Category: Reading List

Carol Burnett and I are the same age. Well, she’s a few months older, having had her birthday recently and mine is not until October.

I have always admired Carol for her creativity and humor. Her comedy shows and specials brought me many hours of pleasure. During the Seventies, Saturday night television was filled from 7:00 to 10:00 with shows that today are classics. All in the Family, M*A*S*H, Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Newhart and The Carol Burnett Show. This was “must see TV” twenty years before an ad man created that slogan (and on a different network).  The Carol Burnett Show, a variety show that featured musical numbers, dance routines and comedy sketches, ran for 11 seasons and won 25 Emmy awards.

The other shows in that historic line up were sold into syndication and can still be seen on cable channels. Carol Burnett and her husband, Joe Hamilton, owned the rights to her show and they chose to package it into DVD collections to sell. For Mothers Day I received a set of DVDs of skits from Carol’s shows and a copy of her book, This Time Together.

Her first book, One More Time, written in 1985, covered the more personal side of her story. This Time Together is really a memoir of her show biz life, the amazing people she met, worked with or just happened to run into.

I like her style of writing, she has a real knack for telling a story in an interesting way, no meandering or digressions that memoirs often fall prey to.  What comes through is that she is just as spontaneous and funny (and self-depreciating)  in real life as she was on stage. And totally able to laugh at herself as she told of meeting James Stewart and later Cary Grant, her childhood heroes, and being tongue-tied and klutzy because she was so star-struck. Or the time she scared off a mugger in New York City by giving the Tarzan yell long and loud.

The sub-title on the book cover is “Laughter and Reflection” and that’s what it is. Carol takes us along on her rise to stardom on Broadway and television and it’s a wonderful ride. It’s a delightful book and I highly recommend it.

The DVDs are good, too.

Jodi Picoult (pronounced Pe-koe, like the tea) wrote her first short story at age 5. She was published in Seventeen magazine while she was in college and was primary writer for DC Comics Wonder Woman Vol. 3.  She is probably my over-all favorite fiction writer.

As a reader, I find her books captivating – usually from the first paragraph – and gripping to the last page. As a writer, I love her voice and envy her skill at hooking her readers from the first paragraph and keeping them engrossed in the characters to the last page.

One thing that makes her stories so full of heart clutching moments is that she writes about subjects that are current and possibly on the edge of controversy.  Such as: teen suicide (The Pact); bullying and school shooting (Nineteen Minutes); Autism (House Rules); post-divorce ownership of the embryos (Sing You Home); euthanasia (Mercy); various medical ethics (My Sister’s Keeper); child abuse by a priest (Perfect Match); and stigmata, a phenomena recognized by some Christian denominations (Keeping Faith).

If you have read any of these books, you might disagree on what I named as the primary subject of the book. For instance Sing You Home (2011) deals with loss of a premature baby, how grief might alienate a couple rather than bring them together, gay relationships, evangelical Christians’ beliefs about the pre-born child.  All of Ms. Picoult’s novels incorporate many issues.

I have to admire her for the way she handles these delicate subjects, bringing out the very human feelings on both sides of a topic. Her technique of telling the story in more than one point of view lends itself to the success she has as a storyteller.

Because I am a writer, I think I am a discriminating reader. I pick up redundancies and discrepancies and see typos. This makes me a good editor/proof reader, I think, but a picky reader-for-entertainment.

I say that to say this: There is a J.P. novel I didn’t finish reading. I usually give a book 50-100 pages to draw me in and this one just didn’t make it. When I looked at the copyright date, I saw that it was written 20 years ago. It was actually her first novel –  before she honed her skills, I like to think.

Excuse the audacity in my review of a best selling writer. The point is that for the hard-working writer, our work should improve with each effort. We have all read recent novels by well-established writers who just phoned it in and relied on their name to sell the book. I don’t think Picoult has ever done this.

And that is why I read Jodi Picoult.

For a full list and reviews of Jodi Picoult novels, visit her Amazon Author’s page  here.

