Stories to warm your heart

It's the time of year when, after the rush of holiday cooking, shopping, and traveling, it's nice to relax and curl up by the fireplace with a book. Action-adventure, thrillers, horror, and mystery all have their place but, sometimes, we all need a story with a happy ending. A feel-good love story, whether or not it's a "romance," can be the perfect kind of book for this time of year. From the importance of family and the relationships that separate them and tie them together, as in Rosamunde Pilcher's classic, The Shell Seekers, to the modern tale of Eleanor and Abel about love found late in life, the range of love stories is vast. You might be familiar with some, like Kazuro Ishiguro's Remains of the Day, from the movie version, and this is a perfect time of year to read the stories that came first.  If these sound good, or you're interested in what other titles we think will warm your heart, check out the last of our Great Books Great Libraries booklists for the year: Loved Ones : Stories to Warm the Heart.  As with all of the featured genres this year, a paper booklist is available at the Readers' Advisory table at each library, in addition to the expanded list available online.


What's your favorite story about loved ones?  What books touch your heart?  We'd love to hear -- leave a comment below!

Thanksgiving!

The holidays are my favorite time of year. For me the Holidays  start off with Thanksgiving and roll right into winter, snow, sleighbells and before you know it the new year has begun.  So let's take a few minutes amidst all the hub bub to savor the turkey and the fixings.  I, myself, plan to sit down, relax and enjoy a great book. Here are a few books that are about taking whatever we are given and making the most of it.  

 The Perks of Being a Wallflower By Stephen Chosbky

You've Got To Read This Book: 55 People tell the story of the book that changed their life
edited by Jack Canfield

The Last Lecture By Randy Pausch

Don't Sweat the Small Stuff By Richard Carlson

Faith Hope and Love By Llwyd Owen

Heroic Measures By Jill Ciment

Hope Through Heartsongs By Mattie Stepanek

They Almost Always Come Home By Cynthia Ruchti

In the Queue

The Wolves of Andover

by Kathleen Kent

Strong-willed Martha falls in love with mysterious Thomas. Rumor has it that Thomas was connected to the death of King Charles I. After Thomas saves Martha from a wolf, he discovers assassins have arrived from

London to capture Charles I’s executioner.

The Distant Hours
by Kate Morton
A letter sent in 1941 finally reaches its destination in 1992 with powerful repercussions for Edie, a London book editor. The letter is addressed to Edie’s mother, then a young teen evacuated to Milderhurst Castle during WWII. Curious, Edie visits the castle in search of answers. Why was her mother so devastated by a letter sent 51 years earlier?

Atlantic
by Simon Winchester
Winchester returns with his epic “biography” of the Atlantic Ocean, from its origins millions of years ago through the population of its shores by humanity. He examines the early explorations and the perils of the open sea. This saga is necessary reading for those who want to understand the planet better.

An ode to bookstores...and libraries too!

I love libraries. But you know what? I also love bookstores. Yes, I realize this is the age of Amazon.com, where you can search for and purchase just about any book (or anything else, for that matter) you can think of, and have it delivered right to your doorstep without leaving the comfort of your bathrobe or being particularly web savvy. Don’t get me wrong: I’m an avid user of Amazon, but just like browsing the shelves of your local library, there’s something to be said for actually going into a bookstore and taking in the scenery. Getting lost in the aisles and running your fingertips along the book spines, waiting for the moment a title catches your eye and makes your acquaintance. Care to spend a quiet afternoon together? Some of my fondest childhood memories were of trips to the mall and beelines made straight to the bookstore, where I would sit quietly in a corner and get lost in the pages of a new friend. And, if I was lucky, I’d get to take that friend home with me. Of course, I did this wherever books were sold or loaned, because bookstores and libraries were—and still are—sacred places to me, and just being in a room filled with bookcases stuffed to the gills with books makes me giddy. I once overheard a little girl in the library exclaim after breathing in deeply, “Ahhh, now that’s the smell of knowledge.” It was absolutely wonderful. So here’s a suggestion for you: take a field trip. Whether it’s to your local library or bookstore, you decide. Hopefully you’ll visit both, but regardless, just get out there. Look around and touch and breathe it all in. You never know what you'll find--or what may find you.  

Juliet...and maybe a little Romeo

I don't think I would  normally rush to recommend a book that, when pushed to come up with a pithy description, prompts me to say, "think Dan Brown meets Nora Roberts."  And yet, Anne Fortier's book, Juliet, has managed to jump that hurdle.  There's suspense, intrigue, secret societies, and a mystery that must be decoded in order for the protagonist to discover who she really is, coupled with a questionable romantic attachment.  It's got the intrigue of a Dan Brown (although better written) coupled with the romance of a Nora Roberts.

