The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson, 2010, * * *

As the final installment of Stieg Larsson's trilogoy, I wish I could say that this book was of the same caliber as that of the prior two books, but in my opinion, it was not. The book picked up right where the last, The Girl Who Played With Fire,  left off, with Lisbeth Salander in the hospital being treated for her injuries. Mikael Blomkvist continues to sleuth on her behalf in order to expose those who have made her life hellish and attempted to frame her for all manner of crimes. All of the other familiar characters from the prior books return but the overall feel of the book is that it was the least edited and least considered of the three. This would make sense if Larsson had intended to go back and do some more tweaking and editing before publication, but he was obviously unable to do so following his death. There are entire sections of the book that meander on and on with no apparent purpose with regard to moving the story forward – these sections would have benefited greatly from some serious editorial paring.  There are also way too many characters who have not appeared before, and like a Russian novel, you needed 3x5 cards to keep track of them and how they fit into the plot line. I simply could not put down the previous books, but I was nowhere near as riveted by this one. For the ending alone, this story is worth reading and I wavered between a 3-and 4- star review for this reason. Ultimately, I considered whether the book, standing alone without the previous two, would be a 4-star book, and I don't believe that would be the case. Anyone who has read the first two books simply will not be able to deny themselves the final installment, nor should they. It is a great loss that Mr. Larsson passed away before he could really fine-tune the final book, and before he could write another.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen, 2006, * * * *

Though he may not speak of them, the memories still dwell inside Jacob Jankowski's ninety-something-year-old mind. Memories of himself as a young man, tossed by fate onto a rickety train that was home to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. Memories of a world filled with freaks and clowns, with wonder and pain and anger and passion; a world with its own narrow, irrational rules, its own way of life, and its ownway of death. The world of the circus: to Jacob it was both salvation and a living hell.  Jacob was there because his luck had run out, orphaned and penniless, he had no direction until he landed on this locomotive ;ship of fools. It was the early part of the Great Depression, and everyone in this third-rate circus was lucky to have any job at all. Marlena, the star of the equestrian act, was there because she fell in love with the wrong man, a handsome circus boss with a wide mean streak. And Rosie the elephant was there because she was the great gray hope, the new act that was going to be the salvation of the circus; the only problem was, Rosie didn't have an act and, in fact, she couldn't even follow instructions. The bond that grew among this unlikely trio was one of love and trust, and ultimately, it was their only hope for survival.  Surprising, poignant, and funny, Water for Elephants is that rare novel with a story so engrossing, one is reluctant to put it down; with characters so engaging, they continue to live long after the last page has been turned; with a world built of wonder, a world so real, one starts to breathe its air.

Little Bee by Chris Cleave, 2009, * * *

Some 50 years ago, the region near Nigeria’s Atlantic coast provided the setting for Chinua Achebe’s haunting novel of a world torn asunder by the vicissitudes of Anglo-imperial expansion. To capture the tragedy of colonialism in that account, “Things Fall Apart,” Achebe looked to Yeats’s poem “The Second Coming” for inspiration: “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, / The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere / The ceremony of innocence is drowned; / The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity. Chris Cleave, a columnist for The Guardian, puts a modern-day spin on Achebe’s concerns with his immensely readable and moving novel. While the pretext of “Little Bee” initially seems contrived — two strangers, a British woman and a Nigerian girl, meet on a lonely African beach and become inextricably bound through the horror imprinted on their encounter — its impact is hardly shallow. Rather than focusing on postcolonial guilt or African angst, Cleave uses his emotionally charged narrative to challenge his readers’ conceptions of civility, of ethical choice. Sarah O’Rourke might appear to be an insipid character, with her career at a British magazine, her Batman-costumed young son, her uninspiring lover and her gentrified Surrey lifestyle. When juxtaposed with the Nigerian refugee called Little Bee — whom we first meet behind the razor wire of a British immigration center — Sarah is unsympathetic, even tiresome. But that impression changes partway through the novel when a flashback to Africa reveals her fortitude.  London, with its dizzying abundance and multiculturalism, looks like a parallel universe when compared with the impoverished Nigerian village where Little Bee grew up. Yet it’s this same village that instilled in Little Bee the skills and values needed to help her navigate toward her own scarred survival. Like Little Bee, Sarah is a survivor. But the lessons of the past are not enough to steer either woman to safety. Instead, in a world full of turpitude and injustice, it is their bold, impulsive choices that challenge the inevitability of despair, transforming a political novel into an affecting story of human triumph.

Absolutely American: Four Years at West Point by David Lipsky, 2003, * * * * *

David Lipsky, a Rolling Stone writer and an award-winning novelist, chronicles daily life at the U.S. Military Academy during the most tumultuous period in its history. In 1998, West Point made David Lipsky an unprecedented offer: stay at the Academy as long as you like, go wherever you wish, talk to whomever you want, to discover why some of America's most promising young people sacrifice so much to become cadets. Lipsky followed one cadet class into mess halls, barracks, classrooms, bars, and training exercises, from arrival through graduation. By telling their stories, he also examines the Academy as a reflection of our society: Are its principles of equality, patriotism, and honor quaint anachronisms or is it still, as Theodore Roosevelt called it, the most "absolutely American" institution?  During arguably the most eventful four years in West Point's history, Lipsky witnesses the arrival of TVs and phones in dorm rooms, the end of hazing, and innumerable other shifts in policy and practice known collectively as The Changes. He uncovers previously unreported scandals and poignantly evokes the aftermath of September 11, when cadets must prepare to become officers in wartime. Absolutely American spotlights a remarkable ensemble of characters: a former Eagle Scout who struggles with every facet of the program, from classwork to marching; a foul-mouthed party animal who hates the military and came to West Point to play football; a farm-raised kid who seems to be the perfect soldier, despite his affection for the early work of Georgia O’Keeffe.  Many of them thrive under the rigorous regimen; others battle endlessly just to survive it.  This was a  fascinating, funny and tremendously well written account of life on the Long Gray Line -- a superb description of modern military culture, and one of the most gripping accounts of university life I have ever read.  As the cadets finally graduate and launch their careers, you may feel like a proud parent or friend standing in the crowd and cheering their accomplishments

