The Sultan's Seal

The Sultan's Seal, by Jenny White; W.W. Norton & Co., 2007

Reviewed by Colleen Johnson

Author Jenny White's novel The Sultan's Seal is a real find! When the body of a young Englishwoman washes up in Istanbul wearing a pendant inscribed with the seal of the deposed sultan, Kamil Pasha, a magistrate in the new secular courts, sets out to solve the crime. Given a starred review by Booklist, this novel is historical drama mixed with the traditional murder mystery, brilliantly capturing the political and social upheavals of the waning Ottoman Empire. It bristles with cogent observations about the human condition, has an unpredictable plot, and gives the reader something other than a standard "pat" ending. Named a Booklist Top Ten First Novel.


East of the Sun: A Novel by British author Julia Gregson is an international period drama which tells the story of young, unmarried English women who travel to India in 1928 for job, marriage, and family. It is a story that offers light romance and lots of character development. Also written by Gregson is the novel Band of Angels about a young woman who joins Florence Nightingale's nursing corp during the Crimean War. In this book, the author includes gritty details, and the battlefield scenes are not for the fainthearted.

A Young Man's Guide to Late Capitalism

A Young Man's Guide to Late Capitalism, by Peter Mountford; Mariner Books, 2011


Reviewed by Paul Rogland


In this novel, our hero is working undercover for a Wall Street hedge fund in a third-world country, trying to discern investment opportunities before the competition. Author Garth Stein has called this debut novel "a smart and entertaining book. A Young Man’s Guide to Late Capitalism accomplishes that rare trick of being a book of ideas and politics while remaining, at its core, a profoundly intimate, character-driven story and a tremendously good read." In James Hillman's book The Dream and the Underworld, he teaches the reader how to "work" our sleep stories, arguing against interpreting dreams. It's best, he says, to just picture the dream images, and they will do the "work" themselves. Finally, if it's personal fulfillment you're looking for, Todd Buchholz attempts to convince the reader in Rush: Why You Need and Love the Rat Race that humans do not find happiness or health by zen-like relaxation or retirement. Instead, it is the stress and competition of our work life that enlivens us.

The Weird Sisters

The Weird Sisters, by Eleanor Brown; Putnam, 2011


Reviewed by Shilah Gould


Three adult sisters return simultaneously to their childhood home in a midwestern college town and grow closer. In this home, books are a passion (there is no problem a library card can't solve) and TV is something other people watch. This is a very nice, uplifting book, with loads of Shakespeare thrown in! Adam & Eve by Sena Jeter Naslund is dramatic and intense and filled with religion, warfare, space exploration, and love stories all mixed together. Set against the searing debate between evolutionsts and creationists, Adam & Eve is a thriller, romance, and an adventure. It will take some time to digest when you're done. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen tells the love story of Catherine Morland and Henry Tilney. Although lighthearted, this book is at its core a serious, unsentimental commentary on love and marriage, 19th-century British style. Of all of her novels, this is Austen's most explicitly literary in that it is primarily concerned with books and with readers.