Greg

The early days of John Sutter's settlement on the Sacramento River, political intrigue in the last years of the Hawaiian monarchy, a missing wax cylinder recording--odd corners of history which come to life when Shendan Brody, radio talk show host, takes a call from a woman who claims to be his grandmother and who sets him on a path to recovering his own family history. If Hawaiian or Californian history interests you, try this! --Greg

Set in the tumultuous years prior to the Meiji Restoration, The Pure Land brings to life the early years of Thomas Glover, the young Scot who helped overthrow the Shogun and set Japan on its hell-for-leather modernization. Equal parts romance and adventure (think "Madam Butterfly" plus "The Last Samurai"), this work imagines how Japan got under his skin, a Japan mysterious, beautiful, and still very dangerous. --Greg

How did a ragtag handful of squabbling Greek towns pull themselves together to face down a world empire? And how did the Persians, a horse-loving mountain tribe of the Zagros, come to aspire to world domination? Persian Fire is a fast moving but nicely detailed account of a defining clash between East and West that reverberates even today. -Greg

A boozy, bawdy, blasphemous blowhard (who will affront more than one of your sensibilities), old Uncle Pepin blathers on ("palaver" is Hrabal's technical term) about this salad days amidst the failing Austro-Hungarian Empire. The beloved uncle appears elsewhere in Hrabal's ouevre but this is Pepin's solo performance, a bravura performance, hysterical and sad. "It's interesting how young poets think if death while old fogies thing of girls."