Be a rebel -- read a book!

Quick, without thinking, what's your gut-reaction stereotype of a librarian?  Did it involve cardigans, half-moon glasses, cats, and practical shoes?  Was there "shush"ing involved?  Or, did you think of a rebellious crusader for intellectual freedom?  Don't worry, I know which one you probably chose . 

Every year, during the last week of September, the American Library Association likes to remind you that, while we might wear practical shoes (hey, cut us some slack -- there's a lot of walking involved), there's a fierce independent streak in librarians -- and I'm not just talking about the field trips to the tattoo parlor during the ALA convention (yes, really). 

The last week of September is Banned Books Week, in which the cardigan-wearing, cat-owning librarians of stereotypes of yore encourage you to read a book specifically because someone else doesn't want you to.  Banned Books Week celebrates books that have been banned or challenged (i.e., someone unsuccessfully tried to ban it).  It's not just the librarians who support this week, either.  Banned Books Week is sponsored by the American Booksellers Association; American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression; the American Library Association; American Society of Journalists and Authors; Association of American Publishers; and the National Association of College Stores. It is endorsed by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress.

The celebration of banned books wasn't created to encourage people to read naughty bits in books, but to celebrate our ability to read what we want.  The First Amendment and its promise of freedom to access information and share ideas is key to Banned Books Week.  If you want to read a steamy novel, go for it.  But, it's not just about heaving bosoms and stirred loins -- it's about political ideas on both ends of the spectrum that you have access to read because somebody has protected your right to do so.  It's about you getting to decide what is appropriate for you and your family to read, rather than having someone else choose for you.

Many books that are considered highly influential classics were once banned or challenged.  In fact, of the Radcliffe Publishing Course Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century, at least 46 were challenged or banned, including nine of the top 10.   Books like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Catch-22, The Kite Runner, Slaughterhouse Five, and To Kill a Mockingbird, each considered to be important American classics, have all been subjects of challenges or been banned. 

To celebrate Banned Books Week, and our ability to read what we want, our Great Books Great Libraries selections for the last week of September and all of October are Banned Books.  For more information on Banned Books Week, check out the ALA website. 

World Cup Reading--The Netherlands

Here is the third installment of World Cup reading.  This time I'm featuring Dutch authors.  The Netherlands is the 11th most populous country in Europe with an estimated population of 16,500,000. Soccer is the most popular Dutch sport and The Netherlands National football team was first assembled in 1905. Unfortunately the Dutch hold the record of losing the most World Cup finals without a single win.  They were runners-up in 1974, 1978, and this year 2010.  However, in my opinion just getting to the finals three times is still impressive.  Speaking of impressive, try one of the following authors:

A. C. Baantjer--born in Urk, Flevoland (a province of the Netherlands).  This policeman turned novelist is best known for his detective series featuring Inspector DeKok and Sgt. Vledder.  Unfortunately the author passed away August 29, 2010.

Janwillem van de Wetering--born in Rotterdam. This crime writer is famous for his mysteries starring Amsterdam policemen Grijpstra and De Grier.  He has won several awards including the 1984 Grand Prix de Litterature, which is France's most prestigious award for detective and crime fiction.  Wetering died in 2008.

Leon de Winter--born in Den Bosch in the Southern Netherlands. His 2007 book Hoffman's Honger (Hunger) is a literary thriller set in Prague.

Marcel Moring--born in Enschede in the Eastern Netherlands. He won the 2007 Ferdinand Bordewijk Prize (F. Bordewijk-prijs) for his book Dis.  This prize is given to the top authors in Dutch literature.  Try his newest novel In a Dark Wood.

Tommy Wieringa--born in Goor, Overijssel (a province of the Netherlands).  He won the F. Bordewijk-prijs in 2006 for his novel Joe Speedboat.

Margriet de Moor--born in Noordwijk, South Holland.  One of ten children, she studied piano and singing at the Royal Conservatory in the Hague.  She has won multiple awards for her poetry, novels, and short fiction. Try her newest title The Storm.

Try one of these great Dutch authors today.

Happy Birthday Agatha Christie!

September 15th would have been Agatha Christie's 120th birthday!  This beloved author was born in England in 1890, was the youngest of three children, and a nurse during WWI.  She wrote romance novels under the name Mary Westmacott , but is best remembered for her 80 detective novels and her successful theatre plays.  Her novels, particularly those featuring Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple, have given her the title the 'Queen of Crime' and made her one of the most important writers in the development of the mystery genre.
The Guinness Book of World Records referred to Christie as "the best-selling writer of any kind along, with William Shakespeare"--and only the Bible is known to have outsold her novels.  Christie's books have been translated into at least 56 languages and many have been adapted for movies, television, radio, video games and comics.
Her first novel to feature Hercule Poirot was The Mysterious Affair at Styles and Miss Marple's debut book was The Murder at the Vicarage.

