BookViews for BookLovers

ReadingGroup.Com celebrates its Tenth Anniversary

2010-10-14T07:01:00.000-07:00

ReadingGroup.Com is ten years old and they celebrated by having folks pick our their Top Ten Favorite Discussion Books. Votes were accepted from May through July 2010 and more than 12,000 people participated.

Listed below are those Top Ten Titles. Click on the link to ReadingGroup.Com and explore further. You can find a discussion guide for each of the books mentioned, and you can check out titles selected as the most popular in various categories, such as Memoirs/Biographies, Books Featuring Animals and even Selections You Might Not Expect.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Shaffer and Barrows

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See

The Red Tent by Anitia Diamant.

Have fun reading. Meg

The Tuesday Book Club discusses A Man for All Seasons

2010-09-27T11:50:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday, September 14, the Tuesday Book Club talked about Robert Bolt’s classic play, A Man for All Seasons, which dramatizes the imprisonment and execution of Sir Thomas More. Most group members liked the play very much, touting its witty dialogue and Bolt’s excellent writing, both of which evoke the tumultuous years leading up to the English Reformation. While one member found the play made for pretty dry reading, we all agreed that the issues and themes swirling amidst Bolt’s stormy dialogue were compelling.

What is a conscience, and what does it mean to hold one’s own convictions above all else, and what if that includes king and country? In the play, Thomas More does what he thinks is right, and Bolt’s staging leads us to agree with More. Whatever we think about Henry’s divorce and the break with the Roman Catholic Church, the group agreed that the play holds up More as a paragon of intelligence, morality, and self-fortitude. More’s “self” is so strong he can’t give in and take an oath declaring Henry the head of the church. “You might as well advise a man to change the color of his eyes,” More says of the prospect of giving in to the King’s demands.

All told, we had another fine discussion of history and classic works of literature. Everyone is excited to read next month’s companion book, Wolf Hall. This 2009 novel by Hilary Mantel takes Thomas Cromwell, one of the out and out villains in Bolt’s play, as its main character and ostensible hero. Join us October 19 for what promises to be a fascinating discussion of Mantel’s Booker Prize winning novel.

The Tuesday Book Group discusses contemporary books alongside the classic works that inspired them. We meet the second Tuesday of the month (October is an exception) at 1:00PM in the Stride Room.

In Their Own Words....from the BBC

2010-09-21T08:03:00.000-07:00

Have you ever heard of the BBC's series In Their Own Words: British Novelists - Interviews with Remarkable Modern Writers?

I just spent a totally enjoyable 27 minutes listening to a fascinating interview with J. R. R. Tolkien. Tolkien talks about how he came to write The Hobbit (on the back of a student's exam paper), and what he had in mind when he began to write The Lord of the Rings. Also present are students and fans of the trilogy - talking about what is special or unique and what Tolkien's books meant to them. Of course, there is the obligatory derogatory comment, deriding Tolkien's fiction as the worst kind of escapism. (Tell me - what' wrong with escaping, every so often?)

It was incredible to actually see Tolkien in person, as he sat in his own den or wandered about Oxford. The last view on the interview is a gradual panning out, from Professor Tolkien standing on a turret at the college, to the whole of Oxford - quite a spectacular view.

Other authors that you can listen to include Virginia Wolfe, Iris Murdoch, John LeCarre, Aldous Huxley, P. G. Wodehouse, Daphne DuMaurier and lots more. Video clips run from 8 minutes to 30 minutes. The Tolkien interview was first broadcast in 1968. (Tolkien died in 1973.) Meg

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

2010-09-14T13:05:00.000-07:00

You all know the story. Henry VIII, king of England in the early 1500s, is desperate for a male heir and not adverse to swapping one wife for another it that is what it takes. Henry wants to annul his 20-year marriage to Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn. The Pope, many of Henry's advisors and Catholic Europe do not take kindly to this proposal.

Much has been written about the characters in this real life drama - Henry, the volatile and determined monarch, Catherine the faithful and steadfast Queen, Anne the young and hopeful lady-in-waiting, the brilliant Cardinal Wolsey and Sir Thomas Moore, who opposed Henry outright and lost his head because of his opposition.

In Wolf Hall, however, Hilary Mantel chooses to focus on Thomas Cromwell - the wily and consummate politician. Cromwell is a man lowly born, but with guile and daring, manages to become Henry's confidante - suceeds in giving Henry all that he wants - with momentous consequences.

This historical novel is full of detail and deep in nuance and societal foibles. But perservere. The writing is superb and the story complex and satisfying. Meg

Join a Book Discussion Group this year

2010-09-01T08:35:00.000-07:00

The Newport Public Library offers two book discussion groups that meet regularly at the library.

The Tuesday Afternoon Book Discussion Group meets (usually) on the 1st Tuesday of every month at 1:00pm. Luke Owens is the discussion leader and the group discusses a variety of books, both classic and contemporary. Their first meeting is scheduled for September 14th when they will be discussing A Man for All Seasons by Robert Bolt. A list of the rest of the titles chosen for the year is available here.

The Thursday Evening Book Discussion Group wiil begin on Thursday September 23rd at 7:00pm. Pat LaRose is the discussion leader and this group also looks at a variety of works, both ficition and non-fiction. They begin the year with a discussion of To Kill a Mockingbird, the Pulitzer Prize winning classic by Harper Lee. At the first meeting, the group will have the opportunity to weigh in on the rest of the titles chosen for the year. Some possible titles are listed here.

Both these groups offer lively discussion and good reading. Consider them when you are making your plans for the fall. Meg

Thursday Evening Book Group in Review - A Year's Worth of Books

2010-08-19T11:45:00.000-07:00

The Thursday Evening Book Group met at the Blue Plate Diner for their annual July get-together. We discussed the book The Road Home by Rose Tremain and reviewed our reading for the past year. We were in agreement that this year's list was a good one, with variety and depth to the selections. When asked for favorites from the list, some had trouble deciding.

The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay was a top choice for several members. Others enjoyed The Girls by Lori Lansens, Into the Forest by Jean Hegland, Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout and one person chose The Road Home. No one chose any of the non-fiction selections as a favorite, but among them the stand-outs were The Widow Clicquot (about the lady who made champagne) by Tilar Mazzeo and American Made (about the WPA) by Nick Taylor.

We all thoroughly enjoyed our social evening, and as a added surprise we were joined by a former member who had moved away and was back for the summer. A great evening and a great year of book reading and discussion.

If this sounds enticing to you, perhaps you'd like to join us next year. We meet on Thursdays at 7 p.m., once a month, usually the third Thursday. We will meet again on September 23rd to discuss To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, in honor of the 50th anniversary of publication. At that meeting, we will review the list of possible selections for the next season, October through July.

Contact Pat LaRose (847-8720, Ext 103) for more information about the Thursday Evening Book Group. Contact Luke Owens (847-8720, Ext. 208) if you are interested in the Tuesday Afternoon group. PL

A Zoo Book for July

2010-07-14T12:06:00.000-07:00

Did you know that July 1st (1874) is the anniversary of the opening of America's first zoo? On that date, the Philadephia Zoological Society opened the Philadelphia Zoo for the first time. The price of admission was $.25 for adults and $.10 for children. There were over 800 animals present.

In honor of this anniversary, why not read a wonderful book about a zoo and a little know World War II drama. The book is entitled The Zookeeper's Wife by Diane Ackerman.

When the Germans invaded Poland (in 1939) the city of Warsaw was decimated - along with the city's zoo. With most of the animals dead, zookeepers Jan and Antonina Zabinski began sheltering Jews (escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto), as well as Polish resisters (and some surviving animals from the zoo), in their villa and in animal cages and sheds. Based on Antonina's own memoirs and newspaper interviews, as well as Ackerman's own research in Poland, the result is an exciting and unforgettable portrait of courage and grace under fire.

Ackerman said, in an interview, "I felt that her [Antonina's] story needed to be told, because it's a tale of heroic compassion, something 'ordinary' people rise to in every era, though we hear little about it." Meg

Reading challenge – read five Pulitzer Prize winning novels this summer!

2010-06-28T09:13:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I find it hard to find a “good book” to read. I am a mystery fan and used to love delving into the puzzles and nuances of good detective fiction – trying to figure out whodunit – and often why and when and how. But sometimes even a “good mystery” does not satisfy. So I have been turning to prize winning fiction and non-fiction as a source for titles. This month I was looking at Pulitzer Prize winning fiction – and there are some intriguing titles there that both you and I might want to try.

This year’s winner, Tinkers, by Paul Harding is about an old New England man who is dying. The book travels through his memories of mending and “tinkering” with the clocks that were his occupation. It is a fictional (and thus often profound) look at life and death, suffering and joy and the daily lives that people live.

Last year’s winner, Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Stout, is also about a New England family – this time in Maine. Stout has crafted a series of short stories – all taking place in and around the small town where Olive and her husband live – that are connected by common characters and outlook. This is a fine book that I, for one, could not put down, once I got into story number two.

The Pulitzer Prize web site lists all winners and many runners-up – so you have quite a few titles and kinds of works to choose from. If you choose to click on “Back to Categories list” – you can browse through ALL the categories for which a Pulitzer is awarded – Biography, Drama, History, etc., to say nothing of all the award winning newspaper stories and photography that are also the domain of the Pulitzer Prize.

Web Sites for Mystery Lovers

2010-06-02T16:28:00.000-07:00

The May 1st issue of Booklist, a library journal devoted to book reviews and recommendations, featured mysteries and included some really good recommendations for online sites for mystery readers. I thought I would share some of these with you.

The Malice Domestic site is dedicated to mysteries that are traditional and “cozy,” as the site’s subtitle “If traditional mysteries are your cup of tea…” alludes to. Malice Domestic provides all kinds of information about their annual convention (next one – April-May, 2011), but also lists all the Agatha Awards given out (since 1988) and is a fun site to just explore.

Sisters in Crime is an organization and a web site dedicated to the promotion and support of women who write mysteries. A really neat feature of Sisters in Crime is their extensive list of Mystery Bookstores and Sisters in Crime (often abbreviated SinC) author web sites. (Check under Resources in the left-hand menu.)

The Mystery Writers of America give out the annual Edgar Awards (and have done since 1946!) and their site contains information about their organization as well as a complete archive of all the winners and nominees for the Edgars.

For a site that tries to pull all of this together - listing award winners and nominees, new books, old titles and much more (over 37,000 titles) try Stop You’re Killing Me. This is a wonderful site for mystery lovers. A very unique Stop You’re Killing Me feature are the indexes. They have an historical index (find mysteries that take place in the Colonial era), a job index (find mysteries that involve an interior decorator), a location index (find mysteries that take place in New Mexico) and more.

The world of mysteries and mystery writers is huge and growing bigger by the day. Perhaps these sites (and your friendly, neighborhood librarian) can help you discover your next mystery to read and enjoy. Meg

Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel

2010-05-17T11:08:00.000-07:00

Did you read Life of Pi by Yann Martel? There was a while there when it seemed every book group was reading and discussing this very unusual book about a young boy, stranded on a raft on the ocean with a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra and a 450-pound Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. And no, this is not an allegory for Noah’s Ark, although religion (Christian, Jewish and Hindu) does figure into it.

Well, Martel has written another book, Beatrice and Virgil, and as one reviewer said “it is shocking and moving and will…launch a thousand questions.” Much as Life of Pi is and was!

It seems Martel likes to spin tales about unusual people and unusual animals - Beatrice and Virgil are a donkey and a howler monkey, and they undertake a journey together. But this is actually a novel about the Holocaust, and once again, Martel has used “an animal story to make profound points about humanity.”

There is a very good write up about Beatrice and Virgil in BookPage (May 2010). BookPage is a monthly newsletter about books and reading that is available at the library free of charge. You can also link to BookPage online. Meg

8th Annual Reading Across Rhode Island Program

2010-04-23T07:29:00.000-07:00

On Saturday May 1st over 700 people from all over Rhode Island will gather at Rhodes on the Pawtuxet to discuss the Reading Across Rhode Island 2010 selection, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, and to hear Annie Barrows, one of the co-authors speak.

This is RARI’s 8th year and the participation and excitement about this program seems to grow each time. In order to make next year’s program as successful and community-wide as possible, we need your help.

Now is the time to suggest a title for consideration as the 2011 Reading Across Rhode Island selection. The guidelines for selection are not extensive.

The Reading Across Rhode Island selection should be:

A good story, with a universal theme

Appealing to both women and men

Appropriate for a range of readers, from age 14 to senior citizens

Accessible in both language and content, and available in different formats (paperback, audiobook, etc.)

Author: alive and affordable

Over time, the titles selected should reflect diversity in content, culture and genre.

Suggesting a title for 2011 is easy. Just send an email, with the title and author (and publisher and year of publication, if you know them) to readingacrossri@provlib.org. Thanks for your help.

National Poetry Month AND National Library Week

2010-04-12T07:31:00.000-07:00

April is National Poetry Month and the week of April 12th through April 17th is National Library Week. What better way to celebrate both than with some poems about libraries! In fact, I have found two very good, very interesting poems about libraries.

Library by Valerie Worth is from the book All the Small Poems and Fourteen More.

No need even
to take out
a book: only
go inside
and savor
the heady
dry breath of
ink and paper,
or stand and
listen to the
silent twitter
of a billion
tiny busy
black words.

The second poem is entitled My First Memory (of Librarians) by author and sometime poet Nikki Giovanni. Giovanni conjures up an image of a long-ago library, with an actual card catalog and green bankers’ lights. The welcoming smile on a librarians’ face is something we hope you see at our library often!

This is my first memory:
A big room with heavy wooden tables that sat on a creaky wood floor
A line of green shades – bankers’ lights down the center
Heavy oak chairs that were too low or maybe I was simply
too short
for me to sit in and read
So my first book was always big.

