Monthly Archives: August 2016

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Five Book Friday!

Beloved Patrons, have you see the updates to our Library’s website?  Screen Shot 2016-08-19 at 1.45.32 PM

In addition to providing upcoming events and news, take a look at the text box in the lower left-hand side of the screen….

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It’s the five most-recent posts from this here Free For All, providing you with up-to-the-minute updates on all the joyful nonsense that goes on here!

We’re going to be working on updating our website even further in the coming weeks, so keep your eyes peeled for lots of good things yet to come, but, for now, a huge thanks to our fantastic Web Site Magician, for all her hard work!

And now…how about some new books?!  Here are just a few of the many new tomes that hopped up onto our shelves this week, and are eager to meet you!

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3630536Eileen: This is a new-to-us book, which was released in 2015.  However, when Massachusetts’ native Ottessa Moshfegh’s haunting novel has been long-list for the Man Booker Prize, the book was reprinted, and we made sure to get a copy for ourselves.  Set in the 1960’s, this novel follows, Eileen Dunlop, outwardly an unremarkable employee at a boys’ prison outside Boston.  But at heart, Eileen is a disturbed, desperately lonely young woman who spends her days trying to survive her job, and her evenings trying to clean up after her alcoholic father.  But when a bright, beautiful new counsellor comes to the prison, Eileen finds herself pulled into a new, all-consuming friendship–and finds herself willing to do anything to keep that friendship.  Anything.  The Hitchcock-ian twist in this book, and Moshfegh’s ability to create a thoroughly creepy, yet irresistibly compelling atmosphere has had reviewers around the world raving, including The Guardian, who said “The great power of this book, which won the PEN/Hemingway debut fiction award last month, is that Eileen is never simply a literary gargoyle; she is painfully alive and human, and Ottessa Moshfegh writes her with a bravura wildness that allows flights of expressionistic fantasy to alternate with deadpan matter of factness…As an evocation of physical and psychological squalor, Eileen is original, courageous and masterful.”

51wJyTbXPEL._SX336_BO1,204,203,200_I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life: For all that anti-bacterial hand stuff has become part of our life, and for all that we hear about the dangers of tiny little organisms we can’t see, Ed Yong’s book argues that microbes are an indispensable part of our lives, protecting us from disease, digesting our food, and, literally, keeping life on earth moving by providing the bonds that bring lifeforms together.  In this ‘microbe’s eye view’ of the world, Yong gives us a new way to look at the world around us, and our part in it, in a way that is fascinating, informative, and instantly engaging.  The beauty of this book is how it can take something as apparently straight-forward as the microbe and make it sound wondrous.  Booklist agrees, cautioning, “Bottom line: don’t hate or fear the microbial world within you. Appreciate its wonders. After all, they are more than half of you.”

3779001I Will Send Rain: We’ve all seen photos of the Dust Bowl–of desperate-looking women and their barefoot children; we’ve heard the stories of the malnutrition and relentless wind-storms that ruined crops and made the depths of the Great Depression seem all the more hopeless.  Rae Meadows’ novel takes us inside those stories, into the world of Annie Bell, whose Oklahoma farm has been ravaged by those storms, and whose family is slowing coming apart at the seams.  With her son suffering from dust pneumonia, her daughter looking for anyway out of their current existence, and her husband plagued with dreams of rain, Annie begins to realize that she can no longer live for others; in order to survive, she has to make her own choices.  This story is at once deeply personal and wonderfully representative of a time that continues to haunt our collective imagination.  Publisher’s Weekly gave this tale a starred review, saying “Meadows’s strength lies in letting her story be guided by the shadow and light of her well-rendered characters…A vibrant, absorbing novel that stays with the reader.”

3764084 (1)The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo: As Emmy Award-winning comic, television and film star Amy Schumer’s star continues to rise, she proves, once again, that she isn’t about to back down, or allow public notoriety to make her into anything but her authentic self.  In this memoir, Schumer mines her own past for stories about how she became the person she is today, from the hilarious to the heartbreaking, from the deeply…extremely…sometimes uncomfortably personal to the universal.  Schumer’s sense of humor shines through this book, but she also shows how big-hearted, and extraordinarily brave she is with this candid and very frank book that will introduce you–or re-acquaint you–with one remarkable woman.  The Washington Post wrote, “‘Schumer is a talented storyteller. She’s known for standing in a spotlight and sharing every corner of her soul with thousands of strangers. So it’s no surprise that her book is packed with hilarious, honest and often vulnerably raw details of her life… Readers will laugh and cry, and may put the book down from moments of honesty that result in uncomfortable realistic details from her life.”