When 25-year-old Julie Jacob's great-aunt Rose died, Julie expected a windfall inheritance from the wealthy woman who had raised her; what she got was a letter.  The letter instructs Julie to go to Italy and find the treasure left for her by her mother in a secret safe deposit box.  The note also includes a further surprise -- Julie's real name is Giulietta Tolomei.  Giulietta... as in Juliet... as in the real Juliet whose life inspired Shakespeare a few hundred years later.  The book then transitions back and forth between Julie/Giulietta's adventures in Italy today and the original Giulietta Tolomei and her quest to be with her true love (named Romeo, of course). 

While some of the twists and turns of the plot are questionable at best and require a bit of a logical leap (think of the kindly old caretaker in any given Scooby Doo episode), if you can suspend your disbelief it is an original book that is perfect for a cool, gray, fall day.

Crossover Literature It's Ok to read them

Crossover literature is composed of stories that appeal as much to adults as they do to children or young adults. I didn't realize that I was part of the phenomenon or trends of the past decade, when I began reading the stories my children were reading and enjoying them. Authors who write crossover titles include, but are not limited to: JK Rowling, JRR Tolkien, Suzanne Collins, Robert Jordan, RA Salvatore, Brian Sanderson, Stephanie Meyers, Philip Pullman, Mark Haddon, Tamora Pierce and Christopher Paolini. Some of these author's books have been published with different covers and sell well in both markets.

Crossover fiction usually has protagonists who are tweens. They are just on the edge of turning into adults. They are faced with tough life choices and most must grow up quickly. Many, although not all, feature some use of magic. Susanne Collins does not use magic, but technology abounds in her Hunger Games Series. This technology adds a feeling that big brother is watching you and knows everything. This in itself can be a form of magic.

Rowling's Harry Potter series is set in a magical world where anything can happen. As with most children's stories good usually triumphs over evil and true to the form of a crossover novel, a somewhat ordinary 11 year old boy is thrust into deadly situations that he almost assuredly will not survive. This is truly a coming of age story, one where the love and devotion of friends sees him through.

If you enjoy fantasy, Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time Series is an excellent crossover adventure. It also has 13 books in the series with the final story to be released possibly in 2012. It's a story packed with adventure, intrigue, magic and of course the good vs. evil controversy. Jordan's series begins with story lines and insight into each character's point of view. Most of his characters are children who are just on the cusp of adulthood and grow older as the series continues. The insight into each character captures the reader’s attention and holds it from one book to the next. The latest novel, Towers of Midnight,  is primarily Mat's and Perrin's storyline and lasts an amazing 861 pages. In comparing this novel to Tolkien's series, the latest novel is similar to the Two Towers. The 13th novel in the series is the gathering action. The battle against the dark forces begins in ernest and the struggle to survive is intense.

Of course, in most stories nowadays sex is everywhere, including young adult literature. Fortunately, this is done with more care in crossover literature. In crossover books adults are reminded of the innocence and purity of their first love and how life can change in a moment. Stephenie Meyer's novel, Twilight series is an excellent example of young love with consequences and choices.  The crossover novel shows children hard choices, pain and possible heartache depending on their choice. It gives them a look at consequences based on the decisions they make.

Most crossover stories have a mixture of light and dark. Crossover books can be dark like Pullman's The Golden Compass, JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings or light hearted and not quite so dark as in Harry Potter. Graceling and its sequel Fire are a blend of childhood lightness and growing up which becomes filled with dark choices. The choices are necessary but each has its own impact on the world and what happens next. The characters can only hope that their choice makes the world a better place.

The primary power of a crossover novel is the story-telling quality. The reader, be they adult or child is hooked by the characters, the settings and fantastic plot lines. The crossover novel is by definition good children's literature. It requires the writer to stay true to the story line and entertain the reader. There is of course violence and emotional conflicts abound but there is a much broader sense of friendship that ties the story together. This is evident  in Shifter  and Blue Fire by Janice Hardy.

So don't hide the cover of your book. Chances are that someone sitting next to you has already read the book or it is on hold for them. You might  also be surprised to learn that the adult title you just read was also read by a teen. This has happened to me and often leads to wonderful and insightful discussions. So pick up a good book any style (juvenile, young adult or adult fiction) and read.

You never know when you'll find someone with similar interests reading the same book, even if you might be generations apart.  

