A Week of Entertainment: Books Reviewed in Entertainment Weekly Jun 26/Jul 3

Each week Entertainment Weekly reviews a small selection of popular new books. Titles available for the Kindle reviewed in the June 26th/July 3 issue include:


The 100 Best Volunteer Vacations to Enrich Your Lifeby Pam Grout. National Geographic. NONFICTION. EW's slant: "Who doesn't need some serious karma on their side." Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (2 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99.
"From building houses in Appalachia to saving sea turtles in Costa Rica to teaching English in Thailand, this book is a rich resource of ways to use your skills to help out the world and reap some lasting benefits yourself. Like its two predecessors, it includes an engagingly descriptive menu of choices for tastes and talents of all kinds, along with detailed specifics to turn good intentions into satisfying reality. Throughout, sidebars describe nearby places to visit, little-known facts, and more, providing depth and variety, while a comprehensive resource listing gives additional information about the different organizations offering volunteer vacations." - Amazon.

Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann. Random House. NOVEL. EW's slant: "...a series of spare, gorgeously wrought vignettes...the novel feels not discordant, but vibrantly whole." Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (30 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99.
"It's August of 1974, a summer 'hot and serious and full of death and betrayal,' and Watergate and the Vietnam War make the world feel precarious. A stunned hush pauses the cacophonous universe of New York City as a man on a cable walks (repeatedly) between World Trade Center towers. This extraordinary, real-life feat by French funambulist Philippe Petit becomes the touchstone for stories that briefly submerge you in ten varied and intense lives - a street priest, heroin-addicted hookers, mothers mourning sons lost in war, young artists, a Park Avenue judge. All their lives are ordinary and unforgettable, overlapping at the edges, occasionally converging. And when they coalesce in the final pages, the moment hums with such grace that its memory might tighten your throat weeks later..." - Mari Malcolm.

Boy Alone: A Brother's Memoirby Karl Taro Greenfeld. HarperCollins. MEMOIR. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (8 reviews). Kindle edition $14.29.
"Karl Taro Greenfeld knew from an early age that his little brother, Noah, was not like other children...No doctor, social worker, or specialist could pinpoint what was wrong with Noah beyond a general diagnosis: autism. The boys' parents, Josh and Foumi, dedicated their lives to caring for their younger son with myriad approaches - a challenging, often painful experience that the devoted father detailed in a bestselling trilogy of books. Now, for the first time, acclaimed journalist Karl Taro Greenfeld speaks out about growing up in the shadow of his autistic brother, revealing the complex mix of rage, confusion, and love that defined his childhood...Seamlessly weaving together the social history of autism and autism research - as the Greenfelds lived through it in seeking treatment for Noah - with the deeply affecting story of two very different boys growing up side by side..." - Amazon.
$9.99 or less alternative: Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism by Temple Grandin.