And a very happy Free for All Birthday to the National Park Service, which celebrated its 100th birthday yesterday!

Our National Parks themselves have been around a lot longer than that….well, if we’re being fair here, many of them have been around since the continents stopped shifting, but the United States began protecting and honoring these celebrated sites of natural beauty, ecological wonder, and historical significance since 1872, when Yellowstone National Park was designated as a National Park, and run by the Federal Government itself, since there was no one person or body dedicated to overseeing it.  Yosemite National Park was designated earlier, in 1864, but as a state park, overseen by the state of California, who later turned it back over the Federal Government to control.  It was in 1916, however, that the government created a National Parks Service, which was charged with overseeing, protecting, and managing all of the country’s National Parks.  And to all those wide-brimmed and olive-garbed rangers out there, we tip our hats to you today!

Because I get a kick out of random facts like these, the Park Service is responsible for about 84,000,000 acres of land, on the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands, some 85,049 miles of rivers, 8,500 roads, and 27,000 historic sites.  The largest national park is  Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, in Alaska, which covers about 13.2 million acres, while the smallest is the Thaddeus Kosciuszko National Memorial, home of the famous Polish freedom fighter, in Philadelphia PA, at 0.02 acres.

And did you know that Massachusetts has 15 National Parks?  With the spate of lovely weather coming up, why not have an adventure to one (or more!) of them soon?  And why not bring a book with you to keep you company (she wrote, in the most skillful of transitions)?  Here are some wonderful new books that have ambled up onto our shelves this week that are oh-so-eager to join you in appreciating the big wide world out there!

A Scot in the Dark: Sarah MacLean is by far and away one of my favorite romance authors around, and with each new release, she pushes at the boundaries of our assumptions about romance and what romance novels can do, carving out a space that is very fun, very feminist-y, and just plain a joy to read.  In this second book in her Scandal and Scoundrel series, we meet Lily, who agreed to sit for a painter as a way to escape her gilded cage–only to find herself abandoned and utterly ruined when the painting becomes public.  With no other choice left, Lily turns to her guardian, the Duke of Warwick, a Highland heathen who wants nothing to do with London, or Lily…but in the course of trying to marry her off, the Duke just might discover a reason keep near to both…Kirkus gave this book a starred review, cheering, “MacLean’s signature humor and ingenuity are in evidence throughout this novel…She writes love scenes and romantic dialogue with audacity”–we agree!

A Shocking Assassination: I, for one, am a huge fan of the current trend of Irish historical mystery novels, and Cora Harrison’s Reverend Mother series checks all my boxes: an unlikely heroine (in this case, the Reverend Mother Aquinas), a great historic setting (Cork, during the Irish Civil War, one of the most violent places on the island at that time), and a well-plotted mystery.  In this second series installment, a city engineer has been assassinated, and a young man, who was standing beside the body holding a pistol has been arrested.  And when the boy’s mother begs for help to prove her son’s innocence, the good Reverend Mother finds herself facing down violence in its many, varied, and most fundamentally human forms, making for an investigation that is winning praise on both sides of the Atlantic.  Booklist gave it a star review, hailing, “Period ambience, an absorbing plot, and a wise and intrepid amateur sleuth in the form of the Reverend Mother make this an engaging historical mystery.”

Adventures in Human Being: A Grand Tour from the Cranium to the Calcaneum: Gavin Francis has spent his life in medicine, as an ER doctor, a surgeon, and a family practitioner, and its very clear that he loves all the wonderful, crazy, and unexpected things that the human body can accomplish and do.  But rather than simply giving us a tour of ‘the body’, this wonderfully thoughtful, surprisingly engaging and accessible book also looks at how we see, and have seen the body in the past, using historical texts, literature, philosophy, and personal memories to really helps us come to terms with the body we inhabit, and its meaning throughout our history.  This book has won a number of awards in the UK for being the best non-fiction book of the year, and is already making headlines over here, with the the Wall Street Journal proclaiming:  “Dr. Francis…brings certain necessary equipment to this task. These include a keen sense of the marvelous, a prose style as elegant and cutting as a scalpel, and a breadth of clinical experience that is unusual in an age of specialization… with its deft mix of the clinical and the lyrical, [this is] a triumph of the eloquent brain and the compassionate heart.”

