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By Laurie, December 9, 2012

Where’d you go, Bernadette?
By Maria Semple

It is difficult to find engaging contemporary fiction featuring modern characters that do not lean towards twee-dom. In Where’d you go, Bernadette, Maria Semple has crafted an epistolary work told in a crisp, contemporary manner.

Bernadette’s story is engaging and interesting without being coy or contrived. Plot twists are memorable, yet  believable. Character outlines are recognizable but the author fills them in with quirks, personal failures and redemptions that are rich and ring true.

The story is set in Seattle, home of Microsoft which serves as a sort of mother church. The town is chocked full of Craftsman homes and on their porches Patagonia clad owners sip coffee. The owners either sport short grey hair or alternatively, long grey hair. Bernadette is weary with the monotony of the “gnats” that populate her daughter’s school pick-up lane. The “gnats” see Bernadette as anti-social, superior and too far removed to consider anything but a non-participatory parent.

What the “gnats” don’t know about Bernadette’s past explains in large part her weariness.  Suffice it to say that Bernadette finds genius difficult to maintain over the years.

A perfect companion book is House by Diane Keaton. The author has gathered glossy visions of the best of modern architecture, crisp and contemporary.

“A doctor can bury his mistakes, but an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines.”  Frank Lloyd Wright

laurie

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By Lindsey, December 6, 2012

In my attempt to be the best children’s librarian ever, I pretty much only read children’s book.  My friends and family find this frustrating and have stopped asking me if I have read the latest piece of adult fiction/non-fiction/memoir/etc.   My nieces and nephews find it thrilling. I am trying to balance recent books with timeless classics.   Both of these “classic” books would make great holiday purchases for boys in your life and often appear on “Books for boys who don’t like to read” lists.  Girls will, of course, like them, too, but are often easier to please in the area of reading.

My Side of the Mountain
by Jean Craighead George
The world said goodbye to Jean Craighead George in 2012, but we have fortunately been left with a long list of titles to keep us remembering why we love her so.  My Side of the Mountain is about Sam Gribley, a young teenage boy who is dissatisfied with his crowded life in New York City.  So, he runs away to his family’s land in the Catskill Mountains.  Sam is knowledgeable about survival skills and doesn’t run away out of petulance or a misunderstanding of what he will face living off of the land. As a result, the reader learns survival skills and gains Sam’s appreciation and respect for nature.  Plus, there is a cool falcon in it.

Stay with me for this metaphor, but I felt like Sam when reading this book.  If current children’s fiction is Sam’s New York City, then reading this book is a departure.  In a good way.  And I can appreciate nature with the best of them, but I am not a camper or hiker.  I frankly expected to be bored by this book, being used to reading modern children’s books with magic, robots, suspense and the like.  But I wasn’t bored.  I was engaged and wanted to know how – HOW – Sam was going solve the mystery of creating a wood stove from river clay. My 7 and 10 year old nephews listened to the audiobook after I did and I’m happy to report that they enjoyed it even more than I.

Hatchet
by Gary Paulsen 
Hatchet was written almost 30 years after My Side of the Mountain and it contains more of the elements we have become accustomed to in modern children’s literature – suspense, plane crash, family drama…you get the idea. 

Unlike Sam, Brian does NOT wish to survive off the land and is not prepared to do so.  Unfortunately, he has little choice when he is the sole survivor of a plane crash and all he has to help him is the hatchet his mother gave him right before he boarded the plane.  This book has some pretty frightening situations and does not shy away from some of the more gory details.  Which, again, kids will love.

 Both of these books are riveting in their own right, hold up well despite being written in the late fifties and eighties, and best of all, have sequels so young readers can keep up with these characters’ stories.

-Lindsey

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By Crystal, December 4, 2012

The Uninvited Guests

by Sadie Jones

Not long now -  just about a month left until the season 3 premiere of Downton Abbey!  In the meantime, I highly recommend reading Sadie Jones’ Edwardian country house novel The Uninvited Guests.

The year is 1912, and it’s an early spring day at the 17th century manor house Sterne.  All the inhabitants, both family and staff alike, are preparing to celebrate the 20th birthday of Emerald Torrington.  Invited guests are due to arrive shortly. The birthday girl Emerald, her brother Clovis, youngest sibling Imogen (called Smudge) and mother Charlotte have just seen off stepfather Edward Swift, who is headed to Manchester to carry out a serious task indeed.  The Torringtons are doomed to lose their beloved home unless Edward can borrow the funds to cover their debts.  Mother Charlotte is particularly consumed with melodramatic despair. Then they receive word that a train close by has crashed, and survivors must take shelter at Sterne.

By the end of the night, a pony becomes performance art,  a shocking secret or two will be revealed, love blossoms, and class divisions blur.  As for Sterne, let’s just say the house shines during an opportunity to provide shelter to those in need.  I had a lot of fun reading this refreshing novel, and I daresay you will too.  The Uninvited Guests would make a perfect  Masterpiece mini-series…  Lets start a campaign!

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By Sharra, November 23, 2012

Flight Behavior

by Barbara Kingsolver

Chaos. Beauty. The cycle of life and death, destruction and creation. Barbara Kingsolver’s latest novel, Flight Behavior, shows us the beauty of every day life, and the tragedy of miracles. The novel takes place in a small Appalachian town in Tennessee, where a woman struggles to find the balance between her needs and the actuality of her life. When we first meet Dellarobia, she seems to be fleeing her home, driven on by her own lust and need, willing to through her entire life away for the simple pleasure of giving in to desire. What she finds instead is a miracle. Monarch butterflies, millions of them, in columns on the trees, floating through the air, and underfoot. Her near act of selfishness is the first step in a series of changes for herself, her family, and the town in which she lives. Dellarobia’s life expands as the butterflies bring scientists, tourists, and activists into her life, and into her front yard.

