After a long hiatus, Literatea returned to the West Branch this week. Staff and patrons alike were glad to delve back into the world of books and tea.
As you can see from our newsletter, this month’s
tea is a blend created in honor of Sophia Peabody Hawthorne, an artist and the wife of Nathaniel Hawthorne. She is also one of a trio of sisters who played key roles in Transcendentalist circles, spent time with and inspired people like Hawthorne, Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller and the Alcotts and had their own impressive accomplishments in the literary, artistic and educational arenas. The Peabody sisters have long intrigued me. They have also, clearly fascinated many an author, as well since there are a number of books written about them. My favorite is The Peabody Sisters by Megan Marshall.
After eagerly discussing the staff selected titles of the month, the bibliophiles of Literatea recommended the following reads:
If you’ve walked down Main Street in the past few weeks, you might have noticed that there are two pianos, one right by our front door, and one hanging out on the sidewalk across the street. There are also pianos hanging out at East End Veteran’s Memorial Park on Walnut Street, and inside the Northshore Mall.
Each piano has been painted by contributing artists Jessica Andersen, Desiree Ferreras, Deana Jacome, and Jeffrey Rezende with vibrant colors and patterns that really make them stand out–our piano is black and green with bright red and yellow flowers that stands out beautifully against the red brick of the Library.
But why have these pianos come to Peabody? They are here for you. Thanks to a generous donation from the city’s Community Development Block Grant and from the Peabody Cultural Council, as well as donations from Peabody Access Telecommunications, the Library and Rousselot, these pianos have arrives as part of a public project called “Play Us a Tune”, that is intended to bring music to the streets (and malls) of Peabody. As you’ll notice on each piano, there is a sticker printed in English, Spanish, and Portuguese that encourages you to play–whatever comes to your mind, or to your fingertips. You can learn more from the clip below:
So far, the project has been an enormous success. Though the pianos were only supposed to be here until May, their stay has been extended thanks to really high public appeal. We have professional students who come every afternoon around 4pm to practice most days, and patrons who are just learning, trying out their skills on these free and colorful instruments.
And speaking as someone in the Library, it’s a sheer joy to hear your tunes, and watch the happiness it brings to people’s faces to hear this piano music floating down Main Street. So why not come down and meet our piano, or any of the other pianos in Peabody, soon? They’ll be here for the rest of the month, and can’t wait to make your acquaintance!
And, finally, to whoever is playing ragtime tunes outside the Library on Thursday evenings–I love you.
Today, the Free For All celebrates the birthday of the Shakespeare of Russian Literature, would-be revolutionary, and all-round romantic, Alexander Pushkin!
Alexander Pushkin by Orest Kiprensky, 1821
Pushkin was born on this day in Moscow, 1799. His parents were part of the extensive Russian nobility, but his great-grandfather was Abram Gannibal, a slave who had been brought to Russia from what is now Cameroon, and had been freed by Peter the Great, and who had grown up within the Tsar’s household. Pushkin would attribute not only his love of freedom to his great-grandfather, but also his dark, curly hair.
From a young age, Pushkin knew he wanted to be a poet, as well as a social reformer. He was inspired by the Greek Revolution against the Ottoman Empire (the same revolution in which Byron died), and, though a civil servant, eagerly wrote and spoke out on the most radical of issues, including revolution, which quickly got him transferred to all the backwater areas of Russian government. Though bored out of his wits by his work, and increasingly lonely without the balls and parties of Russian high society, these isolated posts gave Pushkin plenty of time to write, to join the Freemasons (in 1820), and to become good friends with the Decembrists (not the musical group…the revolutionary group that was plotting to overthrow the Tsar.
