Publisher’s Summary: “Three sips to mind the dead . . . Rebekkah Barrow never forgot the attention her grandmother Maylene bestowed upon the dead of Claysville, the small town where Bek spent her adolescence. There wasn’t a funeral that Maylene didn’t attend, and at each one Rebekkah watched as Maylene performed the same unusual ritual:…
“The Cat Who …” books began with “The Cat Who Could Read Backwards,” published in 1966. They ended when Braun retired from writing in 2007 after the publication of “The Cat Who Had 60 Whiskers.” Her books about Jim Qwilleran and his Siamese cats, Koko and Yum Yum, were regulars on the New York Times…
Alice Ozma is the author of The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared. Publisher’s Summary: “When Alice Ozma was in 4th grade, she and her father decided to see if he could read aloud to her for 100 consecutive nights. On the hundreth night, they shared pancakes to celebrate, but it soon…
(CNN) — One of the best things about summer are the vacations (or staycations) that allow time for leisure reading. We’ve picked the bookish brains of editors from Entertainment Weekly, The Barnes & Noble Review and the social network site Goodreads.com to round up a collection of 12 books you can add to your list.…
Publisher’s Summary: “The unique life story of one of the most talented and inventive comedians, star of Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and Star Trek. Zombies in North London, death cults in the West Country, the engineering deck of the Enterprise: actor, comedian, writer and self-proclaimed supergeek Simon Pegg has been ploughing some bizarre…
Publisher’s Summary: “The Greater Journey is the enthralling, inspiring—and until now, untold—story of the adventurous American artists, writers, doctors, politicians, architects, and others of high aspiration who set off for Paris in the years between 1830 and 1900, ambitious to excel in their work. After risking the hazardous journey across the Atlantic, these Americans embarked…
Publisher’s Summary: “The Harrow School is home to privileged adolescents known as much for their distinctive dress and traditions as for their arrogance and schoolboy cruelty. Seventeen-year-old American Andrew Taylor is enrolled at the esteemed British institution by his father, who hopes that the school’s discipline will put some distance between his son and his…
In which Flavorwire “decided to run a post on books that expose the darker side of humanity — a roundup of the most disturbing novels and short stories through time, if you will.” There are a few surprises on their list of ten (hello, Game of Thrones!), and a few obvious choices (here’s looking at…
Publisher’s Summary: “After local firefighters pull Clare out of a blazing café, she happily comes to their rescue by teaching them the finer points of operating their newly donated espresso machine. But matters really heat up when somebody is torching cafes around the city and firefighters begin to die in suspicious ways… Believing the two…
The Hunger Games casting is trending as a hot topic. Are they getting it right? Wrong? Fans are falling on both sides of the line, offering up suggestions for who they believe is better suited to any given role. Which got us thinking… Which of the characters in the poll below would you have recast…
Publisher’s Summary: “An invalid for most her life, Alice James is quite used to people underestimating her. And she generally doesn’t mind. But this time she is not about to let things alone. Yes, her brother Henry may be a famous author, and her other brother William a rising star in the new field of…
Jason Cummings, Duke of Rayne is feeling the weight of his responsibilities – one of which is to get married. Being the most sought after bachelor in London can be trying, so who can blame him if he seeks refuge from the voracious hordes of young debutantes at the decidedly female-free Historical Society? Female-free, that…
If you are a fan of writers like Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Isabelle Allende, you may want to pick up a copy of The Invisible Mountain. In her debut novel, Carolina De Robertis tells the story of three generations of a family in Uruguay. Ignazio fled Venice and his family’s gondola shop after his father,…
Hoffman’s latest novel looks at the history of Blackwell, a fictional town in western Massachusetts. Blackwell was founded by a con artist short on survival skills and his young immigrant wife who was the true pioneer. Each chapter explores a different generation and watching characters who were children in one chapter return as grownups in…
E.B. White with Susy, a West Highland White Terrier, in his study in North Brooklin, Maine. See more photos of writers and their dogs via the New York Social Diary.
