review  by mary abshire and matt mccoy, bookpeople staff

Having passed the 50th anniversary of Holden Caulfield's original appearance in the 
literary world, Holden is still our favorite juvenile delinquent.

J.D. Salinger's remarkable portrayal of disillusioned youth captured the minds of readers 
in a way few characters have. 

Part of Holden's appeal springs from Salinger's incredible sketches of a malcontent, 
disassociated from place and isolated from comfortable participation in society. Holden's 
thought processes stray from mainstream rhetoric and separate him from his peers. 

While Holden is typically "misunderstood," he has the ability to see meaning in places 
where others fail to recognize it. Holden can find satisfaction in details that others pass 
by. Holden's anti-heroic struggle brings readers close to him.

In the Catcher in the Rye, the second setting takes place in a boarding school, but 
Holden's focus remains on the mentality of his teachers and his classmates. Salinger 
avoids pitting Holden against any particular authority. Holden is not fighting for a cause; 
he is fighting only for himself. This universality renders Holden's story a meaningful 
work to readers of all ilk. 

In spite of Holden's apparent delinquency, his keen eye for honesty and integrity captures our attention. We can't help but hate the "phonies" Holden meets on his journey. Holden wants honesty in people in the way we do, yet his criticism of "phonies" is so biting and 
concise we are forced to double-check if we are in fact phony.

Before Holden returns Phoebe, he reveals his strongest feelings of resentment. He can 
never find any place that is peaceful. He's certain that if he did, someone would just 
come up and write "fuck you," right under his nose. He finds it written in Phoebe's 
school, he finds it near the mummies tomb in his favorite museum, and he is convinced 
someone will write it on his tombstone. 

Holden's narrative voice endears him to readers; many come away from the Catcher in 
the Rye feeling as if they know Holden. This voice is flawlessly executed in an informal, 
yet perfectly calculated, manner.

Holden's point of view is a priceless piece of American culture, which shuns the style of 
a David Copperfield, yet provides a story that ages with exceeding grace and import.

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 2. in this we are native by annick smith

        review by matt mccoy, bookpeople staff

 Annick Smith presents a collection of short memoirs in "In This We Are Native." The settings of each chapter are as varied as the emotions presented in each. Smith's exacting and frank writing style stands as the only constant.

The first chapter, "Anticipating Loss," sets the mood of the novel. Smith, living on a ranch in Montana, describes the arrival of a new neighbor, Plum Creek, a logging company. Readers can tell this traumatized Smith from her romantic descriptions of the environmental and aesthetic effects of logging the area, but at times it is hard to believe that Smith is in fact the "I" of the memoir.

The distance created by this style makes references to her husband's final year most peculiar. The descriptions give an idea as to who he was, but the scrutinizing detail in favor of emotion makes relating to Smith or her husband difficult. 

The concept that pulls the subjects closer is also the book's namesake: "In This We Are Native." In many chapters, Smith describes American common experiences. She was born in Hungary and lived in France before her parents immigrated to Chicago. From Chicago, Smith looked westward, to a simpler life in Montana. Her Montanan life was briefly interrupted by the incorrigible American dream of making it in Hollywood. The final chapter, Thanksgiving, recounts Smith's first encounter with a turkey in the wild. In a land of people bound only by ideals, she approaches tears upon seeing Ben Franklin's ideal American animal.

For those born and raised in western states, Smith's awe and romance will make you grin and think twice about what you have always taken for granted. 304 pp. 2001 Hardcover. $24.95.

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3. just like beauty by lisa lerner

        review by mary abshire, bookpeople staff

In Edie Stein's strange and toxic world, she wakes each day in a perfectly manicured high-security neighborhood to endure her training. In order to fulfill her mother's dream, she must become her town's "Feminine Woman of Conscience," and just like girls everywhere across this futuristic America, she must learn to compete in pageant categories like "Poise and Cookery." In this event, she must flip perfect pancakes while reciting protocol for entertaining international government officials. The girl who can do this while being attacked by a swarm of mosquitoes wins the event's medal.

Training for, let alone winning, the pageant is no small feat; Edie is falling in love with the girl next door and must avoid the Blowtorchers (bands of boys who disfigure pageant participants).

Meanwhile, clouds of mutant grasshoppers are invading the topiaries of the neighborhood and Edie just can't seem to master the Electric Polyrubber Man for the pageant's erotic arts event.

As Edie stumbles through obstacles on her path to the pageant, the tone of her adventures becomes both playful anddark. She crosses paths with an outlawed suicide cult called "Happy Endings," flirts with teenage fun at the Drive-by Sausage Adventure Forest and manages to get by in a polluted, cancerous and synthetic future-world, where everyone controls their emotions by popping pills and consuming Just Like Meat and Just Like Coke.