Pushkin never took part in the 1825 Decembrist Uprising (legend says as he was leaving to join them, a black cat crossed his path, and the highly superstitious Pushkin decided it was an omen and stayed home). However, his comrades within the Decembrists kept handwritten copies of many of his political poems, and when they were arrested, Pushkin’s name was immediately linked to the group. Though he was allowed to return to St. Petersburg after having a face-to-face meeting with Tsar Nicholas I, Pushkin was placed under police watch, was unable to travel, and could publish nothing without extensive police censorship for the next five years.
Nevertheless, Pushkin’s star was on the rise. His plays and poems were winning him fame across Russia, and his charming wit, ribald jokes, and shameless flirting made him the first person to be invited to any event in Russian society. It was at one of these parties, in 1828, that Pushkin met Natalya Goncharova, then 16-years-old, and reportedly one of the most beautiful women in Moscow (one of Pushkin’s sketches of her is to the left). He fell in love immediately (granted, he seemed to have done that fairly often), but it took a great deal to convince the very hesitant Natalya to marry him, in 1831.
Like all good 19th century artists, Pushkin was falling deeper and deeper into debt, and his frequent clashes with the Powers That Be made his life a bit of a topsy-turvy one. He was willing to deal with it all with his customary charm, style, and bawdy good humor. But the one thing he couldn’t tolerate was his wife’s unhappiness–even when it came as a result of a potential affair with another man.
Romantics say that there is no one more devoted than a reformed rake, and Pushkin is the man who proves that saying. Though he called Natalya his “113th love”, and wasn’t above gently mocking her in his letters, she was his muse, and the person he held above all others. “Without you,” he wrote Natalya, “I would have been unhappy all my life.”
Natalya Pushkina, 1849
So when Natalya’s heart was broken by Georges D’Anthes, her brother-in-law, and reportedly one of the best shots in the Russian Army, Pushkin very publicly challenged him to a duel. D’Anthes fired first, hitting Pushkin in the abdomen. Pushkin–who had already fought a few duels in his time–managed to get up and fire, but only lightly wounded D’Anthes in the shoulder. Though honor may have been served, Pushkin’s wound was a fatal one, and he died after two days of agony.
Georges D’Anthes, and his amazing hair.
Even in death, Pushkin proved to be a threat to the establishment–his funeral, and the public mourning over his death was so strong and widespread that the government feared widespread unrest, and abruptly moved his funeral into a smaller church in order to discourage the crowds. It wasn’t until 1880 that a statue to the great man was unveiled in Moscow.
Today, though, we get to celebrate all of Pushkin’s genius, from his deeply romantic side, embodied in Eugene Onegin, perhaps the most famous poem in Russian literature, to his love for the dark, gothic, and mystical, to his prolific and utterly enchanting letters. I, personally, cannot recommend Pushkin highly enough (I was a Russian major in college because I had…have…an enormous literary crush on the man), but there is plenty of pleasure to be found, even for the uninitiated. Here are some super places to get started:
Eugene Onegin: I know I have brought up this book one too many times around here already, but seriously….it’s wonderful. Onegin is a jaded, cynical, self-absorbed Byronic hero who wins the heart of Tatiana, an innocent, but fiercely independent and free-spirited young woman (Pushkin writes some darned good heroine, particularly considering the time period in which he was writing). Their meeting becomes a catalyst for tragedy and self-revelation in rhyme that is so emotional and so smart and so moving that you’ll get swept away by it. Also, thanks to a passage in this poem that gave rise to a long-standing rumor that Pushkin had a foot fetish. You’ll have to read it to judge for yourself!
Collected Stories: Pushkin was a gifted story-teller no matter the medium, and his short stories still have the power to captivate, to intrigue, and to scandalize to this day. Some of these stories deal with elements of Russian folklore and mythology, some make fun of Russian society in Pushkin’s day, particularly the hypocrisy of the upper classes and government (and many of which still ring true today), and some are out-and-out, NSFW romps that gave a number of people in my Russian language classes fits of hysteria. The really fascinating part is that even these ribald tales are so well-written and clever and funny that it’s impossible not to cherish them.