Behold the Dreamers: Imbolo Mbue’s stunning debut novel recalls the early days of the 2007-8 financial collapse from the viewpoint of those who were so easily forgotten as huge banks began tottering, and fortunes began collapsing.  Jende Jonga is a Cameroonian immigrant, who is determined to do whatever he must to make a secure and prosperous life for himself and his family.  Thus, he is overjoyed to get a job as a chauffeur for Clark Edwards, a demanding and exacting boss, as well as a senior executive at Lehman Brothers.  Jende’s wife, Neni, even secures work cleaning the Edwards’ house in the Hamptons.  But as the looming threat of financial meltdown becomes real, and Lehmann Brothers collapses, highlighting the interpersonal cracks in all these intertwined relationships, Jende and Neni find themselves facing impossible choices in order to survive.  Though necessarily heartbreaking, Mbue manages to maintain a kindness towards all of characters, emphasizing the real tragedy of this novel is not one man’s mistakes, but of a system that was build to fall.  As Publisher’s Weekly put it, in their review, “The Jongas are . . . vivid, and the book’s unexpected ending—and its sharp-eyed focus on issues of immigration, race, and class—speak to a sad truth in today’s cutthroat world: the American dream isn’t what it seems.”

Ghost Talkers: For those who like a little paranormal with their history, we offer you Mary Robinette Kowal’s latest, set during the First World War, and focused on the Spirit Corps, a group organized to communicate with, and pass along information from, the ghosts of the fallen.  Ginger is a member of the spirit corps, a job that pairs well with her fiance’s work in intelligence.  But with Captain Benjamin Harford out on a mission, Ginger gets evidence of a traitor in the Allies midst–and without him to validate her claims, Ginger not only finds herself doubted by her superiors, but charged with working for the Germans herself.   Abandoned, Ginger sets out on her own to prove her suspicions correct–no easy task for a lone woman in a world of violent men, but Ginger isn’t about to turn back now…Kowal’s work won over the sceptics at NPR, who raved about this book in a recent review, saying “it was that rare ability of Kowal’s to make what could have been a completely goofy add-on to the British war effort into something that felt completely wedded and solid that sold me — that spark of a great idea, well-executed. It is a story that just works.”

Until next week, beloved patrons–happy reading!

And a very happy birthday to the Statue of Liberty!

Well…sort of.  On this date in 1884, the cornerstone of the pedestal on which the statue stands was laid on Bedloe’s Island in New York Harbor (the island would be renamed “Liberty Island” in 1956).  Originally, Richard Morris Hunt, who was commissed to design and oversee the construction of the pedestal, wanted to use a solid block of granite, but it turns out that granite was no less expensive (comparatively speaking) than it is today, and Hunt was forced to scale back and construct his pedestal out of poured concrete, about 20 feet wide, and then face it with granite quarried from Connecticut.  At the time, it was the largest concrete mass ever poured.

The pedestal would not be completed until 1886, when a national fundraiser was able to collect enough money from around the country to afford to erect the Statue.  By that time, Lady Liberty herself had already arrived in pieces into New York Harbor, aboard the French steamer Isère.   Nearly as soon as the concrete had set, work began to get the statue settled, and the dedication ceremony was held on October 28, 1886, with President Grover Cleaveland presiding as Master of Ceremonies. Though it was intended that the statue would work as a lighthouse, no one could figure out how to get the light in the torch to shine brightly enough to been seen at night, until 1916, when the torch was replaced with stained glass, and electic lighting installed.

And speaking of new arrivals (and graceless shifting of topics!), let’s take a look at some of the new books that meandered onto our shelves this week, and are eagerly waiting for you on our Free For All display!

The Games: A Global History of the Olympics: With the opening ceremonies of the Summer Olympics kicking off in Rio de Janiero tonight, this book seemed quite an appropriate choice for today.  Noted and celebrated sports writer David Goldblatt takes a look not only at the history of the Olympics–both Winter and Summer–but also at the world events that took place around them, from World Wars and political upheavals, to the social and cultural movements that changed the game, including the fight for women to be included as equals, and Second World War veterans establishing the Paralympics.  Without shrinking from the often overwhelming economic cost of the Olympics, Goldblatt also manages to show how the Games have in turn affected world events, including the worldwide Civil Rights movement, and the Cold War.  The result is a book that sports fans, history buffs, and cultural observers alike can savor, and one which Kirkus called “A tour de force history of the Olympics in romanticized myth and political reality. . . . Gracefully written and compellingly argued, this is one of the best books of the year and one of the best sports books ever written.”