After Lieutenant Eve Dallas suggests that her partner Detective Delia Peabody could use some practice on her footwork, Peabody decides to work out out in the NYPD’s old, rarely used gym as opposed to the new state of the art one which many of her well- toned colleagues avail themselves of. She has the place…
“Elizabeth Bennet, the second eldest in a family of five daughters, is possessed of “a lively, playful disposition, which delighted in any thing ridiculous” and a healthy dose of scorn for her silly sisters. Her father’s favorite, Lizzy is headstrong, sharp-tongued and quite proud of the fact that she has what her father calls “something more…
Flavorwire asserts that there are at least ten movies that top the book from which they were adapted. Find out which ten movies made their list. Let us know in the comments if you agree, or if there are other films you think are better than their book counterpart.
“Legendary actress Elizabeth Taylor, a two-time Oscar winner and Hollywood beauty whose screen success was sometimes overshadowed by her tumultuous personal life, died on Wednesday at age 79.” [via Los Angeles Times] The library owns several biographies on Elizabeth Taylor, including: (linked to the catalog) Elizabeth by J. Randy Taraborrelli “A portrait of Oscar award-winning…
Are you tempted to see the new adaptation of Jane Eyre starring Mia Wasikowska, Michael Fassbender, Jamie Bell & Dame Judi Dench? Perhaps taking a peek at the film’s gorgeous, brooding set interiors will be further incentive.
Publisher’s Summary: “Archaeologist and explorer Annja Creed’s fascination with the myths and mysteries of the past leads her to a crypt in the caves of France, where the terrifying legend of the Beast of Gevaudan hints at the unimaginable. What she discovers is shattering: an artifact that will seal her destiny; a brotherhood of monks…
At the young age of twelve, Gideon Crew saw his brilliant mathematician father gunned down before his eyes after being accused of treason. Twelve years later, his dying mother tells him that his father was framed and deliberately killed as part of a cover-up. With her last breath she gives Gideon the name of the…
“Michael Lewis, who wrote the best-seller The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine about the mortgage meltdown, has become the target of a lawsuit by an asset manager he wrote about in the book.” [via Advisor One] “Getting a handle on naming characters”: The right name can bring a fictional person into focus, but finding…
Charley Davidson is a private investigator and a grim reaper. As part of her reaper job description, she must convince dead people to “go into the light”, which in this case strangely enough is Charley herself. Of course things are never that simple. In cases where people have died violently they of course want help…
The Radleys seem like your average, albeit dysfunctional modern family who live in the small British village of Bishopthorpe. Dr. Peter Radley goes off to to his GP office each morning, while his wife Helen is a stay at home mother who focuses her attention on her family. Their two teenagers Clara and Rowan are…
In 1913, an unaccompanied, mysterious little girl arrives by boat in Brisbane Australia and is adopted by the dockmaster and his wife. She doesn’t remember her name and the only clues to her identity is that she was by a women who she calls “The Authoress” and has brought with her a book of fairy…
“British author Brian Jacques, who wrote the “Redwall” (Penguin) adventure series, died of a sudden heart attack on February 5 in Liverpool, England. He was 71.” “The world has lost not only a talented author, but a truly gifted entertainer and champion of children,” says Philomel’s Green. “For almost 25 years, Brian Jacques lived up…
Just in time for the Academy Awards, we’ve created a booklist based on the films nominated for Best Picture. Several this year drew on books or true events, or had storylines similar in tone or theme to pre-existing fiction. Browse the list.
If you’re one of those people who loves to look at other people’s bookshelves, you might like this post of literature cameos in film on Flavorwire .
