And a happy February to you all, dear readers! According to Punxsutawney Phil, the fattest groundhog I ever saw, we have six more weeks of winter before us…and do you know what that means?!
More time for books!!
I think I might be in the minority about being excited for more winter, but if you’re looking for some fun days about which to be excited during the coming, apparently wintry weeks, here are a few quirky holidays in the month to keep your spirits:
February 7: National Periodic Table Day
On February 7, 1863, English chemist John Newlands published one of the first table of elements, which divided the known 56 elements into 11 groups based on the “Law of Octaves.” This suggested that any one element will have similar properties to elements eight places before and behind it on the table (Dmitri Mendeleev amended this table in 1869, placing the known elements by atomic weight, which is the table we use today). So take some time to appreciate a neon sign today, or take a deep breath of air, made up of oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, and enjoy!
February 14: National Ferris Wheel Day
Along with being Valentine’s Day, the 14th is also the birthday of George Washington Gale Ferris, the man who invented the eponymous Ferris Wheel for the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893. Ferris was inspired by a challenge laid out by the fair’s director, Daniel H. Burnham, who wanted a centerpiece to the fair that will rival the Eiffel Tower in Paris. He got the idea in a Chicago chop house, and sketched out his first draft on a napkin. If you’d like to learn a bit more about Ferris, his wheel, and the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, check out Erik Larson’s Devil in the White City, or any of these other selections!
February 23: National Toast Day
If you, like me, believe that toast may perhaps be the greatest of all foods, then turn your eyes to the toaster this day, my friends, and hold your jam pots high! National Toast Day was started in 2014 by The Tiptree World Bread Awards in the UK, but has found a following in the US. And this year seems like the perfect one to make this a Thing.
February 26: National Tell a Fairy Tale Day
Though I can’t track down the origin of this day, there are any number of outlets that advocate this holiday as one to celebrate story-telling and imagination. So take a day to spin some magic with a fairy tale from your childhood, or one of your own making! If you need some help, you know the Library is full of stories just waiting to be shared. Which leads us to….
The books! Here are some of the shiny new books that climbed up onto our shelves this week. It’s a week of fiction here, dear readers, so gather up your imaginations and enjoy!
4 3 2 1: Paul Auster’s newest release has the book-world all abuzz, and is already being called one of the best books of the year. Though inspired (somewhat) by Auster’s childhood in Brooklyn, this novel centers around Archibald Isaac Ferguson, who is born on March 3, 1947. From that single beginning, Ferguson’s life will take four simultaneous and independent fictional paths, with differing fortunes, talents, and experiences. Each Ferguson falls under the spell of the magnificent Amy Schneiderman, but each in their own way. Utterly realistic and yet wonderfully fantastical, this is a book about life in all its variety, vagaries, and fundamental truths. Kirkus agrees, giving this book a starred review and noting, “Auster’s sense of possibility, his understanding of what all his Fergusons have in common, with us and one another, is a kind of quiet intensity, a striving to discover who they are. . . . [He] reminds us that not just life, but also narrative is always conditional, that it only appears inevitable after the fact.”
And just a note: if you try to look this up in NOBLE, you will need to enter a space between each number.
Snowblind: The market for Icelandic mysteries doesn’t seem to be shrinking any time soon, and this debut novel from Ragnar Jonasson is guaranteed to keep all of you who love the dark and mysterious north delighted. Set in a quiet, remote fishing village, accessible only by a mountain tunnel, our detective is Ari Thor, a rookie policeman on his first posting, haunting by his past and yearning for his girlfriend in Reykjavik. When a young woman is found lying half-naked in the snow, bleeding and unconscious, and a highly esteemed elderly writer falls to his death, Ari finds himself forced to work in with a community he doesn’t trust (and who doesn’t trust him), in a land that knows how to hold its secrets close. This book is a smart twist on the classic ‘locked room’ mystery, and is drawing a number of comparisons to Agatha Christie, making it a great choice for classic mystery readers, as well. The Washington Post has declared it “A chiller of a thriller…It’s good enough to share shelf space with the works of Yrsa Sigurdardottir and Arnaldur Indridason, Iceland’s crime novel royalty.”
No Man’s Land: J.R.R. Tolkien took inspiration from his time as a a stretcher-bearer during the First World War when crafting The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit (anyone who recalls passages about the mud and the muck and the mire might not be too surprised by this). Now, the author’s grandson, a novelist in his own right, has penned a story inspired by his grandfather’s experiences on the Western Front. His hero’s name is Adam Raine, a boy born into poverty in London at the turn of the century. When his mother is killed, Adam’s father moves them to a coal-mining village in which Adam never quite fits in. When he finally finds love and earns a scholarship to Oxford, he begins to believe the future may be brightening–until the outbreak of war in Europe. Tolkien’s book isn’t the kind of sentimental story we so frequently hear about the First World War, where everything is beautiful and happy until 1914. This book delves into the gritty reality of life in England during the Edwardian period, from its poverty to its brutal classist mentality, and shows that life for many was no better at home than at the front, even if war experience did change them forever. The result is a tour-de-force that is surprising and moving and deeply insightful, and which NPR called ” a page-turner, an opera, a costume drama to binge watch. Simon Tolkien knows how to keep a story moving, and he does it well.”
Bookburners: I panicked when I saw the title of this book, but it actually turned out to be a sensational read that absolutely panders to those of us who have ever felt consumed by a book. Originally part of a Serial Box, this single collection brings together all the stories of Team Three of the Societas Librorum Occultoru, a Vatican-backed operation that seek out the dark magic hidden in demon-haunted books around the world. Our heroine is Val Brooks, a woman whose brother was attacked by just such a book, and who joins Team Three in order to save others. With stories by
Caraval: Here is another book that is garnishing quite a bit of attention lately, and will hold great appeal for fans of The Night Circus. Scarlett has never left the tiny island where she and her beloved sister, Tella, live with their powerful, and cruel, father. But when she learns she is to be married, Scarlett decides to enjoy one night of freedom by visiting Caraval, the far-away, once-a-year performance where the audience participates in the show. She’s received her invitation–but no sooner is she whisked off to the show by a mysterious Sailor than Scarlett learns that Tella has been kidnapped by the show’s organizer, Legend, and the winner of Caraval will be the one who finds Tella first. Though she’s been told that everything about Caraval is a performance, that everything around her is an elaborate fiction, Scarlett finds herself immersed in a dangerous and enticing world of magic, romance, and heartbreak, caught up in the race to find her sister before the show closes and steals her away forever. This is escapism at its finest, and Stephanie Garber’s book is winning huge praise from critics, including Kirkus, who said of it “Caraval delights the senses: beautiful and scary, described in luscious prose, this is a show readers will wish they could enter. A double love story, one sensual romance and the other sisterly loyalty, anchors the plot, but the real star here is Caraval and its secrets. Immersive and engaging…destined to capture imaginations.”
Until next week, beloved patrons–happy reading!