The book opens with the narrator accidentally opening his mother's email account and discovering that she has just begun having an affair. And so the stage is set for a story about what happens in a family when one person has a secret and another person not only knows the secret but knows all the details of how the affair progresses (because he continues to read all the back and forth, almost daily, emails between his mother and her lover, plus the mother's emails confiding to her best friend). This story, for all its potential, is uninteresting and at times even dreary reading.

The book is written in the first person, narrated by the son Henry who at the time was 17. From the start I felt that the voice didn't sound quite right. A few pages into the book the reader learns that the story is being told "less than a decade later", which would make Henry in his mid-twenties. This made the voice a little more believable, but I still had trouble with it, I had the constant nagging sense that his writing style and observations just did not ring true. Then I wondered if in the end there would be a reason for the story being told ten years later, would we learn how these events affected Henry as an adult, or would it turn out that his printing of the emails would trigger some event years later?

There is so much that could have happened in this book, so much that I kept expecting to happen, but there just isn't enough here in the way of plot, and very little dialogue. Yes, there is some dialogue, but more often conversations are described. Much in the book is described, observed, thought about. It has a slow pace. In spite of all this, I started out enjoying this book and for the first 100 pages or so I had a hard time putting it down. The writing is beautifully crafted without getting bogged down and I liked the way the narrator saw the family's life, even though I never bought the idea that the narrator was a 17 year old boy or even a 27 year old man. When talking about the family moving from rural Vermont to Chicago he says "Outside we would be in danger from both the careless ways of the rich and the careless ways of the poor." And "I was taken from Vermont before I could think to want to leave it myself, and so for me Wellington is the ideal, my old backyard there my deepest sense of home."

It's lines like these that kept me turning the pages, up to a point. But then I got tired of not knowing who these people were. The father is a cheerful near-saint and not much more complex than that. The sister is passionate about Civil War reenactment. A good part of the book deals with that, but her character is not developed beyond that one aspect. And not enough happens in this book, although I kept thinking something would happen soon. Henry considers deleting some of the emails from his mother's lover before she can read them, or better yet, replying to the emails himself, posing as his mother. Will he do that? Will that lead to something else happening? His mother talks openly to the family about her lover, a fellow musician she has just met. She wants everyone to think this is just another friend, she wants to not appear secretive, but talking about him is risky. Will this lead to something? The mother goes to a psychic for some relief from her inner conflict and the son reads about it in an email and visits the same psychic. Will this lead to something?

Curiosity and good writing kept me reading the book but in the end I was disappointed. There were so many possiblities in this story, but none of them, for me, was realized. There was a weekend when Henry was distracted and unable to concentrate. He was reading a novel by a contemporary author whose name he has now forgotten. He says "A book I read from beginning to end that weekend without registering much action or dialogue." Maybe that line has to do with his lack of concentration. Or maybe it has to do with the book itself. That pretty much sums up my feelings towards this book. I read it, but I didn't register much action or dialogue.

I was pleasantly surprised with Jane Hamilton's latest novel, Disobedience. Beth and Kevin Shaw's teenage son, Henry, is faced with knowing things about his mother that he can't share with anyone. While sneakily reading his mother's e-mail, he discovers that she is having an affair. For an entire year, Henry works through his anger, his disappointment and in some cases, his jealousy, as his mother works through her guilt and desire for a different life. The supporting characters in this novel are tremendously enjoyable, from Henry's tomboy, Civil War re-enactor sister, Elvira, to his first girlfriend, Lily, and keep the plot moving along at a fairly quick pace. For most of the book, I kept wondering when Henry would finally confront his mother and when he'd "get over it." Henry asked himself the same question in the novel, which I thought was entertaining. I loved Beth's book club and Henry's analysis of female book groups and would even recommend this to book groups for a potentially intense debate over infidelity.

What happens when two socially conscious and educated people, still nostalgic for the sixties, get married, and move from rural Vermont to Chicago to raise kids? Jane Hamilton offers one possible scenario. The narrator is the 17-year-old son, Henry Shaw, who discovers, by way of the E-mail account he set up for her, that his mother, Beth, is having an affair. Through her letters to her lover and her best friend we come to have a secondary narrator as well and we see a different Beth from wife and mother.