Rick Springfield’s recently released memoir is not for the faint of heart – or at least those clinging to the lily white image of Dr. Noah Drake. While he managed to avoid the plague of drugs and alcohol, the rocker was admittedly a BAD boy for a LONG time. But in this intimate and not…
Vision In White by Nora Roberts is the first entry in her Bride Quartet series. MacKensie (Mac) Elliott and her three best friends, Emma, Laurel and Parker grew up throwing make believe weddings. Now they run a very successful wedding planning business in Connecticut called Vows where each one contributes her own unique talents. Mac…
True to it’s title, The Four Stages of Cruelty is not a book for the faint of heart. Kali Williams is a Corrections Officer at the Ditmarsh Penitentiary, a maximum security prison in Minnesota. Even though Kali works in the prison, as a female CO, she provides the perspective of an outsider looking in. When…
Publisher’s Summary: “Jack Gabert went to India to serve his Queen. He returned to London a violently changed man, infected with an unnatural sickness that altered his body and warped his mind. Eileen Callaghan left an Irish convent with a revolver and a secret. She knows everything and nothing about Jack’s curse, but she cannot…
Publisher’s summary: “During the local college’s annual Honor’s Day festivities, a graduate student is killed. When the English professor suspected of his murder also meets an untimely end, Tallulah Jones steps out from behind the counter of Remember the a-la-Mode to clear the professor’s name-before anyone else gets put on ice…” Scoop to Kill is…
Life by Keith Richards Room by Emma Donaghue The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot I Remember Nothing by Nora Ephron A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand Just Kids by Patti Smith Autobiography of Mark Twain One Day by David Nicholls Weigh in on People‘s choices…
You’d think when A book starts with a lovely relaxing vacation in Ireland, Eve and Roarke are in for a bit of a respite from some of their misadventures. No. Of course not. Beginning with a crossbow killing of chauffeur, and proceeding to a string of many more victims, Eve and her band of merry…
Now you can watch the author presentation from the comfort of your couch, office chair, or on your phone. The four parts of Eric Jay Dolin’s author visit are now available on the library’s website.
Winner of the Nobel Prize in literature, Mario Vargas Llosa delivered his Nobel lecture this past Tuesday. The Guardian reported that: Nobel Laureate Mario Vargas Llosa delivered a resounding tribute to fiction’s power to inspire readers to greater ambition, to dissent and to political action… Among other things, Mr. Vargas Llosa addressed the issue of…
Brandon Sanderson is the author of the Final Empire series (Mistborn), Warbreaker, and The Way of Kings. The interview is in four parts; click here to view all four.
This review contains minor spoilers for previous books in the series. Dark Road To Darjeeling is Deanna Raybourn’s fourth book in her Lady Julia Grey series after Silent On the Moor. Set in 1989 the novel begins with Lady Julia and her husband Inquiry Agent Nicholas Brisbane on their honeymoon in the Himalayas, attempting to…
Gone Baby Gone is the fourth book in Dennis Lehane’s series featuring Private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro. This case opens with the disappearance of little Amanda McCready who is left alone in her Dorchester MA apartment one night by her neglectful mother, only to vanish mysteriously. As they reluctantly agree to work for…
Winner of the award for fiction, Jaimy Gordon was caught off guard by her win at the National Book Awards ceremony. Click here for more information on the event and awards. Fiction Lord of Misrule – Jaimy Gordon At the rock-bottom end of the sport of kings sits the ruthless and often violent world of…
The following ten titles top their list: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot Faithful Place by Tana French Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson Freedom by Jonathan Franzen The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson To the End of…
In the number five spot, Sancho Panza, Don Quixote’s long suffering companion. Per Flavorwire: “Sidekick to: Don Quixote Backstory: Don Quixote, an older man who, after reading one to many fairytales, decides to go out on a quest of his own. He shortly recruits one of his neighbors, Sancho, to be his squire, promising him…
