If you’ve watched him on television,  it would be easy to mistake Jeff Corwin for an intellectual light-weight–   a kind of peppy Preppy class clown and animal lover.    But such a characterization would surely sell Corwin short.   In this November 2009 release,  Corwin (who in fact has a master’s degree in wildlife conservation from the University of Massachusetts) tells the heart-breaking tales of the 100 Heartbeat club,  which refers to endangered species who have fewer than 100 living members.

By focusing each short chapter on a particular endangered species and alternating success stories of species that have been brought back from the brink of extinction (for instance the American eagle) with tales of species who still very much need to be saved,  Corwin is able to teach the basics of wildlife conservation in a very readable and easy to comprehend way.     I was fascinated by the plight of tigers in Asia and tales of prairie dogs in the American heartland.     I was particularly impressed by the many stories which stress that species can only be saved when many people and all stake-holders join together to take action.     While Corwin does not in any way downplay global warming or the terrible urgency of the current crisis,   his tone nonetheless is upbeat and invites the reader to participate in preserving our biological diversity,  rather than despairing the many species that have already been lost.        If you care about wild animals,  100 Heartbeats is Highly Recommended.

Buy Now $16.49 from Amazon

When I reviewed The Scarecrow on its release day, I mentioned that Michael Connelly was one of those authors whom I had sold and shelved but never read.   I enjoyed that latest release so much that I am now digging a bit into Connelly’s backlist.   And The Overlook proved to be an excellent choice.   The plot centers on Harry Bosch, an experienced Los Angeles Police detective who wins a promotion to the Major Cases squad and is soon embroiled in the investigation of a doctor whose body is found up on the overlook where the letters  H O L L Y W O O D are spelled out on a hillside.

Bosch is soon joined on the investigation by FBI agent Rachel Walling (who will figure prominently in The Scarecrow) as it is discovered that the murdered doctor is a radiologist who has access to a rare material that is used in very  small quantities in cancer treatment but can in larger quantities be made into a bomb.    It soon develops that a quantity of this radiological material has been stolen from a safe at a medical center.    It further develops that the dead doctor received an e-mail from his wife’s account with a picture of his wife naked and hand-cuffed to their bed and a note threatening to kill her if he does not bring all of the materials up to the overlook.    While the FBI busies itself with the apparent national security crisis, Bosch and Walling follow the clues and discover the crime is actually nothing of the sort.     As always,  Connelly is a master of the suspense novel and The Overlook is a fast, fun read.    Highly Recommended.

Buy Now $7.99 from Amazon

While I’m sure there are many folks out there who would disagree,  I’ve come to feel that   Pat Conroy is the best living novelist in the English language.   While other writers may be more in tune with the fashions of high brow graduate writing professors (and less readable and engaging for it) and others in turn more in tune with  popular marketing,  Conroy writes positively enchanting novels which are at once as broad as the whole wide world and as emotionally deep as the Atlantic ocean.   I first encountered Conroy’s writing in the late 1980’s when The Prince of Tides was released.    I was working at the time as a bookstore clerk.   We received an advanced reading copy, which my boss took home and read.   She raved about it, so when the title came in I checked out a copy and brought it home.    And was almost immediately hooked in that compelling story of three children growing up in the South Carolina low country.      I later read and enjoyed Conroy’s earlier works,  The Lords of Discipline and The Water Is Wide.     Later still I greatly enjoyed Conroy’s subsequent novel Beach Music.

South of Broad is I believe the only book that I purchased in 2009.    I pre-ordered it from Amazon and was thrilled to receive it just after its August publication date.   As always, Conroy’s writing is lyrical and the story beautifully plotted, highly readable and engaging.     As the novel opens,  high school senior Leo King is a very busy boy.   Rising at 4:30 each morning for his job as a newspaper delivery boy,  King is also co-captain of his high school football team, in the first year of racial integration at his public school.    He is also on probation for a drug offense which requires him to serve as a sort of caretaker cum servant for an irascible elderly antiques dealer,  serves as an altar boy at his Catholic church and has been instructed by his mother (a former nun who is also his high school principal) to make friends with the new kids who’ve moved in just across the street.

As always, Conroy skillfully blends many intricate strands of plot in a novel chock full of deep and well developed characters.    South of Broad will follow Leo and his high school friends for more than forty years,  chronicling Leo’s rise from delivery boy to featured columnist at the Charleston News and Courier,   through a series of tragedies and triumphs that come to a head when Sheba Poe– a high school friend who went on went on to become a very successful movie star returns to Charleston to enlist the aid of her old gang in tracking down her brother Trevor,  who seems to have vanished in San Francisco.   The novel alternates between these kids’ long ago senior year and the present day,  ending shortly after hurricane Hugo strikes Charleston with devastating force.