In the foyer up four steps a semi-circle desk presided
To the left side the card catalogue
On the right newspapers draped over what looked like a quilt rack
Magazines face out from the wall.

The welcoming smile of my librarian
The anticipation in my heart
All those books – another world – just waiting
At my fingertips.

Come in to the library this week and help us celebrate National Library Week and National Poetry Month by picking up a book of poetry. Meg

National Poetry Month - Robert Frost

2010-04-07T16:07:00.000-07:00

One of America’s most popular poets, Robert Frost was born in San Francisco, but moved to New England when he was a boy, and many of his poems have a distinct New England flavor.

Some of his most popular and recognized poems are Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening and The Road Not Taken, but one of my favorites is a very simple, very short poem entitled Nothing Gold Can Stay.

Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Recommended books of poetry by Mr. Frost include: The Robert Frost Reader: Poetry and Prose and Early Poems.

For an introduction to the poet try these two excellent children’s books: A Swinger of Birches: Robert Frost for Young People and Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening illustrated by Susan Jeffers. Meg

National Poetry Month - A Beginning

2010-04-01T07:33:00.000-07:00

What is National Poetry Month?

“National Poetry Month is a month-long, national celebration of poetry established by the Academy of American Poets. “ Their goal is to increase everyone’s interest in the art of poetry, living poets and America’s rich cultural heritage of poems, poetry books and journals.

To start your celebration of National Poetry Month here are two really good, really accessible books of poetry that are highly recommended.

* American’s Favorite Poems, edited by Robert Pinsky and Maggie Dietz

The “favorite poem project” was started by Robert Pinksy when he was America’s Poet Laureate, and was dedicated to exploring and encouraging the importance of poetry in American lives. Americans (over 18,000 of them) from all over the country submitted their favorite poem and explained how this poem had touched them.

This book includes quite a number of those poems with an explanation of the poem’s significance to the person submitting it. There is also a wonderful web site that contains videos of people reading their selections.

* Poem a Day, edited by Laurie Sheck.

This lovely paperback contains a very wide range of poems, long and short, simple and complex, to get you started reading “a poem a day.” Sheck also includes short comments and stories about the poets and their work.

During the month of April, we will be sharing favorite poems and favorite books of poems and about poetry. Check back often. If YOU have a favorite poem, please share it with us. Meg

Spring Cleaning - Get a Book Ahead

2010-03-25T11:36:00.000-07:00

Did you know that March 28 through April 3rd is National Cleaning Week?

It's just to remind you that it is time for that spring cleaning we all hope to do. I know that sometimes Martha Stewart can be a bit overwhelming (where does she get the time to do all that stuff?), but she does have two books on cleaning and caring for your home that are excellent.

Martha Stewart’s Homekeeping Handbook (2006) is a comprehensive manual on how and when to care for various items in your home, with a room by room guide with weekly, monthly and seasonal checklists. There are also tips for cleaning and even help for folks who are moving.

Good Things for Organizing by Martha Stewart (2001) is the second book I would like to recommend. Divided up by rooms (Kitchen, Bedroom, Storage Rooms, Workrooms, etc.) this book suggests, with both text and pictures, many ways to help organize your stuff. She also includes tips for re-using household articles in new and different ways, along with “how-to” directions for simple building projects.

The library has many other books on house cleaning or de-cluttering. Come check them out. Meg

Novels with a hint of green...

2010-03-18T06:39:00.000-07:00

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! If you’re looking to get in the mood, try the following -

Lacemakers of Glenmara by Heather Barbieri
“You can always start again. All it takes is a new thread.” Kate Robinson flees from her struggling fashion career and other heartbreaks, back to her ancestral Irish homeland , seeking peace and equilibrium. Her mother’s sewing maxim about starting again becomes far more meaningful as she learns the craft of lace-making from a local group of women and finds new friends and inspiration.

Swan Maiden by Jules Watson
This is the retelling of one of the most enduring of Irish legends, the tale of Deirdre – the Irish Helen of Troy. Don’t let the science fiction label put you off. This is a romantic and tragic tale of “enchantment and eternal passions.”

The Ghosts of Belfast by Stuart Neville
The plot is unique: Fegan, who has been a IRA killer in Northern Ireland, is out of a job, so-to-speak, once peace is realized. Unfortunately for Fegan, he is now haunted by the ghosts of his innocent victims – and the only way out is for him to avenge their deaths and kill the men who had given the kill orders. Booklist says “Neville’s debut novel is tragic, violent, exciting, plausible and compelling….and hard to put down.” Meg

How Does Your Garden Grow?

2010-03-15T12:11:00.000-07:00

A gloriously green display of gardening books of all sorts greets you as you walk into the library. Come see books and other materials on vegetable gardening, composting, flower gardening and more.

Novices should try Organic Gardening for Dummies or Easy Container Gardens. Experts might want to look at Old Fashioned and David Austin Roses. There are even gardening murder mysteries, including Summer Garden Murder or Death of a Political Plant , both by Ann Ripley.

Meg

It's Written in the Bones - Reading About Forensic Science

2010-03-08T07:01:00.000-08:00

You could say that Patricia Cornwall started it all, with Dr. Kay Scarpetta. Then Kiernan O’Shaughnessy, a former medical examiner, tried her hand at detecting.

Today, television series (NCIS, Bones, etc.) and books (The Bone Garden by Tess Gerristsen, 206 Bones by Kathy Reichs, etc.) about forensics and scientific criminal invesitgation are everywhere.

But have you checked out the non-fiction? A brand new book, written by Pulitzer Prize winning science writer, Deborah Blum, is The Poisoner’s Handbook. Subtitled “Murder and the birth of forensic medicine in Jazz Age New York,” The Poisoner’s Handbook introduces us to Charles Norris, who later became New York City’s chief medical examiner, and Alexander Gettler, head toxicoligist and how they solved one of New York City’s infamous Jazz Age murders.

James Patterson, writer of numerous fictional detective stories, tries his hand at forensic anthropology with his book, The Murder of King Tut (2009). Patterson and his co-writer Martin Dugard, have sifted through stacks of evidence – X-rays, files, forensic clues – to re-tell the story of King Tut’s brief life and death.

The Gardner Heist: A True Story of the World’s Unsolved Art Theft by Ulrich Boser is an account of art detective Harold Smith’s near obsession with this major Boston art theft and what was done (or perhaps wasn’t done) to solve this crime and return some major works of art to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Meg

In Honor of President's Day - Abraham Lincoln

2010-02-24T09:08:00.000-08:00

Last year was the bicentennial celebration of Abraham Lincoln’s birth (1809-2009). Much was published about this extraordinary man who was our 16th president and presided over one of the most tumultuous periods of American history – the Civil War.

In honor of the Lincoln bicentennial and the President’s Day holiday, I highly recommend two books about Lincoln: one published a while ago (1992) and one published just recently (2008).

Lincoln at Gettysburg: the Words That Remade America by Garry Wills. This is not only a wonderful look at one of the most famous speeches Lincoln made, but also a close look at some unanticipated consequences of the Civil War, most especially the development of cemeteries and in particular the Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, MA. Garry Wills has writen many excellent histories (his latest one – Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State), but Lincoln at Gettysburg is a highly readable account that teaches the reader much about the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln and the power of the word.

Lincoln and His Admirals by Craig L. Symonds is a newer addition to the Lincoln canon, and turns the spotlight on a fairly little known aspect of Lincoln’s presidency. Lincoln, who admitted he knew little about ships, came to be the commander in chief of one of the largest national armadas in US history. Symonds traces Lincoln’s slow beginnings and then steady growth as a wartime president. If you are interested in ships, the Civil War and the history of our Navy, then this is the book for you. Meg

Dick Francis - 1920-2010

2010-02-17T07:51:00.000-08:00

Well this seems to be a bad year for mystery writers. First Robert Parker (one of my favorites) and now Dick Francis. This is truly sad.

Let me introduce you to Dick Francis, if by chance , you do not know him. Richard Stanley Francis, aka Dick Francis, was born in Wales in 1920 and was, by trade, a “champion jockey for the British royal family.” In 1957 he was forced to retire from racing due to a serious fall. It was then that he turned to his second career – that of writing detective fiction. But he did not leave horse racing behind. Unlike Robert Parker, Francis did not have a series hero (like Spenser) that kept reappearing, but he had a series theme and a character type that appeared in all of his books. The theme was – guess what – horses and horse racing. But you DO NOT have to like horses or racing to enjoy his books. In fact, a reviewer from the New York Times was quoted as saying, "Not to read Dick Francis because you don't like horses is like not reading Dostoyevsky because you don't like God."

And truth be told, our hero was not always a jockey. In the Frame is about an artist who paints horses; Whip Hand is about an ex-jockey turned detective; Proof is about a wine merchant who caters many affairs for folks involved in horse racing.

Lately Dick Francis has been co-writing books with his son, Felix Francis. Please see blog post of August 3, 2009 entitled Dick and Felix – the Odd Couple? for more details and book recommendations.

[Read an obituary for Dick Francis from the Washington Post. View a list of all of Dick Francis' books.] Meg

February is Black History Month

2010-02-09T12:08:00.000-08:00

Dr. Carter Woodson, son of former slaves and a pioneer in the study of African American history is often given the credit for establishing a time dedicated to the study of Black Americans and their role in the history and development of the United States.

In honor of Black History Month the library has set up an exhibit that contains some of the outstanding materials we offer about the history and contributions of Black Americans. The following titles are part of the display and highly recommended.

Shout, Sister, Shout: The Untold Story of Rock-and-Roll Trailblazer, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, by Gayle F. Wald is the first biography ever of a performer who influenced singers from Elvis Presley to Eric Clapton and Etta James. Tharpe sang it all: gospel, blues, jazz, folk, and rock and roll.

Freedom in My Heart: Voices from the United States National Slavery Museum is an extraordinary look at many “never-before-seen artifacts, images and documents that trace the history of slavery in North America.” [From the fly-leaf.] As Chapter One says, “The story begins in Africa,” and this book goes on from there, with pictures, documents, essays and interviews tracing a history and culture that is dynamic and enduring, despite slavery and its brutalities.

If you are trying to look into your roots – because your planning a family reunion or you are just plain interested – try Finding A Place Called Home: A Guide to African-American Genealogy and Historical Identity. Written by Dee Parmer Woodtor this book is a good starting place for constructing a family tree or just finding out what factors you need to look into when searching for your kin.

"No matter how far a person can go the horizon is still way beyond you."

Zora Neale Hurston

Zora Neale Hurston is a black writer of incredible talent. Hurston’s most famous novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, is about Janie Crawford, a young, Black woman in the 1930’s, determined to be her own person. In addition to reading her fiction, I highly recommend Zora’s Roots, a PBS DVD based on the life of Zora Neale Hurston. I also recommend you come in and check out the display, which will be up all through the month of February. Meg

J. D. Salinger - 1919 -2010

2010-01-29T06:30:00.000-08:00

J. D. Salinger began his writing career with short stories, contributing mainly to The New Yorker Magazine. Two of his most famous short stories that appeared in that magazine were A Perfect Day for Banafish (1948), the story of a suicidal war veteran, and For Esme With Love and Squalor (1950).

But it was with the publication of A Catcher in the Rye (1951)that Salinger received major critical and popular attention. A Catcher in the Rye has been said to be reminiscent of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in a setting of modern angst and rebellion. Holden Caulfield, our “hero,” is an adolescent boarding school student attempting to run away from what he considers a phony adult world. For many who read this book, it became the quintessential story of teenage confusion and unrest. From the very first sentence we know we are in a world of loneliness and brutal honesty.

“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.”

Franny and Zooey, two longer short stories about the Glass Family, was published in 1955.

After a relatively small literary output, Salinger retired to New Hampshire where he lived in virtual seclusion, never being photographed or interviewed for over 50 years. Salinger died of natural causes, at the age of 91. Meg

[For more details read Salinger’s New York Times’ obituary and also some more extensive New York Times and Wikipedia articles. The story of a fascinating impromptu encounter with J. D. Salinger by a fan is related on NPR. ]

Robert B. Parker - 1932 - 2010

2010-01-21T05:56:00.000-08:00

Robert B. Parker was one of my favorites. His detective series about Spenser (with an "s") was a true classic of the genre and he went on to write two other series, one starring Sunny Randall (another Boston P.I.) and one starring Jesse Stone (a police chief in a small Massachusetts town). Parker even wrote westerns!

But the star of his writing pantheon was Spenser. The first Spenser novel, The Godwulf Manuscript (1973) was written when he was still teaching at a university in Boston, and is about Spenser's efforts to retrieve a manuscript that was stolen from a unversity library. He went on to write 37 more titles in the Spenser series. My favorites, and ones that I highly recommend, are: Mortal Stakes (about the Boston Red Sox), Looking for Rachel Wallace (about a Lesbian author that Spenser is hired to protect) and A Catskill Eagle (Susan is in trouble and Spenser and Hawk spring to the rescue).

Parker did not always craft the most enduring of plots, but a visit with Spenser, Hawk and Susan was like a visit with old and dear friends - always enjoyable and remarkably entertaining.

Parker died of a heart attack, sitting at his writing desk working on his next novel - literally with his "writing boots on." He gave me hours of pleasant and thoughtful entertainment. He will be sorely missed. Meg

[For more details, read Parker's obituaruies in the New York Times and the Boston Globe. For a really interesting blog post AND an incredibly comprehensive list of tributes and information about Mr. Parker see Sarah Weinman's blog, Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind.]

Tuesday Book Group Kicks off the Big Read

2010-01-12T13:22:00.000-08:00

The Tuesday Book Group unofficially kicked off the Big Read this week when we discussed Newport’s Big Read title, The Great Gatsby. Thanks to the increased exposure, we had several newcomers and were happy to hear new voices. We had wide-ranging questions and comments about the book. Most of us praised the Fitzgerald’s writing style and structure while remaining rather critical of the characters. One person described the novel as “seductive,” while another commented, “there is not a character in this book I would want to have over for a drink.”