PEN (Poets, Essayists, Novelists) Awards 2010

PEN American Center, the largest branch of the oldest literary and human rights organization, has announced the winners of the 2010 PEN Literary Awards.  Each year PEN confers over $100,000 to writers, editors, and translators.  The following winners and runners-up were honored on October 13th in New York City:

Don DeLillo--Achievement in American Fiction
Susan Choi--Fiction Writer in Mid-Career
Marilyn Hacker--Poetry

Tinkers by Paul Harding
In the Valley of the Kings by Terrence Holt
Daughters of the Stone by Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa

Soul of the Age: A Biography of the Mind of William Shakespeare
by Jonathan Bate
Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom
by Graham Farmelo
Sweet Thunder: The Life and Times of Sugar Ray Robinson
by Wil Haygood
Outcasts United: A Refugee Soccer Team, an American Town
by Warren St. John

On the opposite coast, PEN USA (West Coast), unveiled the winners of its 2010 Literary Awards competition.  The winners and finalists will be honored at the Beverly Hills Hotel on November 17, 2010.  Past winners include: Ray Bradbury, Barbara Kingsolver, Ursula K. LeGuin, Gore Vidal, and Alice Walker.

Mathilda Savitch by Victor Lodato
The Heydey of the Insensitive Bastards by Robert Boswell
Last Night I Sang to the Monster by Benjamin Alire Saenz

Some of the Dead Are Still Breathing by Charles Bowden
The Adderall Diaries by Stephen Elliott
Nine Lives: Death and Life in New Orleans by Dan Baum
Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original
by Robin Kelley

International PEN, PEN USA, and PEN American Center all strive to protect the rights of writers around the world and to stimulate interest in the written word.

For further information:

International PEN--http://www.internationalpen.org.uk/--was founded in London in 1921 after World War I. Today they are composed of 145 centers in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, the Middle East, and the Americas.

PEN American Center--http://www.pen.org/--was founded in 1922 and is the largest of the centers in 101 countries.

PEN Center USA--http://www.penusa.org/--is one of the two centers in the United States and the third largest in the world.  It was founded in 1943 and has a membership of more than 800 writers.

World Cup Reading--Spain

Here is the fourth and final installment of World Cup reading.  This time I am featuring Spanish authors.  When I was a junior in high school I visited Spain for 17 wonderful days!  During our stay in Madrid, the national football (soccer) team made it into the World Cup.  The streets were full of flag waving, horn honking, extremely happy fans.  It was a sight to behold and it made me aware that Spaniards really love their soccer!  Sport in Spain has been dominated by soccer since the early 20th century.  The national team won the European Championship in 1964 and 2008 and they won the FIFA World Cup championship earlier this year.  Not only is Spain a major world sports power but it is known for its culturally diverse heritage.  It has been influenced by many nations and peoples throughout history.  You can see this influence in architecture, food, art, history, and literature.  Let me introduce you to some champions of Spanish poetry and writing.

"In Spain, the dead are more alive than the dead of any other country in the world." 
Federico Garcia Lorca

Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936) is possibly the most important Spanish poet and playwright of the 20th century.  He achieved international recognition as a member of the "Generation of '27", an influential group of poets between 1923 and 1927.  They created experimental art and poetry particularly with respect to culture and politics.  In 1936, Garcia Lorca was staying at his country home, at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War.  He was arrested and, on the 17th or 18th of August, after a few days in jail, Nationalist soldiers took him to a cemetery and forced him from the car.  They beat him and shot him to death.  He was 38 years old.  His books were burned in the Granada square, then banned from Franco's Spain.  To this day, no one knows where the body of Federico Garcia Lorca rests.

"As I have not worried to be born, I do not worry to die." Federico Garcia Lorca

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547-1616) was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright.  His greatest work, Don Quixote, is a classic of Western literature. After being wounded in war, captured by pirates, and working odd jobs, he married Catalina de Salazar y Palacios in 1584.  Her uncle Alonso is said to have inspired the character of Don Quixote.  The author stayed poor until the first part of Don Quixote was published and, although it did not make Cervantes rich, it brought him international fame and recognition. He died in Madrid in 1616 at the age of 69.

Rosa Chacel (1898-1994) was a sometimes controversial writer from Spain, championing feminism for modern women.  She won various prestigious awards and in 1987, she received the "National Award of Letters", an award reserved for the very best writers of Spain.  The national airline Iberia honored Chacel by naming a jetliner after her--"Rosa Chacel Airbus A340".  She died in 1994. 

Now here are a few more recent Spanish authors to try:

Javier Cercas (1962- ) is a writer and professor of Spanish literature at the University of Girona, Spain. Read his 2007 novel The Speed of Light.

Alicia Gimenez Bartlett (1951- ) is one of Spain's most popular and best-loved crime writers.  Her "Petra Delicado" series was made into a TV series in 1999. Try her mysteries Dog Day and Death Rites.

Juan Gomez-Jurado (1977- ) is an award-winning journalist and bestselling author.  Published in 42 countries, Gomez-Jurado is one of the most successful young Spanish writers of all time.  Try his newest book The Moses Expedition.

Luis Leante (1963- ) is a writer of short stories, novels, poetry, plays, and screenplays.  His works have been translated into 21 languages. His 2009 novel is See How Much I Love You.

