Upcoming Reviews:  

A retrospective of Donald E. Westlake, the master of comic mysteries, who died suddenly on New Year’s Eve, 2008.

Musicophelia, neurologist Oliver Sacks’ fascinating book of the amazing ways our brains interact with music.

West’s reviews appear in Book Shelf, her column for San Antonio Woman magazine. “Writing Book Shelf," she says, "connects me to what I enjoy most, people and books.” She highlights extraordinary writers, teachers, librarians, store managers, and individuals who foster a love for books, and she reviews her favorites. To discuss these reviews or the ones she writes for San Antonio Woman, contact her at intrigue101@sbcglobal.net

Nancy West Reviews…

DELAYED LEGACY By Conrad Netting

A Boy Discovers the Father Hero He Never Knew
 
       In Delayed Legacy, Netting tells the story of rediscovering his father who had died in WWII before he was born. Through letters the author found in his mother’s trunk after her death, Netting shares the events that led him from San Antonio to Normandy, France to trace his father’s journey.

       He found descendants of the French citizens who gave his father a proper burial after the young pilot’s plane crashed in Normandy. At the risk of losing their own lives, these French men and women bravely decided they should honor the young airman who had fought to save their lives.

THE GOLD COAST By Nelson DeMille

A humorous interpretation of Jay Gatsby Meeting the Godfather

      Nelson DeMille sets his story on The Gold Coast, the North Shore of Long Island that once held the greatest concentration of wealth and power in America. Here, two men are destined for an explosive collision. John Sutter, a Wall Street lawyer holding fast to his fading aristocratic legacy, meets his new neighbor, Frank Bellarosa, the Mafia don who seizes his piece of the Gold Coast like a barbarian chief. Not without charm, Bellarosa draws Sutter and his regally beautiful wife, Susan, into his violent world.
  
      Told from Sutter's sardonic and often hilarious point of view, The Gold Coast rises above the author’s too-frequent inclusion of kinky sex to provide a captivating, insightful story of friendship, seduction, love and betrayal.

THE INNOCENT MAN By John Grisham

A hapless but talented baseball player ends up on death row.

      John Grisham’s only nonfiction book chronicles the story of Ron Williamson: how he was arrested and charged with a crime he did not commit, how his case was (mis)handled, and how an innocent man was ultimately sent to death row.

      Grisham identified with Williamson because both grew up in small southern towns and dreamed of being major league baseball players. “Ron had the talent,” Grisham says, “but I did not. When he left his small town in 1971 to pursue his dreams of major league glory, many thought he would be the next Mickey Mantle.”    

      Instead, Ron ended up on Death Row. For eighteen months, Grisham interviewed everybody associated with Ron and read trial transcripts, depositions, and appeals. A former criminal defense attorney, Grisham’s research further opened his eyes to the world of wrongful convictions. He hopes the book gives readers “a better understanding of how innocent people can be convicted, and greater concern for the need to reimburse and rehabilitate innocent men after they are released.”

      Grisham accomplishes this goal, but his legal training to nail down every facet of a case interferes here with his considerable talent to tell a story. Hopefully, he can forever return to writing fiction with a clear conscience.

ANA’S STORY: A JOURNEY OF HOPE  By Jenna Bush

Courageous Latin American children live with HIV from birth.

      In 1995, First Lady Laura Bush, former librarian and ardent advocate of literature, created a task force to plan a book festival to honor Texas authors, promote the joys of reading and benefit the state's public libraries. In 1996, the first Texas Book Festival was held on the grounds of the Texas Capitol, and she subsequently held book fairs in the nation’s capital.
 
      In the fall of 2006, one of President and Mrs. Bush’s twin daughters, Jenna Bush, began an internship with UNICEF, which led her to write a book which would debut at the 2007 Texas Book Festival. Traveling throughout Latin America, Jenna Bush documented the lives of children and young adults living in poverty and exclusion. As she listened to their stories and spoke with them in their native Spanish, she was struck by their courage.

      She was particularly impressed with a 17-year-old single mother named Ana living with HIV, whose story she tells in her nonfiction book Ana's Story: A Journey of Hope. Infected with HIV at birth, Ana is unaware of many details of her early childhood and barely remembers her mother. Living with her strict grandmother, she learns how to keep secrets - secrets about her infection and about the abuse she endures at home. But after Ana falls in love and becomes pregnant at 17, she begins a journey of hope. She is living with HIV, not dying from it.

      Bush writes about Ana's struggle to break free from the cycle of abuse, silence, and illness with passion and eloquence. But her book isn't just Ana's story; it is also the story of many children around the world who are marginalized, neglected, and mistreated.

Archived Reviews:
December 2008  
February 2008

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