Pat L-S picks: Husband and Wife by Leah Stewart

If you ever wondered how you would react to the sudden announcement by your spouse of infidelity, this book will keep you imagining. It tells the story of the myriad emotions one woman experiences when her husband--out of the blue and on the way to a friend's wedding -tells her that his new book about infidelity isn't entirely fiction.

Sarah Price has given up her own artist's career to be a working mom and wife to her relatively successful writer husband. His confession, of course, calls all her life choices into question.

Sarah's character is wry, smart and in pain-- but the story never feels voyeuristic or self-indulgent. It is easy to recognize ourselves in her reactions. I found myself caring for Sarah and her life, as if she were a friend facing an impossible choice. Her final decision about her marriage seemed plausible yet not conclusive. But then, how could it be.

Claire picks:Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martell

Powerful, heartbreaking and unforgettable: I am quite simply mesmerized by Yann Martel's new book, Beatrice and Virgil. The power of Martel's imagination and storytelling is on full display here. After a slightly awkward but not unappealing start, I was drawn right in to the stories of Henry, Beatrice and Virgil. There's a passage early on about pears that I think will win over many readers. At under 200 pages, Beatrice and Virgil is a deceptively simple read and more straight forward than Life of Pi. I'm glad it was short because at no point did I want to stop reading it even for a few hours.

Henry is a successful author whose most recent book is "an artful metaphor" of the Holocaust. About his unusual approach he reasons "was there not a danger to representing the Holocaust in a way always beholden to factuality?" His publisher disagrees and rejects his book. Henry has given up on writing when he receives by mail a little-known story by Flaubert, the first pages of a play and a note that says "I need your help" with a return address in his city. At that address he finds Okapi Taxidermy and the severe play-writing taxidermist who owns it. Yet plot is not what this book is about.

The reader's attention is drawn to the relationship between Henry and the taxidermist and by the play about friends Virgil and Beatrice, a howler monkey and a donkey. (Yes, a howler monkey and a donkey. Trust me it works). While the taxidermist reads bits of his play aloud, Henry learns that Virgil and Beatrice were named for characters in Dante's Divine Comedy. Beatrice and Virgil guided Dante through hell and purgatory to reach paradise. Henry and the reader are left with the question of who the monkey and donkey are guiding in this story. This book is not about the Holocaust, rather it's about storytelling and representations of history through art. Beside the very beginning and end, the Holocaust is little mentioned. As Henry tells his editor "the event is gone; we are left with stories about it. My book is about a new choice of stories." Martel brilliantly explores the limitations of language in explaining history's horrors and the way that art portrays historical events both effectively and ineffectively, both to tell stories and to hide them.

Lynne picks: Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip by Matthew Algeo

Is it wrong to love a dead ex-president? I mean, how can you not adore a guy who, six months after leaving office, hops in his spanking new Chrysler New Yorker, hits the highway and believes no one will recognize him. From Independence, MO to Washington D.C. and back again, Harry and Bess are cruisin' the strips, staying in motels or bunking with friends, eating in diners and drawing crowds, BIG crowds.

Matthew Algeo follows the same route 50 years later and fills in the story with first-person interviews, great photos, and plenty of nostalgia for an America that no longer exists. Small towns had thriving Main Streets, men in uniforms pumped your gas and Coke came in glass bottles. Algeo also takes plenty of side roads, sharing juicy political tidbits as well as the history of US highways and modern day motels and so much more. But it's Harry who stands at the center of this book, in his cream linen summer suit and two-toned wingtips. He was the everyman of the working Joe and the consummate politician and both of those sides show through abundantly in this fun, informative story. Harry (almost) always comes off as a class act. When reporters intimated that Bess was, um, a tad frumpy, Harry retorted that she looked exactly like a woman her age should look and that was just fine with him. Better than fine was strongly implied. My kind of guy.

Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure is my favorite kind of book - a great story ( better because it's true), good political gossip, small town America and a whole lot of fun! Now I want a road trip, too...

Suzanne picks: Rough Cradle by Betsy Sholl

Choosing a poetry collection to review is difficult at Bear Pond. There's Kay Ryan's new collection, The Best of It, Ruth Stone's What Love Comes To and Maxine Kumin's new collection, Where I Live and many, many more. I chose a recent collection by Betsy Sholl entitled Rough Cradle because I had heard her speak at Vermont College a few years ago and wanted to hear her voice again.