We found many reasons to call the novel a masterpiece: its themes are timeless, its symbolism rich, its plot compelling (at least in the second half), and its characters, if unlikeable, are true to life. We talked a lot about social classes and groups, the cultural disconnect that still exists between the USA’s East Coast and Midwest, and the changes Fitzgerald was observing in ‘20s America.

We debated Gatsby as a tragic hero: is he a great person with a tragic flaw? Is he sympathetic at all? Are any of the characters sympathetic, for that matter? Was Daisy even worth all the fuss? Like most readers of the novel, we also talked a bit about T.J. Eckleburg’s eyes, the symbolism of the valley of ashes and the meaning of that green light.

Join us next month (1pm February 9^th in the Stride Room) when we pair The Great Gatsby with Chris Bohjalian’s The Double Bind. Instead of rewriting the story of Fitzgerald’s classic, Bohjalian does something quite different: he sets his own story in the same fictional universe as The Great Gatsby. The heroine of The Double Bind, for example, spent her childhood swimming at a country club in West Egg that was once Gatsby’s mansion!

Modern Mystery Masters - Sara Paretsky

2010-01-04T11:44:00.001-08:00

Author: Sara Paretsky

Detective: V. I. (Victoria Iphigenia) Warshawski

Locale: primarily Chicago

First book: Indemnity Only (1982)
Latest book: Hardball (2009)

Other writings: Windy City Blues (short stories), Bleeding Kansas and Ghost Country (single novels) and Writing in an Age of Silence (non-fiction).

Sometimes it is hard to like V. I. Warshawski. She can be stubborn, self-righteous, swift to anger, with a knack of alienating even her closest friends. And for a time I stopped reading Paretsky’s books because all I wanted to do was give V. I. a swift kick.

But her latest effort, Hardball (2009), is really, really good and I can heartily recommend it. The case starts out as a missing persons investigation - V. I. is hired to find the missing son and nephew of two elderly sisters currently living out their days in an Assisted Living/Nursing Home.

The case gets quickly more and more complicated, however, and we are eventually drawn into the history of the Chicago race riots of the 1960s. Murder, police brutality, false confessions and civil rights violations (both then AND now) take center stage and Vic’s investigation comes a bit too close to home for anyone's comfort.

About the author: Sara Paretsky was born in Iowa and raised in Kansas, so naturally Paretsky’s detective fiction takes place in Chicago (primary the South Side) and stars V. I. Warshawski, a sharp-tongued, uncomfortably honest and incredibly stubborn private investigator whose family ties and work ethic complicate an already complicated career.

Paretsky is a member of Sisters in Crime and is devoted to improving the image of women in detective fiction as well as in real life. In a recent interview Paretsky admitted that ,”I’ve not been able to change the world. I’ve not been able to liberate myself, let alone 3 billion other women. Add that to the state of publishing and the fact that books may not actually exist in another five years, and I just want to lie down and pull leaves over my head.” [Interview in Mystery Scene, Holiday 2009] Meg

Looking Back on the Decade

2009-12-29T12:14:00.000-08:00

Doesn’t that sound incredible, but we are coming to the end of the first decade of the 21st century. There are all kinds of sites online that are lining up to list what they consider the best or most worthy book titles written during the past ten years.

The Times Online lists their 100 choices, with Cormac McCarthy’s The Road taking first place.

Good Reads took a reader’s poll and came up with their own list. The first five places went to The Time Travellers Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling, Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, Twilight by Stephanie Meyer, and A Thousand Splendid Suns, also by Khaled Hosseini.

Salon.com chose a few different titles than most lists. Their top fiction and non-fiction titles were The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers.

Amazon.com makes a stab at the best books and includes The Life of Pi (“a boy stuck on a raft with a large Bengal tiger) by Yann Martel, John Adams by David McCullough, and the Harry Potter series.

I can think of several titles that were personal favorites of mine. I thoroughly enjoyed the entire Harry Potter series and the Deathly Hallows was a fitting finale for a series that may have changed the world of children’s book publishing forever.

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion said much to me personally about grief and loss and living the life you have been given to the fullest. I am not a Joan Didion afficianado, but this title was truly a work of magic. I also really loved The Ice Queen by Alice Hoffman, The Knitting Circle by Ann Hood and Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi.

As you probably realized, I love a good mystery and recently I discovered two series that were excellent: the Julia Spencer-Fleming series with the Reverend Clare Ferguson and Chief of Police Russ Van Alstyne and Steig Larssen's soon-to-be trilogy about Lisbeth Salander.

So, looking back on what you have read over the past ten years, what are your favorites? What do you think influenced you the most, or was the most meaningful? Meg

An Old Fashioned Christmas Mystery – The Finishing Stroke by Ellery Queen

2009-12-15T12:29:00.000-08:00

I started reading mysteries when I was a very young child. Having gone through all of the library’s Nancy Drew’s and Trixie Belden’s, I would sneak over to the adult side and revel in the wonderful detective writers they had over there, including Agatha Christie, Erle Stanley Gardner and my favorite, Ellery Queen. I know he’s old fashioned, but I learned much of my adult vocabulary from his writing (“There was not a scintilla of evidence…”) and his mysteries almost always included a formal “Challenge to the Reader” to solve the mystery that I was eager to accept.

Among my favorite titles from the pen of Ellery Queen is The Finishing Stroke, a brilliant and complicated mystery set during the 12 days of Christmas in an old mansion in upstate New York in the middle of a raging blizzard. Ellery has been invited to spend the holidays, along with 12 other guests, at the home of Arthur B. Craig, a wealthy publisher. Other guests include Ellery’s friend John Sebastian, his cousin, Ellen Craig, his fiancé, Rusty Brown and her somewhat eccentric mother, Mrs. Brown, who is deeply into astrology, John’s friends Marius Carlo and Valentina Warren, Dr. Sam Dark, the family physician, Roland Payne, the family attorney, Dan Z. Freeman, publisher and the Reverend Mr. Gardiner, an Episcopal priest.

And thus the scene is set for a happy holiday gathering – or not. On the first evening a present is found under the Christmas tree. The small, wrapped box contains a carved ox, an unfinished doll’s house, and a tiny camel. The accompanying card reads “On the first night of Christmas your true love sends to you, a sandalwood ox in a holiday box, An unfinished house for the soon-to-be-spouse, A grey and white camel with skin of enamel.” Not exactly threatening, but anonymous and mysterious nonetheless.

Ellery, who has a reputation for being somewhat of a sleuth, is asked to look into the matter and the game’s afoot. Because the card is based on the song The Twelve Days of Christmas, no one is surprised when the puzzling gifts keep on appearing. And then Santa and a dead body turn up. The solution is a bit esoteric, but really clever and the atmosphere of the holidays and the snow and the isolation make for a perfect winter holiday mystery.

Note about the author(s): Ellery Queen is the pseudonym (and the main character) of two American writers, Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee. Together they wrote over 30 detective novels starring Ellery as well as mystery anthologies and true crime essays. They co-founded and edited The Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, which is still publishing today. Meg

The Gift of Holiday Reading

2009-12-02T13:41:00.000-08:00

Books are always a good holiday gift. The smell of a brand new book - the anticipation when opening a book cover for the first time – books are truly the gift that keeps on giving. Here are some recommendations for new books to give this holiday season that are truly in the holiday spirit.

Knit the Season by Kate Jacobs. This novel is a heart-warming sequel to the Friday Night Knitting Club and offers more information about Georgia, founder of the Walker and Daughter Knitting Shop. If you want a book about friendship, love and the holiday season this is a good choice. If you are giving it to a knitter, this is a perfect choice

Tinsel: A Search for America’s Christmas Present by Hank Stuever takes a look at what Christmas has become in several selected American communities. On his way to describing what is now a “half-trillion-dollar holiday” and how this compares to the ancient rituals where it started, Stuever finds warmth, incredible excess, commerciality and humor. A very seasonal read.

Stone s Into Schools by Greg Mortenson picks up where Three Cups of Tea left off as we follow Mr. Mortenson in his continuing quest to establish schools for girls in Afghanistan. Surely Mortensen’s goal to spread education and peace on earth is in the spirit of the holidays.

And finally, two books on a similar theme….gratitude. Whether Sarah Ban Breathnach in her book Simple Abundance or Oprah Winfrey on her TV show originated the gratitude journal, it is a tool that has become popular. And now the whole concept of gratitude and what an appreciation of life’s blessings can bring is capturing the attention of even more authors.

The Gift of Thanks: Roots and Rituals of Gratitude by Margaret Visser presents an in depth study of what it means for humanity to be truly thankful. Publisher’s Weekly calls Vissner’s title a “delightful and graceful gift of a book, for which any fortunate recipient will be thankful.”

Nina Lesowitz and Mary Beth Sammons have written Living Life as a Thank You: T h e Transformative Power of Daily Gratitude. Living as if each day is a thank-you can help transform fear into courage, anger into forgiveness, isolation into belonging. There is even a chapter entitled “Ways to Stay Thankful in Difficult Times” – certainly a timely thought. Meg

And the Winners Are....

2009-11-24T08:02:00.001-08:00

On Tuesday November 17th at a black-tie dinner at Cipriani Wall Street (New York City) Andy Borowitz, writer and comic, announced the winners of this year’s National Book Awards.

This year’s winner for fiction is Colum McGann, author of Let the Great World Spin, a novel created around Phillippe Petit’s intrepid tightrope walk between the World Trade Center towers, but focusing on life in New York City in the 1970s. McCann’s work has been called “dazzling and hauntingly rich.”

The non-fiction winner is T. J. Stiles for his biograpy of Cornelius Vanderbilt entitled The First Tycoon.

Poetry winner was Keith Waldrop for Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy. For those of you who do not know, Mr. Waldrop is from Providence, RI. He has written over 15 books of poetry. He is also an actor, director and publisher. The young people’s literature award went to Phillip Hoose for Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice.

For a list of all the finalists and winners plus links to interviews check out the National Book Foundation site. Meg

Library Loot

2009-11-17T11:24:00.000-08:00

Many book bloggers do a regular post called “library loot” wherein they list all the stuff they have recently got out from their local library. Here’s my list, as of today:

Fiction –
Wolves Eat Dogs by Martin Cruz Smith. Smith is the author who wrote Gorky Park, one of my all time favorite mysteries and Wolves Eat Dogs was recommended to me as a title that was just as good. Smith has the ability to craft a respectable story and place it in squarely and masterfully in the dark and unstable context of modern Russia. This story is partially set in Chernobyl – a truly surreal but real and tragic backdrop.

Kindred in Death by J. D. Robb. Robb (aka Nora Roberts) is one of the author’s I pick up whenever she writes anything. Her Lt. Dallas series is always a fascinating read and a pleasant and often exciting visit with characters she has created over the series’ 35 or so titles.

Non-Fiction –
After the Prophet by Leslie Hazelton. After the Prophet is sub-titled “the epic story of the Shia-Sunni split in Islam” and is a very well written telling of the story of the death of Mohammed and the struggle for his succession – a struggle the whole world is still embroiled in today.

A Church of Her Own by Sarah Sentilles – Sentilles tells the tale of women priests and their efforts to be recognized, valued and successful in their chosen profession. Sentilles can be a bit strident at times, but she is at her best when recounting the personal journeys of the many women ministers she met and interviewed.

AudioCD –

Empire Falls by Richard Russo, read by Ron McLarty – Another recommendation from a friend, I have not begun this book yet, but Richard Russo is a very popular and talented author and I love hearing to Ron McLarty narrate an audiobook. I am looking forward to listening.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling, read by Jim Dale – Even if you have read all the Harry Potter books, you deserve giving yourself the treat of listening to Jim Dale become the characters in Rowling’s books. She was very lucky to have him narrate all her Harry Potter books, and if you have not listened in, you have a treat in store. Meg

World War I Classics

2009-11-06T07:13:00.000-08:00

November 11, 2009 , the 11th day of the 11th month, is the 91st anniversary of the armistice that ended The Great War (World War I). Referred to often as “the war to end all wars,” (unfortunately we now know this to be a bit optimistic) the books written to help men and women come to grips with and attempt to understand the horror – trenches, barbed wire, mud – loss and death that were a part of that (and all) wars are still classics and worthy to be read. Here are four recommended titles.

All Quiet on the Western Front , a novel by Erich Maria Remarque, was published in 1929, and was the author’s way of coming to terms with the war and his participation in it. The war in the trenches as described from the German viewpoint vividly demonstrates that the tragedy and horror of war has no nationality.

“We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces. The first bomb, the first explosion, burst in our hearts. We are cut off from activity, from striving, from progress. We believe in such things no longer, we believe in war.” Chapter 5 – AQotWF

A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway, was also published in 1929. It is the unforgettable story of an American ambulance driver on the Italian front and his love for a beautiful English nurse. The love affair between Lt. Henry and Catherine Barkley is set amidst the inexorable sweep of war and battle.

Three Soldiers (1921) by John Dos Passos is one of the key American war novels of the First World War, and remains a classic of the realist war novel genre. In a letter to a friend written in 1918, Dos Passos says “[War], no matter where, consisted of boredom, slavery to all sorts of military stupidities.…It was no more than an enormous, tragic digression in people’s lives which brought death to the intellect, to art, to everything that mattered.” These are the themes that run through Three Soldiers, a book that still stands as a testament to the dehumanizing effects of war.

A Son at the Front by Edith Wharton (1922) conveys the initial excitement of war and the subsequent disillusionment, boredom and manipulation occuring away from the front lines. Wharton explores the effect of war on those left behind with her customary powerful prose. Meg

Horror Classics Reworked - Readings for the Season

2009-10-29T07:11:00.000-07:00

Halloween has been growing in popularity and extravagance for quite a while now. Costume parties are held; homes are strewn with orange lights and scary creatures; everyone looks forward to a fine and scary time. Maybe it’s because we all like a good scare? Whatever the reason, and just in time for this creepy season, three different authors have produced re-worked versions of some truly unsettling horror classics.