3743649Perfume River: Another historical novel, this one partially set during the  the Vietnam War, this newest release from Robert Olen Butler explores both the personal lives of one family and the turmoil of a generation at war.  Professor Robert Quinlan and his wife, Darla. now in their seventies, met while working in anti-war protests, and married with the hope of changing the world for good, and for ever.  Now, the fissures in their own relationships are becoming more and more apparent, especially as Robert’s relationship with the rest of his family–including his brother and father, a veteran of the Second World War–crumbles around him.  When a homeless man comes into Robert’s life, he assumes at first that he is just another Vietnam veteran looking for assistance, but the longer he remains, the more he realizes that this man’s impact on his family will be greater than Robert could ever imagine.  A deeply thoughtful, quietly tragic, and deeply moving work, critics are hailing this as another of Butler’s masterpieces, with Booklist declaring it “A deeply meditative reflection on aging and love, as seen through the prism of one family quietly torn asunder by the lingering effects of the Vietnam War. Butler…shows again that he is a master of tone, mood, and character, whatever genre he chooses to explore. This is thoughtful, introspective fiction of the highest caliber, but it carries a definite edge, thanks to an insistent backbeat that generates suspense with the subtlest of brushstrokes.”

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Postcards From Far Away: Belfast Again

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It’s that time of year again, beloved patrons, when your favorite Blogger heads off to get some research done…and I know we’ve been to Belfast before, but I’m working on the same Dissertation, so we are heading back to the same city.

I’ve tried to make thing a bit interesting for you, dear readers, by going on some new adventures, however.  This time around, I trekked out to Falls Road, in West Belfast, to visit the only operational Carnegie Library in Belfast.

IMG_0724Originally, the area that became the Falls Road was a petty kindgom known in Irish as Túath na bhFál, or Territory of the Enclosures.  It was incorporated into Belfast by the British government in the 19th century, and today, the Falls Road is very much a working-class area of Belfast.  Since the late 1960’s, has been a bedrock of Socialist and Irish Nationalist politics.  The worldwide Civil Rights movement united Northern Irish Catholics into a political group that rallied for better housing and voting rights (it’s a complicated system, but essentially, business owners had more say in elections, and the economy was structured to favor Protestant business owners).  This prompted Protestants in power to fear a Catholic uprising that would unite Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, and resulting in a backlash against protestors that, to many, seemed very excessive.  The result was what has become known as The Troubles in Northern Ireland, and, in many ways, the Falls Road was at the center of the conflict.

In 1970, the British Government imposed what was called “The Falls Curfew”, during which some 3,000 British troops sealed off the Falls Road neighborhood–home to about 10,000 people–with arms and tear gas.  For those who were not already die-hard Republicans (who believed in a united Ireland), this was the final straw.  Even today, the area is marked out by garlands of the Irish national flag, and a huge number of murals that demonstrate allegiance to political prisoners around the world, as well as those who are victims of violence, like this one that commemorated the shooting in Orlando, Florida in June.

Apologies for the atrocious picture--I was trying not to get mowed down by a bus while taking this one.
Apologies for the atrocious picture–I was trying not to get mowed down by a bus while taking this one.

One of the most prominent and famous murals is the one dedicated to Bobby Sands.  In 1981, Bobby Sands, who grew up in the Falls Road area, was a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and became the leader of IRA who were being held in the Long Kesh Prison at the age of 26.  Sands was in his sixth year of a fourteen year sentence when he led a hunger strike that was intended to force the British Government to give IRA prisoners special status (effectively recognizing them as prisoners of war, rather than common criminals).  He died 66 days later,  the first of ten men to die on the strike.  The Hunger Strike itself garnered worldwide attention, radicalized Irish politics, and was instrumental in getting Sinn Fein, until then a fringe political party, into mainstream politics.  This is the 35 anniversary of those hunger strikes, and, in additional to being commemorated all around the Falls Road, a new documentary has been released about Sands himself, and the movement he led, which is getting a huge amount of attention, praise, and criticism, particularly from families of IRA violence.

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The Bobby Sand mural, right next door to the Falls Road Library

The Falls Road Library was opened in 1908, and was the first of three libraries built in Belfast with money from the Carnegie Foundation, which also built the Melrose Library (as well as a number of others that are not on the NOBLE network).   Carnegie Libraries were all built with money donated by Scottish-American businessman Andrew Carnegie, who didn’t always treat his workers terribly well (see the 1892 Homstead Strike, for example), but who built over 3,000 libraries around the world.  Like George Peabody, Carnegie wanted people to have access to libraries, and beautiful libraries, at that.  His natural-born curiosity made him an active learner all his life, and he wanted to share that sense of intellectual adventure around the world.  However, these buildings aren’t always easy to keep-up, or to run, so the number of Carnegie Libraries is falling away (many are being turned into larger municipal buildings or private residences, and many more have been demolished or have burned down and never replaced).  So the chance to visit one–and a thriving one, at that–is always a treat.