As Edie Stein begins to understand the dystopian world around her, she becomes a genuine woman of conscience. A book that touches this close to reality cannot be ignored, yet it is not a moralizing tale. It's just a funny, absurd and touching comedy. 279 pp. January 2002. Hardback. $24.

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 4. standing up to the rock by louise freeman-toole

        review by mary abshire, bookpeople staff

"Standing up to the Rock" is about hardiness, individualism and the survival of an old and rugged way of life. Louise Freeman-Toole laces the story of her own family's odyssey into the struggles of a tough father-daughter ranching duo on the Snake River's Burns Ranch. 

The grace of this book is to be found in the details of ranch life and its many intricacies. The grace is in the harsh, pure hellishness of heat and ice, sweat and hard work – the way it cleanses the minds and hearts of those who embrace it fully.

This book is pertinent to any Idahoan who has enjoyed recreation on the Snake or the Clearwater. 

For many, this book is about the lives their grandparents and great-grandparents lived. "Standing Up to the Rock" is a carefully detailed historical pleasure in conjunction with an evocative tale of family and community. 240 pp. October 2001. Hardback. $26.00

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5. the perks of being a wallflower by stephen chbosky

        review by mary abshire, bookpeople staff

Chbosky's touching first novel comes in the voice of a high school freshman and is a marvelous portrayal of passivity against passion.

The novel takes the format of a series of letters written to an anonymous stranger by "Charlie," whose narrative voice is poignant, hilarious and naive. 

As Charlie's life moves into the unknown lands of the Rocky Horror Picture Show and his first crush, his letters are earnest and frank as he endeavors to understand his new social world and its intricacies.

Charlie is an endearing character, who in the spirit of Holden Caulfield, doesn't quite fit in, doesn't quite understand his family's drama and doesn't quite know how to reach out to others. 

"The Perks of Being a Wallflower" is one of the most compelling and believable first person novels I have read in a long time. 

Read it and find surprising reflections on life and growing up stated in ways you may have never known existed. 213 pp. February 1999. Paperback. $12.00

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6. after liberalism by immanuel wallerstein

        review by gary macfarlane, contributor

Don't fret, fuzzy-thinking, lefty-democrats, this book is not about the decline of liberalism in the current US political context. Well, not exactly. It is about something far more important.

The premise is basically that the end of the liberal or modern state, which was inchoate during the early part of the enlightenment and had its birth at the time of the French Revolution, is near. By way of background, Immanuel Wallerstein persuasively shows that all current modern and Western political ideologies, be they communism,socialism, liberalism, or conservatism, are merely branches of liberalism. Liberalism, in his very broad and encompassing definition, is the most important ideology of the Modern Era.

We learn that liberalism (including its branches) is defined by and relies on the power of the state. As such, liberalism offers the promise of freedom and democratization but is, at its core, anti-democratic. For example, an elite class founded the US; our nation's experience has been a struggle for real democracy for over 200 years. The dangerous classes threaten the stability of the old order. 

Wallerstein then documents the inevitable decline of liberalism and the disillusionment with the state from both the left and right, especially since what he regards as the watershed year, 1968. He notes the movements for independence in sub-Saharan Africa, which were their apogees in the early 1960s, have floundered on the shoals of tribalism in almost every place, with the notable exception of South Africa. He explains that the end of the Cold War – which was really a stable agreement between the one superpower and its competitor, in spite of all the rhetoric – was caused more by the loss of power in the US than by the loss of strength in the USSR. I won't tell you how he explains that theory, but it really is quite logical, simple, and revealing.

I don't agree with everything he professes. He underplays the inevitable environmental crisis, though he does mention it. 

The formulas he uses to explain economic cycles, synthesized from other sources, I found unintelligible and weird, casting a bit of doubt on his sagacity. 

Nevertheless, his foresight seems accurate. He does not neglect the rise in corporate power and the consequences of its ascension. Buy a copy, read it, and pass it along. 288 pp. 1995. Paperback. $14.95.

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c. the last section

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    2.  bookpeople services

   bookpeople services. espresso bar. fresh-baked goods. local art. gift items. video rentals. audio rentals. magazines. books for children, young and old. any-book-in-print ordering. out of print/rare/used book ordering. the most eclectic calendars on the palouse. ticket sales for local events. poetry readings. concerts. new york times vendor. seattle times vendor. frequent buyer book club.

   subscriptions to the new york times are available through bookpeople. pick-up points are bookpeople, ui administration building and johnson towers at wsu. the price for a fall semester subscription (monday-friday) is 34 dollars. subscriptions run from august 27 to december 21.

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    3. map to bookpeople 521 south main, moscow id 83843

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