Here are some of her most well-known titles (and one of my favorites*):

4:50 from Paddington--book and movie.
Death on the Nile--book and movie.
Mousetrap--play.
Murder on the Orient Express--book and movie.
*10 Little Indians or And Then They Were None--book, movie, and videogame.

For more Dame Agatha go to the library's website and for more great mysteries try our Super Sleuths booklist from our Great Books, Great Libraries collection.

The Book of Unholy Mischief

The year is 1498. The place, Venice. Rumors are flying of a mysterious book, an ancient tome that may hold the keys to eternal life, love, and wealth. Men are imprisoned, tortured, and killed for knowledge of its whereabouts, and yet it remains unfound. Is it real? And if so, where is it? Luciano, teenaged apprentice to Amato Ferrero, personal chef to the doge of Venice, finds himself embroiled in an ages-old mystery when he is drawn into the search for the book. With it, he hopes to win the love of the beautiful Francesca and prove himself to his streetwise friend Marco. But he soon finds himself in over his head, for powerful men are hunting it as well--holy men, politicians, and murderers who will stop at nothing to claim the book for their own. Ferrero hopes to reign in Luciano's impulsiveness with guidance and instruction, but the maestro is keeping an important secret, one that threatens to turn all of Venice upside down if discovered. Author Elle Newmark has mixed Italian history, intrigue, food, and murder with the skill of a master chef, and the result is The Book of Unholy Mischief. Buon appetito! 

In the Queue

In the Company of Others by Jan Karon

Father Tim and his wife Cynthia travel to Ireland to research the Kavanagh family history.  While there, they find themselves embroiled in a mystery concerning a stolen painting.

Vermilion Drift by William Kent Krueger

The residents of Tamarack County are not happy when their area becomes a site for nuclear waste.  The situation worsens when Mr. O'Connor, the head of security, finds a secret room at the site with six murder victims!

At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson

Realizing there are hidden wonders to be found, Bryson embarks on a tour of his house which is a former rectory.  He provides historical insight into the seemingly mundane rooms.

A chance to see my author crush, thwarted

I blogged recently about a book called Super Sad True Love Story (and in case I didn't convince you before, let me say once again, just read it).   Let me now tell you a super sad true book story.  Minimally, it's a somewhat disappointing true book story, but that doesn't have quite the same ring to it. 

Each year, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize is given for outstanding contributions to promoting peace in both fiction and non-fiction categories.  In addition, there is also a Lifetime Achievement Award. 

Therein is the super sad (or, for you sticklers, fairly disappointing) part.  Picture this scene: there I am, merrily trolling about looking to see when the winners will be announced (this Thursday, September 23rd, if you're curious), when suddenly a name jumped out at me: Geraldine Brooks is this year's recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award.  Yes, that Geraldine Brooks.  She of Pulitzer Prize-winning March, People of the Book, and Year of Wonders.  The very same Geraldine Brooks on whom I have a serious, long-lasting author crush.  How have I missed this until now?  I nearly fell out of my chair in my haste to look up ticket information.  Sadly (okay, disappointingly), at $175 a ticket for the cheapest ticket, I won't be attending the awards ceremony.  Instead, I'll sit back and focus on the great books that are making the event possible.   Check out the finalists in our collection (and because I'm too mildly depressed to write right now, annotations are borrowed from the Literary Peace Prize website).

Fiction

A Good Fall by Ha Jin 

In this stark and insightful collection, acclaimed writer Ha Jin depicts the struggle of Chinese immigrants in America to remain loyal to their traditions as they explore the freedom that life in a new country offers.

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

A young Ethiopian doctor is forced to flee revolution in his homeland for New York City in this enthralling family saga of Africa and America, doctors and patients, exile and home.

The Book of Night Women by Marlon James 

Born into slavery on a Jamaican sugar plantation at the end of the eighteenth century, a woman with dark, mysterious powers finds herself at the heart of a slave revolt plotted by the women around her.

The Calligrapher's Daughter by Eugenia Kim
In early-twentieth-century Korea, the privileged daughter of a calligrapher struggles to choose her own destiny while her country crumbles under Japanese occupation.