On the outside, The Falls Road Library is a stunning turn-of-the-century building, as you can see from the photo at the top of this post.  On the inside, though, it’s been beautifully renovated, with lots of room for books, meetings, and programs (you can check out their website here, if you like).  I must also comment on their super-comfy chairs, from which I took this not-very-good picture of the ground floor reading room:

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If you want to learn more about the Falls Road, its legacy, and the people who call it home, here are a few books you can check out today!

indexShattering Silence: Begoña Aretxaga spent a year living with the community in the Falls Road during the height of The Troubles in the 1970’s, and her descriptions of living conditions and activism there is extraordinarily powerful.  The premise of her book, however, is how women, specifically, gained power and political agency through their activism, in a way that men couldn’t.  It focuses on motherhood and women’s health, on public protests and education, and is as helpful a book on gender studies as it is on modern Irish history.  You’ll have to order this book from the Boston Public Library, but, believe me, it is completely and totally worth the wait.

2353761Nothing But an Unfinished Song : Bobby Sands, the Irish Hunger Striker who Ignited a Generation: Originally released to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the 1981 hunger strikes, Denis O’Hare’s book not only deals with Bobby Sands himself, but of the movement he helped lead within Long Kesh prison, a deeply Socialist movement that was as much cultural as it was political, and the world in which he operated–a world of deep economic deprivations, particularly in Northern Ireland, and a time of enormous change within the Irish Republican movement.  He also deals with the worldwide implications of this strike, from the speeches made in Peru to the hunger strike that Nelson Mandela held in support.  Without shying away from the more idealistic and unsavory aspects of Sands and the movement as a whole, O’Hare’s book is a well-rounded and very engaging piece of work that will really help those looking for a good introduction, or follow-up, to this crucial moment in Northern Irish history.

2880607Hunger: Alexander McQueen’s first film is enormously powerful for a number of reasons–many of the actors in the cast are Northern Irish or Irish natives, whose own memories of The Troubles and the 1981 Hunger Strikes influenced their performances; Michael Fassbender’s performance as Bobby Sands is a truly remarkable example of dedication (and the truly terrible nature of a hunger strike); perhaps, most of all, McQueen was very dedicated to showing how conditions for prisoners and prison workers alike was a unique form of hell, making this a remarkably balanced–though not easy to watch–film.

Carnegie Libraries; Their History and Impact on American Public Library Development: Just like the title says…here is a history of America’s Carnegie Libraries, and the way in which they changed our national Public Library system.

 

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The Unsung (Beta) Hero

Last week, we chatted a bit about the Alpha Hero: the head of the pride/pack, the domineering, aggressive, demands-first-slice-of-pizza quintessential man’s man of romance novels.

To recoup: ROAR.
To recoup: ROAR.

…But is that all there is?

I mean, Alpha’s are fine.  Someone has to be an alpha, right?  They all, to a man, apparently look fantastic in suits, so that’s a plus.  But, as we also pointed out, if every hero was an alpha…and a worrying number of them seem to be…they’d just spend all day fighting each other.  Or, worse yet, become really boring and predictable elements of romances.

So what is the alternative?

 

Meet the Beta Hero.

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They’re not always easy to find, because they’re not constantly demanding attention, and not always the source of conflict and tension in a plot.  They tend to be a little quieter, a bit more of a thinker.  But unlike the Alpha, who wears a list of his dominant traits on his designer t-shirt, the Beta Hero often hides a surprising depth under his generally calm exterior that makes him (in my opinion, anyway) a generally far more intriguing character.  Beta Heroes also often tend to be more confident and grounded than Alphas, because they are not constantly in fear of someone stealing their social position–Betas carve their own niche for themselves, and revel in it.  This helps them, in turn, be very supportive of their heroines, allowing them room and support to grow, and that lack of contention and argument can be enormously refreshing.

beta_shirt_largeThis also means that Beta Heroes have a lot more room to grow. Whereas most Alpha Heroes have little choice but to double-down on their dominant tendencies when challenged (although a select few don’t), Beta heroes have room to grow, to assume Alpha tendencies when challenged, or to become something else entirely–and that choice is uniquely theirs.  This often allows Beta Heroes to have a unique story-arc within a story that is as fascinating as the heroine’s journey, rather than forcing him to be a fixed point within a plot.

So just where are these Betas to be found?  Here are a few of my personal favorites to get you started on your quest:

3092802Jason, from Follow My Lead: I’ve gone on and on about this book in the past, but that won’t stop me from going on and on about it a bit more here.  Though this book is, on the surface, all about Winnifred Crane’s journey to prove the authenticity of a painting in order to win acceptance from her father’s Historical Society, that shouldn’t detract from the wonderful Beta Hero who accompanies her–Jason Cummings, Duke of Rayne.  Jason is by no means an Alpha…if he were, this book probably couldn’t have happened, as he would demand to plan Winn’s journey for her, rather than accompany her on a beautiful, delightful roadtrip-from-hell.  The result is a trip in which both hero and heroine grow enormously, and realize just what they are capable of accomplishing, individually and together.  Most Alpha Heroes never laugh…or when they do, it’s at someone else’s expense.  One of my favorite scenes in this book is when Winn and Jason laugh together over a private joke so hard that it ends a scene.