Javier Marias (1951- ) is a novelist, translator, and columnist. Read his three part "Your Face Tomorrow" series: 1--Fever and Fear, 2--Dance and Dream, and 3--Poison, Shadow and Farewell.

Quim Monzo (1952- ) is a Catalan writer of novels, short stories, and prose.  In the early 1970s, Monzo was a newspaper reporter.  His fiction is characterized by an awareness of pop culture and irony. Try his 2010 title Gasoline.

Now for all of you lovers of historical fiction, thrillers, ancient mysteries and Dan Brown read-alikes--try one of the following exciting Spanish authors:

Ildefonso Falcones writes Medieval historic thrillers set in Barcelona. Cathedral of the Sea and The Hand of Fatima. 

Martin Estaban wrote The Gaudi Key which is a historic thriller also set in Barcelona.

Arturo Perez-Reverte writes the "Captain Alstriste" historic adventure series and many other stand-alone thrillers such as The Dumas Club.

Carlos Ruiz Zafon wrote the literary thrillers The Shadow of the Wind and The Angel's Game which have sold millions of copies and won many international awards.

Javier Sierra wrote the best-selling novels of intrigue The Secret Supper and The Lady in Blue. He has been published in 42 countries.

For more great international books try our Ethnic Authors list on the library's website.

If you want us to feature books written by authors from your favorite World Cup country in a future blog--just send us a comment!

Skippy Dies... (how's that for a spoiler?)

Let's be clear about one thing: I'm not really giving away anything when I tell you that in Paul Murray's latest book, Skippy Dies, Skippy does, in fact, die.  He dies in the first chapter of the book.  He dies eating donuts (not a bad way to go, I suppose) with his roommate, a modern-day, Irish Piggy.  The question for the rest of the book is, why did he die?  And, what did he have in mind when he wrote "tell Lori" on the floor in donut jelly as he was dying?

Let me be clear about one more thing: Ignore the inane reviews of this book that feel compelled to compare it to, "another popular series featuring an adolescent protagonist who, along with his friends, gets into all kinds of mischief at a haunted boarding school" (from Publisher's Weekly's review although, to be fair, Kirkus also made the comparison).  To compare this book to Harry Potter based on them both being in a boarding school is like comparing Wuthering Heights with the Catillac Cats because they both have characters named Heathcliff. 

Skippy's role as the central character in the book, in fact, seems to fades into the background after his rather dramatic passing.  I focused instead of the frustrated teacher whose life simply isn't living up to his expectations, the school bullies selling Ritalin as a diet aid to girls from the local schools, and the boys in the school whose interests vary from trying to have a dating life to trying to build a machine that will build a bridge between the different dimensions, thus enabling the living to communicate with the dead.  The titular character's interests and troubles go largely under the radar in this book, which seems somewhat odd until the end, when you realize that it is precisely his ability to blend in that has exacerbated many of his troubles. 

I wasn't sure I was going to make it to the end of this book; my attention started to wane for much of the middle matter.  I am glad I hung on, though, because the denouement really was thought-provoking, and capitvating.  It clarified Skippy's role in the lives of those around him and the role they played in his untimely death.

Room

I'll be frank: I'm not the most patient person in the world.  There are a lot of literary devices that grind on my nerves (to all those authors who've jumped on the epistolary fiction bandwagon in the past few years: I'm looking at you).  I'm usually quite annoyed by the contrivance of having children serve as the narrators of adult novels, particularly those with difficult topics.  Their voices tend to read as either overly precious and precocious, or as attempts for the author to distance him/herself from difficult subject matter ("yes, I'm writing about something gruesome and awful...but with cute words and misunderstandings, so don't find the subject too off-putting!").  Am I too easily annoyed?  Probably.  I can, though, on rare occasions, overcome that.  

 

Ever since the Man Booker long list was announced in July, I have been waiting (sometimes even patiently) to read Emma Donoghue's new book Room. While Room did not win the Man Booker Prize this year (the honor went to Howard Jacobson for his book, The Finkler Question), it is a gripping story that is definitely worth a read.  Given my tendency to disregard books written from a child's vantage point, my recommendation should be taken as a testament to Donoghue's ability to write with a child's perspective and the skill with which she does it.    Room is the story of five-year-old Jack, who serves as the book's narrator, and his mother, named only as "Ma." 

In this book, rather than having the horror mitigated by a child's voice, Jack's lack of understanding and knowledge about the tenuous setting of the only life he's ever known serves to heighten the danger and terror that Ma feels.  About halfway through the book, there is a major change in their  lives and the book changes in tone.  While the second half of the book is not as suspenseful or compelling as the first, seeing the world through Jack's eyes continues to be interesting and engaging.  Overall, it's a book worth checking out.