I love true crime non-fiction by investigative reporters. And, in my opinion, there’s no one better at that genre than Mara Leveritt.

I first heard her speak at a writer’s conference several years ago on the subject of vetting her 1998 book, Boys on the Tracks. (To vet: to examine carefully. In this case to make sure there was nothing in the book that could be considered slanderous.)  After the conference, I went home and raved about her so that my daughters drove to Books-a-Million (I told you it was several years ago) and bought the book for me straight away.  I can’t remember now why I didn’t buy it at the conference as is my normal practice.

I recalled the case of the teenagers from Saline County who were killed when hit by a train in a bizarre incident. I lived in Tennessee at the time and was able to read follow-ups only sporadically.  Reminded of the story, I couldn’t wait to catch up on the happenings.

Mara Leveritt is a seasoned investigative reporter, columnist and contributing editor for the Arkansas Times. She has won many awards for her work. She writes her books like a reporter should report: just the facts. Every statement made is footnoted and documented from court records or interviews with those involved.  Her absolute thoroughness and years of research are likely the reasons she has written only two books in this genre.

Much of the narrative in her book about the boys in Saline County involved not only the crime of murdering the boys, but also the corruption of people and agencies up and down the line that didn’t do their jobs in solving the case. St. Martin Press, publishers of The Boys on the Tracks, insisted on an in depth look at the supporting documentation.  During the conference, in discussing the vetting of her book, Ms. Leveritt said that she had never been sued, though “my life has been threatened.”

Her second book of this nature was The Devil’s Knot (2002, Atria), about the investigation, arrest and trial of the three young men known as the West Memphis Three. Both books were awarded the prestigious Arkansas Booker Worthen Prize.

Soon after publishing The Devil’s Knot, Mara Leveritt established a newsletter titled DK2, continuing to follow the story of the West Memphis Three, which was obviously not over just because the three were incarcerated. Contributions went to pay legal fees for the trio. Leveritt’s latest book, Justice Knot, examines events that culminated last year when the West Memphis Three were suddenly released from prison.  I plan to own and read this book.

Mara Leveritt is an excellent journalist, writing not to convince so much as to allow all the facts to be heard so a fair opinion can be formed.

To learn more about Mara Leveritt and her books visit maraleveritt.com

I became a fan of William E. Barrett 40 or more years ago when I belonged to the Doubleday One-Dollar Book Club. Each month I chose from selections for $1.00 or perhaps a bit more depending on the fame of the author or expected popularity of the book.

The first Barrett novel I remember reading was The Shape of Illusion, published in 1972. A young man visits an art gallery and sees a painting of Christ being led through a stone-throwing mob. He sees his own face on one of the angry men about to lob a rock at Jesus. His quest to find the artist and learn more about the magic of the painting leads him “finally to discover the most precious gift a person can receive.” (book jacket quote)

Other novels I acquired at this time were The Wine and the Music, dealing with the issue of celibacy in the priesthood, and A Woman in the House, about a young monk moving from the solitary life he has known and working through relationships he had never had before.

The Left Hand of God, published in 1951, was one of Barrett’s most popular books. When I saw the movie with Humphrey Bogart and realized it was from a Barrett novel, I promptly found it in the public library. (I reviewed The Left Hand of God, book and movie, on January 20, 2013.)

In 1962 a short story Barrett had written earlier was published by Doubleday. Lilies of the Field was an immediate success and became a motion picture before he had even agreed to sell the rights! The movie won a Best Actor Oscar for Sydney Poitier.

William E. Barrett was a devout Catholic and many of his stories are based in that doctrine. All those I have mentioned here are along this line. I find they have a depth not usually found in the Christian fiction genre of today.

Though my favorite books come from his later works, William Barrett had a long career in writing, beginning with ghost writing term papers in college and moving to pulp fiction in his early years, speeches for political candidates, action thrillers, and biographies. He died in 1986 at the age of 86.

Many of his books are still available at Amazon.com, public libraries (or their sales) and used book stores.