Professor Charles Robinson (professor of English at the University of Delaware), has gone back to the earliest surviving manuscript of Mary Shelley’s work and produced two “new” versions of Frankenstein, the story of a created monster gone horribly wrong. In this new edition, you get to “hear” Mary Shelley’s young voice and can even see what additions and changes were suggested by her husband, Percy Shelley.

Peter Ackroyd is also dealing with Frankenstein’s monster in his new book The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein. This brilliantly imagined novel is written (purportedly) by Dr. Frankenstein himself and Mary Shelley and Percy B. Shelley are characters in the novel. Publisher’s Weekly calls Ackroyd’s novel a “brilliant riff on ideas that have informed literary, horror and science fiction for nearly two centuries.”

The Vampire Archives, edited by Otto Penzler, is the biggest, “undeadliest” collection of vampire stories ever (weighing in at 1056 pages!), with an accompanying comprehensive bibliography of vampire fiction. As the blurb on the cover says, The Vampire Archives is “dark, stormy, and delicious. Once it sinks its teeth into you there’s no escape.” Meg

[This post is based on an article in BookPage by Michael Alec Rose.]

National Book Awards 2009

2009-10-21T17:11:00.000-07:00

The National Book Award finalists for 2009 were just announced last week. The NBA is an award given yearly to writers by writers. Awards are given in 4 categories: fiction, non-fiction, poetry and young people’s literature. The first award was presented in 1950.

Works are submitted for consideration by publishers: judges are selected (five in each category): finalists are annouced. This year over 193 publishers submitted 1,129 books for consideration. There were 236 fiction titles, 481 nonfiction titles, 161 works of poetry and 251 titles of literature for young people.

Fiction finalists are: American Salvage by Bonnie Jo Campbell; Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann; In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin; Lark and Termite by Jayne Anne Phillips and Far North by Marcel Theroux. (For a list of finalists in all four catergories and a list of the judges, check out the National Book Awards website.)

The winners will be announced at the 60th annual National Book Awards Benefit Dinner and Ceremony, which will take place at Cipriani on Wall Street in New York City on November 18th. Cipriani’s is a famous New York landmark and venue for events. The Master of Ceremonies for the awards banquet will be Andy Borowitz, author, comedian, satirist and film actor. Meg

Harlequin turns 60!

2009-10-14T13:16:00.001-07:00

Let me tell you a story…or, how a small Canadian publishing company became one of the world’s most renowned publisher of romance novels.

Harlequin Enterprises was founded in Toronto, Canada in 1949 and began publishing reprints of British novels for Americans, including detective stories by Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle.

Mills and Boon was a British company founded in 1908 by Charles Boon and Gerald Mills. They began by publishing British authors, such as P. F. Wodehouse, but soon discovered there was a need for books written “for women, by women, from a woman’s perspective.” These types of books (or genre) were to become incredibly popular during the Great Depression when women needed something to make their lives a bit more bearable.

In 1957 Harlequin took over the rights to publish romance novels originally published by Mills and Boon. Harlequin would re-edit these romances for the American market, making them a bit more “racy” than their British counterparts. And Harlequin continued to re-issue British titles until in 1975 they published their first American author who wrote “about American characters for an American audience.” This author was Janet Dailey.

Today Harlequin, one of the largest publishers of romance novels and series, encompasses many divisions including Silhouette, Spice, Mira, Steeple Hill, Red Dress Ink and Luna. All of these divisions publish different flavors of romance for a total publishing record of over 500 titles per month.

The library has a large paperback Romance novel collection and many of these titles are published by Harlequin or one of its divisions. Some titles include:

Moonstruck by Susan Grant (a HQN paranormal romance)
An Accidental Hero by Loree Lough (a Steeple Hill inspirational romance)
Dying for You by Beverly Barton (a HQN romantic suspense title)
The Italian by Elaine Coffman (a Mira historical romance). Meg

Take the Reader's Choice Survey - Tell Us What You Read

2009-09-29T07:45:00.000-07:00

Two posts ago I told you about the Tuesday Afternoon Book Discussion Group and the Thursday Evening Book Discussion Group at the library and what they are planning to read this year.

Last week I told you about books that the library staff is currently reading.

This week we would like to know what you like to read. Please do us a big favor and take our Reader’s Choice Survey. There are only 7 questions. It should only take you 2-3 minutes to respond.

We at the library would really love to hear from you.

Thank you. Meg

What is the Library Staff Reading Now?

2009-09-21T06:08:00.001-07:00

Although there is much more to being a librarian than reading books, many of the library staff do enjoy reading and spend some of their spare time devoted to this very pleasant pastime. In case you were curious, here is a brief description of what some of the library staff is reading now.

Deborah J., our secretary, says, “I’m currently listening to a playaway – Dog Days: Dispatches from Bedlam Farm by John Katz, a public radio talk show host who decided to buy and work a farm in upstate New York. Great story for animal lovers and those who want to embrace their inner farm girl/boy.”

Mary B., Bookmobile Librarian, is reading House of Cards by William Cohan, a minute-by-minute look at the last hours of Bear Stearns. “We just ‘celebrated’ the one year anniversary of the Wall Street meltdown, and you don’t have to be an investor to read and cringe at what is described in Cohan’s book.” Mary is also reading Renegade by Richard Wolfe – a description of Wolfe’s 2-year journey with Barack Obama on the campaign trail.

The Children’s Department staff is busy reading, too. Cathy A. just finished Lost by Jacqueline Davies. This young adult novel set in New York in 1911 is a fictional account of the tragic Triangle Factory fire that killed hundreds of factory workers. What makes this book interesting is its inclusion of another real-life event, the disappearance of New York heiress Dorothy Arnold.

Because Diane G. (also of the Children’s Department) enjoyed reading The Last Dickens, she decided to give Matthew Perl’s other novel, The Poe Shadow, a try. Both books are inspired by real-life authors and have a “sense of the literary.” She is also juggling Golfing with God by Roland Merullo (author of Breakfast with Buddha) and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Ruth D. just finished Tracy Kidder’s Strength in What Remains about the life of Burudian refugee, Deo, and his struggle as a non-English speaking immigrant in New York City. “The horror of the Rwandan and Burudian genocides are painstakingly illustrated, but this one lucky and gifted man managed to survive and ultimately return to Burundi to help his homeland.”

One of our Young Adult librarians, Becky F. is seriously into the Stephanie Meyer’s vampire series. Becky just finished Breaking Dawn (book #4) and feels that the books are more romantic than they are scary. Which is a good thing, because as a child, the thought of vampires terrified her! She is also in the middle of reading Deadline by Chris Crutcher. This is the story of Ben, given one year to live, who decides to live out his remaining time to the fullest – and not tell anyone he is sick.

Gail S. from the Reference Dept. is reading Walking People by Mary Beth Keane. She says this is a well written novel about a very poor Irish family in 1940’s Ballyroan, Ireland. Other books on her book shelf include The Art of Civilized Conversation by Margaret Shepherd and Time and Tide by Frank Conroy.

As for me, I am busily reading the short of list titles for next year’s Reading Across Rhode Island program, and I succumbed to all the hype and am also reading Dan Brown’s latest, The Lost Symbol. I’ll let you know what I think once I finish. Meg

Join a Book Discussion Group at NPL

2009-09-15T06:45:00.000-07:00

Do you belong to a book group? What was the best book your group ever read? The worst? Tell us a little bit about what you think makes a good book group. Would you like to be part of a Book Discussion group? The library has two really active Book Discussion Groups and they are both starting up again this fall.

The Thursday Evening Book Discussion Group begins this Thursday, September 17th, at 7pm in the Stride Room (lower floor of the library). The book they are going to discuss is The Girls by Lori Lansens. This is a novel about conjoined twins, and their lives together as they strive to be both sisters and individuals. Anyone who has read the book is welcome to attend.

After Thursday’s meeting, the list of book titles for the rest of the year will be decided. Stay tuned! If you have questions or want more details, email or call (847-8720, Ext. 103) Pat LaRose.

The Tuesday Afternoon Book Discussion Group alternates between reading classics and more modern works, often based loosely on a classic counterpart. Their first meeting was last week, September 8th, but they meet monthly and anyone is welcome to join. Their next meeting will be Tuesday, October 13th, from 1-3pm in the Stride Room. The book to be discussed in October is Foe by J. M. Coetzee. Foe is a reinvention of the story of Robinson Crusoe If you have questions or want more details, email or call (847-8720, Ext. 208) Luke Owens. Meg

Tennis, anyone?

2009-09-08T09:24:00.000-07:00

The US Open Tennis Championship began last week and I, for one, am hooked watching. I love the fact that they are televising some really good matches during prime time and I try to check in during the afternoons every chance I get.

There have been some outstanding books published recently about tennis and great tennis players and I wanted to recommend a few.

On the Line by Serena Williams is just out. Serena is one of the world’s best women players and quite an interesting character. She and her sister (Venus) burst on the tennis scene in the 1990’s and have been vying for a first and second place ranking ever since. Novelist Plus says “The Grand Slam and Olympic champion traces her rise from a disadvantaged childhood to one of the world’s top tennis players, discussing her battles with racism, the injuries that threatened her career, and her current roles as a philanthropist and media personality.”

Strokes of Genius by L. Jon Wertheim is subtitled Federer, Nadal and the Greatest Match Ever Played and is about the 2008 men’s final at Wimbledon (England).The author calls this match” essentially a four-hour, forty-eight-minute infomercial for everything that is right about tennis.”

Monica Seles has written Getting a Grip. Seles was attacked and stabbed by a crazed spectator in the middle of a quarterfinal match in Germany in 1993. This memoir details her struggle to find her way back to professional tennis.

And finally, A Terrible Splendor: Three Extraordinary Men, a World Poised for War, and the Greatest Tennis Match Ever Played by Marshall Jon Fisher is about the 1937 Davis Cup competition held as the world was on the brink of war. Meg

Reading Across Rhode Island and The Lost City of Z

2009-08-31T11:50:00.000-07:00

The Lost City of Z by David Grann

It is hard to imagine a time when explorers – people who went on long, dangerous journeys to as yet undiscovered places, were really famous, looked on as celebrities and whose exploits were reported in all the news media of the day.

“No Olympic games contender was ever trained down to a finer edge than these three reserved, matter-of-fact Englishmen, whose pathway to a forgotten world is beset by arrows, pestilence and wild beasts.”
[Los Angeles Times, 1925]

That’s the kind of notoriety that Percy Harrison Fawcett, explorer extraordinary, and other adventurers of the early 1900’s received. These were the days of T. E. Lawrence, Teddy Roosevelt, Shackleton, etc. Exploration was also of vital concern because there were really still places to explore - places that no one had ever gone before – where no one had mapped accurately.

The main story is of Fawcett, his mania for exploring the Amazon and his last expedition in search of the lost city of Z, aka El Dorado. Collected around the tale of Fawcett’s 1924 doomed expedition is the story of David Grann, a writer for the New Yorker magazine - a city-dweller who had never even gone camping before - and his attempt to follow in Fawcett’s footsteps, find the bones (literally) of the explorer – and maybe even the lost city itself.

This is not a tale for the faint-hearted. The living creatures, both big and small, that populate the Amazon jungle (or at least did in the 1920s) are directly out of your worst science fiction nightmare. That anyone would freely choose to enter into this arena of crawling beasts, starvation, disease and dangerous populations is beyond me. But it is still fascinating to read about what these men (and there were many Amazon expeditions, several to find Fawcett) attempted.

I will not reveal whether Grann actually found Fawcett or the lost city. Pick the book up and become an explorer yourself! Meg

Always Look Over Your Shoulder - Conspiracy Thrillers

2009-08-17T07:07:00.000-07:00

When I think conspiracy thriller I think of two things almost immediately: 1) the television show X-Files, wherein FBI agents Mulder and Scully did their best to investigate and prove the existance of one of the largest conspiracies imaginable (i.e., aliens had landed and were even now engaged in a gigantic effort to take over earth) and 2) Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code – wherein conspiracies perpetrated through the ages by certain societies within the Catholic Church kept secret the true nature (and number?) of Jesus’ apostles.

Our friendly neighborhood Wiki article defines the conspiracy thriller as a book “in which the hero/heroine confronts a large, powerful group of enemies whose true extent only he/she recognizes.” They give as prime examples the works of Robert Ludlum, and I would especially recommend the titles about Jason Bourne, recently made into movies – The Bourne Identity; The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum. These are excellent books and full of double crosses, covert agencies and everything you could want from a conspiracy thriller.

David Baldacci has written a series of books that could be considered conspiracy thrillers. This series begins with The Camel Club, and follows (in reading order) with The Collectors, Stone Cold and Divine Justice.

And finally, a book I would like to recommend that I just recently read is The Eight by Katherine Neville. The Eight features a exceptionally complex plot focusing on action in two distinct time periods. To quote from a review, “A young novice, during the French Revolution, risks her life to preserve a jeweled chess set that the Moors gave Charlemagne, and in the 20th century, a computer expert and a chess master try to solve its mystery.” There is a sequel – entitled The Fire – that follows one of our protaganists, Alexandra Solarin, as she tries to solve, once again, the mystery of the Charlemagne chess service.

If you have any favorite conspiracy thrillers that you would like to share with us, please do so. Meg

[By the way – one of the best conspiracy thriller movies I have ever watched is Sneakers, starring Robert Redford, Dan Ackroyd and River Phoenix. It has been called the “last great hacking movie” and it is quite the ride – even if it was produced in 1992.]

