NPR News

Rona Brinlee, The BookMark

NPR

Published May 27, 2010 at 6:00 PM EDT

Recommendations from Rona Brinlee at The BookMark in Atlantic Beach, Fla.

52 Loaves

52 Loaves: One Man's Relentless Pursuit of Truth, Meaning, and a Perfect Crust, by William Alexander, hardcover, 352 pages, Algonquin Books, list price: $23.95

William Alexander has such a fond memory of the perfect bread he once ate that he's now embarked on a quest to re-create this loaf, starting from scratch. When he says "from scratch," he means it. This journey begins with planting wheat.

52 Loaves, by the author of The $64 Tomato, is a yearlong log of Alexander's personal and obsessive journey back to that perfect loaf. He starts the project at a weight of 196 pounds; his shelf of bread books weighs a mere 2 pounds. At the end of the year, the author tips the scales at just 201 pounds (not bad considering all the bread he consumed), while the books have expanded to 60 pounds.

This baking and eating adventure includes a trip to Morocco to use a specific oven. Alexander's related lessons include a resolution not to drink the water next time, or to consider just going to Barbados. He also spends time with monks in a French abbey and builds an outdoor oven (which defies the notion that any do-it-yourself project takes just one weekend). In the end, baker and author Alexander is reminded that life is a journey, not a destination. (Read Alexander's description of his first harvest -- and how he learned the hard way why the combine was such a revolutionary invention.)

Alice I Have Been

Alice I Have Been: A Novel, by Melanie Benjamin, hardcover, 368 pages, Delacorte Press, list price: $25

In this novel, 80-year-old Alice Liddell Hargreaves muses about her life, her relationship with Lewis Carroll (aka Charles Dodgson), and what it's meant to be his Alice from Wonderland. She remembers meeting the muse for Peter Pan and offering him advice on how to deal with such notoriety.

Benjamin mixes historical facts with fiction to recount Alice's adventures in lyrical and playful language reminiscent of the children's classic Liddell herself inspired. Alice's memories include conversations with Dodgson about whether she'd like to stay young forever and whimsical plans on how to "spend" a day. She focuses on one particular day when Dodgson told Alice the story that would later become the book. Responding to Alice's repeated encouragement to write it down before he forgets how it begins, Dodgson assures her that remembering how it begins is easy ... it's knowing how it will end that is more difficult. (Read about one of young Alice's adventures with Mr. Dodgson -- and her thoughts on his proposal to photograph her.)

The Kingdom Of Ohio

The Kingdom of Ohio, by Matthew Flaming, hardcover, 336 pages, Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam, list price: $24.95

As a young laborer helping to build the New York subway tunnels in 1900, Peter Force encounters a beautiful but tattered-looking woman who claims to be from a different time and place. Their growing friendship -- and ultimately love for each other -- lead the two on a path to save the world from the effects of time travel if a machine that makes it possible falls into the wrong hands. Flaming casts Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison as rivals eager to claim this scientific invention, while financier J.P. Morgan covets its potential moneymaking possibilities.

Combining real historical figures with fictional characters gives the story a layer of wonderment about what's real -- or at least possible. You've got to love a book that messes with your mind and then leaves you smiling and pondering at the end. It's not often one can say this, but the ending of this book is just perfect. (Read the reaction Flaming's narrator has to his discovery of a life-changing photo in an old magazine.)

The Lonely Polygamist

The Lonely Polygamist: A Novel. by Brady Udall, hardcover, 602 pages, W.W. Norton & Co., list price: $26.95

"To put it as simply as possible: this is the story of a polygamist who has an affair." This first sentence sends your mind racing in so many directions. Apparently, a family with one husband, four wives, and 28 children has the same dysfunctional issues as a family with two parents and two kids. There are more issues -- but more people to help resolve them.

Husband and father Golden Richards' life is out of control. He's broke, so to feed his large family, he's accepted a job building a brothel; he's found himself attracted to a woman who is not one of his four wives; and he manages to get a wad of chewing gum tangled in an unlikely -- and decidedly uncomfortable -- location. All of which make lying seem an appealing option, until one considers how difficult it must be to keep a story straight when you have to repeat it to four different wives. (Read about Golden's attempt to explain a misunderstanding to his four wives.)

The Postmistress

The Postmistress, by Sarah Blake, hardcover, 336 pages, Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam, list price: $25.95

We expect the mailman to deliver the mail and the reporter to tell the story, especially when fulfilling these obligations helps provide order in a world gone awry. What if the decision to not comply with professional norms derives from compassion and a sense that not doing the expected is the kinder act? What if the postmistress decides not to deliver a letter, and the reporter decides not to turn in a story?

The thread of this novel connects people on both sides of the ocean during World War II -- those waiting at home and those fighting abroad. What they all share is a search for order and reasons -- explanations for horrific events and seemingly random acts.

What stands out and makes The Postmistress such an intimate look at the realities of war is the consideration of close relationships as well as relationships with strangers, both those who return again and again and those who just pass through life and are gone. (Read the explanation Blake's narrator -- reporter Frances Bard -- gives for why a postmistress might not deliver the mail, to a shocked dinner party.)

The Prince Of Mist

The Prince of Mist, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, hardcover, 224 pages, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, list price: $17.99

Although new to the U.S., The Prince of Mist is actually the first book written by the best-selling author of The Shadow of the Wind. Technically a young adult book, it really is for readers "ages 12 & up" (emphasis on the "& up"), and it has all the fantastical and spellbinding elements of Zafon's adult novels.

Early clues to the mysteries to come include a clock that runs backward and a garden where the statues change positions. An old lighthouse keeper regales three teenagers with tales of shipwrecks and deals made with the devil. These teens find themselves in a mortal battle with an unknown entity that may or may not be the devil. This evil force is determined to get what he considers is owed to him. After all, a promise is a promise. (Read what happens when Max's father decides to move his family out of the city to a small coastal town.)