Kingsolver addresses the issue of the effects of climate change and of harmful acts towards natural environments, such as logging, by exploring the life cycle of butterfly through the eyes of a woman whose personal metamorphosis becomes linked to the survival of the butterflies she accidentally stumbled upon.  Dellarobia’s growth through the novel, the changes seen in her family, her friends, and the life of a small town, as well as the trials of the butterflies who have flown miles from their normal path are a gripping, emotional read.

Barbara Kingsolver will be speaking on Flight Behavior on November 27th at the Nashville Public Library as part of the Salon@615 series. 

Pleasant Reading -
Sharra

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By Phil, November 18, 2012

11/22/63 by Stephen King

I’ll admit after reading many of the early King classics – Salem’s Lot, The Shining, Firestarter, Christine, and the epic The Stand, I lost track of his writing somewhere around the time the scary clowns in the sewers of It were creating nightmares. That was 1987 and that one was set largely in circa 1958 Derry, Maine.
Strange coincidence – some of this tale takes place in that year and town as well. The plot: time travel in which a dying shopkeeper gets to explore the past through a portal that eventually allows a present day schoolteacher the same opportunity. After testing the pre- Civil Rights era waters of ‘58, this ultimately leads to a plan to stop Lee Oswald from shooting JFK in ‘63. It’s a quirky, absorbing tale of love and desperation played out between Jake Ebbing of Lisbon Falls, Maine and Sadie Dunhill of Jodie, Texas as the plot unfolds over several trips into the past. Full of touchstone Americana details in the time before cell phones, King’s characters spend a lot of time inhabiting the milieu of Oswald’s world in run down areas of Dallas and its environs.
The story pulls you through to the end with some heartbreaking occurrences and well-depicted scenes, although a few of the characters aren’t completely developed. The ramifications of actually being able to alter a string of events in world history are always present in this book – the underlying and thought provoking possibility of changing fate and reality. Everyone’s life matters and is interrelated (see The Butterfly Effect) and it’s clear that “life can turn on a dime.” But remember, as the author makes clear “the past is obdurate.”
Interesting that King cites several books in his notes including Oswald’s Tale by Norman Mailer and Case Closed by Gerald Posner (I’d add Reasonable Doubt by Henry Hurt, Plausible Denial by Mark Lane and Crossfire: the Plot that Killed Kennedy by Jim Marrs to any budding conspiracy theorist’s to- read list!) but really this is a twisted journey into the past and a well done exploration of the “what if’s?” leading up to that fateful day. Take a ride!

-Phil

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By Amanda, November 17, 2012

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore
By Robin Sloan

I think that someday, in my free time, I’m going to build a magic device that will allow me to teleport not only to work instantaneously (goodbye hour commute!), but also lets me visit fictional places. The first place I would go would be Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore (the second would be Hogwarts – but the body count there is higher). A place that is open all the time and has floor to ceiling books? I’m so in.

It is nice to finally find a book that lives up to the hype. It’s completely disappointing to read a great review, but then be let down while reading. Sigh. It’s kinda like when a movie preview contains every funny moment from the show. It might be hilarious, but the actual movie is a snoozefest because you’ve already heard all the punchlines. Penumbra’s Bookstore holds many surprises and intrigue. If you’re like me, you’ll probably waver back and forth between wanting to finish the book NOW! to see what happens and wanting to savor every moment because’s it so enjoyable.

What is the big mystery about Mr. Penumbra’s Bookstore? How does it stay open all the time when no one comes in? Why does our main character Clay have to record the minutest details about the customers who do peruse the shop? What is the Waybacklist? Will Google revolutionize mystery novel writing? Why do I like books about smart, nerdy people so much? Robin Sloan will definitely answer most of these questions.

This is probably the third best book I read all year (the other two: Ready, Player, One and Ghost Wave). If you are looking for something that isn’t just a publishing sensation but is actually a good read – start here.

Happy Reading,

Amanda

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By Sharra, November 9, 2012

Astray

By Emma Donoghue

Emma Donoghue, the red-headed Dublin native, re-visits leave-takings, journeys, wanderings and meanderings throughout history in her latest book of short stories Astray. It’s not just about the physical – these are people going astray in many aspects of their lives; they cross boundaries where boundaries have not been crossed before. Fourteen stories track fourteen lives throughout history as they are led astray – by themselves, by others, by race, by sexuality, and many other ideas.

The stories are reminiscent of a previous collection of Donoghue’s The Women Who Gave Birth To Rabbits, which focuses on grotesque and odd historical anecdotes. Just like in her previous collection, Donoghue breathes life into stories that seem like nothing more than footnotes in the grand scheme of history, but in truth are important reminders of all the little things we miss when looking at the “big picture.”

One of my favorite stories in this book is actually the first one, called “Man and Boy”, which reads like a monologue. At first, you can’t tell that the person speaking is an animal trainer, addressing his ward: an elephant named Jumbo. The story tells of the elephant’s sale to P.T. Barnum, and the trainer’s preparation for the ocean voyage from London. There is so much tenderness in the speaker that it is easy to believe why Matthew Scott, the trainer, refers to Jumbo as “his boy”.

If you like historical fiction with a twist, this is definitely a book for you!

Meet Emma Donoghue on November 13th, as she joins the Nashville Public Library as part of their Salon@615 series. Please check the calendar for details.

Pleasant Reading –
Sharra