Bestselling Author Tami Hoag to Visit Library

If you love suspense author Tami Hoag, then mark this date on your calendar right now! January 8th, 2 PM at the Centerville Library. Tami is helping the library kick off our Great Books, Great Libraries bicentennial celebration and will be on hand for a reception, a brief talk and a book signing. With the help of Books and Co., we managed to snag Tami just in time for the debut of her new book Deeper Than the Dead - slated to debut on December 29, 2009!

If you aren't familiar with Tami Hoag, she has 13 consecutive Times bestsellers to her credit and is a critic and reader favorite. Check out some of her books at the library and then join us for her visit on January 8th!

Peaks and Valleys

Reading a great book is sort of like finding a great recipe or a great deal on a pair of fabulous shoes – you just feel compelled to tell your friends! Well, friends, I am reading a really great book by bestselling author Spencer Johnson, MD, called “Peaks and Valleys: Making Good and Bad Times Work for You – at Work and in Life.” If the author sounds familiar, it’s because he is the same gent who wrote the wildly popular “Who Moved My Cheese?”

The book is a parable about a man who lives his entire life in a valley and decides one day to climb to a peak. At the peak, he meets a wise old man (who if this were a movie would most certainly be played by someone like Morgan Freeman), who sheds new perspective on the importance of both peaks and valleys in our lives.

As I am reading “Peaks and Valleys”, I’m reminded how pivotal books can be. Not only do they provide relaxation and respite, they can also provide comfort, inspiration, solutions and often outright joy. This is certainly one of those books that makes you ponder how you might employ these lessons in your own life. And, given unemployment is at an all-time high and the economy is in the drink, it provides some positive tips for how to make the best of bad times.

It’s Good to Bad!

I’m usually a “good girl”, which is probably why I was so amused by my most recent pick, Wicked by Gregory Maguire. The story, which recounts the Wizard of Oz from the perspective of the Wicked Witch of the West, turns convention on its head for those who know and love the original plot. I listened to the book on Playaway, which was great since I was headed on a cruise and didn’t want to sacrifice one ounce of my 50 lb. suitcase allotment to a heavy book. A word of caution… while entertaining, this book is a marathon to get through (19 plus hours of audio), but Maquire threw in just enough nuggets from the original story along the way to keep me interested to see how it would end.

Other twists on classics by Gregory Maguire:

Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister

Mirror, Mirror

For the Kids: Leaping Beauty and Other Animal Fairytales