news-record.com

John Hart

Triad connection: Greensboro resident and full-time author

Books: "The Last Child," "Down River" and "The King of Lies"

Online: www.johnhart.com

* "Gone Tomorrow" by Lee Child (Delacorte Press, 432 pages): If you've not met Lee Child's character, Jack Reacher, then you should step up and shake his hand. There have been a number of these books so far (maybe 13) and they are the perfect escapist novels for fans of the thriller. Reacher is often described as the man all men wish they could be, and the man all women wish they could have. Whether you feel this way or not, Lee Child writes crackerjack novels and he is at the height of his powers in this one.

* "Under Orders" by Dick Francis (Berkley, 384 pages): Dick Francis is one of the masters of crime fiction, having won the Edgar Award three times. "Under Orders" is not his newest (it came out in 2007), but it hits all the notes that make Francis one of the greats: taut writing, a great plot and all of the flavor of the British horse racing world that he is so well-qualified to convey.

* "Empire Falls" by Richard Russo (Vintage, 496 pages): Russo won the Pulitzer for this one. 'Nuff said.

Quinn Dalton

Triad connection: Full-time author and Greensboro resident

Books: "Stories from the Afterlife," "Bulletproof Girl" and "High Strung"

Online: www.quinndalton.com

*  "The Plague of Doves" by Louise Erdich (Harper Perennial, 352 pages): Erdich's 13th spans nearly a century and contains a teeming range of voices, all of whom weigh in on a single, awful event ---- the slaughter of a white family near a North Dakota Ojibwe reservation, for which four Indians are wrongly blamed and lynched. The descendants are intertwined in ways some know better than others. Some chapters are as self-contained as stories ---- some of them in fact were stories before being incorporated into the novel ---- and every page makes you crave the next one.

*  "Women Up On Blocks" by Mary Akers (Press 53, 160 pages): A high-octane mix of stories with a rich range of characters, each with their own vivid circumstances. Hedged bets, imagined victories, and unforeseen defeats ---- if you'd like to be taken in by a book, let these stories go to work on you.

*  "The Prince of Fenway Park" by N. E. Bode (HarperCollins, 336 pages): Written under the pen name N.E Bode by Julianna Baggott, who also writes books for adults, this latest work manages a tricky balancing act: It is both a terrific young-adult book and simply a great read. At the heart of this story is 12-year-old Oscar Egg, who discovers that the Red Sox really are cursed ---- and Oscar is the one who can break the spell ---- and the losing streak. Let me just say I don't watch baseball, and until I had kids, I didn't seek out young adult books, but I encourage Sox fans and the rest of the planet to enjoy this fantastic tale.

Lee Zacharias

Triad connection: Former UNCG creative writing professor and Greensboro resident

Books: "Lessons," "Helping Muriel Make It Through the Night" and contributor for "The Best American Essays 2008"

*  "Serena: A Novel" by Ron Rash (Ecco, 384 pages): I've just finished Ron Rash's new novel, which is a great page-turner about two ruthless logger tycoons determined to strip western North Carolina of its trees before the federal government can acquire the land for a new national park, the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. No one could fall asleep over this novel even while relaxing in a comfortable chair. One thing that's interesting is that the reader is not rooting for the protagonists but for the park.

*  "Rich in Love" by Josephine Humphreys (Penguin, 272 pages): Set in Mount Pleasant, S.C., "Rich in Love" calls up the very sense of summer with its marsh breezes. Lucille, the 17-year-old main character, is a precocious, witty and vulnerable delight, the perfect witness to the domestic turmoil all around her.

*  "Due East" by Valerie Sayers (Berkley, 264): Valerie Sayers's first novel, "Due East" moves a bit farther south to the fictional town of Due East, S.C., a town much like Beaufort. It too vividly creates a sense of place that I associate with summer, and its characters and their problems are so engaging that finishing the book is like moving away from a cherished set of friends.

Joseph Mills

Triad connection: Poet and Winston-Salem resident

Books: "Angels, Thieves, and Winemakers," "Spin Cycle" and "A Guide to North Carolina's Wineries"

Online: www.josephrobertmills.com

*  "Jitterbug Perfume" by Tom Robbins (Bantam, 352 pages): Immortality, sex, beets, perfume. You can't go wrong reading a Robbins' novel in the summer. He juggles epic themes with panache and playfulness, and this book follows a couple's journey on the path toward eternal life.