Allow me to start with sincerest apologies for the lack of Saturdays @ the South last week. It is the first time since this column’s beginning over a year ago that it hasn’t appeared and I certainly hope it will be the last. In the meantime, let’s move forward with this week’s content (and, hopefully, your forgiveness…).
I’ve noticed that television seems to be getting mighty cozy lately. I don’t necessarily mean that TVs have gotten smaller (if anything TVs have gotten bigger…) or that they’ve gotten warmer, but they are showing more cozy mysteries. What exactly is a “cozy mystery,” and how is it different from any other mystery you might ask? A cozy mystery is a book that’s generally defined as a mystery where the person following the clues and solving the puzzle is an amateur sleuth (as opposed to a police detective or private investigator who do such things professionally). Another characteristic of the cozy mystery is that they consist mostly of “offstage” violence, meaning that even though a murder (or sometimes several) take place, the action of the murder doesn’t take place on the page. It’s referred to or stumbled upon, but not “seen” by the characters and, therefore, not by the reader, either. Lastly a cozy mystery usually involves an insular community where people usually know each other, either a small town or a specific neighborhood in a large town, so the murder is often considered more shocking or potent.
If any of these characteristics are ringing a bell to you, it could be because television gave us over a decade of a classic (though not derived from a book) cozy mystery: Murder She Wrote. Those who didn’t settle in after 60 Minutes on a Sunday night in the late ’80s and early ’90s are people unknown to me. Murder She Wrote has all the makings of a classic cozy mystery: an amateur sleuth (the inimitable and ever-classy Jessica Fletcher), offstage violence and an insular small town (the fictional Cabot Cove, ME, inspired by real-life inlet in Kennebunkport, but actually filmed on the wrong coast in Mendocino, CA), though Jessica had to travel far and wide to keep solving crimes for 12 seasons. In many cases, cozy mysteries found on television or film are often based on books (as we shall see), but in this case, such was the love for Jessica Fletcher that the TV series inspired a still-running series of books which can be found both in paper copies and in Overdrive as e-books.
It is usually the other way around, however, in which a book (or usually in the case of cozy mysteries, a series of books) inspires a TV series. Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple mysteries are generally considered the birth of the cozy (and has had several iterations on television), but the genre has exploded into a massive number of sub-genres (including pet cozies, culinary cozies- with recipes!, crafting cozies, paranormal cozies, historical cozies and so. much. more), so there are *plenty* of cozies to choose from when it comes to adapting television scripts. If you’d like to get a sense of the variety of the cozy-mystery world, I highly recommend you check out http://www.cozy-mystery.com/, which in my opinion is THE source for all things cozy. While I find the pseudonymous Erin Martin who runs the site to have a broader definition of a cozy than traditionally used (she includes some gentler police procedurals like the South Branch favorite Death in Paradise, in her cozy TV roundup), there is no denying that she has created a comprehensive resource that is regularly updated and broken down in many searchable ways.
Cozies have graced the screen easily since the late 1970s, early 1980s when Murder She Wrote was in good company with the likes of Miss Marple, Father Brown based on G.K. Chesterton’s series, Lord Peter Wimsy based on Dorothy L. Sayers’s mysteries and many more, but lately, I’ve been seeing somewhat a resurgence. Perhaps it’s just that I’m noticing them more on television or maybe there’s a genuine uptick in production (is there a grant out there that will allow us to research this?), but I’ve found several book-to-TV cozies out there that I thought would be fun to share with you all.
This is a British import brought to our TV screens by PBS but was inspired by James Runcie’s Sidney Chambers mystery series. I am familiar only with the TV series (it was only until I was actually paying attention to the credits that I noticed they were based on books) but Grantchester is a delightful series that takes its 1950s setting and uses it to discuss some of the more pertinent issues of today (abortion, racism, domestic violence). Lest you think a cozy get too heavy, it is also about the Sidney Chambers, the local vicar who has a kindly nature, helps the locals and has a rewarding friendship with the town’s detective, but battles his own personal flaws as well, making him a more complex character than can often be seen in a genre that can, at times, feel cookie-cutter.