My only complaint in all these years of reading Conroy’s wonderful novels is that he seems to take a decade or more to write each of them.    Conroy addresses this issue to some extent on his web site,  where he reveals that he is working on three more novels and is trying to take to heart the many pleas he has received to write more quickly.    If you’ve already read Conroy,  you obviously don’t need me to tell you how wonderful his books are.    But if you haven’t,  take my advice and click here to order your own copy of South of Broad right now.     I assure you,  you will be most pleased to have discovered the wonderful world of Pat Conroy’s fiction.     South of Broad– Very Highly Recommended

Buy Now from Amazon $ 16.47

Long time readers of this site will already be aware that I am a bit of a Rita Mae Brown fan.   Indeed I have reviewed several of Ms. Brown’s books and have been heard to complain that she only seems to crank out mysteries these days, rather than the non-genre novels I enjoyed so much in years past.    Hounded To Death is the sixth novel featuring Sister Jane Arnold,  Master of Foxhounds for the Jefferson Hunt in mid-Virginia.    Given that this is the sixth installment,  I found it slightly irritating that Brown begins with a glossary of fox-hunting terms,  though I was a bit grateful for the cast of characters listing, explaining just who is who which also precede the novel.  (As I mentioned in this post,  it can be difficult to sort out all of the new characters in a Brown mystery.)

As always,  Ms. Brown is truly a master of the suspense novel,  and once through the first few chapters, the book is very engaging and the reading seems to fly by.  (I finished the book in less than 36 hours.)   It did seem that Brown rather lazily included only one “red herring” and killed off the villain in less than two paragraphs after the character was revealed as such.    These quibbles aside,  I did greatly enjoy reading Hounded To Death and also appreciated that Brown has really fleshed out Jane Arnold and the other major characters in this series.    According to the jacket blurb,  Brown has herself become a Master of Foxhounds and while I do miss her non-genre novels I have to say that it seems as though Brown is writing about her passions and her genuine interests and this does make for a much more satisfying novel.     If you are a Rita Mae Brown fan, or have an interest in good suspense novels or fox hunting,  Hounded To Death is Recommended.

Buy Now from Amazon $10.20

Everyone eats.   So perhaps almost everyone could benefit from reading Righteous Porkchop which is both a well-researched and highly readable hands-on primer about factory farming, and Nicolette Hahn Niman’s highly personal memoir of her personal journey of activism on behalf of farm animals.  Ms. Niman was an attorney for the National Wildlife Federation when she elected to take a position with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s  Waterkeeper Alliance.  Ms. Niman (at that time Ms. Hahn) was a longtime vegetarian and was deeply committed to animal welfare when she was hired to organize and lead a campaign against factory farming.

As Ms. Niman soon learned Confined Animal Feeding Operations  (CAFO’s) have over the past twenty to forty years quite changed the face of rural America.   Those who have read books such as Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation (my review here) probably do have some idea of the horrific conditions under which food animals are raised these days, although one point which I know I did not learn in that volume is that corporate factory farms very routinely violate environmental laws and are one of the largest sources of pollution.   Ms. Niman takes her readers along on her many trips to CAFO’s where the excrement of hundreds or sometimes even thousands of animals is simply pumped untreated into “lagoons” which are basically just lakes of liquefied shit.

Readers will get a crash course in pork, poultry, beef and fish factory farming and learn just why these farms are so bad both for the animals produced there and for the humans who work there as well as those unfortunate enough to live nearby.   The stench is horrific, and the “lagoons” almost inevitably leak into and contaminate ground water and often lakes and rivers as well.   What was most shocking for me to learn is that while this pollution is very definitely illegal,  it is nonetheless rampant pretty much in every state with significant agriculture.

While the facts Niman educates her readers on are indeed horrifying,  Righteous Porkchop is nonetheless a very uplifting and positive read.   While  Niman is herself a vegetarian,  her husband– Bill Niman founder of the well-known Niman Ranch meat company is not.  And unlike some hardcore  vegans, Niman, who enjoys cheese, butter, milk and other dairy products is by no means opposed to the use of animals for food.    Her concerns are that animals be treated humanely and that large factory farms not be allowed to externalize the costs of their pollution,  which would allow independent and smaller farmers to compete.   Niman eloquently shoots down many of the myths perpetuated by the large corporate producers and their political supporters.   She also provides some advice for consumers who wish to stop supporting and perpetuating factory farms.

If you eat,  Righteous Porkchop is Very Highly Recommended.

Buy Now $17.27 from Amazon