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"  The New Republic by Lionel Shriver (Harper)  This shaggy-dog story got our readers&amp;#039; nod for its panache and sheer originality. Overweight antihero Edgar Kellogg is posted to the (imaginary) terrorism-ridden province of Barba in Portugal to replace a legendary foreign correspondent who has recently disappeared; during his stint there, he learns a great deal about people, life, truth, and mere appearances. The New Republic follows Edgar Kellogg, a highly-paid lawyer who quits his job on a whim and decides to become a journalist, quickly becoming a foreign correspondent on a terrorism movement in Portugal after the disappearance of Barrington Sadler, the charismatic reporter who formerly held the position. Shriver&amp;#039;s novel is a character study on the allure of larger-than-life personalities and the acolytes left in their wake. It also examines terrorism in an intelligent, interesting, and curiously humorous way. Now that our country is a number of years removed from the tragedy of 9/11 but terrorism is still a center of domestic and international concern, it may just be the perfect time to encounter Shriver&amp;#039;s book.\u2014Kaarin Moore, Washington, DC Edgar Kellogg has skulked his way through life; he regrets, trivializes, and bemoans it, whatever the conditions. But just as his desire to become a substantive journalist looks dimmest, he gets a lucky break in the form of a posting in the gale-and-terrorism besotted fictional town of Barba, Portugal. From this point forward, Edgar begins to unravel the world around him, finding it not at all as he had imagined. Quirky, heady, and masculine, this is a strange and misanthropic coming-of-middle-age tale that wrinkles the brow and fascinates. Puzzling over mirages of truth and then confronting truth itself, this is not a plot you&amp;#039;ve imagined or will easily unwind.\u2014Jenji Henson, Austin, TX Shriver&amp;#039;s sardonic wit takes center stage in this inventive and funny novel of terrorism, journalism, and international life. The New Republic is at times joyously preposterous, but the underlying wisdom and cynicism shine through and make this delightfully funny novel not only entertaining, but also informative and intriguing.\u2014Carrie Dunham-LaGree, Des Moines, IA In The New Republic, Shriver has created a world full of sarcastic people who are accustomed to terrorism, intellectualism, and following the leader. The more people talk about Barrington Saddler&amp;#039;s disappearance, the more the mystery of what really happened is inevitably to be answered by the intrepidness of Edgar Kellogg. Add in Kellogg not being able to entirely shed his former inner fat kid and needing to latch unto outwardly confident and popular figures, and it all makes for an entertaining read. This book made me realize that we are never that far removed from what we secretly fear.\u2014Joanne M. Choi, Boston, MA The New Republic&amp;#039;s plot interweaves misdirected hero worship with the realities of being worshiped and the price of believing your own hype in a complex, intriguing way.\u2014Valerie Wieland, Smyrna, TN While I found Shriver&amp;#039;s humor slightly too broad, I quickly became engaged by the characters and plot. While the novel doesn&amp;#039;t live up to the tagline of a &amp;quot;fast-paced, plot-driven thriller,&amp;quot; it is nonetheless a witty, entertaining and provocative look at personality and terrorism.\u2014Meghan Allen, North Coventry, PA  The Red Book by Deborah Copaken Kogan (Voice)  Four women in Harvard&amp;#039;s class of &amp;#039;89 collide at their twentieth-reunion weekend, trailing husbands, children, and midlife crises and trying to live up to their classbook bios; maybe not the most original setup, but many readers loved how Kogan nailed The Way We Live Today in every mordant detail. Former Harvard roommates are cleverly introduced for their 20th reunion via bios for the alumni &amp;quot;Red Book.&amp;quot; Addison, the strongest character, is married, though fondly remembering years of sexual exploration in college; Clover is married but without children; Mia seems happily married with four children of her own; and Jane is a recent widow struggling to cope. Affairs and more move the story of these women&amp;#039;s reunion briskly along, and Kogan&amp;#039;s peripheral characters add to the fun.\u2014Valerie Wieland, Smyrna, TN In The Red Book, Deborah Copaken Kogan pulls back the curtain on an event mere mortals like us love to hate\u2014the 20th reunion of four fabulously moneyed, beautiful, and talented former roommates from the Harvard Class of 1989. Her prose is wickedly delightful, sharp, and filled with glistening internal dialogues. With realistic characterizations and well-oiled repartee, Kogan portrays the banal struggles that lurk beneath the pomp and circumstance, wealth, and wit of these illustrious Harvard grads.\u2014Jenji Henson, Austin, TX In The Red Book, Kogan has created a fast read with characters that are dynamic, complex, and relatable. She explores perception versus reality, what people dream for their lives and what they end up settling for, and the idea that life can give second chances.