The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Adiche
Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie turns her penetrating eye on both her native country and America in twelve dazzling stories that explore the collision of two cultures and the deeply human struggle to reconcile them.

Nonfiction

Enough: Why the Worlds Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty by Roger Thurow and Scott Kilman
This powerful investigative narrative shows exactly how, in the past few decades, American, British, and European policies have conspired to keep Africa hungry and unable to feed itself.

In the Valley of Mist by Justine Hardy

A personal, moving, and vibrant picture of the Kashmir Valley, one of the most beautiful and troubled places in the world -- described through the experiences of one family, whose fortunes have changed dramatically with those of the region.

Stones Into Schools by Greg Mortenson

From the author of the #1 bestseller Three Cups of Tea, the continuing story of this determined humanitarian’s efforts to promote peace in Afghanistan through education.

Tears in the Darkness by Michael and Elizabeth Norman

Using the perspective of a young American soldier, this account of World War II’s Bataan death march exposes the myths of war and shows the extent of suffering and loss on both sides.

The Education of a British-Protected Child by Chinua Achebe

From the celebrated author of Things Fall Apart, a new collection of autobiographical essays—his first new book in more than twenty years.

Zeitoun by Dave Eggers

The meticulously researched story of a prosperous Syrian-American and father of four who chose to stay in New Orleans through Hurricane Katrina and protect his house and business—but then abruptly disappeared.

Happily ever after?

I am one of those people, who enjoy a happy ending. It doesn't matter if it is a thriller, a murder mystery or a romance novel. I just love it when the characters (aka the author) get it right. They defeat the bad guy and everyone lives happily ever after. With this in mind I have been anxiously awaiting Suzanne Collins last book in her Hunger Games Trilogy. Yes it is written for young adult readers, but it is a crossover book and many adults have read and enjoyed each book in the series and like me have waited for the last book, Mockingjay. 
The series is set in a totalitarian dystopia called Panem. Two children from each district are selected annually to participate (pay tribute to the Capitol) in the reality show, the Hunger Game.In Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen is introduced. Katniss not wanting to see her sister die, volunteers to take her place when her name is drawn in the annual Hunger Games Lottery.  The games take place in the Capitol and are a fight to the finish. 2 champions from each district are chosen and fight until there is only one victor (aka survivor) left. It's like the Olympics only deadlier.  It is televised and every night the death bells ring signifying how many tributes died that day.  This series is not for the faint hearted. Brutal deaths occur throughout the book. It is a story of courage, bravery and compassion in the face of  impending death. Katniss' struggle to survive while maintaining her integrity, leads the readers to hold their breath and hope for the best. How will she survive? She's only a kid. The only hope she has is to win the game.  Victors earn a life of luxury. This translates in district 12 to enough food to eat, money and a nice home in the Victor's Village. Your family moves in with you and you are safe. Or are you?


Katniss wins the game but defies the government.  What is the cost of saving yourself and your friend but making an enemy of the leader of the world? Can you really live happily ever after?

The second book in the series, Catching Fire shows the brutality of war and the evil of absolute power.  Katniss indeed lives in Victors Village with her family, but she no longer hunts, her life long friend and companion is forced to work long hours in the coal mine and to make matters even worse President Snow is VERY angry.  A rebellion has begun and he blames Katniss. 

Now, I believed at the end of the Hunger Games and the beginning of Catching Fire, that Katniss and Peeta were now safe in district 12. What was I thinking???  Spoiler Alert do not read farther if you have not read Catching Fire. President Snow gets revenge on the victors of the preceding games. This Hunger Game is a Quarter Quell and the President chooses to send 2 champions from each district back into the game. Need I say and here we go again. Katniss fights along side other district champions and then is miraculously saved. However, Peeta is captured by the government. The rebellion has begun and the government will stop at nothing to hold off the revolution by any means possible.  Collins leaves us hanging wanting to know what happens next to our humanitarian Katniss, her friend and companion Peeta, and all the districts. 
It is a terrific story that kept me on the edge of my seat wondering what will happen next.