2698785Ian MacKenzie, from The Madness of Lord Ian MacKenzie: Another favorite book is this remarkable opening to Jennifer Ashley’s MacKenzie series.  Ian MacKenzie would, today (and in the Real World) most likely be diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, a condition that exists on the Autism Spectrum; he is highly intelligent, but he is unable to read social cues, has trouble communicating with others, and tends to be deeply, almost obsessively focused on the things that interest him–in this case, his porcelain collection, and Beth Ackerley.  MacKenzie demonstrates the huge range of potential for an alpha hero–he is a failure according to social standards, having spend his childhood in an asylum, and is shunned by many because he doesn’t (and possibly can’t) conform to society’s expectations.  But as Beth comes to know him, we, as readers, realize just how exceptional–and heroic–Ian really is.  And, best of all, eventually, he does, too.

2260048 (1)Jonathan Strange, from Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell: Ok, ok, I know this isn’t a romance per se, but Strange is such a perfect example of a beta hero that I couldn’t resist.  He begins the story without a clue what he wants from life, but when he finds it, he perfectly demonstrates all the ways in which a Beta Hero can adapt and evolve.  Though Strange eventually realizes his desire to become the greatest practical magician in England, he is willing to share the spotlight with Mr. Norrell…that is, until Arabella, the center of his world, is threatened.  Then, Strange becomes something else entirely–a secretive recluse, willing to explore any shadow or practice any arcane bit of magic in order to win Arabella back.  This is precisely the kind of transformation an Alpha wouldn’t be able to make–because Strange is never a villain, but he is willing to act in a very unheroic manner, generally speaking–and also demonstrates the kind of range possible for a Beta Hero when push comes to shove.

3679669Zacharias Wythe, from Sorcerer to the Crown: And since we’re on non-romance Beta Heroes, we can’t forget the wonderful, Sorcerer Royal of the Unnatural Philosophers.  Even though he, as the first African to achieve the position of Sorcerer Royal, a fearsomely powerful magician, and an extraordinarily diplomatic public servant, Zacharias doesn’t want to be a singular, Alpha-type hero.  Instead, he allies himself with Prunella Gentleman, a woman of enormous magical talent, whose dreams are far bigger than anyone–except, save Zacharias–is able to appreciate.  Zacharias is uniquely able to share the spotlight with Prunella in this phenomenal adventure, and to remain true to himself and those he cares about, forging his own unique path, making him a fascinating Beta Hero, who doesn’t need others adoration in order to know the truth of his own convictions.

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Saturdays @ the South: Summer Cleaning??

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Most people think of the “lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer” during this time of the year. It’s easy enough to do, especially on scorching hot days when the Peabody water ban has been turned to “Mandatory.” But on those rainy days when outdoor summer  fun isn’t an option, or those unseasonably chilly days when it feels like we’re having October in July, sometimes it’s not always easy to think of what to do indoors.

While I’m a big fan of crafts and watching those DVDs borrowed from the library, I also use some of my summer time for organizing and cleaning. Spring and fall cleaning tend to be more popular with people as the shoulder seasons are times of renewal and, quite frankly, better weather; but for me, spring is the season of allergies which keep me from getting as much as I want done and fall is the time of year when I prefer to be outside and enjoying the weather, colors and smells of the season. So I tend to get my cleaning and organizing done during the summer and winter season when the weather (and my general preference) is more likely to keep me indoors.

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If your fortunate enough to have air conditioning or it’s one of those weird, cool New England summer days, you might want to consider tackling some of those indoor projects. Fortunately, were here at the South are ready for your organizing and cleaning needs with an array of books that will help you tackle those projects.

2692046Organize your whole house: Do it yourself projects for every room! by ed. Family Handyman

Organizing your whole house might be a bit ambitious for any one organizing project, but this book is broken down by each room, so you can tackle one at a time without putting too much onto yourself. It’s also put together by the editors of Family Handyman magazine, so you’re bound to get some great, tried-and-true tips that go beyond fad organizing.

3739867Cut the clutter: a simple organization plan for a clean, tidy home by Cynthia Townley Ewer

This book is a brand new one that just came in a couple of months ago to the South Branch, and it hasn’t spent much time on the shelf. At all. Ewer organizes her book first with philosophies about organizing a home (don’t let the P-word scare you off; her philosophies are just as clear and simple as the rest of her ideas) and then has separate chapters for sections of the home, rather than rooms. She has plans for food, surfaces, clothing and paper, all handily organizes to take you from start to organized finish with great clutter-busting tips.

3760330101 Easy homemade products for your skin, health and home by Jan Berry

This book is as beautiful as it is helpful. Using essential oils and other natural items, Berry guides the reader through recipes for homemade products, including great non-toxic solutions for cleaning your home. This is a great time of year for this type of book as many of the ingredients, like sunflowers and basil are readily available in their fresh forms.

