Book Reviews: Librarians Recommend Malcolm Gladwell, Maggie O'Dell Novel

Check out these recommendations from the staff at the Rochester Hills Public Library!

Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell (2008)

Have you ever wondered what makes a person succeed in life?  Why was Bill Gates so successful in the computer world?  What makes a champion hockey player?  Gladwell uses these examples to show that it is not always the brightest person who succeeds but often the one who has advantages in education, family wealth, opportunity and lots of practice.  Examples are the Beatles who performed over 1,000 times before they became famous.  Gates just happened to go to a school with a computer club which allowed students to use the computers at the University of Washington for as many hours as he wanted.  This was at a time when computers where just coming into their own and computer time was rationed.   Most Canadian hockey players who made it into the big league were born in the early months of the year. Because of the Canadian school calendar they had more opportunity to play which in turn resulted in better players.  Whether it is music, math, or sports, opportunity does play a big role in success.  Interesting reading!   ~ Recommended by Regina

Damaged: A Maggie O’Dell Novel by Alex Kava (2010)

A Category-5 hurricane has just entered the Gulf of Mexico when the Coast Guard spots a large fishing cooler floating in the water filled with human body parts, all tightly wrapped in plastic.  Maggie O’Dell is sent to investigate.  She’s a criminal profiler.  As she hunts for a killer, soldiers in a surgical unit are dying of an infectious disease caused by contaminated tissue and bone.  Behind-the-scenes forensic details and colorful characters move this story along like a wild ride on a monster storm.  This is the eighth novel in the Maggie O’Dell series.  ~ Recommended by Kathy

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao:  A Novel by Junot Diaz (2007)

Oscar is an awkward and nerdy teenager who is the exact opposite of the stereotypical Dominican, smooth-talking ladies' man. He splits his time between New Jersey and the Dominican Republic and feels like an outcast and foreigner in both locales. The book weaves a narrative about Oscar's attempts to overcome nerd-dom and have sex with a detailed history of the fuku, a Dominican curse, that has haunted Oscar's family since the reign of dictator Rafael Trujillo. Filled with lyrical prose that is colorful and hypnotic, I would recommend this book to readers who enjoy history, the Spanish language, and Hispanic culture.  ~ Recommended by Rebekah

The Illumination: A Novel by Kevin Brockmeier (2011)

Brockmeier likes to play with reality, as he did with A Brief History of the Dead, and it’s no different with this new novel.  This explores the idea that pain can be seen, physically seen, on people’s bodies.  Light given off by people’s pain, their wounds and disease, glows through their clothes. The pain lives.  This changes the way people perceive pain, react to it, and, ultimately live with it.  The lonely characters who cope with what life has thrown them are tied together by the notebook of a recent accident victim whose husband reminded her everyday what he loved about her.  This handwritten book passes through the hands  of a divorced women, young victim of bullying, Christian missionary, news photographer, writer, and street vendor.  The beauty of the pain is revealed in all these characters, and the woman the notebook is about, in the deepest of ways.  The prose are especially wonderful and if you enjoy the fantasy aspect, you will want to read Brockmeier’s previous work, another thought-provoking novel.  ~ Recommended by Sheila