And if that weren’t enough, Done returns with even more grin-inducing anecdotes of his students that will warm your heart and leave you shaking your head (and raising your hand whenever you want to speak up). ~ Ann

Here’s the classic tale of Ping, the duck of the Yangtze. This story has been a childhood favorite since it was first published in the mid-1930s. But the tale of the young duck who wanted to avoid punishment for being late never grows old. Ages 4-8. ~ Ann

Forget, for the time being at least, about improving yourself, your relationships, and your sagging abdominal muscles. Relax. Bill Bryson hikes the Appalachian Trail for you. As a result, you won't have to move a muscle to be treated to magnificent scenery, exhausting days of climbing, a fascinating history of this environmentally fragile trail, and, best of all, explosions of laughter that will have you doubled up and falling out of your chair.

Bryson at his delightful, absolute best as he revisits his childhood in Des Moines, Iowa, making the reader alternately think, "Thank heavens I wasn't his parent," and "What fun that must have been."

Callanan's first novel is a mystery and a story of love and adventure. Set in Alaska both in the present and in the latter days of World War II, its main character is Louis Belk, now a priest, but once a soldier assigned to search out and defuse top-secret Japanese balloon bombs designed to drift across the Pacific. The juxtaposition of those fragile but deadly weapons and Belk's interaction with Lily, a Yup'ik Eskimo woman, and Gurley, his merciless superior officer, is both frightening and haunting. In fact, it took days before I could start another book. ~ Ann

This book is a mystery, as a grieving American father agonizes over how and why his son, a student in a small Japanese university, was killed. It's a hesitant romance, as he seeks help from an American woman who, once a professor at the university, was fired and is now forced to make a living selling fantasy funerals to wealthy Japanese clients. And it's a beautifully detailed account of life in Japan, life for an American in Japan, and why the twain have so much trouble meeting. ~ Ann

In an age when literary recollections of childhood too often are painful and disturbing, it's a quiet delight to reread Bradbury's Dandelion Wine, the tale of a boy's twelfth summer in Green Town, Illinois, in 1928. His lyric prose of a time when every morning was brand new and summers were endless make this classic an all time favorite.

In 1947 Bradbury explored the magic of a 12-year-old boy's summer in one of my all-time favorite novels, the haunting Dandelion Wine. Fifty years later, he visits Doug Spaulding once again. This time, however, in a summer that refuses to end, Doug and his friends must let the season go. This time, as fall approaches, they need to move on and accept the passage of time. But they resist, fighting against the waning days, fighting the inevitability of eventual manhood and subsequent old age. It's a valiant struggle, a struggle one sees through many eyes, and Bradbury, as usual, recounts it with nostalgia and exquisite clarity.

While we're in the mood for British humor, it's only appropriate that we reprise the work of Bennett, one of England's most exquisitely playful authors. For a delicate combination of humor and pathos there are these, monologues, which he wrote for such actresses as Maggie Smith and Julie Waters.

Personal History by Katharine Graham.
The late Katharine Graham is best known to the general public as the publisher of the Washington Post during the crises of Watergate and the Pentagon Papers. Her "personal history" is far more complicated and amazing. Though she was brought up in a world of wealth and responsibility, and though her husband was dynamic and talented, she always considered herself not quite "up to the task." The task or tasks, however, including her husband's suicide, kept presenting themselves, and somehow she managed to cope with each triumphantly. Thus we have her story, which is told with dignity and without self pity. It's a fascinating memoir and one that stays with you long after the book is back on the shelf. ~ Ann

Ostensibly this book is about baseball and Ted Williams and the Boston Red Sox of the 1940s. But really it's about the friendship between Williams, Dom Dimaggio, Johnny Pesky and Bobby Doer, a friendship that started when they all played ball together. It lasted for sixty years. In October of 2001, with Ted Williams soon to die, Dimaggio and Pesky (Bobby Doer, whose wife is ailing, is unable to join them) embark on a 1,300-mile trip to Florida to see him one last time. As the trip progresses, Halberstam takes us back to those glorious years when they were young and strong and at the top of their game. And we see how their friendship, despite time and the difference in their personalities, endured for over a half a century. I loved this book. ~ Ann