Night of the Animals: Bill Broun’s genre-defying debut is getting rave reviews from critics on both sides of the Atlantic for its powerful blend of dystopian science-fiction and innocent fairy tale.  Set in London in 2052, the story centers around Cuthbert Handley, a homeless young man who believes that he has been given a gift to communicate with animals–and a calling to set them free.  On the night he sneaks into the London Zoo to release the animals there, the rest of the world’s attention is on a suicide cult that threatening to destroy all of earth’s animals along with themselves.  As Cuthbert and the legions of the cult flood the streets, it becomes increasingly more difficult to tell if Cuthbert is an agent of mercy, or a pawn in the hands of some truly dastardly people, creating a story that is both a nightmare, and a stunning dream.  Publisher’s Weekly gave this book a starred review, saying “Through precise and eloquent prose and a hint of political satire, Broun creates a near future filled with bioelectric technology and characters with patois as diverse as their desires. Broun’s novel is strange, witty, and engrossing, skipping through madness and into the realm of myth.”

The Fire This Time: In 1963, James Baldwin wrote The Fire Next Time, one of the most significant and moving examinations of race relations in the United States.  Now, National Book Award–winner Jesmyn Ward has taken Baldwin’s essay as a starting point for a re-evaluation of race in America, collecting essays, poems, and stories from a diverse and very talented group of young writers.  The result is a collection that challenges us to re-think the idea that the post-Civil Rights era is one that is free of hypocrisy and oppression, and sheds a very sensitive, nuanced light on the way that we, as inviduals, and as citizens, interact with each other, and how we can do better.  This book has been praised by cultural critics, historians, poets, and readers alike, for being both accessible and deeply thought-provoking, with Vogue saying “Perhaps what The Fire This Time does best is to affirm the power of literature and its capacity for reflection and imagination, to collectively acknowledge the need for a much larger conversation, to understand these split-second actions in present, past, and future tense, the way that stories impel us to do. This is a book that seeks to place the shock of our own times into historical context and, most importantly, to move these times forward.”

The Hike: Drew Magary has a reputation for creating utterly surreal, and yet bitingly insightful tales that are as wildly imaginative as they are grounded in social observations and analysis, and this latest work is no different.  Ben is an everyday suburban family man on a busniess trip to Pennsylvania, and decides to take a walk through the woods behind his hotel to pass the time.  What he finds is a wonderland of horror and fascination, of beauty and danger…and that he has no choice but to continue going forward, on the hunt for the ‘Producer’ who has created this dreamscape of a reality, and beg to be set free.  With influences from film, video game, and fairy tales alike, this is a book that revels in its own weirdness, yet still manages to present a hero whose journey is emotionally spell-binding.  Library Journal agrees, cheering that “Magary’s second novel…..is a reminder of not only how easy it is to get lost but also how difficult it can be to find one’s way back. Fast-paced and immensely entertaining, this is highly recommended for sf fans and adventurous literary readers.”

I’m Supposed to Protect You From All This: Nadja Spiegelman (daughter of Art Spiegelman, who created the Maus graphic novels), grew up believing that her mother was a fairy.  The French-born New Yorker art director Françoise Mouly held a powerful sway over her family and career, over fantasy and reality alike.  But, as Nadja grew older, she and her mother grew distant.  It wasn’t until she graduated college that her mother told her about her own difficult childhood in France, and the volatile mother she had fled.  This book is not only Nadja’s account of her relationship with her mother, but Françoise Mouly’s mother, whom Nadja tracked down in France, and whose stories totally contradicted the ones that Françoise had told, providing readers with a story that his haunting in its details, and utterly relatable, as are all tales of families and inheritance and memory.  Booklist gave this a starred review, calling Spieglman’s book “Stunning and artistic…[a] touching, surprising consideration of the unclear inheritances of family, and the certain fallibility of memory… [Spiegelman] writes page-turning true stories of women, their work and love, which read like novels, and gains the rare sort of understanding that precludes the need for forgiveness.”

Until next week, beloved patrons–Happy Reading!

Greetings, dear readers!  I hope you all have marvelous plans for the upcoming long weekend!

Over here in damp London, it’s the 100th anniversary of the opening of the Battle of the Somme, one of the largest battles of the First World War, and the deadliest day in British military history.  In one day, the British Army, which included men from Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Australia, New Zealand, India, South Africa, and a number of other colonial sites, lost 60,000 men–20,000 of whom died, and 40,000 of whom sustained inJuries that took them out of the field.  Within British history, it’s a hugely significant day for a number of reasons.  Britain had no standing army, so a significant percentage of these men were volunteers who had signed up early in the war, thinking that the war would be short and decisive.  That first day on the Somme was heart-breaking proof that it would be neither, and it’s a heartbreak from which, culturally speaking, no one has fully recovered.