Every Patient Tells a Story by Lisa Sanders, 2009, * * * *

A riveting exploration of the most difficult and important part of what doctors do, by Yale School of Medicine physician Dr. Lisa Sanders, author of the monthly New York Times Magazine column "Diagnosis," and the inspiration for the hit Fox TV series House, M.D.  for which she currently serves as a consultant  The experience of being ill can be like waking up in a foreign country. Life, as you formerly knew it, is on hold while you travel through another world as unknown as it is unexpected. Patients want a road map that will help them manage their new surroundings. "When I see patients in the hospital or in my office who are suddenly, surprisingly ill, what they really want to know is, ‘What is wrong with me?’" The ability to give this unfamiliar place a name, restores a measure of control, independent of whether or not that diagnosis comes attached to a cure. In Every Patient Tells a Story,  Never in human history have doctors had the knowledge, the tools, and the skills that they have today to diagnose illness and disease. Yet mistakes are still made, diagnoses missed, and symptoms or tests are misunderstood.  Through dramatic stories of patients with baffling symptoms, Sanders portrays the absolute necessity and surprising difficulties of understanding the patient’s story, the challenges of  a good history & physical;  the pitfalls of doctor-to-doctor communication, the vagaries of tests, and the near calamity of diagnostic errors. Dr. Sanders chronicles the real-life drama of doctors solving these difficult medical mysteries while illustratating the art and the science of diagnosis.

The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande, 2010, * * * *

We live in a world of great and increasing complexity, where even the most expert professionals struggle to master the tasks they face. Longer training, ever more advanced technologies--neither seems to prevent grievous errors. But in a hopeful turn, acclaimed surgeon and writer Atul Gawande finds a remedy in the humblest and simplest of techniques: the checklist. First introduced decades ago by the U.S. Air Force, checklists have enabled pilots to fly aircraft of mind-boggling sophistication. Now innovative checklists are being adopted in hospitals around the world, helping doctors and nurses respond to everything from flu epidemics to avalanches. Even in the immensely complex world of surgery, a simple ninety-second variant has cut the rate of fatalities by more than a third. In riveting stories, Gawande takes us from Austria, where an emergency checklist saved a drowning victim who had spent half an hour underwater, to Michigan, where a cleanliness checklist in intensive care units virtually eliminated a type of deadly hospital infection.  Harvard Medical School prof and New Yorker scribe Gawande (Complications) notes that the high-pressure complexities of modern professional occupations overwhelm even their best-trained practitioners; he argues that a disciplined adherence to essential procedures — by ticking them off a list — can prevent potentially fatal mistakes and corner cutting. He examines checklists in aviation, construction, and investing, but focuses on medicine, where checklists mandating simple measures have dramatically reduced hospital-caused infections and other complications.  He's at his best delivering his usual rich, insightful reportage on medical practice, where checklists have the subversive effect of puncturing the cult of physician infallibility and fostering communication and teamwork.  Gawande gives a vivid, punchy exposition of an intriguing idea: that by-the-book routine trumps individual prowess. Gawande is a gorgeous writer and storyteller, and the aims of this book are ambitious. Gawande thinks that the modern world requires us to revisit what we mean by expertise: that experts need help, and that progress depends on experts having the humility to concede that they need help.

White Tiger by Aravind Adiger, 2008, * * * *

In his debut novel, Aravind Adiga takes on some hefty issues: the unhappy division of social classes into haves and have-nots, the cultural imperialism of the First World, the powder-kegged anger that seethes among the world's dispossessed, and entrapment.  The plot centers on Balram Halwai, a laborer born and raised in a small village utterly controlled by crooked and feudally powerful landlords. The village is located in 'the Darkness,' a particularly backward region of India. Balram is eventually taken to Delhi as a driver for one of the landlord's westernized sons, Ashok. It's in Delhi that Balram comes to the realization that there's a new caste system at work in both India and the world, and it has only two groups: those who are eaten, and those who eat.  Balram decides he wants to be an eater, someone with a big belly, and the novel tracks the way in which his ambition plays out. A key metaphor in the novel is the "rooster coop". Balram recognizes that those who are eaten are trapped inside a small and closed cage--the rooster coop--that limits their opportunities. Even worse, they begin to internalize the limitations and indignities of the coop, so that after awhile they're unable to imagine they deserve any other world than the cramped one in which they exist. Balram's dream is to break free of his coop, to shed his feathers and become what for him is a symbol of individualism, power, and freedom: a white tiger. But as he discovers, white tigers have their own cages, too. Of course, it's not simply the Balram's of the world caught in the rooster coop. Adiga's point seems to be that even the world's most privileged suffer from a cultural and class myopia that limits perspective and distorts self-understanding. The White Tiger is a good tonic with which to clear one's vision and spread one's wings.