Ok, so it’s Tax Day, I know, I know….
And that’s why today’s Five Book Friday begins with a List Of Things To Make You Happy, which is among my favorite things to assemble for Fridays. Enjoy!
1) This happy red panda, who is very, very pleased to see you today!
2) Some lovely daffodils, which I photographed just for you:
3) Redefining “comfort food”, this lovely plush piece of toast that you can hug without worrying about butter stains.
4) This chair with build-in book shelf-things, which looks like one of the only such chairs in which I would actually want to sit for any length of time:
5) NEW BOOKS!!! We are awash in new fiction selections this week, many of them featuring daring journeys to other realms, other worlds, or other states, in any manner of historical (or future) setting–here are just a few to whet your appetite:
Theater of the Gods: When this book first wandered into the Library, I opened it up to a random page, as I am wont to do, and saw a letter from a man who was about to be eaten by murderous trees. Which, naturally, has me all in a dither to read the tale of M. Francisco Fabrigas, explorer, philosopher, and physicist, who takes a shipful of children on a trip into another dimension. Having broken the bounds of conventional reality, Fabrigas and his troupe of interdimensional tourists encounter any number of bizarre and deadly foes, in a wild story that has drawn comparisons to Douglas Adams, Mervyn Peake, and Terry Pratchett…or, as The Guardian observed, “this antidote to formula fiction reads like Douglas Adams channeling William Burroughs channelling Ionesco, spiced with the comic brio of Vonnegut.” If anyone needs me, I’ll be under the Free For All Display table reading….
The Eloquence of the Dead: Irish journalist Conor Brady made quite a splash with his first historic mystery last summer, and this follow-up, featuring the deceptively complex Sergeant Joe Swallow, brings readers back to the murky and fascinating world of Victorian Dublin, where a pawnbroker has been murdered, and the lead witness has vanished. Swallow is handed what seems on the surface to be an unsolvable case, and the approbation of a city on edge. What he finds, however, is deep-seated corruption and a dastardly foe that lead Swallow to the very seat of British imperial power. Brady packs his stories with loads of historic details and revel in the complications of Dublin society, making it as much a character in these novels as Swallow and his comrades, giving Kirkus plenty of reasons to cheer “The second case for the talented, complicated Swallow again spins a fine mystery out of political corruption in 1880s Dublin.”
The North Water: Another historic setting for you; this time, though, the location is the Arctic Ocean, aboard an ill-fated whaling ship. Ship’s Medic Patrick Sumner, a disgraced veteran of the Siege of Delhi, thought he had seen all the horrors that humanity had to offer, but the longer he spends with the crew of the Volunteer, particularly the savate harpooner Henry Drax, the more that Sumner becomes convinced that the worst by yet to come–particularly after discovering what is lurking in the hold of the great, doomed ship. This is a tale of human nature and human endurance, set in one of the most foreboding places on earth, a perfect and terrifying escape that has critics raving. The New York Times called this “a great white shark of a book―swift, terrifying, relentless and unstoppable…Mr. McGuire is such a natural storyteller―and recounts his tale here with such authority and verve―that ‘The North Water’ swiftly immerses the reader in a fully imagined world. […] Mr. McGuire nimbly folds all these melodramatic developments into his story as it hurtles toward its conclusion.”
Daredevils: This time, our setting is the American West of the 1970’s, specifically Idaho and Arizona, and our protagonist is Loretta, a daring fifteen-year-old girl who is caught with her Gentile boyfriend by her strict Mormon parents. When she is married off to an older, devout fundamentalist, Loretta finds herself surrounded by a strange family–including Jason, her husband’s free-spirited nephew, who convinces her to flee with him to the open road. This coming of age tale features a wealth of vivid, utterly unique characters, ranging from the idealist to the sleaziest of grifters, who join Loretta and Jason on their adventures, and is full of the kind of descriptive detail that journalist and writer Shawn Vestal has spent a lifetime observing. The San Fransisco Chronicle gave this book a glowing review, calling it “[A] full-throttle, exhilarating debut novel about faith, daring and the unexpectedly glorious coming-of-age of a Mormon teenager…This on-the-road novel takes twists and turns that are on no literary map you’ve ever seen…Vestal plays with points of view at a dizzying speed, so that at times the novel feels like a symphonic chorus…The writing, too, feels revolutionary in how it startles you…Ingenious, haunting, wild and hilarious.”
Eating in the Middle: A Mostly Wholesome Cookbook: Andie Mitchell documented her difficulties with weight loss and self-perception in her book It Was Me All Along, and now, in her first cookbook, she shares with readers the dishes–and the stories–that helped her change her life for the better. As ever, I am attracted by the pictures in cookbooks, and let me tell you…these look particularly delicious.
Until next week, beloved patrons–happy reading!