So, first and foremost, beloved patrons, I should apologize for the glaring lack of Five Book Friday last week. NOBLE’s servers were having a bit of a temper tantrum, so we weren’t able to access the blog until the afternoon. And by then, I was so busy walloping the panic button that I wasn’t paying attention when everything came back online….
Anyways, everything seems hunky-dory today, and we have lots of super-terrific new bookmarks at the Circulation Desk, courtesy of the American Library Association’s “Libraries Transform” initiative. Though National LIbrary Week won’t be coming around again until 2017, there’s never a bad time to appreciate libraries, and these bookmarks, these sayings, and these initiatives also emphasize how much we appreciate you, and how important libraries are, and will always be, to our communities. Check them out while checking out some of the new books on our shelves, why doncha? Here are some to get your weekend started right!
Fellside: This book should have been featured in last week’s Five Book Friday, but since I was reading it at this time last week, you wouldn’t have been able to pry it from my cold little hands. M.R. Carey is one of those authors who can Write All The Things, and this book only proves that. It’s a bit of a ghost story, a bit of a gritty, real-life mystery, and it’s an enormous, heartbreaking, oddly hopeful, stunning, and just a little bit overwhelming book that sneaks into your dreams and makes your daily life seem a little dull by comparison. Jess Moulson never had much to care about in this world, but as she faces the possibility of life in Fellside, an isolated women’s maximum-security prison, for murder, she begins to lose what little hope she had. But there is more to Fellside than meets the eye…namely, a ghost that only Jess can see…a ghost who looks very much like the boy she murdered. And he has a message for Jess that will change everything. I had to email Lady Pole while reading this book to let her know how good it was. And now I’m telling you: go read it!
The Loney: Andrew Michael Hurley’s debut novel won the Costa First Novel Award earlier this year, and made quite a stir in his native Ireland for its super-eerie atmosphere, and deliciously unsettling narrative. The discovery of the remains of a childhood on a particularly bleak stretch of the Lancashire coast forces Smith (known as a child as Tonto) to confront his memories of a harrowing ritual that he witnessed some forty years ago, when his mother was trying to find a cure for his disabled brother, Hanny. This book is one where the setting is as much a character as any, and the growing sense of impending doom that grows up around young Smith, even in his memories, feels like vintage Stephen King, and is guaranteed to keep the pages turning. Publisher’s Weekly agrees, saying “A palpable pall of menace hangs over British author Hurley’s thrilling first novel…Hurley tantalizes the reader by keeping explanations for what is happening just out of reach, and depicting a natural world beyond understanding. His sensitive portrayal of Tonto and Hanny’s relationship and his insights into religious belief and faith give this eerie tale depth and gravity.”
The 1916 Irish Rebellion: And speaking of Ireland…this is quite possibly the most inaccurate title I’ve ever encountered, as the Easter Rising was actually carried out by a remarkably small group of people, and was not a national event by any stretch of the imagination. Nevertheless, this book has some sensational photographs of the men and women who sparked one of the most unexpected events of the First World War, challenging the British Empire on the streets of Dublin in 1916. It also provides some sensational views of the Irish nationalist movement from the turn of the century through to Irish Independence. Bríona Nic Dhiarmada also wrote and produced a mini-series on the Easter Rising, which we’ll hopefully be bringing to you soon!
Nothing Ever Dies: From Viet Thanh Nguyen, this year’s Pulitzer Prize winner for his book, The Sympathizer, comes a deeply personal exploration of the memories of the conflict Americans call the Vietnam War and Vietnamese call the American War. Since the fiftieth anniversary of the outbreak of the Vietnam Conflict 2008, there has been a debate brewing about how to commemorate this event, how to remember it appropriate and accurately, and how to handle the lasting scars that still remain. Nguyen explores literature, film, monuments, memorials, museums, and landscapes in order to understand how this conflict remains with us today, and is still being fought in the minds of hearts of millions around the world. Booklist gave this one a starred review, saying, “Readers will discover the roots of Nguyen’s powerful fiction in this profoundly incisive and bracing investigation into the memory of war and how war stories are shaped and disseminated…Ultimately, Nguyen’s lucid, arresting, and richly sourced inquiry,…is a call for true and just stories of war and its perpetual legacy.”
Anatomy of a Soldier: Harry Parker’s startling story of a British soldier who loses his legs when he steps on a buried bomb, is told through the inanimate objects that touch his broken body. Though Captain Tom Barnes, i.e., BA5799, is specifically a soldier in Afghanistan, the utterly, devastating humanity of Parker’s 44 chapters makes this a story about war, and the price it always has, and always will exact–Parker should know, since he wrote the book based on his own life experience. This book is being compared to some of the classics of the war/anti-war genre, with Kirkus hailing, “This debut novel chronicles a soldier’s maiming and recovery with an inventiveness that in no way mitigates war’s searing heartbreak—or the spirit’s indomitability . . . You couldn’t call this novel an antiwar tract . . . But you could certainly label it a pro-understanding work of art—and those may be more in need right now than ever before.”
Until next week, beloved patrons–Happy Reading!
