June 2011

Karen ~ Christine Falls by Benjamin Black
                Shangri-la by Lisa Napoli
                Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks
Sheila ~  Small as an Elephant by Jennifer Jacobson
Dawn ~  State of Wonder by Ann Patchett

Our summer reading programs began this week ...  the adult reading program is "Novel Destinations".  Ask at the main desk for information on this fun program!!

May 2011

It’s always interesting when the staff finds a book that sparks so much discussion and this time the book is Swamplandia! by Karen Russell.  The setting is a failing alligator theme park in the Everglades and hosts a tough young heroine with a dead mother, an ambitious brother, an absent father and a big problem: how to save her big sister from eloping with a ghost.  Sound strange? It is!!  Karen found this book so different but she loved Russell’s descriptions of the Florida Keys, the quirky characters and the dreamy way the plot was strung together. She passed the book along to her husband who thought the book was awful!  Marie agreed with Karen… and Dawn… thought it was TOO weird and found huge gaps in the story that just didn’t make sense to the overall plot. Still a satisfying read that should be considered.  We think it would be a great book club pick!

Karen enjoyed reading Slam by Nick Hornby.  Hornby is a British writer whose endearing and imperfect male characters stumble their way through some kind of crisis.  The movie About a Boy was based on his novel.

Zoo Story: Life in the Garden of the Captives by award winning journalist Thomas French is an intimate look at the people, animals, and politics of world-renowned Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa Florida.  Karen thought that this book read easily and it creates a thoughtful platform for thinking about all kinds of issues; from animal rights and endangered species to business management and exploitation.

Dawn and Marie both enjoyed The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown and The Good Daughters by Joyce Maynard. Both of these explored family relationships in an easy-to-read way.  The Weird Sisters is about three sisters and their odd quirks based on ‘birth order’.  Rose, the oldest, is a faultfinding control freak.  Bean, the middle sister, is a promiscuous attention seeker and Cordy, the youngest, simply refuses to grow up.  Dawn was amused by this book as she has two older sisters… and the family’s nickname for the oldest is “The Colonel”.  Not sure if the characters of the other two sisters would fit.  : )   Does Dawn refuse to grow up??? Hmmmm  Very thought provoking.

One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd  by Jim Fergus is an American western with a strange twist.  It is the fictional account of the participation of May Dodd and others in the controversial "Brides for Indians" program that was proposed but never put into effect.  This story is ‘what if’ if had been this had actually happened.  Dawn found it very interesting and a quick read. 

Other titles that Dawn enjoyed were The Immortal Live of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, Great House by Nicole Krauss, Honolulu by Alan Brennert and The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton.

Marie has been busy reading and her list consists of a variety of topics.  She finally read Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese and comments that she discovered all the good things that she heard about this novel were true.  Radio Shangri-La by Lisa Napoli disappointed her somewhat as she described it as a bit incomplete although she did appreciate learning about the culture in Bhutan from a first person view. She thoroughly enjoyed T.C. Boyle’s When the Killing’s Done and will be reading more by this author.  She liked his writing style and exploration of two environmental issues that seem like they should go together but were actually at odds. 

Marie’s list continues with The Paris Wife by Paula McLain, City of Veils by Zoe Ferraris, The Poison Tree by Erin Kelly, River Marked by Patricia Briggs and The Night Season by Chelsea Cain.

We always enjoy coming up with a fun summer reading program for our adult patrons.  This past year we did the very popular BINGO and decided to play our own staff BINGO.  We were so thrilled with the response from our 55 patrons who played along with us and especially Cathy Lawrence for neglecting her housework to complete the entire BINGO board!!  Congratulations to Cathy and for the many others who won a ‘special’ flower pen, Springvale Library mug, Springvale Library book bag and of course, books!

For the first time ever, the staff held their very own book discussion group reading  Tinkers by Paul Harding, the most recent Pulitzer Prize winning novel.  It was fun to meet after work one evening and discuss the many complexities of this short book.  Below are some interesting comments from the staff.

             “An unusual family story told in beautiful descriptive language.” - Karen

            “ I want to be a tinker." - Marie

            “Harding reminds us that even horrifically painful life circumstances can at times be eased with quick moments of
              honest humor.”  Sheila D.

            “As I lay dying…. This sums it up in a nutshell." - Sheila E.

            “One of those books that you appreciate more as you discuss it.  Not a quick read, as I found myself reading certain
              sentences over and over….” -  Dawn

             "This book will make you think about your own life." - David

Karen:

I loved reading The Tower, the Zoo and the Tortoise by Julia Stuart.  It is a gentle, surprisingly humorous story of a couple healing from the death of a child.  It is set in the Tower of London where Balthazar Jones lives with his fellow Beefeaters (guards and docents for the Tower) and their families.  Definitely a feel good story with some wacky moments. 