Photo Credit: Katie Yu/Crown Media – as used on http://www.soapoperanetwork.com
Murder She Baked
This is a Hallmark Movies and Mystery channel offering of several movies. Murder She Baked is based on Joanne Fluke’s bestselling Hannah Swenson mysteries in which a baker in a small town in Minnesota occasionally solves murders in her hometown. The series is fairy true to the text when it comes to adapting the books (so far: A Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder, Plum Pudding Murder and Peach Cobbler Murder with a new special A Deadly Recipe, based on the Fudge Cupcake Murder, on June 19th). This is a great way to see characters from a beloved series come alive and it has a great twist on the amateur sleuth angle. While Swenson is very capable in tracking down clues because she’s such an integral part of the town, the police investigators are not the bumbling screw-ups that one often finds such books. They are smart and capable and are often one step ahead of Hannah, she just happens to uncover one or two clues that the townspeople are otherwise unwilling to reveal to the police.
This is another British export brought stateside by PBS, this miniseries is taken from PD James’s book of the same name. James (and the miniseries) takes the beloved characters from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and transports them six years after the action of Austen’s novel takes place. When Elizabeth’s disgraced sister Lydia returns crying that her husband has been murdered. it is Elizabeth Darcy (nee Bennett) who must look into the clues to prevent an execution. As someone who utterly adores Pride and Prejudice, I was hesitant to like this series, but the stellar acting and genuinely intriguing plot left me in suspense in all the right ways with a satisfying, but not too easy solution.
Aurora Teagarden Mysteries
This is another TV movie series put on by the Hallmark Movies and Mystery channel. what was surprising about this series is not that it was adapted from books, but from who wrote these cozy mysteries. Charlaine Harris writes the Aurora Teagarden series, but she is better known for her other, considerably less-cozy paranormal Sookie Stackhouse mysteries that inspired the HBO series True Blood. Harris certainly proves that authors are in no way limited by their creativity and imaginations. In this series, Aurora Teagarden is a member of the Real Murders Club, in which amateurs study famous crimes, often gets herself involved in real murders taking place in her small town.
I hope this look into cozy mysteries currently or recently on TV has whet your whistle for the expansive genre both on TV and in books. There’s plenty more to choose from, so feel free to stop by the South Branch anytime to chat cozies! There are so many out there, you’re bound to find one that suits your tastes. Till next week, dear readers, whether you’re staying in and getting cozy or enjoying the beautiful weather, never forget the library is here to recommend books and much more!
Happy Friday, Readers! Today’s Random Fact of the Day comes to you courtesy of the delightfully quirky Melville House Press, whose website and twitter feed are among the most irreverant, informative, and, sometimes, bizarre in the publishing world.
A few days ago, the Melville House Press’ website addressed a growing trend in books that I have noticed when setting up displays, and several of our patrons have noticed as they select from our new books: why are they all so mind-warpingly yellow?
Well, it turns out that some 45% of book buying is done via online retailers like That One Named After A South American Rainforest. And on the pages of those sites, books appear against a white background. As the Melville House Press notes, “As a result, a lot of the books there — those whose covers are plain white, or too simple, or too detailed — look pallid and boring. In the fight for our precious attention, in a venue where only limited engagement is possible, these books lose out. In an attempt to solve this problem, publishers have been clothing more and ever more of their books in retina-cracking yellow.” They also quote Wall Street Journal journalist Lucy Feldman, who wrote, in an article on the art of the visual, “Yellow jumps off online pages and it can support both dark and bright type and graphics. Also, it carries no gender association and can signify anything from sunshine and optimism to a danger warning, making it a strong choice for a variety of genres and topics.”
So there is your factoid of the day, dear readers, and here are some new books (only some of which are yellow), that have made it on to our shelves this week!