The overall tone of the book in the mouth of the son is light and deceptively casual, alternately raucous, hysterical, and rational, and one wonders whether Henry is really affected at all. Then we remember that he is a teenager, albeit mature for his age, trying to grow up, to deal with his own sexual yearnings and the desire to fit somewhere in the world. When confronted with his mother's indiscretions, his father's ineptitude, his younger sister's obsession with the Civil War, and his worries about her sexuality, he feels that he is the only "normal" one and that it is he holding the family together. He deals with the situation with humor and self-deprecation, with an 'I don't care what happens to my crazy family' attitude, and occasionally defiance. Hardly anyone in the family notices, at least for awhile.

From folk music bands and country dances, to first love in a religious summer camp, to fortune tellers and Wisconsin farms, the family plods along, yet each in their separate worlds, until they gather at the mother of all Civil War reenactments. That is when Hamilton lowers the boom. Her timing is immaculate. It is there that the entire family is faced with a wake-up call, and some hard truths have to be faced.

The Shaw family are very real. They are like people we know and maybe a little like ourselves. Once again, Hamilton demonstrates that she can adroitly translate the crises of American families, as well as the roles of and relationships between the sexes into great literature.

Like many of her fellow "Progressives," Jane Addams was born in the midwest and received an exceptional scholastic and religious education. She was strongly devoted to her father and shared with him a reverence for Abraham Lincoln not just as a man, but as a living ideal against which all men should measure their ideas and actions. Typical of many reformers of her era, Addams was not attracted to evangelical duty. Missionary work left her with a sense of futile detachment from the wretched social conditions she witnessed in East London. After visiting Toynbee Hall, Addams decided to establish a similar settlement house in the rapidly-growing city of Chicago, where "the evil and vices of American life seemed to be exaggerated." Her experiences at this settlement house are the subject of this book.

Although, on the one hand, Addams seemed the typical Progressive; on the other hand she did not follow many of the ideas of the more radical reformers. She was very practical and refused to be swayed by the claims of certain social movements and untried panaceas. she did not become a socialist. Although she greatly admired Tolstoy, she found his message "confused and contradictory" and doubted its suitability to the situation in Chicago. She deplored any violent tactics associated with socialist and anarchist groups despite their "noble motives." Addams demostrated an understanding of the ways in which strikes had a detrimental effect on people outside the labor movement (her dying sister was unable to see her family because the transportation system was blocked due to the Pullman strike. Unlike most reformers, she also had respect for the immigrant cultures represented at Hull House. A labor museum put native sewing machines and other instruments and crafts on display for all to enjoy.

One observation made by this reader was the animosity on the part of European reformers toward the work of the settlement residents. Tolstoy offered petty criticisms and one English visitor concluded that reformers in America were indifferent to the plight of the poor because they could not recite the "cubic feet of air required for each occupant of a tenement bedroom." Such remarks smack of a "caring competition." Addams, however, was well aware that the settlement house experiment was far from complete. Jane Addams' honest and humble account--albeit long and sometimes rambling (don't let the skinny paperback fool you)--demonstrated her unwavering commitment to achieving the improvement and unity of humanity.

Twenty Years at Hull House is an outstanding example of the humanitarianism movement in America at the turn of the century. Jane Addams, the author and narrator of the book, was born in Illinois. Early in her life she began to see the effects of poverty on people. She recalls one incident early in her life of seeing a homeless man on the street. She asked her father why that was, and he replied that that was just the way things were. Her father was a Quaker and the most prominate role model in Jane's life. As a child she grew up wanting to be just like him. For a while, she aspired to be a mill owner just like him. Her mother is not mentioned in the book at all. Jane went to Rockford College and soon toured London. It was there that she came up with the idea of the Hull House. Hull House was a settlement house in Chicago. It offered day care and college level classes for women. Spawning from her work at the house, Jane joined many causes that she passionately fought for. These causes included working hours for women, child labor laws, and juivenile court. She could be considered an early feminist. Also from her work at Hull House, Jane started studing the causes of poverty and the effects it had on society. She was not satisfied with just the success of her house; she wanted to know why there was a need for it at all. Later in her life she joined the womens sufferage movement. Jane Addams was a wonderful reformist and feminist that sought to better the country. Twenty Years at Hull House offer insight into one of America' most interesting time periods.