If you liked A Prayer for Owen Meany and the Poisonwood Bible, Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese would be a good match for your reading tastes.   Verghese is an excellent storyteller with a light touch, like Irving’s early and mid-career books.  This book is set in Ethiopia and spans 50 years in the lives of a set of twins, who almost immediately upon birth are orphaned by their parents but grow up in the loving care of an extended family in a mission hospital.  So satisfying.

I am listening to an audio book by Nick Hornby, Juliet, Naked which is a laugh out loud funny romance.  How did I miss this author?

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead is this year’s Newbery Award winner.  It is a complex time travel puzzle story that will have astute readers flipping back and forth to figure out which clues they missed.

David:

Talking to Girls About Duran Duran: One Man’s Quest for True Love and a Cooler Haircut by Rod Sheffield. A fun read for anyone who grew up in the 80’s or is a fan of the music of that era.  Just overall a fun coming of age book

Wicked Girls: A Novel of the Salem Witch Trials by Stephanie Hemphill.  An interesting take on this tragic period of our history.  Told from the point of view of the girls who were the accusers.  It is all told in verse as well.

Dawn:

Little Bee  (Chris Cleave)

-All sorts of horrible, depressing things happen to Little Bee in what turns out to be a very memorable book. Inspiring.

 The Scent of Rain and Lightning  (Nancy Pickard)

-Loved it more than her previous novel The Virgin of Small Plains.

 The Passage  (Justin Cronin)

-Very LONG book at 700+ pages…not sure worth the effort.

 Still Missing (Chevy Stevens)

-OMG! Disturbing book… but could NOT put this down.  One day read!!!

 Father of the Rain  (Lily King)

-Story about a broken family, narrated by the daughter, beautifully written.

 The Girl Who Played with Fire  (Stieg Larson)

-A must read in the continuing saga. 

 The Poachers Son (Paul Doiron)

-Murder mystery set in Maine with an unexpected ending.

Marie:

Our Tragic Universe (Scarlett Thomas)

-a great “storyless story”

This Must Be The Place (Kate Racculia)

-good story

The Chill Of Night (James Hayman)

-suspense and mystery in Portland, Maine! also enjoyed The Cutting, Hayman’s first book in the series

Dragon Haven (Robin Hobb)

-a satisfying conclusion to the Rain Wilds Chronicles

Cupcakes From The Primrose Bakery (Martha Swift)

-beautiful cupcakes with unique ingredients, can’t wait to try a recipe!

The Cookbook Collector (Allegra Goodman)

-large cast of characters with multiple story lines

The Stormchasers (Jenna Blum)

-insight on the storm chasing scene with a family story thrown in

Backseat Saints (Joshilyn Jackson)

-edgy book on a woman’s transformation

The One That I Want (Allison Winn Scotch)

-quick read with mystical elements thrown in

Sheila D:

Sheila has been awarding some books her attention, the Newbery award books that is!  She recommends The Graveyard book by Neil Gaiman (2009 winner) for a little creepy suspense, Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata (2005 winner) for historical fiction fans and the Newest Newbery (2010 winner)  When you Reach Me by Rebecca Stead for the suspense & thrill of time-traveling themes.  Charlie Bone fans will want to get the newest title in the series, Charlie Bone and the Red Knight for a satisfying ending.

Sheila E:

Little Bee  (Chris Cleave)

Mockingjay  (Suzanne Collins)

The Girl who Played with Fire  (Stieg Larsson)

The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest  (Stieg Larsson)

Jamie’s Food Revolution: Rediscover how to Cook Simple, Delicious, Affordable Meals (Jamie Oliver)

We’d love to hear what you read this summer that made an impression on you… good or bad!! 

June 2010

A series by young adult author Suzanne Collins has got the staff buzzing and talking it up to patrons.  The Hunger Games is as Karen put it ‘the ultimate reality game show’. This book is about a world where the government has unlimited control and the conflict is so amazing and ‘out there’ it is hard to put the book down.  Suzanne Collins has the ability to bring to life the action, suspense, romance, humor, cleverness with vivid imagery.  You can imagine every setting, every character and every battle as the Games play out.  And, you can’t help falling in love with the main character!  Catching Fire continues the story but leaves you wanting more.  There is high anticipation for the final book Mockingjay due in August. 

The Millennium Trilogy is another series that Dawn and Marie are enjoying.  The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is an award-winning crime novel by the late Swedish journalist Steig Larsson.  When the author died in November of 2004 he left three unpublished novels, the first two topping the best selling lists since their release and the third, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest was just released in May. These novels revolve around five generations of the Vanger family and spans several continents.  Marie describes the first as a ‘solid read’.