The City of Mirrors: Yellow book alert! Justin Cronin’s enormous, post-apocalyptic trilogy has been hailed from its first appearance as a vampire series for adults, and, quite possibly, as a modern classic of American literature. Now the trilogy is drawing to a close with this final installment. The Twelve have been destroyed, and the survivors of their century-long reign of terror are beginning to emerge. But within the ruins lurks Zero, the father of the Twelve, dreaming of destroying Amy, who is being held up as humanity’s greatest and only hope for the future, biding time until their final confrontation. For readers who have been waiting for this trilogy to spin out before beginning, the wait is finally over, and, as Library Journal notes in their starred review, “Readers who have been patiently awaiting the conclusion to Cronin’s sweeping postapocalyptic trilogy are richly rewarded with this epic, heart-wrenching novel. . . . Not only does this title bring the series to a thrilling and satisfying conclusion, but it also exhibits Cronin’s moving exploration of love as both a destructive force and an elemental need, elevating this work among its dystopian peers.”
Iris and Ruby: This reprint of Rosie Thomas’ 2006 novel deals with family bonds and the stories we tell each other, that is bound to appeal to the armchair traveler. When her impulsive teenage granddaughter Ruby comes crashing into 82-year-old Iris’ life, Iris is forced to confront not only her family’s difficult relationships, but also her own memories, which Ruby is eager to hear. Together, Iris and Ruby explore Iris’ memories of Cairo during World War Two, and the love affair that defined her life. It is this story that will shape Iris’ life, and have profound consequences for the women of her family, as well. There is love and tragedy aplenty in this tale, but also plenty of danger, adventure, and intrigue, as well, giving The Times cause to rave, “Thomas can write with ravishing sensuality.”
New England Bound: Traditional history of the American colonies teaches that the Triangle Trade, which brought slaves to North American, helped the south prosper as a plantation economy. But Wendy Warren’s new, thoroughly researched work, reconceptualizes that history, showign how the northern colonies also grew rich on the ships that were coming and going from their harbors, bearing hundreds of thousands of enslaved Africans in their holds. She also adds to the growing body of knowledge about how other peoples, including Native Americans and West Indies peoples were enslaved by the Atlantic Slave Trade, as well, showing just how pernicious and all-consuming this practice truly was, and how deep into American culture its roots spread. Review for Warrens’ work have been glowing, including this one from noted historian Linda Colley, who called it “A beautifully written, humane and finely researched work that makes clear how closely intermingled varieties of slavery and New England colonization were from the very start. With great skill, Warren does full justice to the ideas of the individuals involved, as well as to the political and economic imperatives that drove some, and that trapped and gravely damaged others.”
Smoke: Dan Vyleta’s gaslamp fantasy has been getting a great deal fo attention lately, and, while the cover isn’t yellow, has been catching quite a number of eyes at the Library. Set in an alternative London of a century ago, Vyleta has created a world where those who are wicked or sinful are marked by smoke pouring from their bodies–that is, that’s how it is supposed to work. But in an elite boarding school, three students begin to realize that there are those who can lie without causing smoke to envelope them…and the implications of that discovery could cost them their lives. Part thriller, part magical realism, part social commentary, and part Dickensian romp, this book seems to have a little something for everyone, and has Publisher’s Weekly raving that it is “A fiercely inventive novel . . . Vyleta’s bold concept and compelling blend of history and fantasy offer a provocative reflection on the nature of evil, power, believe, and love. Dickensian in its imaginative scope and atmosphere.”