\u2014Kaarin Moore, Washington, DC The distance between being a young, promising Harvard undergrad and a reunion twenty years later cannot be measured in merely chronological terms. In The Red Book, each of the reunited graduates is weighed down by the insecurities of the hyper-privileged and intelligent. Regret and wistfulness is at the forefront of their minds. Their hopes, disappointments, growth, and changes are relatable and immensely interesting.\u2014Joanne M. Choi, Boston, MA While this novel is nicely crafted and its characters worth investing in, the college reunion theme felt overdone. Everyone changes in twenty years, everyone tells only partial truths, no one is as happy as they thought they&amp;#039;d be\u2014such is life. Though Kogan&amp;#039;s tale isn&amp;#039;t bad, it doesn&amp;#039;t bring us an original perspective.\u2014Meghan Allen, North Coventry, PA In The Red Book, graduates of Harvard are asked to submit a paragraph describing their life every five years, resulting in many stories that highlight only the positive. As friends from the class of 1989 arrive at their 20th reunion with their drama and baggage in tow, they realize that the stories don&amp;#039;t even begin to describe their true lives at all. Kogan seems to have created too many characters and touches on more social issues than she has time to develop, and consequently some of the characters were rendered too shallow for the reader to invest in. That said, the tale ends with an uplifting message, as seeing each other emotionally exposed ultimately brings the four friends that much closer.\u2014Cassandra C., Allen, TX  The Beginner&amp;#039;s Goodbye by Anne Tyler (Knopf)  Past master Tyler&amp;#039;s latest tale, about a physically disabled, emotionally cloistered man who must come to terms with the sudden loss of his wife and find new ways to thrive, bewitched some readers with its quiet alchemy of personal growth and change\u2014and struck others as just, well, quiet. In The Beginner&amp;#039;s Goodbye, Tyler tells the story of Aaron, a disabled man raised by a doting mother and sister. His attraction to the analytical, scientific Dorothy is instant, and their resulting marriage is stable but colorless. Aaron&amp;#039;s life is upended when Dorothy is killed in a bewildering accident, resulting in her occasional ghost-like appearance in his life as he tries to make sense of her death. Tyler presents us with prickly characters that are flawed, kind, and coming to terms with their choices and the subsequent consequences.\u2014Kaarin Moore, Washington, DC This novel gives us a moving portrayal of grief after a love lost. In the wake of his wife&amp;#039;s death, Aaron soon discovers he pushed away too many people in his life in an effort to feel normal and independent. It is only after he opens up and confronts the reality of his interactions with his late wife that he truly begins to heal.\u2014Cassandra C., Allen, TX Over the course of Tyler&amp;#039;s novel, the reader gradually comes to understand why Aaron acts the way he does and to sympathize with the realization that the emotional barriers created in our youth are unsustainable if we want to live any differently in our adult lives. As Aaron interacts with the ghost of his late wife, these emotional layers peel away, showing him how he must change from within.\u2014Joanne M. Choi, Boston, MA Tyler&amp;#039;s novel is sad on many levels. When Aaron slowly begins to peel off layer after layer of memories, the shroud of darkness brought on by his wife&amp;#039;s death begins to melt away. If there is a need to learn how to sidestep grief then The Beginner&amp;#039;s Goodbye is a great start.\u2014Ivy V. Pittman, Montclair, NJ The Beginner&amp;#039;s Goodbye is deceptive. On the surface, this novel reads as standard book-club fare: Man loses wife, reevaluates life, and learns to move on. Underneath all of that, however, is a remarkably subtle look at what is real, who we are, and how our participation in that reality makes up our identity.\u2014Meghan Allen, North Coventry, PA While the main character in The Beginner&amp;#039;s Goodbye kept his peers and family at arm&amp;#039;s length, the author need not have done so. In spinning the tale of a man grieving for his lost wife, Tyler neatly wrapped her story in a shiny package. The contents inside, however, are sadly negligible. While cleanly written, the story glosses over the real struggles of personal progress, suggesting instead that one can keep loved ones and new opportunities at bay until enough time has passed that the visage of the deceased has faded and all lingering feelings of loss are cured. \u2014Jenji Henson, Austin, TX Though I&amp;#039;ve enjoyed Tyler&amp;#039;s other books, I didn&amp;#039;t find The Beginner&amp;#039;s Goodbye as engaging as most.\u2014Valerie Wieland, Smyrna, TN "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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