The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli, The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors by Michele Young-Stone and Silver Borne by Patricia Briggs are books that Marie would recommend reading this summer.  They’re not light summer reads but they would be satisfying.

Dawn suggests The Map of True Places by Brunonia Barry as a summer read.  While not as ‘mysterious’ as her first novel The Lace Reader, this one is also set in Salem, MA with some of the same characters making an appearance.  Other titles that Dawn read during the spring are The Last Time I Saw You by Elizabeth Berg, The Postmistress by Sarah Blake and Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah.  All would be worth the summer book list!

Sheila Dube is on another mystery reading binge.  She has been reading some titles by classic mystery authors like Martha Grimes and Dorothy Simpson. The Old Fox Deceiv’d by Grimes, as well as, Puppet for a Corpse, Last Seen Alive, and Dead by Morning by Simpson have been meeting that “all things British” need with Chief Inspectors, cups a tea and descriptions of quaint English villages that hold deep dark secrets. 

Sheila also recommends Laurie R. King’s newest Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes book The God of the Hive as well as Elizabeth George’s new release in the Inspector Lynley series This Body of Death.

Karen adds to the staff picks a couple of books with timely themes.  February by Lisa Moore is a novel about a widow’s grief in the aftermath of an oil rig disaster.  The Bell Ringers by Henry Porter is a look around the corner into the near future.  A Western government integrates it data gathering systems with the help of a corporation and spies on the populace in order to be more efficient and secure.  It is so likely a story that one starts to wonder who is watching and listening right now!  She also read The Orchard a memoir by Adelia Robertson of her years running the family orchard during the Great Depression in Ipswich Massachusetts.  She writes evocatively about that time period and the hardships that almost everyone faced.

Summer fun to all!!

February 2010

Zooming to the top of Karen’s all-time favorite list is Barbara Kinsolver’s new book The Lacuna (la-q-na)!!  It is the life story of a writer, set in Mexico and the United States from the 1930’s -1950’s.  She describes it as exquisitely crafted, sweeping, and packed with contemporary themes.  In Karen’s opinion, this is Kingsolver’s best book to date and if you do audio books do not miss this reading by the author!

Karen also read two other guy books recently.  Out Stealing Horses is a translation of a novel by Per Petterson.  It is a resonant coming of age story set in rural Norway that is beautifully descriptive and quietly tragic. 

The Badlands Saloon by Jonathan Twingly is a brief story of a young man’s crossing into adulthood during a summer job in North Dakota.  Oliver has returned to his home state to work after his first year at art school in New York City.  Don’t look for drama or plot here, just a snapshot rich with the sort of oddball people all of us meet in life.  Kindly told, it flows along gently and is peppered with paintings by the author.  Marie adds that this book is quirky, vivid and meandering.

One of Dawn’s favorite new books is Colum McCann’s Let the Great World Spin.  In this novel, stories of a group of New Yorkers are connected by the historical Philippe Petit's famous wire walk on a cable stretched between the twin towers of the World Trade Center which takes place in 1974. McCann captures the times and people in such a way that you feel part of the event. The important theme of this book is not that things end, but that things go on. In the authors note at the end of the book McCann writes; "A book is completed only when it is finished by a reader. This is the intimate privilege of art; In fact, it's the intimate privilege of being alive. When telling stories we are engaged in a democracy like no other." Dawn loves this quote!

31 Hours by Masha Hamilton is a story that Dawn has thought of often since she finished it. The mom in the novel  wakes up suddenly one night with a mother's intuition that something is very wrong with her twenty-one year old son, Jonas. For the next 31 hours, she will try to find him before something, she doesn't know what, goes horribly wrong.   Her intuition proves accurate as we learn that Jonas is preparing to become a suicide bomber, blowing up a subway in New York. Interesting and heart breaking, told in the mother’s perspective and basically taken from the current days headlines.

Marie wanted to move to Avening, a fictional town on an island in the Pacific Northwest, after finishing When Autumn Leaves by Amy Foster.  She describes this novel as a magical story with a cast of interesting characters. 

The Christmas Cookie Club by Ann Pearlman, A Change in Altitude by Anita Shreve and Bird in Hand by Christina Baker Kline were titles that showed up on both Dawn and Marie’s reading list for the past few months.  Not considered favorites but satisfying and fun reads.

Audrey Niffeneggar follows up the popular The Time Travelers Wife with her newest novel Her Fearful Symmetry.  This is an odd ghost story with a twisty plot that left Dawn questioning some aspects of the almost silly story. 