3753601Mind your manors: tried-and-true British household cleaning tips by Lucy Lethbridge

Ever wonder how places like Downton Abbey stayed spotless? This book gives you the inside scoop on how the servants kept those sprawling British mansions in tip-top shape. Some of these cleaning hints have been lost to more modern styles of cleaning, but these tips rely less on manufactured chemicals while still minimizing elbow-grease. Perfect for warmer-weather cleaning!

If this post doesn’t have you convinced that summertime might just be the right time for tackling some of those indoor projects, never fear. The South Branch has some great fall programs coming up next month that will help you with the more traditional fall-cleaning binges including: Moon Signs where you’ll learn about how the moon (and maybe not the seasons) can help you figure out when to tackle a house project and Creating an Organized and Efficient Life with tips from a professional organizer. Till next week, dear readers, whether you prefer your cleaning in warmer climes or more traditional times, just remember that the library is here all-year-round with resources to help you.

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Five Book Friday!

And a very happy Free-For-All birthday celebration to Ann M. Martin, author of The Baby-Sitters Club series!

Ann Matthews Martin was born on this day in 1955 in Princeton, New Jersey.  Her father, Henry Martin, was a respected cartoonist whose works appeared in The New Yorker, Ladies’ Home Journal, Punch, and others (you can see a collection of his work by clicking this link.  Mr. Martin donated all his New Yorker cartoons to Princeton University’s Library, which gets him lots of brownie points in our books!).  He also illustrated one of Ann’s books, Baby-sitters Super Special #6: New York, New York!

For more illustrations, see: http://www.scholastic.com/annmartin/letters/2014-02.htm
For more illustrations, see: http://www.scholastic.com/annmartin/letters/2014-02.htm

Ann Martin graduated from Smith College and began her career as a teacher before moving into publishing, where she worked as an editor for children’s books.  Her first book, Bummer Summer was published in 1983.

In 1986, she was approached by Jean Feiwel of Scholastic, who had seen the success of a book called Ginny’s Babysitting Job, and realized there might be a market for similar books, aimed at girls between the ages of 8 to 12.  Martin agreed to write a four book series, beginning with Kristy’s Great Idea, in which enterprising 13-year-old Kristy Thomas gathers her three friends together to start a club-slash-babysitting-business.  The books did fairly well, leading Scholastic to order two more titles.  And then twelve more titles.  And the rest, as they say, is history.

1621292The Baby-Sitters’ Club (or BSC, as we Children of the 90’s knew it) sold over 176 million books between that first book in 1986 and when the series ended in 2000.  It also spawned multiple spin-off series, which featured the members of the Baby-Sitters’ Club itself (which grew to ten members in total), as well as their friends and siblings.  There was also a TV show, which aired on HBO and Nickelodeon, as well as  a film.  The series got so big, in fact, that Scholastic had to hire ghostwriters for the series to keep fans happy.  Though Martin estimates that she wrote between 60 and 80 of the books herself, a number of authors, both known and unknown, have been a part of The Baby-Sitters’ Club at one time or another.

One of my own favorite memories of attending Smith was when Ann M. Martin came to speak at Neilson Library.   As an ardent BSC fan (I wrote Ann M. Martin a fan letter in 1993), I was determined to meet the woman who had shaped so much of my reading experiences through grade school, so I got there an hour early.  The room was already full.  I was lucky enough to get a seat on the window sill, and proceeded to haul late-comers in through said window so that they could hear the talk, as well.  The Fire Marshall wasn’t best pleased with us, but I don’t think there is any greater testament to the power of books to unite readers of all ages, than that night.

So a very happy birthday to Ann M. Martin.  And behalf of all of us: Thank you!

And now, on to some other books that may just change your life, too!

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3739644To the Bright Edge of the World:  Eowyn Ivey’s debut novel, The Snow Child, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, so expectations were quite high for this, her second release.  So far, it seems that it has more than lived up to those expectations.  Set during the winter of 1885, the book tells the tale of Colonel Allen Forrester, a decorated war hero, who leaves his newly pregnant wife Sophie, to accomplish the impossible–to cross the Wolverine River and explore the wilds of Alaska Territory.  He pledges to keep a diary of his trip, to leave some record behind for Sophie, in case he doesn’t make it back.  Meanwhile, Sophie herself finds herself tested in ways she never dreamed, and begins to discover the science and art of photography as a way to express herself and claim her place in it.  The record that these two remarkable people leave behind is one that readers are adoring, and that Publisher’s Weekly called “An entrancing, occasionally chilling, depiction of turn-of-the-century Alaska…In this splendid adventure novel, Ivey captures Alaska’s beauty and brutality, not just preserving history, but keeping it alive.”