*  "Close Range: Wyoming Stories" by Annie Proulx (Scribner, 285 pages): A book of short stories about the modern West, it includes "Brokeback Mountain." Proulx's sense of detail and her knowledge of people's physical and emotional lives make this a powerful collection.

*  "Blood Done Sign My Name" by Timothy B. Tyson (Three Rivers Press, 368 pages): A wrenching memoir of growing up in the South in the 1960s. Tyson examines his father's involvement in the Civil Rights Movement and considers the relationship between race and religion. This book is honest and haunting.

Jacinta V. White

Triad connection: Poet and Greensboro Public Library LifeVerse coordinator

Books: "My Soul to His Spirit: Soulful Expressions of Black Daughters to their Fathers," "Press 53 Open Awards Anthology" and "Waking With God"

Online: www.poetryheals.com

*  "The Shack" by William P. Young (Windblown Media, 256 pages): The Shack highlights true intimacy and causes you to pause and reconsider your idea of religion and the Trinity. This is a great read for those of all faiths as it punctures right through the shield and enters the heart and mind, albeit through a journey of love and pain. It's not a "take to the beach" kind of book, but it's definitely one you might want to pick up while waiting for a summer storm to pass.

*  "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison (Vintage, 224 pages): I consider this one a classic and a favorite among Morrison's writings. "The Bluest Eye" takes you through the life of a young girl looking for acceptance and love. Published in 1970, this novel is full of powerful images that brings to life a story that sits, today, in American life and fiction.

*  "Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia" by Elizabeth Gilbert (Penguin, 352 pages): It goes without saying that a little over a year ago this book was all the rave. I was hesitant to read it because of that fact. But, if you are one of those left who haven't picked it up, I believe you will be delighted once you do. "Eat, Pray, Love" is a memoir that takes you around the world and into yourself, if you allow it. Gilbert shares on a level that makes you feel connected to her self-defining journey, but more importantly to your own. It's a timeless book I find myself re-reading, if only a page or two at a time.

Kelly Yates

Triad connection: Comic book creator and Greensboro resident

Books: "Amber Atoms" No. 1-4

Online: www.kellyyatesart.com

*  "Astonishing X-Men Volume 1: Gifted" & "Astonishing X-Men Volume 2: Dangerous" by Joss Whedon & John Cassaday (Marvel Comics, 152 & 144 pages): Joss Whedon breathes new life into the X-Men franchise with this series. Best known as the creator of TV's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," Whedon teams up with the astonishing artist John Cassaday to craft one of the best X-Men stories I've read in 25 years. This one has it all: super--powered mutants, aliens that want to destroy the earth, and the resurrection of one of the X-men's most beloved characters.

*  "Tellos Colossal" by Todd Dezago and Mike Wieringo (Image Comics, 288 pages): Written by Todd Dezago and illustrated by the late Mike Wieringo, this all-ages magical adventure follows Jarek and his talking man-tiger companion as they navigate through a patchwork world of pirates, dragons and so much more. You may think you know where the story is leading, but the twist will have you coming back for more.

*  "Doctor Who: The Forgotten" by Tony Lee, Pia Guerra and Nick Roche (IDW Publishing, 144 pages): If you enjoy watching the recently revived British TV show, "Doctor Who," or you're someone who watched it on PBS during the '80s, then this book is for you. Tony Lee writes an amazing story for the time traveling Doctor, incorporating the current actor playing the part, while tapping into the characters introduced over the 45-year history of the longest running sci-fi show

Denzil Strickland

Triad connection: Graphic designer and Winston-Salem resident

Books: "Swimmers in the Sea"

Online: www.press53.com/BioDenzilStrickland.html

*  "In The Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex" by Nathaniel Philbrick (Penguin, 320 pages): Disturbing but impossible-to-put-down account of the sinking of a 19th century whaleship, which was rammed by an angry sperm whale. Twenty crew members set off in small boats and drift for three months, dealing with weather, starvation and disease, pushing the limits of human survival.

*  "The Lost Daughter" by Elena Ferrante (Europa Editions, 204 pages): A woman, her children now grown and living with their father in Canada, goes alone on a beach vacation in Naples and confronts an issue rarely written about: the ambivalence of being a parent. Humbling prose from an Italian writer who is not nearly as recognized as she should be.

*  "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole (Penguin Classics, 352 pages): Published posthumously after Toole's death at an early age, this comic novel, set in mid-20th century New Orleans, is a satirical, actually hilarious, study of the unravelling of societal structure and values. Entirely politically incorrect, the dialogue and characters will make you laugh out loud ---- a healthy thing to do these days.