Sheila Dube revisited some well loved mystery authors in the past few months.  P.D. James older titles The Murder Room and Death in Holy Orders satisfied her need for Inspector Dalgliesh’s sleuthing and The Clutch of the Constables by Ngaio Marsh was an enjoyable older mystery (1969).  Doing laundry is usually not Sheila’s first love, but she loves Mandy Dyer who owns a Laundromat and solves mysteries on the side.  She can be found in Buttons & Foes by Dolores Johnson.

Marge, one of our faithful volunteers, adds the following mystery to our staff picks The Big Steal by Emyl Jenkns. Marge found it to be a good read and encourages lovers of antiques and old houses to give it a try!   

The Help by Kathryn Stockett and The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown continue to be titles that have very LONG wait lists.  If you want something similar to Stockett’s book, try Someone knows my Name by Lawrence Hill, We are all Welcome Here by Elizabeth Berg or Beth Hoffman’s debut novel Saving CeeCee Honeycutt.  For Dan Brown fans give Steve Berry a try, or James Rollin’s Sigma Force novels.   

October 2009

Karen has read a string of books lately that she claims 'fit her just right'.  The Dart League King by Keith Morris takes place in one evening and she found every character in the book, even the local cocaine dealer, kind of endearing.  The ending is ambiguous, so if you like very tidy endings, it isn't for you, but she thinks it had a happy ending for every character. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman was a fabulous young adult fantasy about a child who grows to manhood in a graveyard with certain permissions granted that are usually reserved for the residents.  Karen normally isn't a big fan of fantasy but this ranks high on her list!

Two authors with first time novels makes Karen's list for this quarter.  Sweeping Up Glass by Carolyn Walls packs a punch while being very readable.  This satisfying story is part mystery, full of excitement, and set solidly in small town Kentucky.  The second novel is What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn.  This mystery is set in New England and starts with a young  girl's fantasies, then jumps ahead  to finish years later.  Karen describes the story as convoluted with many surprises with beautiful, suspenseful and strong writing.

The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa was described by a patron as 'a little gem' and the staff here agrees!  This is an intimate story about family, memory and believe it or not, the poetry of mathematics.  It is also the story about characters getting to know someone but with a major twist:  the person forgets everything in eighty minutes.  How do you sustain a relationship with someone who cannot remember?  Karen, Marie and Dawn all loved this book.  It is a quick, 200 page book but will keep you thinking of the characters and premise of the book for a long time.

At the top of Dawn's "must reads" and "favorite books of the year" list is Olive Kitteridge: A Novel in Short Stories by Elizabeth Strout. Her prior novels Amy and Isabelle and Abide with Me were favorites as well and when Olive was released, Dawn picked it up and just couldn't get into it.  Then In April, Strout, won the Pulitzer Prize for Olive Kitteridge and Dawn tried it again this past summer.  LOVED it.  This book is set in rural Maine and through short stories Olive appears in all, some as the main character, some as just a mention but through it all we learn that the way we see ourselves is not always the way that others see us.  

Unaccustomed Earth by Lahiri Jhumpa is another collection of stories that Dawn enjoyed.  The book is split into two sections, the first containing four stories and the second three stories that are all connected.  These stories all center around ordinary topics and ordinary people.  Because of the way the book was set up, it was a book that was put down on numerous occasions but held enough intrigue to pick up and finish.

Shanghai Girls by Lisa See, The Story Sisters by Alice Hoffman and A Change in Altitude  by Anita Shreve were books that Dawn read and enjoyed.  

Marcia's staff picks include The Spire by Richard North Patterson which is a suspenseful, poignant love story set in a small private college and also Shannon by Frank Delaney, a beautifully written story of Robert Shannon, a young American suffering from shell shock as he searches far for peace in Ireland.

Sheila English is currently reading The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt. Set in fin de siecle, England this magical book holds a mirror to the new middle class.  This didn't get a great review but Sheila is loving it!  Dead and Gone by Charlaine Harris is #9 in the southern vampire series and in this latest saga the werewolves and other shape shifters reveal themselves to a not quite ready public.  Sheila is our 'in house' vampire expert!!  Other selections that Sheila adds to staff picks are Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (sequel to The Hunger Games and every bit as good) and The Girl Who Played with Fire by Steig Larson.

Marie's staff picks include three dystopian novels.  The Hunger Games,  a young adult novel by Suzanne Collins, has a grim and different story line set in a world in which reality television means fighting to the death for young people drawn in a lottery.  It is compelling and she can't read to read the second in the series Catching Fire.  The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood is disturbing in its depiction of an imagined future world.  This is a companion novel to her 2003 book Oryx and Crake.  The third novel The Island at the End of the World by Sam Taylor was unique in that it is told in three voices influenced by limited reading materials.  Marie figured out the Shakespeare and the Biblical voices but would appreciate comments on where the third voice comes from.

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe, The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, and The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters are titles that Marie would hand to patrons and say 'try this'.