An Armchair Visit to Cape Cod

2009-08-13T12:22:00.000-07:00

Cape Cod – the “bared and bended arm of Massachusetts. The shoulder is at Buzzard’s Bay; the elbow, or crazy bone, at Cape Mallebarre; the wrist at Truro; and the sandy fist at Provincetown.” H. D. Thoreau

Do you like to read travel memoirs? Or books by folks who live in a certain area and want to share a love of their surroundings with you? Here are a group of titles about our near-by Massachusetts neighbor, Cape Cod. If you have never been there, used to go there as a child, or just like to be an “armchair” traveler, these books should give you a sense of the Cape and its culture. Two picture books begin our list.

Cape Cod National Seashore by Andrew Borsari
This is a small book, recently published that presents full color photographs of the national treasure that is Cape Cod accompanied by literary quotations. A little gem.
Thoreau’s Cape Cod (with early photographs of Herbert W. Gleason) is based on Henry David Thoreau’s long essay on Cape Cod and is illustrated with some fascinating, early black and white photographs.

Special Places On Cape Cod and the Islands by Robert Finch has very few photographs, but contains some wonderful essays about some very unique Cape Cod locales.

For those of you who really want to really dig deep, The Enduring Shore: A History of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket by Paul Schneider is a thoroughly researched and complete history of the entire area.

And to conclude, two titles that are more memoir than travel guide -
The Salt House: A Summer on the Dunes of Cape Cod by Cynthia Huntington tells of the special feeling the author has for her small, unique “house,” and
A Walk on the Beach by Joan Anderson is more about the feelings of peace and satisfaction two women found by simply walking on the beach together.

Henry David Thoreau said it best, “a man may stand there and put all America behind him.”

Dick and Felix - the odd couple?

2009-08-03T07:27:00.000-07:00

I am not one of those people who are in love with horses. I did not grow up loving them. I did not grow up wanting to read about them. Horses are just not my cup of tea (or bucket of oats) or whatever. But I really must confess I love a Dick Francis mystery.

I was reluctant to even try one at first – for the above mentioned reasons. But Francis’ mysteries – although set firmly in the horse-racing milieu in England (for the most part) are not just about horses and horse racing but about all aspects of this interesting and unusual world. And his books are peopled with characters that I often come to admire and respect and villains that are just plain bad.

One of my favorite titles is In the Frame which is actually about a gentleman, Charles Todd, who paints horses. Some of this book takes place in Australia at one of the biggest races there, the Melbourne Cup. There is one memorable passage wherein Todd is trying to distract some thugs who have arrived at the hotel room of his friends and the only thing he can think to do is send everyone from every service imaginable at the hotel to his friends’ rooms – room service, the maids, the chauffeurs, the hairdressers, the barbers – whatever – and as all these curious hotel workers arrive at the room Todd manages to smuggle his friends out. It is riotous: I laughed till I cried.

Other good titles include: Whip Hand (about Sid Halley, jockey turned detective); Proof (with Tony Beach, a wine merchant who caters racing parties); and Risk (with Roland Britten, an accountant).

As Mr. Dick Francis ages (born in 1920, he is currently 89 years young) he has enlisted the help of his son, Felix, as co-writer. Felix is a former teacher (of physics!) and onetime researcher for his father’s books. Now they are writing in collaboration and the two titles they have produced thus far, Dead Heat and Silks, have been just as popular and just as fascinating as previous titles. Check out their web site for more information on this collaboration and on both of them.

Their new title in collaboration, Even Money, about bookmaker and amateur investigator Ed Talbot, is due out this month.

Reading Across Rhode Island and Life As We Knew It

2009-07-27T09:01:00.000-07:00

These days much of my reading is focused on the long list of possible titles for Reading Across Rhode Island 2010 – the Rhode Island Center for the Book’s state-wide community read program.

So far I have read (or listened to): Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer and The Autobiography of God by Julius Lester. I am in the middle of reading The Lost City of Z by David Grann and The Radioactive Boy Scout by Ken Silverstein. I plan to report on most of these titles as I finish reading.

Life As We Knew It is basically a book for young adults, but an interesting read nonetheless. Miranda and her family (Mom and two brothers, Matt and Johnny), are caught in a futuristic dilemma: an asteroid has crashed into earth’s moon and actually knocked it off its trajectory. This altered course causes multiple tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes and all the attendant weather problems. Food lines dry up; water runs out; the climate changes drastically; modern communications are a thing of the past. (Reading this book shortly after a large, mystery object actually crashed into Jupiter was a bit disconcerting. I called the book futuristic, but sometimes the future can be too close to reality for comfort.)

Miranda’s family is forced into survival mode and seeing how they cope (and sometimes fail to cope) was remarkable enough to keep me reading. At first getting ready for the what might happen seems like a gigantic wilderness adventure. Miranda does not see the need for half of the precautions her mother insists upon. But it soon becomes apparent that it is only due to her mom’s foresight that the family is able to survive.

Sacrifice, strict planning and rationing, hard work and most important the love, concern and respect that the family has for each other are also what keeps them alive and almost flourishing. One of the themes of the book is the value of living every day to the fullest, and that is certainly a philosophy everyone, young adult, adult, senior – can take to heart. Meg

Thrillers for the Times - the Techno-thriller

2009-07-20T07:42:00.000-07:00

That same Wiki article (entitled Thrillers) that I mentioned in the first post about Medical Thrillers defines the Techno-Thriller as a work “that usually focuses upon military action, in which technology (usually military technology) is described in detail and made essential to the reader’s understanding of the plot.” This article calls Tom Clancy the "father of the Technothriller" and the Hunt for Red October as the work which defined the genre.

I confess I am not “thrilled” with this definition. It seems to me too narrow and leaves out a whole host of other works I would have considered a techno-thriller. So – going back to our online search, I picked up a few other definitions that are briefer but more accurate.

Our friends at Merriam-Webster simply state that a techno-thriller is a thriller that relies on technology. Seems rather straightforward. But then I discovered another (separate) Wiki article entitled Techno-Thriller that did a much better job than the first article I quoted. Techno-thrillers, according to this Wiki article, are a “hybrid genre, drawing subject matter generally from spy thrillers, war novels and science fiction.” I suggest reading the entire entry, as it is very interesting. But I want to get on to recommending authors.

Read the Hunt for Red October if you haven’t read it already. The movie, starring Sean Connery, was excellent, but the book is brilliant. And as long as we are talking about the military side of Techno-thrillers, I also recommend Nimitz Class by Patrick Robinson. He writes about the near-future Navy and the technology that keeps the shores of the US safe. But his characters (do check out Admiral Morgan) are a treat and his plots are always multifaceted and intriguing.

Dan Brown is more famous for his religious thriller, The Da Vinci Code, but his earlier works, especially Digital Fortress and Deception Point are also edge-of-the-seat techno-thriller reading.

And just for fun – and to honor Michael Crichton, who just recently passed away - pick up The Andromeda Strain. Written in 1969 this is a story about an deadly alien germ that causes havoc and death in a small town in Arizona. Crichton was way ahead of his time with the kinds of dilemmas he envisioned, and even though a bit dated, Andromeda Strain is still frightening today. Meg

Adult Summer Reading is here!

2009-07-16T10:07:00.000-07:00

Summer reading isn't just for kids! Don't miss your chance to win great prizes (gift certificates to Newport County restaurants and attractions); join the adult Summer Reading Challenge today.

This year you can register online at our Summer Reading Challenge blog.

You can also stop by the reference desk to register and pick up a reading log. But the blog gives you a chance to share your thoughts and reviews with others. The contest runs from July 13-August 22, and you must read FIVE books to be eligible for the grand prizes. Click the link above for more details, and then kick back with a good book all summer long.

Breakfast with Buddha - June's Book Discussion Title

2009-07-14T07:47:00.000-07:00

Everyone in the group found something to like about Breakfast with Buddha by Ron Merullo, with mostly everyone really enjoying this selection. We agreed that while it may not be the exhaustive, comprehensive choice if you want to learn or practice Buddhism, reading this book is a good way to start thinking about how we live our lives, and how we might seek peace in spiritual but ordinary ways.

Breakfast with Buddha was a quick, light read in many ways. The main character of Otto is well written. Otto is presented as a good man - husband, father, person - who is seeking something, but he hasn’t quite figured out what yet. As a result of his road road trip to North Dakota with Volya Rinpoche, he learns how to seek. Rinpoche’s philosophy is a mixed bag of Eastern religions, and not strictly Buddhist. Some participants liked that ecletic approach. Merullo uses his story to explore deep human issues in an accessible and even humorous way, making it easy for readers to open up to alternative thinking, as he pits the skeptic Otto against the guru Rinpoche.

Even those who faulted the book as predictable in plot and bordering on pop psychology, did enjoy the amusing moments, and the descriptions of the road trip across the mid-west, with the savory stops in wayside eating places an interesting sideline. Readers enjoyed the bowling alley and miniature golf scenes, too. You will have to read this book to find out why.

Our Thursday evening group is wrapping up this year’s list next month with M.F.K. Fisher’s The Art of Eating. We will meet at a local restaurant (TBA) for the discussion and a pay-your-own-way dinner.

We do not meet in August, but will resume for another 11 months of reading in September. Please consider joining us. PL

The World of Book Blogs

2009-07-07T09:43:00.000-07:00

“The greatest gift is the passion for reading. It is cheap, it consoles, it distracts, it excites, it gives you knowledge of the world and experience of a wide kind. It is a moral illumination.” Elizabeth Hardwick

There was a study done in 2004 by the National Endowment for the Arts on the reading habits of Americans and the results were quite disheartening – especially to a librarian and one who loves and believes in books. The NEA declared that “literary reading” was in a “dramatic decline” calling this decline a “national crises.”

Well – I am not too sure about that. Have you ever explored the online world of book blogs? There are SO MANY folks – men and women, young and old, librarians and housewives, artists and engineers – people from every walk of life, who read and read and read – and then want to share their thoughts on what they have read with everyone on the net who cares to visit.

My first introduction to the world of book blogs was tiny little reading room, maintained by (in her own words) a “children’s/YA librarian who keeps getting herself into too many reading challenges.” But the really neat thing about these book blogs is that they lead you to other book blogs. Scroll down the tiny little reading room until you come to (in the right column) the Blogroll – and there you will see a LONG LIST of other book blogs.

I highly recommend that you check these out. My favorites (at least currently) are:

Jennie Loves to Read
Jennie loves to “knit, read lots of books and laugh with friends. Life is too short!” A girl after my own heart.

Should be Reading
Should be Reading is quite a mixed bag of a blog, but one feature I really like is Teaser Tuesday. Teaser Tuesday goes like this -

Pick a book you like (and have read)
Open to a random page
Share two "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page. (Be careful not to include spoliers and don't share too much!)
Share the title and author - so others can add the book to their "to be read" (TBR) lists.

Maybe we will try a Tuesday Teaser post here one day.

A Life in Books
This is blog that has been around for a while, and is really neat. First of all, the reviews are well-done and in-depth (for a blog). And then take a look (all the way down!) at the left-hand column. There are all sorts of neat things listed there – an extensive blog roll; other recommended other recommended book sites; random books from the blogger’s library; and then finally, the reading challenges she has participated in.

So click to one of these book blogs, find the blog roll and begin the adventure. I, for one, do not think reading is dead. Meg

A Child's Garden of Books - for Adults

2009-06-29T08:00:00.000-07:00

“Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again?”
Winnie the Pooh

I was talking with a mother who had just recently begun homeschooling her four children and we began to chat about children’s literature and the books she had read with her children this past year. She confessed that she had never really read much as a child, and was now discovering, in a wonderful and surprising way, the books she had never known. Her favorites this year were Calico Bush by Rachel Field, The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare and Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes. All three titles are rich in history, well written and award winners in their day.

I read a lot as a child, but somehow missed many children’s classics myself, and so when I became a student teacher I, too, discovered some wonderful titles I had missed. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Charlotte’s Web are two books I was introduced to as I read aloud to a classroom of 2nd and 3rd graders. I remember barely being able to control my laughter as I recited a tale about a rather rotund bear’s “stoutness exercises” in Winnie the Pooh, and held my breath with the rest of the class as we went with Meg and Calvin to explore a tesseract in A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle.

“I do face the facts, Meg said. They’re a lot easier to face than people, I can tell you that.”
A Wrinkle in Time

This discussion about children’s books had taken place in the presence of a number of other women, and soon everyone was talking about their favorite children’s book – either one they had read while growing up or discovered and appreciated as an adult.

Some that were mentioned include: Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls (a strong portrait of a small southern boy and his coon dogs – also a real tear-jerker) and From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg (about two young children who run away from home, and wind up living in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York!).

What children’s books were dear to you as a child? As an adult? What are you going to read or are you reading to your children? Meg

Is There a Doctor in the House? Medical Thrillers

2009-06-22T09:26:00.000-07:00

If you went looking online for a definition of the fiction genre, thriller, you would find many, many entries. Princeton’s WordNet puts it simply – “a suspenseful adventure story.” If you scroll a little further down, you come upon Merriam Webster’s online definition which starts to become a bit more complex. A thriller, says MW, is a “work of fiction designed to hold the interest by the use of a high degree of intrigue, adventure or suspense.”

This definition seems a bit more wordy than it needs to be, but it does begin to point to the fact that in today’s genre-filled publishing world there are many different kinds of thriller. This is the first in a series of posts that will discuss three very popular kinds of thriller: medical (in today’s post), technological and conspiracy (in future posts).

Back to our definition search. Putting “medical thriller” in as a search term produces a number of interesting sites to check out. The first that comes up is the Wiki entry for thriller in general, but that entry goes on to discuss 13 (count ‘em – 13!) different sub-categories of thriller, one of which is the medical thriller. The Wiki article says that the medical thriller is one in which the hero/heroine are medical doctors or personnel working to solve an expanding medical problem. The article then goes to on mention several recommended authors of medical thrillers.

The next most interesting result of our search is a link to Library Thing (have you checked this site out?), and a (very long) list of all the titles in Library Thing that have been tagged “medical thriller.” There is no attempt at evaluation here – simply a listing, with those works that have the most tags appearing first.

