Laurence Gonzales

A pilot tells how pilots flew a plane with no controls and flight attendants kept their calm in the face of disaster. Amazingly, 184 of 296 passengers lived.

This summer we’ve been making a list of great beach reads or books to crack open poolside.  We’ve talked to Justin Cronin, author of 'The Passage' and Hilary Thayer Hamman about her novel ‘Anthropology of an American Girl.’ This week, Laurence Gonzales' 'Lucy' is at the top of our list.

Jenny awoke to thunder. There was no light yet. She reached out in darkness and found a tin of wooden matches on the ammunition case beside her bed. She selected one and struck it on the case. The flame flared red then yellow and sulfurous smoke rose. Newborn shadows danced on the walls of the hut. She touched the match to the wick of a candle and a light grew up from it like a yellow flower tinged with blue. Smoke hung in the still wet air. The interior of the hut seemed at once bare and cluttered. The walls were unpainted board, the floor was buckled plywood. Against one wall was a crude desk made out of a door, a few photographs tacked to the wall above it: Her mother at home near Chicago. Snapshots of the bonobos. Her friend Donna with the bonobos at the zoo.