Though Addams' prose often gets mired in the florid and highly mannered style of her era, this is a surprisingly compelling book. Free of the ethnic racism and stereotyping that blight many similar works of the era, Addams' account of her groundbreaking community center in one of the worst parts of late 19th-century Chicago fairly overflows with compassion and almost unbelievable fairness. Addams's intelligence is evident, and many of her ideas and attitudes seem decades ahead of their time. It's not light reading by any stretch of the imagination, but "Twenty Years at Hull House" contains many gripping portraits of the desperation of immigrant life and the simple power of human decency.

Though usually hesitant to read books on Oprah's list (I believe in my own ability to find a good book, though I admit she has picked some winners), I read a bit of this one at the store and felt I would enjoy it. WRONG. The only character in the book I actually liked and cared about was Theresa, and it was not her story. Though a lot takes place in this novel (death, prison, false accusations) and it reveals life truths (such as the fact that many spouses don't know each other and one's seemingly safe life can snap in one minute, without the slightest hint of forewarning), it left me saying - "Oh, deal with it." The novel held no great revelations for me, nor did I find the central characters compelling in any way. Far worse things have ocurred to others not as well situated, and they have conquered their demons with more grace, common sense, and ability. Better novels have told similar tales in more compelling fashion.

Jane Hamilton's A Map of the World is a novel that has moved her among the major writers of our time. A great piece of literature, Hamilton beautifully portrays the hard times of suburbia America and the hardships many families face everday. This adult novel faces such touchy topics as death of children, stress in relationships among friends, and the coping of a life not wanted but is truly necessity. This book was given to me by my AP English teacher who described it with one word-"sad". Not one to get emotional over literature, Hamilton's diction, syntax, and description allow the reader to actually feel the emotions of the average farming family. By sectioning of parts of the book by character titles, the author permits a deeper look into the mind and lives of certain characters drawing the reader deeper into the depths of dispair as the family continues to struggle with Life. A "normal" American family with a mother, Alice, a father, Howard, and two daughters, Alice and Emma, Hamilton discusses the fears that so many citizens are afraid to bring forward, even into their own thoughts. With only one real family friend, Alice faces the rough life of not only being considered the outcast of the perfect little town of Prarie Center, but also the scrutinous routine of the farmer's wife. Forced into marriage by the conception of their older daughter, Emma. Following the footsteps of her husband, she agrees to buy a farm due to her husband's dream of becoming a dairy farmer. With the accidental death of her only friend's daughter, Lizzy, Alice loses touch with not only herself but also the rest of her family. She falls into a deep depression which only escalates further with Lizzy's funeral. This unforgetable journey of sadness and desolate commiseration leaves the reader compelled and wanting more of the exquisite individual passages. With a gripping sense of the human heart and uncharted country between author and reader, A Map of the World assembles an engrossing, powerful portrayal of the life that nearly every woman in America is afraid of living.

Sunny55428@yahoo.com I read this book because it was Oprah's choice for December. I finished it a month ago but it's still haunting my thoughts and dreams. But for the Grace of God go I. It's scary when I remember the many times I baby sat other people's children at my home, took them swimming, to the zoo, libraries, museums, church, parks...All with no untoward incidents other than mosquito bites and maybe a splinter.

Lessons to be learned from A MAP of the WORLD:

· When responsible for others who are dependent on you for protection, stay alert and in the present. Don't get sidetracked with daydreams.

· Never threaten others, not even when they deserve it. Example: Alice threatened Carol Mackessy with calling the authorities and it backfired. Carol had Alice called before the authorities, taken away from her family, jailed, beaten unconscious by a cruel, mentally deranged prison inmate, lost her farm and almost lost her familly.

· If you find you're having trouble being in charge of yourself and the path of your life, get yourself into therapy before tragedy strikes. Alice obviously had self-awareness-identity problems. It's' too bad someone, she or her hubby didn't' recognize that fact and get her into therapy before the unimaginable incident came to pass.

· Forgiveness. How to forgive the unforgivable. I don't know how the mother of the drowned child could do it so completely and immediately, without questioning or demanding some sort of payment or special favor.

· People, lives, and apparent everyday situations and circumstances are far more complex than first glance might indicate. Never take routine for granted. Be alert for the unimaginable, the unthinkable, and the unexpected! Especially when helpless little ones are in your charge.

I guarantee A MAP of the WORLD provides fuel for lively, enlightening discussions and haunting dreams.