3781231Red Right Hand: Levi Black’s debut novel is a little bit horror and a little bit urban fantasy, with a dash of Lovecraft, and a whole lot of imagination, and has the makings of a sensational series.  His heroine is Charlie Tristan Moore, a woman who has survived plenty already in life, but nothing can prepare her for the night when she is ambushed by three skin hounds, and rescued by a Man in Black, with a long, dark coat (which I want, very badly), and a fearsome secret: he is an Elder God, and requires Charlie’s services as his Acolyte, using the dark magic she never knew she had, in order to destroy his fellow Elder Gods.  And he’s taking her best friend Daniel as collateral.  Charlie is told that humanity hangs in the balance–but is she really serving its savior, or its destroyer?  Library Journal says of this series opener: “Fans of dark fantasy and horror in full and gory detail will be entranced by this debut novel.”

3776221These Honored Dead: Abraham Lincoln–he was the 16th president, he was a vampire hunter, and now, in Jonathan Putnam’s new mystery, he’s fighting crime on the American frontier!  Apparently inspired by true events, this book centers around young Joshua Speed, the second-son of a plantation owner, who is determined to make his own way in the world.  But when an orphaned girl is found murdered, Joshua is determined to see justice done…and who better to help him than his new friend, and newly-minted lawyer, Abraham Lincoln?  Speed was indeed a real person and a lifelong friend of Lincoln’s, and his brother served as the US Attorney General in 1864, and in bringing him, and Lincoln, to life in this book, Putnam is drawing comparison’s to Caleb Carr’s classic historical mystery The Alienist–high praise indeed!  Library Journal agrees, calling this book a “well-researched debut mystery… Eye-opening historical details on hunting runaway slaves and 19th-century poorhouses will interest readers who enjoy works by Caleb Carr and E.L. Doctorow.”

3779015Patient H.M.: A Story of Memory, Madness, and Family Secrets: Speaking of comparisons, journalist Luke Dittrich’s debut non-fiction book has been drawing comparisons to Oliver Sack and Stephen King, two names that will always grab my attention.  In 1953, a 27-year-old man named Henry Molaison–a factory worker, and severe epileptic–received a radical new form of lobotomy that was intended to eliminate his seizures.  The surgery was a failure, and left Henry unable to produce any long-term memories.  For the next sixty years, Henry became a kind of human science experiement, as doctors used his unique condition to study the brain, how it works, and how it remembers.  Luke Dittrich’s grandfather was the man who performed Henry’s lobotomy, and his book is not just about the two men, but the medical system that brought them together, and a contemplation of the brain and the mind, and what it really means to be human.  Chilling and fascinating by turns, this book is being hailed as a triumph from all corners, with Kirkus Reviews declaring, “Oliver Sacks meets Stephen King in a piercing study of one of psychiatric medicine’s darker hours. . . . A mesmerizing, maddening story and a model of journalistic investigation.”

3779009Adnan’s Story: Fans of NPR’s phenomenally successful Serial heard about  Adnan Syed, who was convicted and sentenced to life plus thirty years for the murder of his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee, a high school senior in Baltimore, Maryland.  Adnan maintained his innocence throughout his trial and imprisonment, and Rabia Chaudry, a family friend, contacted produced Sarah Koenig at NPR, hoping she could shed light on the case.  The result was a Peabody Award-winning podcast that attracted over 500,000 listeners.  Not only does Chaudry’s book detail Adnan’s life story, his experiences in prison, and the recording of Serial, but claims to have new evidence that will thoroughly defeat the case against Adnan.  Fans of Serial and newcomers to the story will find plenty to enjoy here, and, as the Los Angeles Times notes, “It was easy to forget, listening to ‘Serial,’ that it was a true story about real people. Adnan’s Story adds context and humanizes it in a way that could change how you think about the case, and about ‘Serial’ itself.”

 

Until next week, beloved patrons–happy reading!

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Wednesdays @ West: Science for the Rest of Us

weheartscienceAs high school and college students around the country start to think about hitting the stores to get the items they need before they head back to school, the staff at the library are preparing to say our annual, fond farewell to our summer interns.  From running the Summer Food Program to bringing extra energy to the Creativity Lab to staffing our circulation desks, this year the library has had a dozen or so interns join us for the summer.   Every year, we try as hard as possible to exploit… excuse me… I mean leverage our interns’ considerable talents to make the library an ever-more exciting destination.

This summer, the West Branch staffed was joined by an intern who will soon be attending St. Michael’s College in Vermont as a biology major.  When I heard that Marina’s interests lay in the scientific realm, the wheels in my head started turning.  Now, I love science.  As a teenager I had dreams of becoming a chemist (those dreams were derailed by high school physics, but I digress).  But after spending my post-high school years studying politics, public policy and librarianship, I’m not sure I could tell a genome from a geode.  Still I do believe it’s important for those of us in the general public to have a basic level of scientific literacy.  Also, science, in the right hands, is interesting, compelling and downright fun.  So I asked Marina to compile a list of science books that would interesting to those of us who don’t have her impressive scientific background.  In other words, I set her on a mission to find science books for the rest of us.