The picture above was taken at Paddington Station this morning.  I’ve no idea where these men are off to today…or whether they are ghosts, but they were a very poignant reminder that history is a lot closer than we think at times.  More on this later, I can assure you.

For now, though, how about we think about your long weekend across the waters, and all the neat books you can take with you to read!  Here are just a few that crawled up onto our shelves this week, and are very eager to make an appearance at your holiday festivities!

A Gift for Guile: Alissa Johnson is carving quite a name for herself in the world of historical romance, creating vibrant, unexpectedly complex, and wholly original characters who fill the gaslight, fog-bound streets of Victorian London.  The second book in her Thief-Taker Series features Esther, a brilliant and supremely clever con artist, who is on a journey to make amends, and refuses to let anything stand in her way–not even the implacable and obnoxiously handsome private detective Samuel Brass.  But Samuel has decided, against all his better judgement, to ensure Esther’s safety, even if it costs him his own heart in the process.  Johnson’s writing is infectiously inviting, and I love the quirks that she builds into each of her characters (Samuel’s dog one one of my favorite surprises in this book).  Of this book, RT Book Reviews had nothing but praise, saying “Johnson draws readers into an intriguing mystery romance as disparate characters join forces to combat the demons of their pasts. The quick pace, sexual tension, touch of poignancy and the well-drawn backdrop seamlessly merge, allowing her characters and their conflict to take center stage.”

Liberty or Death: The French Revolution: It seems a fitting weekend to talk of revolution, particularly one so intimately tied to the history of the American Revolution.  In this new release, Peter McPhee, emeritus professor of the University of Melbourne, puts the French Revolution in a global context, seeing it not only as an events within France, but as part of an age of revolutions and uprisings, and looks outside of Paris, as well, to see how the revolution changed the lives of peasants, farmers, and others whose lives were irrevocably changed as a result of it.  Having spent his career studying the history of France, Professor McPhee’s love for his subject is evident, as is his ability to tell a very human and moving story.  Library Journal agrees, calling this book “Articulate and perceptive . . . Numerous histories of the French Revolution exist; while many are good, none is so current on the literature and lucidly presented as this. Scholars and history lovers will rejoice.”

The Bones of Grace: Much beloved and highly acclaimed author Tahmima Anam is back with a new book about love, loss, and the choices we make that define us.  Zubaida Haque is preparing for a journey to find the missing link to human evolution when she meets, and falls in love with American Elijah Strong.  Even though they both feel made for each other, fate has other plans, and Zubaida soon finds herself back with her family in Bangladesh, married to a man of whom her parents approve.  But Zubaida is still seeking answers, and as she throws herself into work on a documentary about beached ships, she begins to realize that she alone can rebuild the life she thought lost.  This is a book where the settings are like supporting characters, transporting readers to the troubled, yet somehow beautiful world of Bangladesh, as well as deep into its heroines heart.  The New Yorker loved Anan’s book, saying that her “fluent prose and sharp insights are at their best when the narrative strays . . . into the surreal ways in which faith and love work–and sometimes fail.”

The Mandibles: A Family, 2029-2047: Despite it’s futuristic setting, this book adamantly states that it is not science fiction.  Instead, Lionel Shriver has given us a story about money, about society, and about human nature that is as realistic as it is surreal.  Set in 2029, as the populations of each switch to a new global currency, the President of the US declares that America will default on its debts, and print its own money to survive.  With the dollar plummeting, the Mandibles see the inheritance they has planned to receive die in the whirlpool of inflation, changing their lives in unimaginable, and yet all too believable ways.  While the outlook sounds bleak, Lionel Shriver unique sense of humor flashes through these pages, offering surprisingly timely remarks even she writes a tale of future disaster.  Booklist hailed this release as “a sharp, smart, snarky satire of every conspiracy theory and hot button political issue ever spun; one that, at first glance, might induce an absurdist chuckle, until one realizes that it is based on an all-too-plausible reality.”

We Were Kings: Readers who enjoyed last year’s Serpents in the Cold, featuring the tragically human and wonderfully empathetic detective duo of Cal and Dante, prepare to return to the streets of Boston, circa 1950, and join our troubled but determined detectives on the hunt for an IRA man who is out for blood, and all the guns that Irish American immigrants will offer.  Thomas O’Malley and Douglas Graham Purdy revel in the scenic details of their world, bringing Boston of a generation ago alive in all its tarnished, seedy, and secretive glory, and confronts Boston’s very troubled legacy with the IRA head on, in a book that had the good folks at WBUR hailing, “In the best noir tradition, these co-authors shine a smoky light on lives often lived in the shadows.”

Until next week, beloved patrons–happy reading!