Consequently, I have been eagerly awaiting, Mockingjay, the last book in the series. I wanted to know what happens next to my beloved characters, their homeland and of course learn what happens to President Snow. Remember President Snow uses any means possible to accomplish his goal. His goal is to maintain control of the districts.  Katniss doesn't realize how much power she has given the President with the capture of Peeta after the Quarter Quell. The President knows Katniss cares about humanity, especially her family, Peeta, and Gale. He understands that death is not the worse possible consequence in time of war.  Katniss learns that leaders are power hungry and she and the citizens are merely pawns in their game.  If she dies both sides win, if she lives she's a danger to either regime. 
Let me tell you that I thouroughly enjoyed this trilogy: the vivid characters, bright scenes and the incredible, yet horrific details. The main characters, Katniss and Peeta almost always end up wounded but survive. I expected a happy ending in the last book. Well to be truthful, there was a happy ending, just not the one I wanted. The book kept me turning pages. After becoming entwined in the characters....it's hard to imagine being disappointed at the end, but I was. I wanted it all. I wanted President Snow punished (ok I admit dead), the districts free, the Capitol citizens to wake up and realize what a horrible environment they created and yes Katniss and her family (all those she loves and holds dear) to live happily ever after, in their new free world.

I forgot war just isn't like that. There is always a cost and price survivors pay. No one comes out of war unscathed and lives happily ever after. (What was I thinking?) I just wanted the fairy tale; instead I got a dose of grim reality.   
This is a wonderful series and I recommend it. Just remember these book try to imitate life and war. The characters react humanly and each must live with the choices they made for better or worse.



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World Cup Reading--Germany

Here is the second installment of World Cup reading.  This time I'm featuring German authors. Germany is the second most populous country in Europe and soccer is its most popular sport.  The German national soccer team won the FIFA World Cup in 1954, 1974, and 1990.  They placed 3rd in this year's competition.

German speaking authors have won the Nobel Prize in Literature a total of 13 times including Gunter Grass in 1999, Heinrich Boll in 1972, Elfriede Jelinek in 2004, and last year Herta Muller won the 2009 prize.  Here are some other German authors you should try:

Christoph Hein--Novelist, playwright, and essayist, he is one of Europe's most respected voices. He lives in Berlin.  His book Settlement is about WWII refugee Bernhard Haber's struggle with a new home, loss, and revenge.

Juli Zeh--Worked at the United Nations in New York and Krakow and currently lives in Brandenburg.  Her debut novel Eagles and Angels won numerous prizes, including the German Book Prize. Her current book In Free Fall is an international bestseller that combines a detective novel, cinematic storytelling, and an interesting take on quantum physics.

Bernhard Schlink--Author of the novel The Reader, which was an Oprah selection and an international best-seller.  He divides his time between Berlin and New York.  Self's Murder is the stellar series debut starring Nazi prosecutor turned private investigator Gerhard Self.

Alina Bronsky--Born in Jekaterinburg, Russia, in 1978, the author now lives in Frankfurt. This is a pseudonym and little else is known about the author's true identity.  Broken Glass Park has been nominated for the prestigious Bachmann Prize, among others, and is her first novel. In this riveting debut, Bronsky gives us Sascha Naimann, a 17-year-old Russian immigrant living in Germany who is determined to kill her mother's murderer--who just happens to be her own step-father.

I hope you try one of these award-winning authors and experience Germany through their eyes.

Super Sad True Love Story

I've heard a lot lately about companies' efforts at data mining, or the less malevolent sounding "analytic marketing."  It's the ability of companies to track our digital actions, whether it's spending, saving, or searching on the internet.  That's right: every time you ego-search your own name or try to find an ex on Google to see if s/he has gotten fat or bald, somebody's watching you.  In this context, Gary Shteyngart's latest book Super Sad True Love Story seems more like a warning about where we as a society are headed than a love story.  Think 1984 for the Facebook generation. 

If you read the publisher's summary of Super Sad True Love Story, you could be forgiven for thinking that this book is, actually, fundamentally a love story.  I don't think I've ever seen a summary from a publisher that seemed to miss the mark quite so dramatically, but I'm not sure I can blame them: I've started writing three different descriptions of the book and haven't found a way to adequately encapsulate its message.  (Many props to Ron Charles who was able to do this deftly in the Washington Post review of the book.)  Yes, there is a love story, but it seemed, to me, a vehicle for comparing Lenny Abramov, who's so old-fashioned that he actually still reads (whole books.  On paper.), with Eunice Park, a hipster who is emblematic of the post-literate, hyper-consumeristic America they inhabit.  The relationship between Lenny and Eunice, told through his diary entries (which he writes longhand...he's that old-fashioned) and her "GlobalTeens" messages to her mother and friends, highlights the difficulty of finding an authentic human connection in a hyper-connected digital world.  This is a book about the loss of barriers between public and private life, the "reality" tv-fueled desire and drive to be famous, the breakdown of the American economy, and much, much more.  As the best fiction does, this book has stayed with me long past the last page.  So yes, there is a love story that is a major facet of this book, and it is, at times, super sad.  However, the real love story is for a society that once was and the super sadness is its demise, which feels all too plausible in Shteyngart's capable hands. 

