hopes to marry The is alert and she spends her days sur author Laura Ingalls Wilder rounded by books Each year she trans lates a favorite book into Arabic rprofiillv sealing the manuscript in a box as soon as done the 37 translations completed have never been read by anyone or all her reclusive ways a strong independent thinker and as she muses on art literature and the power of language she recalls the life experiences and long ex pired relationships that have insights about mothers and orougnt ner to tins point Alameddine who divides his time between Beirut and San rancisco creates an indelible character in Aaliya and evokes a world of intel lect and emotion in her little apartment by Bich Minh Nguyen (Viking Adult $2695 304 pages) 0 ROSS CAMERONSTA ARCHIVES Yiyun Li who was born in Beijing but lives in Oakland has set her new novel "Kinder than Solitude" both in her native country and her adopted homeland AT 1 1 1 New novels span globe I NbLmMHiK J' rsi th tun ffl 1 I 1 1 I i i.