Most sites and readers of medical thrillers seem to agree that there are three authors who are simply superior at their craft - Robin Cook, Tess Gerritsen and Michael Palmer. Just about any book that you read by these three authors is guaranteed to bring a shiver to your spine and some nervous moments to your brain. Robin Cook’s latest, Intervention, is due out in August. (You may place a hold on it NOW at the library or through the library’s website and online catalog.) Gerristen’s latest is called Keepsake, and Palmers’ newest, The Second Opinion, was just released this past February.

Three other titles that are not part of a series, but that are highly recommended are:

Invasive Procedures by Orson Scott Card

The Eleventh Plague by John S. Marr and John Baldwin

Isolation Ward by Joshua Spanogle.

Give them a try – and let us know what your favorite medical thriller is. Meg

Easy To Remember

2009-06-16T11:42:00.000-07:00

I don’t often read about music, but Easy To Remember, by William Zinsser is one of those books that make reading about music almost as pleasurable as listening.

The subtitle of Easy To Remember is The Great American Songwriters and Their Songs and Zinsser takes us on a fascinating grand tour of the history of American songwriting from Sigmund Romberg (The Desert Song), through the “golden age” of American song with Jerome Kern, (Show Boat) George and Ira Gershwin, (Someone to Watch Over Me, The Man I Love and so many more), early and late Rodgers and Hart (We’ll Have Manhattan – Pal Joey) to some modern day composers such as Lerner and Lowe (My Fair Lady) and Kander and Ebb (Cabaret and Chicago).

The book is very well written, in a breezy, conversational style that is compelling, but at the same time instructive. As familiar as some of the lyrics of these songs are, their derivation – how they are musically constructed and what kinds of cultural backgrounds they were derived from – were (to me at least) totally new and unexpected.

In the chapter about the Gershwin brothers, Zinsser tells us about how they managed to combine their own Russian-Jewish musical heritage with the African American rhythms they were hearing in Harlem to produce the unique syncopation and notation that they were famous for.

"You’re sweet expression, the smile you gave me, the way you looked when we met,
It’s easy to remember, but so hard to forget."

Zinsser’s chapter on Cole Porter is masterful. He states that “It was from Cole Porter, in 1934, that I first glimpsed what it might mean to be sophisticated,” and surely his narrative about Cole Porter and Porter's music is just that – sophisticated and sparkling.

You’re the top – you’re Mahatma Gandhi,

You’re the top, you’re Napoleon brandy

You’re the nimble tread of the feet of Fred Astaire,

You’re an O’Neill drama, you’re Whistler’s mama, you’re Camembert.

There used to be an afternoon show on NPR radio out of Boston called The Great American Songbook. I loved listening to that show, because it played many of the show tunes and classic American songs I loved. Easy To Remember is a book about that music and how it grew. Meg

Get Ready for Hurricane Season with Tin Roof Blowdown

2009-06-09T07:10:00.000-07:00

As we head into hurricane season 2009, I wanted to recommend a book – actually a mystery – that does a really good job of portraying New Orleans at the time of Hurricane Katrina – and presents a great mystery as well.

Tin Roof Blowdown, by James Lee Burke (the 16th Dave Robicheaux novel), places Iberia Parish’s Sherrif Robicheaux directly in the path of one of the strongest storms to hit Louisianna’s southern coast and its criminal aftermath. The book’s blurb calls it an “apocalyptical nightmare” in which Robicheaux is searching for two serial rapists, a morphine-addicted priest and a vigilante whose methods may be more dangerous than the criminals he is targeting.

The Washington Post calls Tin Roof Blowdown Burke’s “most ambitious novel” and I have to agree. The combination of hideous criminal activitiy and cataclysmic weather is always a sure bet, and Mr. Burke does a masterful job on both fronts. Hint: This book has been recommended for use in book clubs! Check it out. Meg

The Year's Best Crime Novels

2009-06-01T12:01:00.000-07:00

Mystery lovers are often voracious readers and always on the lookout for a great mystery. Booklist – the American Library Association’s magazine of books and reviews – has just recently published its list of the year’s best crime novels, and I thought I would share those titles with you.

Some of the top ten are, in no special order

The Dawn Patrol by Don Winslow – San Diego private eye, Boone Daniels, is off in search of a missing stripper. It’s the locale that is special here – the light and dark sides of San Diego with a special nod to surfing and oceanside cultures.

Exit Music by Ian Rankin – Another elder statesman of crime, Inspector John Rebus of Edinburgh, investigates one last crime.

Gone Tomorrow by Lee Child – Jack Reacher spots what he thinks is a suicide bomber on the New York subway’s Number 9 train – and his knowledge (and the bombers failed attempt) finds Reacher targeted by the federal government and Al Qaeda for a secret he might know.

Liars Anonymous by Louise Ure – A masterfully constructed psychological thriller that compares favorably to Ruth Rendell and Minette Walters.

The rest of the top 10 are
Cold in Hand by John Harvey

Mine All Mine by Adam Davies
A Rule Against Murder by Louise Penny
Secret Speech by Tom Rob Smith
Spade and Archer by Joe Gores
When Will There Be Good News by Kate Atkinson. Meg

A Year in the Life

2009-05-26T06:29:00.000-07:00

A rather new type of biography / memoir has become quite popular lately – and that is the book about a person who tries out something new for a year or so and then writes about it. We have a number of these types of memoirs and many of them prove to be very readable and amusing.

Here are a few titles –
The Year of Living Biblically by A. J. Jacobs
This is a very funny account of Jacobs’ spiritual journey through the Bible – including the Old Testament strictures against cutting one’s facial hair and avoiding clothes made of mixed fibers.

Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously by Julia Powell
Julie Powell felt old (at 30!) and trapped in her life, and so resolved to spend a year cooking every recipe (all 524 of them) in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. As the B&N review says “her unexpected reward: not just a newfound respect for calves liver and aspic, but a new life – lived with gusto.”

Voluntary Madness: My Year Lost and Found in the Looney Bin by Norah Vincent
Vincent had written another book of this type entitled, Self Made Man, wherein she spent a year posing as a man. According to her, this experience so depressed her that she spent several months in a mental hospital, which then gave her the idea for this current book. Over the course of a year, Vincent spent time in three different mental institutions. These experiences led to a very personal, at times heartbreaking account of life among the mentally challenged.

If you have recently read a "year in the life" memoir, why don't you share it with us by making a comment? Meg

[The idea for this post was found in The Reader’s Shelf, a Library Journal column by Neal Wyatt.]

Nora Robert's Circle Trilogy

2009-05-18T08:08:00.000-07:00

I must admit I am not usually a reader of romance novels. And Nora Roberts is not one of my favorite authors. But in the Circle Trilogy (Morrigan’s Cross, Dance of the Gods and The Valley of Silence) she has, in my humble opinion, created a story that is very entertaining, has moments of humor and power and a set of characters that are complex and memorable.

The Circle Trilogy is about a sorcerer, a witch, a scholar, a shape-shifter, a warrior and “one who was lost.” These six come together (from both Medieval and modern times) to fight the demon Queen Lilith, a vampire of tremendous power and trickery. Hoyt, the Sorcerer, is brought forward in time to the present by the goddess Morrigan to gather an “army” to fight Lilith. His twin brother Cian (pronounced Key-an), had been turned into a vampire by Lilith, has lived for MANY years, and is currently in New York City running a disco/bar. Glenna, a modern day witch, joins them there and they soon fly to Ireland to find the rest of the “army” and to train for battle.

The rest of the “army” consists of Moira (the scholar), Queen of Geall (pronounced guile) and Larken, her cousin (a shape-shifter) who both travel from the distant past to join Hoyt’s army. In Ireland they also meet Blair, a modern day Buffy (read vampire slayer) and the “army” is complete. It is these characters that kept me reading – through all three books – they are funny, brave, romantic (it is a romance, after all) and well-developed. Their dialogue is realistic and brings these six to life - although sometimes I wanted to knock a few of them over the head for their stubbornness.

The trilogy is a page-turner, even if not the height of literature. The review in BookList said “Best-seller Roberts' Celtic-flavored Circle trilogy features superbly crafted characters, three passionate romances, and a bewitching blend of magic and myth. “ I, too, recommend all three – which must be read in the order in which they were written. Meg

Agatha (Christie) has a lot to answer for

2009-05-11T07:59:00.000-07:00

If you like your mysteries with a touch of “tea and crumpets” in them, then the books that were nominated (and those that won) the Agatha Awards are just for you. The Agatha Awards, named after Agatha Christie, are presented at the Malice Domestic annual conference, this year held on May 1-3 in Arlington, Virgina. The Agatha Awards “salute the traditional mystery.”

What is a “traditional mystery?” According to the Malice Domestic web site, traditional mysteries are “books best typified by the works of Agatha Christie as well as others. For our purposes, the genre is loosely defined as mysteries that: contain no explicit sex; contain no excessive gore or gratuitous violence; usually feature an amateur detective; and, take place in a confined setting and contain characters who know one another.”

Nominated for Best Novel this year were:

Six Geese A-Slaying by Donna Andrews (St. Martin’s Minotaur)

A Royal Pain by Rhys Bowen (Penguin Group)

The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny (St. Martin’s Press)

Buckingham Palace Gardens by Anne Perry (Random House)

I Shall Not Want by Julia Spencer-Fleming (St. Martin’s Minotaur)

This year's winner was The Cruelest Month.

Other catagories that Agatha’s are given for include Best First Novel, Best Non-Fiction, Best Short Story and Best Children’s/Young Adult Mystery. Meg

Five Skies - April's Book Discussion Title

2009-05-05T07:00:00.000-07:00

The Thursday Evening Book Group discussed the Reading Across Rhode Island selection for 2009 at their latest meeting. Ron Carlson’s novel Five Skies was chosen this year for the project, which aims to get everyone in the state reading the same book. This story of three men working on a construction project to build a daredevil’s ramp over a gorge in Idaho is a study in characterization, setting, relationships, male psychology, loss, and redemption.

Darwin is a man who recently lost a wife, he is the cook and foreman of the project. Arthur is a big burly guy who is AWOL from his previous life and also mourning the loss of his brother. Ronnie is a younger man who is struggling to find direction after years of bad judgment and some jail time.

Members liked the slow revealing of the characters’ backgrounds, the great descriptions of the physical surroundings, the gradual bonding of the men. Our group is all women at this time, and most of us had trouble with the mechanics of the work. Some questioned whether the author was correct in his depictions of the carpentry and engineering behind the building of the ramp; others were completely unfamiliar with the tools and equipment, making it difficult to get the full sense of what the men were accomplishing.

We discussed this as a “man’s book” that women could still like, due to the sensitive portrayals of the men. Men often don’t speak of feelings, but this book showed how men can relate to other men. Members saw a special fondness for Ronnie exhibited by the two older men. Readers rooted for Ronnie to overcome his obstacles, and were touched by the sense of responsibility for him that the older men exhibited. One reader suggested that a way of looking at the story, is that the building up of Ronnie was for the older men, the healing balm for their own losses, as the building of the ramp and learning the work, was the healing catalyst for Ronnie.

Short of giving away the ending, let’s just say, all were stunned by the final pages, yet somehow redemption and dealing with loss does lead to a resolution for the characters. The big sky, in all its renditions, remains as a powerful force. PL

Are You Missing Harry Potter?

2009-04-27T06:10:00.000-07:00

I know Harry Potter is supposed to be a children’s book, but I was just as engaged and enthralled as the most avid 10-year-old, and I really miss looking forward to the next installment of the adventures of Harry, Ron and Hermoine. So I’ve done some checking around to see if there are other authors and titles that would at least come close to the reading fun that J.K. Rowling’s books brought to so many folks.

The Young Wizard series by Diane Duane is the closest I can come to books that might satisfy a Harry-o-phile and also appeal to adults as well as teens and children. The first title, So You Want to Be a Wizard (1982) introduces us to Juanita “Nita” Callahan and Kit Rodriguez. While running away from some bullies, Nita runs into her refuge, the public library and stumbles upon a book she’s never seen there before entitled So You Want to be a Wizard. As she begins to read, she discovers that she is, in fact, being asked to train and learn to become just that –a wizard. After some serious soul-searching, she takes the “wizard’s oath,” – and her life is never the same again. There are currently 8 books in this series, but the first is the best, and I highly recommend it.

Susan Cooper wrote a series of books steeped in Celtic legend and myth that drew my attention when I was a teacher. The best of this series is The Dark is Rising – the story of Will Stanton, the 7th son of a 7th son who, on his 11th birthday, becomes one of the Old Ones. As Will gradually learns about his powers and how to manage them, he and his friend, Merriman, are drawn into a mystical battle against the Dark. The Dark is Rising is actually book 2 in the series, but once again it is the best – and you do not have to have read book 1 for it to make sense. There are 5 books total: Over Sea, Under Stone; The Dark is Rising; Greenwitch; The Grey King, and The Silver on the Tree.

And finally, a series that I have just now begun - the Artemis Fowl books by Eoin Colfer. Novelist describes Artemis Fowl as a “ twelve-year-old evil genius [who] tries to restore his family fortune by capturing a fairy and demanding a ransom in gold. The fairies fight back with magic, technology, and a particularly nasty troll. “ As in Harry Potter, the characters are unique and cleverly drawn. Captain Holly Stark, a LEPrecon Officer (Lower Elements Police Reconnaissance) is a miniature police officer for the fairy folk who live underground; Mulch Diggums is a kleptomaniac dwarf with an ingenious (and rather gross) method of digging underground; Foaly is the LEP’s technological genius who just happens to be a centaur; and of course, Artemis, himself – a combination child prodigy and evil mastermind.

Quite frankly, none of these books created the anticipation or following that Rowling’s did, but each provides a good read and a trip to a land where wizards (or children) fight evil and succeed.