If you like dystopian near-future stories, I think you'd like this.  If you like reading satirical social commentary, I think you'd like this.  And, yes, if you like love stories, I think you'd like this. 

...and one last thing: if you have a few minutes to spare, check out the trailer for the book.  Most book trailers go largely unnoticed, but this one has become a viral sensation.  Everyone will be verballing about it on GlobalTeens.

2010 Hugo Awards Announced

The winners of the 2010 Hugo Awards were announced last weekend at Aussiecon 4, the 68th World Science Fiction Convention. They include:

Best Novel (Tie): The City & The City by China Mieville and The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
Best Novella: "Palimpsest" by Charles Stross (in Wireless)
Best Novellette: "The Island" by Peter Watts (in The New Space Opera 2)
Best Graphic Story: Girl Genius, Vol. 9: Agatha Heterodyne and the Heirs of the Storm

The Hugo Awards are awarded for excellence in the field of science fiction and fantasy. They are given by the members of the World Science Fiction Convention for the best in fiction, art, editing, filmmaking and fan achievement. They were first awarded in 1953, and have been awarded every year since 1955. For more about the Hugos, including a somplete list of this year's nominees and winners, go to http://www.thehugoawards.org/.

The British are coming! The British are coming!

Alright, perhaps the reference is a few hundred years old, but it's an exciting day for me.  Every year, I wait for the Man Booker prize short list to be announced, and today is that day. The excitement started back in July, when the long list (aka the Man Booker Dozen) was announced.  I promptly put on hold every title we own, prepared to read the books considered to be the best for the year in the British Commonwealth.   I am regularly wowed by the writing that these awards highlight.  More than other awards, the Man Bookers seem, to me, to focus on outstanding literary writing, regardless of what (or who) the media darling of the day might be.

The prize winner for the year will be announced on Tuesday, October 12. But for now, I'm working through my list of Man Booker longlist titles, a practice I started several years ago.  While I might not love every book on the list, I often find great books I otherwise wouldn't have heard of, and I can almost always count on excellent writing. I am desperate to read Room by Emma Donoghue, one of the short-listed titles.  I know I'm going to end up regretting it, because it's a "disturbing, suspenseful" book about kidnapping and I don't do particularly well with either disturbing or suspenseful.  Still, the concept of writing about a child who has never been outside of an 11x11 room at the age of five, and his subsequent introduction to the world, is fascinating to me. 

Other titles on the short list include:

Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey

The Long Song by Andrea Levy

C by Tom McCarthy

If you can't get enough prize winners from this list, check out these long-listed titles that didn't quite make today's cut:

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob DeZoet by David Mitchell
Skippy Dies by Paul Murray

Trespass by Rose Tremain

The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas

and don't forget to check out our Great Books Great Libraries list of Prize Winners!

Milan Kundera

For the most part, I have been on another of my nonfiction kicks.  But there is one author I've recently found who I wish I would have known about sooner.  That author is Czechoslovakian writer Milan Kundera.

Kundera was born in Czechoslovakia but was later exiled in 1975 for political reasons and has lived in France ever since.  His experiences in post-World War II Communist Czechoslovakia have shaped his writing in a way one would expect.  Kundera often writes of persons from the Czech Republic who have left for political reasons or have been exiled.  More often than not, his characters have mixed feelings of whether to miss their homeland and return to it someday, or to forget about it all together.  The over-arching theme throughout his works is identity, whether national or personal.

My first experience with Kundera's work was with his work entitled Ignorance.  The story centers on Irena and Josef.  They each left their native homeland, Czechoslovakia, prior to the fall of Communism.  Irena returns to Prague after 20 years in France and reunites with Josef, whom she knew very briefly in her life in Prague.  Irena immediately recognizes him and believes that this is an opportunity to capitalize on a previously lost opportunity.  Josef only pretends to immediately recognize her and a passionate affair ensues.  Kundera uses this with Irena's new feelings towards her homeland to show how our memory can distort reality.

Identity is fully explored by Chantal as she, while on vacation with her much younger boyfriend, believes that she is too old to attract another man.  But she soon begins to receive anonymous love letters.  She wonders if each new man she meets may be her secret admirer.  The truth about her admirer is too much for her to deal with as she begins to concoct another identity for herself, one that threatens her real identity as known to her boyfriend, Jean-Marc, and herself.

For more Kundera, check out Slowness, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, Immortality, and The Unbearable Lightness of Being.