David Kinney

Triad connection: Winston-Salem native and Pulitzer-winning journalist

Books: "The Big One: An Island, an Obsession, and the Furious Pursuit of a Great Fish"

Online: www.davidkinney.net

*  "American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon" by Steven Rinella (Spiegel & Grau, 288 pages): The author won a permit to hunt buffalo in Alaska, and this is the fascinating story of that trip, interwoven with an eclectic history of the animal, its place in American culture and its decline. I don't hunt, but Rinella's blow-by-blow of the expedition and its trials ---- grizzlies, rapids and frostbite ---- opened my eyes to the allure of the sport.

*  "Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen" by Christopher McDougall (Knopf, 304 pages): Even if Chris wasn't a friend, I'd recommend this one. He traveled to the Copper Canyons of Mexico to document an ultramarathon that pitted the sport's best Americans against a band of Tarahumara Indians, renowned to be the world's best extreme distance runners. He came away with a great yarn, and some counter-intuitive insights about why we run.

*  "The Bushwacked Piano" by Thomas McGuane (Random House, 222 pages): McGuane is one of my favorite writers, and every once in a while I look for inspiration from his collection of fishing essays, "The Longest Silence." In this novel, published 25 years ago, another of McGuane's luckless protagonists stumbles from one outrageous calamity to the next. As The New Yorker puts it, McGuane has a way of taking ordinary life and turning it into a "highly organized nightmare."

Nicole Givens Kurt

Triad connection: Science Fiction author and Greensboro resident

Books: "Silenced"

Online: www.mochamemoirs.com/nic/blog

*  "Altered Carbon" by Richard K. Morgan (Ballantine Books, 544 pages): Kovacs is a former military trained assassin who has been "re-sleeved" into another body in this futuristic mystery. Fast paced, great technology and a mystery to die for, the action doesn't let up. The dialogue is witty and sharp enough to ripe the actual book pages to shreds.

*  "Stardust" by Neil Gaiman (HarperTeen, 288 pages): This sliver of a book is short, romantic, charming in a Gaiman sort of way and with just enough dark humor to keep it from being cheesy. Gaiman is a master of wit and dialogue, and this particular novel is one of his best fantasy titles. The movie version paled in comparison to the novel.

*  "The Dark Knight Returns" by Frank Miller (DC Comics, 224 pages): Though not necessarily a "novel," this graphic novel was written long before the movie "The Dark Knight." Here, Bruce Wayne is well into his middle age and combats the demon rising inside of him. With gritty but great illustrations by Miller, "The Dark Knight Returns" is action-packed, short and extremely well-written. This graphic novel reads as well as the classics, and the themes raised in its short pages will resonate long after the story ends.

Jo Maeder

Triad connection: Voice artist and Greensboro resident

Books: "When I married My Mother: A Daughter's Search for What Really Matters -- and How She Found It Caring for Mama Jo"

Online: www.jomaeder.com

*  "Under Their Thumb: How a Nice Boy from Brooklyn Got Mixed Up with the Rolling Stones (and Lived to Tell About It)" by Bill German (Villard, 368 pages): Offended by the lack of accuracy in the mainstream press concerning his favorite band, the Rolling Stones, Bill German started his own fanzine, "Beggars Banquet," in his cramped bedroom on his 16th birthday. To his amazement, the Stones became fans of his fanzine and even hired him, briefly, to run their own fan club newsletter. Spanning a 15 year insider/outsider roller coaster ride, and, of course, dishing up great stories and solid journalistic research about the Stones, I consider this one of the best rock memoirs ever written.

*  "Apples and Oranges: My Brother and Me, Lost and Found" by Marie Brenner (Picador, 304 pages): A breathtakingly accomplished writer recounts her lifelong difficult relationship with her polar-opposite brother (for starters, he threw her out of a window when she was a baby) and its ultimate resolution in mid-life when he's diagnosed with cancer. A writer-at-large for Vanity Fair for many years, Brenner leaves no stone unturned as she ruthlessly examines herself, her family and particularly the brother who chucked a conventional life to grow apples ---- an industry far more complicated and beautiful than you would think.

*  "The Last Child" by John Hart (Minotaur Books, 384 pages): My fiction pick, the latest from gifted writer and North Carolinian John Hart, is on the grim subject of child abduction made palatable by Hart's extraordinary ability to describe the worlds within, and around, his characters. It's hard for me to read his work without becoming envious of his talent, but I hear he's one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet, so I forgive.

Contact Joe Scott at movieshowjoe@gmail.com