Meg

Julia and Jacques - Being Passionate About Food

2009-04-20T05:59:00.000-07:00

Julia Child once said, “I started cooking when I was 32; up until then I just ate.” Just eating is something you might never do again, if you take the time to peruse and use the cookbooks that this pair of famous and fabulous cooks have produced.

The French cooking bible has to be Mastering the Art of French Cooking, first written and produced by Julia Child and her partner, Simone Beck in 1961. Directions are detailed and very explicit but the food that results is beyond belief. (I remember carefully following her recipe for Navarin Printanier – lamb stew – a full 3 pages long. It took a while, but the taste of that stew, served to company , was more than worth the time.)

Jacques Pepin also has quite a few cookbooks to his credit, but most recently he seems to be catering to the modern predicament of “so much to do, so little time” and has come up with Fast Food My Way and More Fast Food My Way.

Both have written memoirs that recount interesting and unusual lives. During World War II Julia worked for the OSS (Office of Strategic Services) in Washington DC, and married Paul Cushing Child shortly thereafter. He was posted to Paris, France in 1948 and it was in Rouen that Julia was introduced to French cooking. She later described this experience for the New York Times as “an opening up of the soul and spirit.” Julia Child’s kitchen is preserved and on display at the National Museum of American History. My Life in France recounts Julia’s introduction to French cooking.

The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen introduces us to a young Jacques Pepin, who was born in France and grew up not only eating French food but cooking it as well, first in his father’s restaurant and then as an apprentice to famous chefs. He was once the personal chef for French President Charles DeGaulle.

Both had television shows, and DVDs are available that show us these cooks at work. The French Chef series with Julia Child not only demonstrates her fabulous cooking skills, but gives us a glimpse of the funny, astute and very practical women who was Julia Child. The Complete Pepin: Techniques and Recipes presents Chef Pepin’s unique style of cooking.

Their collaborative cookbook, Julia and Jacques Cooking At Home, brings these chefs together offering (in print and on DVD) a host of information on cooking techniques (they don’t always agree – and sometimes those disagreements are the most fun to read or hear about) and marvelous recipes for every home chef. Meg

Loving Frank - March's Book Discussion Title

2009-04-13T05:59:00.000-07:00

The Thursday Evening Book Club met in March to discuss Loving Frank by Nancy Horan. Our discussion was lively as we both agreed and disagreed on different aspects of this book. In this, her debut as a novelist, Horan tackled the scandalous story of Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah (pronounced “may-mah”) Borthwick Cheney. Focusing on this short chapter in the life of architect Wright, Horan does a deft job of capturing the mores of the times, which was media hungry for scandals involving famous people, not unlike today, but which was overly critical of women in such affairs, especially when children were abandoned, as was the case with Wright and Cheney.

Horan brings in issues of the restrictions on women, and the new ideas that were surfacing, using the character of Ellen Key, a Swedish philosopher. They met and Mamah ultimately became an American translator for Key’s books. An interesting point brought out in our discussion was the idea that Mamah might have found a way to fulfill her aspirations and passions without leaving her family for Frank Lloyd Wright. Edwin, her husband might have been boring to Mamah, but he was very supportive.

For those who are interested in learning more about Frank Lloyd Wright, there are several other biographies, books on his architecture, and an autobiography available through the library. For those who enjoyed the fictional presentation of his story, there is a new novel by T. Coraghessan Boyle, The Women, which broadens the story to talk about the other women in Wright’s life. PL

Greenway, Agatha Christie's Home, Opens

2009-04-06T05:52:00.001-07:00

Agatha Christie is now "at home" and receiving visitors. On Saturday, March 2, 2009, Christie’s country home, Greenway, in Devon, England, opened to the public for the first time. The Georgian home had recently undergone a $7.8 million restoration. According to the Associated Press, “Craftsmen worked for two years to restore the 18th-century home, and the rooms are much as they were when Christie lived there, complete with books, papers, boxes of chocolates and bunches of flowers. Even the scratches on the bedroom door made by the family dog remain.”

It might be argued that Agatha Christie is the most famous of the Golden Age mystery writers. She is certainly the most prolific. During her long career, in addition to mystery stories, she wrote radio and television plays, nonfiction and short stories. She also wrote novels under the name of Mary Westmacott.

Christie’s most popular stories were mystery novels starring either Hercule Poirot or Miss Jane Marple. Her career as a writer began in 1920 with the publication of The Mysterious Affair at Styles, starring M. Poirot (the Belgian with a propensity for consulting his “little grey cells”), his sidekick (much like Sherlock Holmes’ Watson) Arthur Hastings, and his official police connection, Chief Inspector Japp.

Miss Marple, an “elderly spinster” living a “quiet life” in the quaint little English village of St. Mary Mead, entered the picture in 1930 with Murder at the Vicarage. Miss Marple remained a bit more independent than Hercule Poirot, as she was assigned no sidekick, and only occasionally worked with the same police inspectors.

Christie wrote another series of mystery stories starring Tommy and Tuppence (Thomas Beresford and Prudence Cowley) who are quite the pair of bon vivants sleuthing their way through the 1920’s and 30s in London and its environs.

My favorite titles by Agatha Christie starring Hercule Poirot are:
Peril at End House
Death on the Nile
Evil Under the Sun
Murder on the Orient Express

My favorite titles by Agatha Christie starring Miss Jane Marple are:
A Murder is Announced
4:50 from Paddington
A Caribbean Mystery
Nemisis

I also highly recommend two mystery titles that do not involve either of these detectives: And Then There Were None and Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? Meg

April is National Poetry Month

2009-03-27T11:30:00.000-07:00

Na tional Po etry Month began in April 1996 and was established to encourage Americans in schools, businesses and homes to celebrate and recognize the importance of poetry in American culture.

There are many ways you can join in the celebration.

1. Reading poetry is one of the most obvious. The library has many books of poetry, both old and new for all ages, that you are encouraged to check out. Three that are highly recommended are:

100 Essential Modern Poems by Women
Red Bird: Poems by Mary Oliver
God’s Silence: Poems by Franz Wright

2. The Borzoi Press division of Random House has arranged for anyone who signs up to receive a Poem-A-Day in their e-mail during the month of April.

3. April 30th is Carry a Poem in Your Pocket Day. Find a poem that you like, make a copy of it and carry it in your pocket that Thursday. Share your poem with friends and family.

4. Make a comment for this blog and tell us about your favorite poem or poet.

5. Or – read the following poem by Lisa Starr, Rhode Island's Poet Laureate.

Sandpipers Again
I went back to the sandpipers today –
it’s been a while.

Six of them, or
was it twenty? Never matters;
somehow we all know when a meeting has been called,
somehow we all know
exactly when the surf
will start tossing back
its wild silver hair.

One time I was astonished
to find them waiting for me on the beach in Newport.

It was so quiet it was like rain
without the rain.

I wasn’t planning it
my car just brought me there,
a most uncommon thing – it’s not that kind of car –
but there we were, alone on a beach.

It almost made me giddy,
like today,
just now.

I’d forgotten how much
I need them.

Like me they were laughing and
sputtering about the beauty.

A few of them couldn’t help it
and just kept throwing their small bodies
again and again
into the wild, white water.

[Lisa Starr's poem was published in the Bryant Literary Review, 2005, and The Providence Journal, April 2005]

Magical Merlin and His King

2009-03-23T05:56:00.000-07:00

The tales and legends of King Arthur and his court are a wonderful mixture of romance, magic and myth. If you have not yet met the “once and future” king, try these titles while you wait patiently for winter to melt away.

Go to the source by reading Le Morte D’Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory. First published in 1485, this series of tales was the first to chronicle the tales of Arthur, Guenever and the Knights of the Round Table.

T. H. White’s classic, The Once and Future King, is the book that inspired the Broadway musical, Camelot and the Disney cartoon classic, The Sword in the Stone. This however,is not a children’s book, and as the tale progresses the characters and the story itself become dark, tragic and more complex.

Mary Stewart wrote a quartet of books on Merlin, beginning with The Crystal Cave. This Arthurian series focuses on Merlin and what the wizard felt he had to do to protect Arthur and Brittain. (Other titles in the series are: The Hollow Hills and The Last Enchantment.)

For a totally different and feminist take on the Arthurian story try The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley. In this Bradley presents the legend as a power struggle between Morgaine, a Druid priestess of Avalon, and Gwenhwyfar, the Christian Queen of Camelot.

And for a look (via DVD) at Camelot and the Arthurian legends try the new (2004) film, King Arthur, starring Clive Owen and Keira Knightley, followed by a video tour of King Arthur’s Britain. Meg

[The idea for this post came from an article in Library Journal by Neal Wyatt.]

Tuesday Book Group Takes on Mythology

2009-03-11T12:27:00.000-07:00

The Tuesday Book Group met this week to discuss Margaret Atwood’s Penelopiad, the second half of a classic/contemporary pairing that began with the ancient Greek epic, The Odyssey.

At just under 200 sparsely-printed pages, The Penelopiad is a walk in the park compared to the other tomes we’ve been reading (like The Odyssey and The Story of Edgar Sawtelle). We agreed that Atwood’s retelling of the Odyssey from Penelope’s point of view makes for light, fun reading. We found that, while this book may not change your life, it will make you think about how some stories get repeated and others suppressed, it will show you that marriage in mythic times could be just as fraught as it is today, it will dance around the ambiguity of human motivations, and it will make hysterical fun of Helen (of Troy) and her pathetic vanity

The group also touched on such touchy issues as teenage violence and violence against women. If you recall, one of the most gruesome climactic events in the Odyssey is the murder of twelve of Penelope’s maids by Telemachus (Odysseus and Penelope’s teenaged son). We never felt that Atwood settled this unsettling issue, but she does give the maids a voice in the book: they appear in between chapters and perform burlesque song and dance numbers, raging against their plight and powerlessness.

The Penelopiad also had us thinking about contemporary culture quite a bit, and there were several interesting segues into topics such as reality TV, morality, and the history of gender roles. You never know where you’ll end up when you talk with good people about good books.

The Tuesday Book Group reads classic books alongside modern works inspired by them. Kindred readers are welcome to join us the second Tuesday of the month at 1:00pm. On April 14th, we'll tackle Dostoevsky’s classic Crime and Punishment. All are welcome to join. Contact the Reference Desk at info@newportlibraryri.org for more information. LO

The Scene is Boston

2009-03-09T08:30:00.000-07:00

Although you might not think it, Boston (Mass.) is a popular location for crime fiction. Maybe it’s the curious mixture of a city steeped in both colonial and ethnic history and the modern building explosion currently going on, that includes such engineering marvels (or misadventures, depending on your point of view) as the “Big Dig” and the TD BankNorth Garden, new home of the Boston Celtics and Bruins.

Whatever it is, there is some really good private eye and detective fiction set in that city of contrasts. Here are some of the best.

Jessica Conant-Park (author of the Cat Lover’s and Dog Lover’s mystery series) and her daughter, Susan Conant, have combined to create the Gourmet Girl, aka Chloe Carter, a boy-crazy 20 year old gourmand who lives in Brighton (a sub-division of Boston). This series contains four titles so far,beginning with Steamed (2006), and has been referred to as a “scrumptious cozy.”

Linda Barnes writes about Carlotta Carlyle – a former Boston cop who works part-time as an investigator and part-time as a Boston cabbie. The flavor of Carlyle’s Boston is very different from the coziness of the Gourmet Girl’s locale. Carlyle and Barnes have been around for a while and seen and done a lot. Barnes began her series with Trouble of Fools (1999) and is up to entry number 12, Lie Down with the Devil (2008).

The master of Boston private investigators is Robert B. Parker. His series starring Spenser was, for a while, a television show starring Robert Urich (as Spenser), Avery Brooks – of Star Trek fame – (as Hawk) and Barbara Stock (as Susan Silverman). The books (as is sometimes the case) are much better than the TV series and Parker, who began with The Godulf Manuscript in 1973, is still writing them. He has even added several more series and characters to his repertoire. I still like the original series best and truly enjoy a good visit with Spenser, Hawk and Susan. My favorite titles from this series are Mortal Stakes (about the Red Sox) and A Catskill Eagle.

Other folks who write detective or thriller fiction with a Boston background are: Robin Cook who writes medical mysteries with a strong thriller element and Tess Gerritsen, whose character, Jane Rizzoli is a Boston-based police detective.

Finally, Dennis LeHane (author of Mystic River) began his writing career with a duo of Boston-based private eyes: Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro. The first of this series is entitled A Drink Before the War. These mysteries are carefully crafted and excellent - but not for the faint of heart. Meg

Madeleine L'Engle

2009-03-02T09:22:00.000-08:00

Madeleine L’Engle is probably known best for her popular children’s chapter book, A Wrinkle in Time, (although I, for one, thoroughly enjoyed it as an adult). L’Engle, however, wrote many more titles – fiction, for children, young adults and adults; poetry; and religious essays and stories. My favorite adult fiction title is The Severed Wasp, written in 1983. The Severed Wasp is the story of Katherine Forester Vigneras, a retired concert pianist who goes to live in New York City near the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.

She becomes involved in the community of ministers, lay people and their families that work for and around the Cathedral – and she also becomes involved in a mystery that has one young girl deathly afraid. As Katherine gradually begins to unravel the mystery at St. John’s, we are allowed to delve into the mystery surrounding her own life and the joy and tragedy that has been a part of it.

A Severed Wasp is a fascinating portrait of a successful older woman, mixed with a measure or two of classical music, an atmosphere of spiritual inscrutability, and a mood of mystery that is both open and secretive. I highly recommend it. Meg

Other recommended books by Madeleine L’Engle
The Crosswicks Trilogy
A Circle of Quiet
The Summer of the Great Grandmother
The Irrational Season

The Wrinkle in Time Series
A Wrinkle in Time
A Wind in the Door
A Swiftly Tilting Planet

A Small Rain, L’Engle’s earliest published work, is the first book about Katherine Forrester’s younger years. Meg

Julia Spencer-Fleming and Her “Spiritual” Mysteries

2009-02-25T09:32:00.000-08:00

I seem to be in “clerical” mood these days – maybe it’s Lent, maybe it’s just chance or fate – but, after last week’s post on Nuns in Black and White I am now going to recommend a mystery series that has, as one of it primary characters, an Episcopal priest.