In the poem 'The Drinking Gourd,' Sholl's early memories of learning about the Big Dipper, the song 'The Drinking Gourd' and news accounts of racial unrest evoke uneasy sensations when she star gazes. 'Away from the slant of window light under the sky's bright litter, I'd look for that drinking gourd, and shiver.. Night things grabbing from behind. Then something new - those raging faces, ready to tear apart the children walking slowly, their eyes fixed on the door ahead..' The poem instills in the reader the rage of the 60's.

The poem, 'Every Note,' swirls into intense love. Sholl takes us from the first breath after the music stops, 'the second before hands lift to applaud' to 'that mystery of a seamless urge when silence just after music is filled with every note.' Sholl ultimately asks 'what isn't love, or music or light, we ask ourselves then.' It's a beautiful love poem.

Betsy Sholl's poetry collection-- as Nancy Eimers wrote in her review --is "an intricate book of contraries." She first lulls us into thoughts of nature and beauty and then hammers us with recollections of historical events to remind us what is important in life.

Solar by Ian McEwan

Can a man who has made a mess of his life clean up the messes of humanity? A complex novel that brilliantly traces the arc of one man's ambitions and deceptions, Solar is a startling, witty new work from the author of On Chesil Beach and Atonement.

Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet by Bill McKibben

We've waited too long to address global warning, McKibben writes, and massive change is required.

(Mckibben will be reading at Bear Pond on May 4)

Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life: A Book by and for the Fanatics Among Us by Steve Almond

The Candyfreak talks about how music shaped his life in this loving and funny memoir.

In the Green Kitchen by Alice Waters

Waters, the queen of local foods, showcases basic cooking techniques every cook can and should master along with recipes (and plenty of photographs) utilizing each method.

Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel

A new masterpiece from the author of Life of Pi.

(see Claire's review under Staff Picks)

Matterhorn: A novel of the Vietnam War by Karl Marlantes

An epic novel following American troops in Vietnam and the enemies they face - only some of which are the opposing forces.

Poetry

The Anthology of Modern Irish Poetry

Scholar and editor Wes Davis has chosen work by more than fifty leading modern and contemporary Irish poets. Each poet is represented by a generous number of poems (there are nearly 800 poems in the anthology). The editor's selection includes work by world-renowned poets, including a couple of Nobel Prize winners, as well as work by poets whose careers may be less well known to the general public.

Living Fire: New and Selected Poems, 1975- 2010 by Edward Hirsch

A rich and significant collection of more than one hundred poems, drawn from a lifetime in poetry.

Where I Live: New & Selected Poems 1990- 2010 by Maxine Kumin

A landmark collection celebrating the remarkable range of Maxine Kumin, one of America's greatest living poets. Where I Live gathers poems from five previous books, together with twenty-three new poems that pay homage to Kumin's farm life and to poets of the past.

Dates To Remember!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MAY 1st at 11am

Leda Schubert presents her new picture book Feeding the Sheep, with simple knitting demos provided by the folks at The Knitting Studio.

MAY 29th at 2pm

Sarah Stewart Taylor reads from Amelia Earhart: This Broad Ocean, produced by The Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction.

April Ossmann is the author of Anxious Music (Four Way Books) and has published her poetry widely in journals including Colorado Review and Harvard Review, and in anthologies. Her poetry awards include the 2000 Prairie Schooner Readers' Choice Award.

Peggy Sapphire has been writing since she discovered the salvation of writing, beginning with good-bye letters. Her poetry has since appeared in numerous journals including Connecticut River Review, Maryland Poetry Review, Flipside, The Country & Abroad, The Blue Collar Review. She will be reading from her new book, In The End A Circle.

Baron Wormser was Poet Laureate of Maine from 2000 to 2005. He is the author of seven books of poetry, most recent, Scattered Chapters: New and Selected Poems(2008). He has also co- authored two books about teaching poetry.

Margolis will be reading from his new book of poems, Below the Falls--a book that responds to the loss of Middlebury student Nicholas Garza, our country's wars, and the search for things that sustain us.