You can see her complete list of recommendations for adults on our Pinterest account (do you follow us yet?).  But here are just a few of Marina’s picks that I find most intriguing:

unstoppableUnstoppable: harnessing science to change the world by Bill Nye.  Who among doesn’t have a secret soft spot for the Science Guy?  Here Nye calmly explains both the science behind global warming and the scientific possibilities for solving our most pressing environmental challenges.

 

primatesWhen I was in upper elementary and middle school one of my favorite annual assignments was to read a biography and do a project on a scientist.  My favorite scientist was (and is) Rachel Carson.  But the women in the graphic biography Primates: the fearless science of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Birute Galdikas by Jim Ottaviani could challenge Rachel’s place in my heart.  This title is the only one on this list that I’ve personal read and can vouch for.  If you manage to read this book and are not duly impressed by these scientists’ dedication to their field than you are much harder to impress than I am.

darwinAnd if you enjoy Primates, you’ll also want to get your hands on a copy of another graphic biography: Darwin by Eugene Bryne.  As the sub-subtitle of this book suggestions, this is the “really exciting and dramatic story of a man who mostly stayed at home and wrote some books.”  Of course, in the process, he changed our understanding of the world and ignited some fierce debates.

whatifWhat if?  serious scientific answers to absurd hypothetical questions by Randall Munroe.  We do have a love affair with the absurd don’t we?  Whether it’s reality TV shows, over the top political campaigns or eyebrow raising celebrities, we do tend to lend our ears and eyes to the unusual.  Randall Munroe has used this fascination with the odd to make his webcomic an internet sensation.  He invites readers to submit their strangest questions and then seeks to answer them with hardcore scientific logic and research.  And a lot of humor.

plasticIf you like your science mixed with a bit of self-help, you may want to try Plastic Purge by Michael SanClements.  This one little book can help you “eat better, keep toxins out of your body and help save the sea turtles.”  All you have to do is use less plastic.  Although, when you think about it, that’s quite a daunting task given just how ubiquitous plastic is in our day to day lives.  Still, if you’d like to give it a shot,  SanClements uses compelling scientific logic and an accessible writing style to give you the motivation and tools you’ll need.

humansideI don’t know about you, but I love a good anecdote.  I enjoy a glimpse into the personal lives of the brilliant and accomplished.  Which leads me to believe that I would enjoy reading The Human Side: Edison and Tesla, Watson and Crick, and other personal stories behind science’s big ideas by Arthur Wiggins.  There’s just something intriguing about learning about the romances, personal feuds, petty jealousies and frankly unattractive prejudices of the most brilliant scientific minds the world has ever known.

So there you have it.  No matter how many years removed you are from your own high school or college career, you now have a list of books to read that can entertain, enlighten and fill in the gaps in your scientific education.  And if you have any little ones in your life, you may also want to check out Marina’s list of the best of the best science books for kids.

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Card Catalog Display: Books We Hate

One of the best parts of working in a library is the opportunity to constantly talk about books – to recommend my favorites and to gather recommendations from both patrons and staff. We’ve featured various displays and blog posts with staff favorites, but August’s main card catalog book display is a little different from the typical “staff picks” post; these are all books that we staff members hated (or at least really, really disliked).

Books we HATED (1)

As much fun as it is to talk about books we love, sometimes it feels even better to vent about a book that we can’t stand. Seriously, we all love to complain, don’t we? I think it’s just human nature. And moreover, it’s important to recognize that we don’t all have to like the same things. Some classic favorites will appear on this list, and some recent best-sellers. Just because we work in a library doesn’t mean we like everything on our shelves, after all.

Here are the books that various staff members shared their distaste for, organized by department:

Archives:

One book that I hate with a passion is Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner. I took a class on historical-fiction while in grad school at Mount Saint Mary’s College in LA and it was one of the assigned books. The long and short of it, it is dull, unoriginal, uninspiring, and boring. The characters are unrelatable and at times one sided. The most you angle of reposelearn about them is through the letters that were written. The book may be based upon Mary Hallock Foote life, but a biography would be more interesting. It would be much more interesting to read What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng, a Novel by Dave Eggers or Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier.

Another is Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard. I’ll admit the book is one of the great works of American nature writers, and I like some of her other works, but this one is a dull read. The main plot, if you can call it that, is her explorations near her home and views on nature and life much of the books comes from her personal journals as inspiration. Although I enjoy nonlinear books or different ways of storytelling, this books jumps off the deep end. The book reads like short vignettes with no real plot. It wanders around and goes nowhere. Much of the book is her fluid thoughts. It would be much better to read Solace of Open Spaces by Gretel Ehrlich or Desert Sojourn: A Woman’s Forty Days and Nights Alone by Debi Holmes-Binney, which are both incredible reads.

Adult Sergreatexpectationsvices:

The first books to come to mind right away are Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth and Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. My reason for Portnoy’s Complaint is that there is one particularly (in my opinion) disgusting scene that I wish I could un-read, but remains one of my only clear memories of the book. As to Great Expectations, I read it years ago as a high school student and as I recall the main character drove me crazy.