This series has no”official name” – it is just called the Clare Fergusson / Russ Van Alstyne series. It is written by Julia Spencer-Fleming and the first book in the series is In the Bleak Midwinter. Anyone who has attended a Christian church during the Christmas holidays might recognize the title as belonging to a fairly subtle, but very beautiful hymn of the same name. The lyrics continue “frostly wind made moan. Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone.” This calls to my mind the cold and desolation that can be winter and it is an appropriate title for this first series entry.

The whole series takes place in Millers Kill, a small town in the Adirondack’s region of upstate New York. Clare Fergusson is a newly ordained Episcopal priest and a former Army helicopter pilot (talk about interesting combinations). Russ Van Alstyne is Chief of Police and not at all sure what to make of this “lady priest.” I began reading In the Bleak Midwinter a while back and did not finish. It did not grab me, the way I feel a mystery should. However, I just finished reading All Mortal Flesh (another hymn lyric, by the way) – 5th in the series – and I could not put it down.

So – I am going to go back and reread the series from the beginning – and recommend that you try the series, too. The characters are well drawn; what happens to and around them is often tragic and unexpected; the mystery (at least in All Mortal Flesh) was adequate to keep me guessing – at least at first. The spiritual backdrop – Clare’s exhausting and continuous struggle with her conscience; her devotion to her pastoral duties; her kindness and thoughtful approach to who she is and why – these all make me want to read more. Meg

Nuns - in Black and White

2009-02-17T07:30:00.000-08:00

Nuns are often looked at as mysterious and fascinating. In the last few years, a number of memoirs have been published by nuns, ex-nuns or journalists who seem to have discovered that fascination, and spent months researching and then writing about their experiences with the sisters. Here are some non-fiction titles that you might find interesting.

For the Love of God: The Faith and Future of the American Nun by Lucy Kaylin. Kaylin sets out to do an expose, but finds she actually came to like and admire the women whom she met. She visits a Trappistine monastery that observes strict silence, attends a “clothing ceremony” at a Poor Clare community and visits an inner-city shelter run by Franciscan sisters.

The Tupip and the Pope by Deborah Larsen. Larsen smokes her last cigarette in the taxi as it drops her off at the mother house. She entered the convent in 1960. It was not a “fit” for her and by 1965 she realized she needed to leave. She shares with the reader her intense experiences.

Karen Armstrong is a prolific writer (History of God; The Great Transformation, etc.), but often people do not realize she was a nun. Karen entered the convent when she graduated (what would be our) high school, when she was 17 years old. Her account of these first, difficult, pre-Vatican II years in the convent is described in Through the Narrow Gate. She, too, realizes she must leave and her description of this equally traumatic event is recounted in The Spiral Staircase. Both books are deeply interesting. Meg

[The idea for this post came from Library Journal's Reader's Shelf.]

Novels of the Norse - Viking Fiction

2009-02-09T08:15:00.000-08:00

Between the 8th and 11th century, the Vikings swept out of Scandinavia, raiding and trading from the Middle East to North America. It was a turbulent time filled with technological advances, religious turmoil and more than a few battles. The following books are set in this turbulent and tense period and offer some great action and memorable characters.

Robert Low’s The Whale Road opens with narrator, Orm Rurikson, narrowly surviving a murder attempt. Joining his father and a band of Viking warriors known as the Oathsworn on their search for a mythic treasure, Orm learns that fame and intrigue can be perilous.

Judith Lindbergh sets her bleak and haunting, The Thrall’s Tale, during the Viking colonization of Greenland. Katla, an Irish slave; Bibrau, her daughter born of a rape; and their benefactor, Thorbjorg, a norse priestess, labor to eke out an existence at the far edge of the Viking world.

Bernard Cornwell has written the Uhtred / King Alfred the Great series of three novels: The Last Kingdom, Pale Horseman and Lords of the North. King Alfred is engaged in a desperate war against the Vikings and Uhtred, a dispossessed English nobleman, comes to his aid.

The Corban Loose-Strife series, by Cecilia Holland, centers around Corban and his sister, Mav, and what happens when their village is plundered by the Vikings and they are both taken captive. The books in this series are Soul Thief, Witches’ Kitchen and Serpent Dreamer. Meg

[Thanks go to Neal Wyatt for his article in a recent Library Journal. Click on titles to check availability.]

Excellent Online Resources for Book Groups

2009-02-02T12:52:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday I attended the Reading Across Rhode Island** Launch Conference for this “one state, one book, literally” program and came away with some wonderful memories (of author Ron Carlson almost getting choked up when speaking about one of the book's characters), and all kinds of resources and ideas for books and reading.

One workshop I went to was entitled “Reinvigorating Your Bookgroup.” The presentation was excellent and I came away with a sheet listing some really interesting websites that would be helpful to any book discussion group. I thought I would share a few of these sites with you.

BookMovement
This is an online resource that was set up in 2001 in order to give book clubs across the United States a way to communicate with each other, and to recommend and review titles on a national scale. You can view a Book Club Bestseller List and a List of Top-rated Books. There are over 16,000 Book Clubs registered.

Reviews of Books
This site offers full length book reviews and synopses of books from major, online media sites that are available without having to register or pay to read them. Includes books published since 2002 and books that have a mimimum of three reviews in online media such as NYTimes, Washington Post, Boston Globe, etc.

Also check out
Reading Group Guides
Reading Group Choices
and finally, Seattle Public Library’s discussion of Book Group “how tos.”

**The Reading Across Rhode Island selection for 2009 is Ron Carlson’s Five Skies. A sweet, short book about three broken and lonely men who meet in the badlands of Idaho and find friendship and healing. I highly recommend it. Meg

[The information contained in this post is thanks to Librarian Joyce May and her wonderful workshop on reinvigorating books groups.]

John Updike, 1932-2009

2009-01-28T10:44:00.000-08:00

John Updike was born in Pennsylvania but moved to the North Shore of Massachusetts when he was 25 and remained a Mass. resident until his death at the age of 76 yesterday, January 27, 2009.

Mr. Updike is best know for his “Rabbit Angstrom” novels which introduced us to Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom, one of those middle-class Americans who, as Updike wrote, “aren’t especially beautiful or bright or urban, but about whom there is a lot worth saying.”

The Rabbit novels in order are: Rabbit Run; Rabbit Redux; Rabbit is Rich; and Rabbit at Rest. Rabbit Is Rich and Rabbit at Rest both won Pulitzer Prizes for fiction.

His 22nd novel, Terrorist, tells the story of an 18-tear-old American (New Jersey) suicide bomber. The other central figure in Terrorist is Jack Levy, a non-observant Jew and burnt out high school guidance counselor. The climactic moment of the book brings these two figures together in a desperate confrontation that comes a bit too late.

The Boston Globe has a brilliantly put together photo gallery the follows John Updike through the years. Meg

Presidential Reading

2009-01-26T12:35:00.000-08:00

Whenever a new President is elected (or re-elected) there are folks out there who are sure that the new national administrator would do a much better job, if only they read certain books.

[Hint: If you do a Google search under “books the new president should read” you come up with a long list of recommendations from quite a number of people.]

Here is a list from the Washington Monthly.

Bill Moyers, on his journal on PBS, asked for suggestions from the public and there is a very long list of required reading for President Obama.

Tim Weiner, author of Legacy of Ashes (a history of the CIA) and a 2007 National Book Award winner, lists five important books for the new President to consider.

And there are even suggestions for the next science books the President should read from Nature: The International Weekly Journal of Science.

Four books that many lists seem to have in common are:

The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals, by Jane Mayer

An Inconvenient Truth, by Al Gore

The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam by Barbara W. Tuchman

and finally, a few books by the late, great George Orwell were mentioned, including 1984, Animal Farm and the Collected Essays.

What would you recommend? Meg

Tuesday Book Group Reads The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

2009-01-17T13:56:00.000-08:00

Last week, the Tuesday Book Group discussed David Wroblewski’s popular new novel, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. The consensus? Well, there was none, which made for a great discussion. Of the six members present, at least two found the book excellent. Several praised Wroblewski’s beautiful and fluid writing style, and we all found his depiction of Edgar, the main character who communicates only in sign, technically ingenious. Other praise focused on the finely crafted descriptions of dog behavior and the natural world, as well as the author’s powerful retelling of the Hamlet story.

At least one group member, however, found the novel tedious, over-detailed, and overwrought. Several agreed, citing inconsistencies in the plot and numerous loose ends. But this didn’t stop the group from liking the book overall: Wroblewski’s rookie novel, if a bit long, is enjoyable to read and even more enjoyable to discuss. Many of the parts we had problems with actually enriched the discussion.

I’ll withhold the details to prevent spoiling the book for those of you who haven’t read it yet. Good news for those still waiting for a library copy: we purchased extra book club copies that will soon come into circulation. Look for “star” copies on the new books display!

The Tuesday Book Group reads classic books alongside modern works inspired by them (for example, Hamlet and The Story of Edgar Sawtelle). Kindred readers are welcome to join us the second Tuesday of the month at 1:00pm. On February 9th, we'll dive into Homer's classic Odyssey. Want to dodge scylla and charybdis with us? Contact the Reference Desk at info@newportlibraryri.org, for more information. LO

Reading Resolutions for the New Year

2009-01-12T08:28:00.000-08:00

These we just might be able to keep!

1. I will reread a book that I loved as a child.
2. I will finally read that classic from high school that I’ve been avoiding.
3. I’ll find a book of poetry and read some aloud.
4. I’ll spend an hour in aimless browsing at a library.
5. I’ll read a book written in the year I was born.
6. I’ll create a journal and keep notes about the books and magazines I read.

7. I will assemble a list of my favorite people and send them my ideas about books - favorites, recent reads, and the like.
8. I will read a book to a child.
9. I will gather a few friends and read a play out loud.
10. I will read a book on the history of my town.
11. I will read a book written from a political point of view totally opposite my own.
12. I’ll read a book about a place I’ve never been.
13. I will reread a book that I just “didn’t get” when I was eighteen.
14. I will read a book written by a non-American.
15. I will ask a librarian to show me some print and online resources for readers.

SO: What are YOUR New Year’s READING RESOLUTIONS?

These Reading Resolutions come to the Newport Public Library compliments of the Seattle Public Library’s Shelf Talk – another great public library blog. Meg

Laurie King and Sherlock Holmes

2009-01-07T11:38:00.000-08:00

My introduction to Laurie King was the first book in her series starring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes (!). Now there have been many authors lately who have tried writing books that include Sherlock Holmes, either as a main character or in a supporting role – and most of them have just not (to my mind) captured the essence of that wonderful Conan Doyle character. So it was with much hesitation that I began reading The Beekeepers Apprentice.

What a wonderful surprise. King has managed to create a brilliant young woman in Mary Russell, and her meeting and partnering with the great Detective Holmes is natural, believable and spot on. Holmes has retired from the detective business and is keeping bees, of all things, in the Sussex countryside.

Mary is a precocious and very bright 14 year old who lost her family in a terrible automobile accident in California. She has come to England to live with her only living relative, her mother’s sister – NOT a very bright woman and not a woman very sympathetic to a bereaved, but very independent teenager. Mary stumbles (literally) into Mr. Holmes while he is observing a group of bees – and they soon discover they are, despite their age differences, quite birds of a feather. And they begin to solve crimes together – first some very small, local problems and then a major kidnapping. It is a joy to go with them on their adventures.

The Women’s Rights movement in London forms the backdrop of the second book in the series, A Monstrous Regiment of Women, and also further develops the characters of Russell and Holmes (as they refer to each other). They are a wonderful fictional pair – almost as fun as Holmes and Watson – and I highly recommend them.

Other titles in the series are:
A Letter of Mary
The Moor
O’ Jerusalem (a prequel, of sorts)
Justice Hall
The Game
Locked Rooms
The Language of Bees (set for publication in April 2009)

It is better, by the way, to read the books in order. Have fun. Meg

Off on a Better Foot - New Year's Reading

2008-12-30T13:21:00.000-08:00

Resolve to do better, feel happier, be satisfied, help others – these books might help get you started.

Happy at Last: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Finding Joy by Richard O’Connor.
O’Connor is a practicing psychotherapist who first assesses the reasons why Americans are not happy and content with their lives, and then shows us how to change. O’Connor tells us that happiness is not only a matter of mood, but a direct result of brain chemistry and development. And we can choose to develop the part of our brains directly related to happiness and satisfaction. Not sure if I believe him, but I am going to give it a try.

Hot, Flat and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution and How It Can Renew America by Thomas L. Friedman.
Friedman, also the author of The World is Flat, writes about the absolute necessity for America to “go green” and to do it immediately and aggressively. The book includes case studies and will hopefully provide the inspiration we need to tend responsibly to our own consumer culture and the waste it engenders.

What Matters: The World’s Preeminent Photojournalists and Thinkers Depict Essential Issues of Our Time by David Elliot Cohen.
A photographic journey like no other, What Matters brings together photos – many of which are not easy to look at – that he hopes will raise awareness to the many issues addressed and ultimately change the world. Broad topics that are represented include Man vs. Man (picturing issues of global warming and safe water); the Distribution of Wealth (picturing poverty, child labor and immigration); and Man vs. Disease (picturing those affected by AIDs and malaria.)

He ends with a chapter on one amazing man, Abdul Sattar Edhi, a Pakistani, now 80 years old, who has devoted his life to helping those in need. This chapter is entitled “What One Person Can Do.” Meg