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Odyssey Gallery
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The Odyssey Bookshop is one of five independent
bookstores participating in WAMC's Roundtable on Tuesday mornings,
just after the 10:00 news. People from the Odyssey will be on about once a
month, talking about our favorite books.
Click
here to see the list of the books we have talked about.
The Odyssey Bookshop
9 College St.
S. Hadley, MA 01075
413-534-7307
800-540-7307
fax 413-532-3654
email odysseybks@aol.com
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Joan's Picks
Click on any title to order
Return to staff
list
 American
Rust by Philip
Meyer ($15.00) This debut novel is an absorbing portrait of ordinary
people and communities that face the extraordinary and heartbreaking
de-industrialization of America. His novel is set in the former steel
towns of Pennsylvania, but the experience resonates with many
once-prosperous New England mill towns. I can’t stop thinking about
Meyer’s characters, the issues they confronted, the complexities of
their limited options, and the life-changing decisions they made, such
is the power of his writing. ~Joan
 Matterhorn
by
Karl Marlantes ($24.95) is a behemoth of a book that was 30 years in the
making. Marlantes, who abandoned his Rhodes scholarship to serve in the
Marines, writes with precision and authenticity on being a grunt in the
Vietnam War. Epic in size but narrow in scope, the novel follows Waino
Mellas, an extremely young and green platoon commander, who desperately
tries to keep his men and their morale alive in the face of the
monsoons, mudslides, disease, alienation, racism, and bitterness that
plague them, not to mention the actual war that they’re waging. It’s
a meditation on a desperate time in US History, a powerhouse of a story
that will stand tall among the giants of the literature of war. ~Joan
(signed copies available in June)
Ten
Hills Farm by C.
S. Manegold ($29.95) Most of us grew up believing slavery was an
exclusively southern issue—there was terrible discrimination in the
north, to be sure, but not slavery. That’s what our history books
said, at least. In Ten Hills Farm Catherine Manegold puts the lie
to this belief, exploring slavery on a 600-acre farm north of Boston,
first settled in 1630, and passing through five generations of rich and
powerful slave owners. This is a fascinating, forgotten history that
relies on mostly primary sources to reveal a colonial New England that
most of are unaware of. In her writing, Manegold pays great attention to
story, naming slave owners and slaves alike, making this book
exceptionally readable and engaging. This is an important book for
anyone interested in the complete version of American history. ~Joan (signed
copies available)
 Eaarth
by Bill McKibben ($24.00) McKibben has been warning us about human-made
damage to the environment for over 20 years and has become the best
green writer around. In Eaarth, he tells us that the problem no
longer belongs only to our grandchildren, or even our children, but
rather to us. At once terribly troubling and yet inspiring, McKibben
gives it to us straight. Our planet, while recognizable, is a new planet—we
can call it Eaarth—significantly different from decades past, facing
environmental challenges never before imagined, and which threaten its
very survival. But McKibben prods us with gentle optimism and
practicality urging us live more “lightly and carefully.” This is a
vitally important and extremely readable book by the reigning authority
on global warming. We all need to pay more attention. ~Joan
 Curveball
by Martha Ackmann ($24.95) I love books about famous people we have
never heard of. Toni Stone, the first woman to play professional
baseball in the Negro League started her baseball career in 1949 with
the San Francisco Sea Lions, where she knocked in two runs her first
time up. Over the next five years, she played with several other teams
including the Kansas City Monarchs, where Hank Aaron had played just two
years before Toni got there. Ackmann’s book is not only a wonderfully
told story of an immensely talented and courageous woman in the latter
years of Negro League baseball, but also an important story of rampant
race segregation and gender bias in the 1940s and 1950s. ~Joan
(signed copies available in June)
 Strength in What Remains
by
Tracy Kidder ($16.00) Kidder, with his incredible ability to observe and
describe the worlds that others live in, has given us another
extraordinary story. Deo is a 24 year-old medical student in Burundi
when ethnic warfare breaks out between the Hutus and the Tutsis in 1994.
Deo spends months on the run, struggling to survive the horrors of
genocide and civil war that sweep through Rwanda and Burundi. Remarkably
he survives, and with help from a family friend, Deo is given a plane
ticket to the US and $200. He knows nobody in America and speaks no
English. His life as a low-paid immigrant workers is a step up from
facing possible slaughter by armed militias, but delivering groceries
for $15/day and sleeping in Central Park hardly qualify as the American
dream. ~Joan
The Woman Behind the New Deal: The
Life and Legacy of Frances Perkins—Social Securuty, Unemployment
Insurance and the Minimum Wage
by
Kirstin Downey ($16.95) This is a fascinating biography about an
extraordinary Mount Holyoke College alumna from the class of 1902. In
her honor, the Frances Perkins Program at MHC was established in 1980
for non-traditional aged women who wish to attend college. MHC helped to
shaped Frances Perkins. She visited local factories in her American
economic history class and heard Florence Kelley, the head of the
National Consumers League speak on campus. In 1911 she witnessed the
Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in NYC where 146 workers lost their lives, many
jumping to their deaths rather than being burnt alive. From that moment
on, Frances Perkins was always deeply involved in improving the lives of
workers. Downey’s superb examination of life should help bring long
overdue attention to her many accomplishments. ~
Joan
Ousmane Sembene
by Samba Gadjigo ($19.95) Local Mount Holyoke College professor Gadjigo
presents a personal portrait and intellectual history of Senegalese
novelist and filmmaker, Ousmane Sembene. It is the first comprehensive
biography of Sembene, beginning with his life in Casamance and ending
with his militant career as a dockworker in Marseilles. Gadjigo places
his subject into the context of African colonial and postcolonial
culture, charting his achievements in literature and film and revealing
the inner workings of one of Africa’s most distinguished and
controversial figures. ~Joan
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