Circulation:

A Farewell to Arms:  Hemingway’s writing style just never grew on me, but his misogyny is what consistently turns me off.  This book features a 2-dimensional female character for the big ol’ strapping hero, and perpetuates everything I hate about how we talk about the First World War (that only men did things, and women’s actions are always peripheral).  I remember that the French Mutiny of 1917 happens about 3/4 of the way through this book, and there is a fear that the narrator would get killed.  And I’m sitting there thrilled, only to realize that he’s narrating, so he can’t die.  It was a very sad moment for me…

Murder on the Orient Express: Basically, Agatha Christie breaks all the rules about mysteries, the first of which being that the reader should, technically at least, be able to figure out what happened, if they are talented enough.  She seems so concerned with deliberately obscuring the truth from the reader in order to make an elegant mystery that it’s impossible (for me, at least) to get any satisfaction out of the book.  This was my first Agatha Christie, because all I ever wanted to do with my life was to go on the Orient Express….and even though the character studies are vaguely interesting, the big reveal is so utterly stupid, implausible, and feels like such a colossal cop-out that I was furious.  I’ve read a few more of hers since, and it’s never gotten any better.

Tracker: I get that it’s a book about survival and coming of age and all adaynobigsthat, but it’s also about a kid wounding, terrifying, and killing a deer.  In a very graphic manner. That’s the whole plot.  

A Day No Pigs Would Die: Clearly, I was scarred by summer reading lists…this is another that uses cruelty to animals as a metaphor for growing up.  In this case, it’s a pig that this boy, who lives what I remember as an incredibly boring life with a family who really doesn’t seem to like each other in the slightest, loves.  And then his father tries to mate the pig with a neighbor’s’ boar, and then kills the pig because it won’t mate (pig feminism?) and then the dad dies at the end, and the kid really doesn’t seem to care at all.  Utterly boring, except for the animal torture.

Children’s Room:

I really HATED The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men.  I felt like they were mgrapesiserable and horrible and boring and the only redeeming quality of Of Mice and Men was it was a shorter miserable book than The Grapes of Wrath.

Anything by Paulo Coelho, and The Secret by Rhonda Byrne.

South Branch:

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: I have a sneaking suspicion that many of the people who claim the life-altering powers of this book haven’t actually read it. This author had an insufferable tone of voice and talked very little of the Zen that came from maintaining his bike. It actually had very little mention of his bike maintenance on his road trip at all. I think what bothered me most, is that the author came across as a bad father in this book, while trying to make it seem like he was a good father because he took his boy out on the road with him. This was a book full of contradictions, but not in a good way.

At Home in Mitford: I’m not one for evangelizing prose, but what bothered me most about this book was the one-dimensionality of the characters. It seemed that they were there only to serve as a catcherlesson; a sort of throwback to the bildungsroman, even though the main character was firmly in middle-age. The dog that only responded to scriptures instead of commands was a little too on-the-nose and the heavy-handed simplicity of the plot lines made this a very uncompelling read.

Catcher in the Rye: (I’m not going to be very popular at the library after this, am I?) I guess I just wasn’t the angsty, unhappy teenager that this book often appeals to. I know this was life-changing for so many people, but for me, this book was nothing more than someone’s excuse to whine. I didn’t think that Holden Caulfield had enough challenges in his life or gave life’s experiences enough of a chance to be as unhappy as he was which made this an incredibly frustrating read.

Reference:

Gone Girl: I don’t even know if I hated the book and the storyline so much as I just hated the two main characters. The novel switches back and forth from a husband’s and his missing wife’s points of view, and each character painted himself or herself in a worse light each time they narrated. Just when I thought Nick couldn’t be worse than Amy, he’d surprise me with just how awful a person he was – and vice versa. I think that reading from their points of view is supposed to show the inner workings of psychosis – a type of perspective I usually enjoy – but I just found myself annoyed. Then it was almost over, and I thought, “It can’t get worse. I’m almost done,” but the ending was the worst part. Overall the story was suspenseful and has an okay, semi-predictable plot twist, but it was almost hard redqueento care what happened to these two.

Red Queen: This teen dystopian novel takes place in a world divided by blood colors – the weak red-blooded workers who live in slums, and the powerful silver-blooded nobles with superhuman abilities. The main character, Mare, has red blood, but discovers she has the same type of superhuman abilities as silvers after she lands herself in the silvers’ royal palace as a servant. A love triangle between Mare and the two silver princes emerges, and a political rebellion develops throughout the novel. Red Queen had some potential, but ultimately the characters were poorly developed and the action scenes were somehow rather dull. I do give it credit for the fact that even though I was frustrated by it, I still found myself not wanting to put this book down.

 

And there you have it: a list of books that members of the Peabody Library staff just can’t stand.

Join the conversation! Let it out, vent to us: What books have you read and hated?