Shrill: Lindy West is an essayist, a humorist, a feminist…in addition to being many other things, and this book of essays brings all her considerable talents to bear as she tackles what it means to be human, to be a woman, to be large, to be loud, in a society that seldom values any of these qualities separately, let alone together. This is a book that is at once laugh-out-loud-in-an-inappropriate-manner funny, and also a deeply searching analysis of how we see, and how we treat, those around us who don’t conform to the odd and unliveable rules that society has set for us. This book has been a hit with critics and readers alike, with Booklist cheering it as “Uproariously funny…Despite its serious subject, West’s ribald jokes, hilarious tirades, and raucous confessions keep her memoir skipping merrily along as she jumps from painful confession to powerful epiphany. Sure to be a boon for anyone who has struggled with body image, Shrill is a triumphant, exacting, absorbing memoir that will lay new groundwork for the way we talk about the taboo of being too large.”
Today, dear patrons, we return to the Romance Garden, where our genre experts and aficionados bring you some highlights of the romance genre…because, as we love to say around here, every mind needs a little dirt in which to grow…..
I have this weird issue where if I hear from too many sources that something is really good, I instinctively avoid it. Which is kind of dumb, I admit, and usually means that I catch on to a reading trend later than most, simply out of sheer mule-headed stubbornness. This is one of the reasons it took me such a ridiculously long time to discover that everyone was right, and that the two-woman writing team that makes up the pen name Christina Lauren are, indeed, fantastic romance writers.
In this debut we meet Chloe Mills, a incredibly driven and thoroughly ambitious MBA student, who is determined to make a name for herself, even though she is only an intern. There is only one thing standing in her way–Bennett Ryan, her new, supremely arrogant, utterly inconsiderate (and, naturally, insanely handsome) boss. Things were fine when Bennett was working from Paris, but now that they are in the same room together, things are taking a turn for the very heated, and very quickly. But when their animosity turns into something much more…intimate, both Bennett and Chloe find themselves in wholly new territory. Both are terrified of what their feelings for each other might mean, and what the implications might be for their careers, but the only other option is walking away….
This book succeeds on a number of levels–first, and foremost for me, is the level of honesty that Bennett and Chloe achieve fairly early. There are few things in this world that annoy me more than characters who can’t (or won’t communicate) in an adult manner, but these two kept it very, very real throughout the story, which put the emotional aspects of their relationship front and center throughout. Secondly, I love that we get to see them at their worst. That may sound a little mercenary, but you know there’s something real going on when two lovers can deal with food poisoning and still want to hang out with each other. And no one, but no one, does reunion scenes better than Christina Laurens, so by the time that we all get to the end of this tale, there is no doubt that Chloe and Bennett are the real deal. For those who like their romance quite spicy and very salty, this is a sure bet.
When Lyon Redmond and Oliva Eversea set eyes on each other for the first time, the force of their attraction generates a star-crossed romance that will impact their rival families for years to come. Knowing their parents will oppose a courtship, Oliva and Lyon meet secretly for months and their friendship quickly develops into something much more. You can probably guess what happens next: Lyon asks his father to support his marriage to Olivia, Dad says no, and then Olivia is faced with a “run away with me tonight or this is goodbye” ultimatum that separates the young lovers for years to come….
Which brings us to the beginning of the book. Olivia Eversea, an expert at eluding suitors, has finally decided to tie the knot. When word of her impending marriage reaches long-departed now-pirate Lyon Redmond, he is inspired to make a return visit to England for an opportunity at some closure with the woman he never stopped loving. What follows is a fantastic tale of kidnapping, tropical islands, passion and, of course, second chances.
Unknowingly, I started at the end of this story, and what I mean by that is that The Legend of Lyon Redmond is the 11th and last book of Long’s Pennyroyal Green series. The book worked well as a stand-alone, but it’s easy to see where Lyon and Olivia’s siblings’ stories would make wonderful novels of their own. Overall, I thought this was a fun page-turner romance, but I was disappointed in the epilogue which involves a 200 year jump that feels like it comes out of nowhere. Despite the epilogue, I would still recommend the book, and do plan to check out some of Long’s other Pennyroyal Green titles.
Marie Tannaes – A Young Girl Reading In A Garden
"Once you learn to read, you will be forever free." ~Frederick Douglass