Judas Coyne, lead singer for a metal band, has been living in semi-retirement on a farm in New York with his young goth girlfriend Georgia. Coyne has a collection of occult and morbid items, so when his assistant asks him if he’d like to buy a dead man’s suit (ghost included), Coyne doesn’t think twice.…
We were so lucky to have Daphne Kalotay visit the library at the beginning of the month. She was a wonderful speaker. We couldn’t resist another joint review for Russian Winter. The beautiful cover is what first catches your eye of Daphne Katolay’s Russian Winter. It depicts a back shot of a woman with her…
Here’s a book trailer for all you dog lovers out there: Steven Kotler was forty years old and facing an existential crisis—which made him not too different from just about every other middle-aged guy in Los Angeles. Then he met Joy, a woman devoted to the cause of canine rescue. “Love me, love my dogs,”…
Juliet is the debut novel by Anne Fortier and what a grand debut it is. For those of you who are Romeo and Juliet purists, a word of warning; while there are many similarities, there are also just as many differences such as instead of the story being set in Verona it takes place in…
Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón authors of the 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation have teamed up to write a graphic novel version of the Diary of Anne Frank authorized by the Anne Frank House. This wonderful video shows the authors talking about their collaboration on the project:
“In 1951, Elizabeth Bishop boarded a ship bound for Rio de Janeiro for a two-week holiday with friends. Once there, she fell in love- and two weeks became seventeen years. In this mesmerizing debut novel, Michael Sledge creates an intimate portrait of bishop- of the years she spent in Brazil and her love the dazzling…
Harm None ~ M. R. Sellars Rowan Gant, self-proclaimed witch, is brought in to help his best friend, Detective Ben Storm, solve a brutal murder that involves elements of Witchcraft. As the number of horribly gruesome murders grows, Rowan is drawn into relentless visions and nightmares that, bit by bit, offer painful clues as to…
Since Willard Phule (multi-millonaire) is tricked into being commander of the worst soldiers in the Space Legion, he uses all his influence and money to “straighten” out his men. There is Becker his proper English butler who accompanies Phule and seems to tell the story. As “off the wall” as this story is, it is…
Although I thought that 578 pages of reading would be a bit much, I have to say that you can fly through this tale. Kivrin, a history student at Oxford in 2048, travels back in time to a 14th century English village. Due to a technical error, Kivrin is sent not to 1320 but to…
Vampire Tapestry centers on a one of a kind, handsome vampire, posing as a college professor. He has lived many lives, is a lone vampire unable to remember his past but has thoughts of events he has lived through. His life takes many turns including being discovered twice as a vampire, shot, captured, caged, exhibited,…
Living on the East Coast, it’s hard to imagine what it must be like really seeing the ocean for the first time. In Stiltsville, Frances Ellerby’s new friend Marse invites her to stay at a stilt house off of Key Biscayne, Florida and there she falls in love with the man who will become her…
In the first book in Pratchett’s Discworld series, we meet wizard school dropout Rincewind. The Discworld is a flat disc held up by four elephants riding on the back of a giant turtle that wanders through space. Due to a bit of mischief, Rincewind has been imprinted with one of the 8 most powerful spells,…
A tale about English villagers who are of elvish lineage. They are trapped in the human world because the gate to the other world is closed. The quest to open the gate has as many convolutions as a soap opera: there are star-crossed lovers, suspense and mystery. There is a good sense of place and…
The life changing events in Agnes Trussel’s life seem to occur by chance. She has a knack for either being in the right place at the right time or vice versa. When she accidentally comes upon some money, she flees to London to avoid facing the consequences of her unwanted pregnancy. While it may seem…
According to the New York Times: “It appears that Oprah Winfrey and Jonathan Franzen have kissed and made up. Nearly a decade after their public literary feud, Ms. Winfrey has selected ‘Freedom,’ Mr. Franzen’s best-selling novel, as her next book-club pick, according to booksellers who have seen early copies of the books. The selection is…
And yet, when he noticed that I, his youngest daughter, showed an interest in reading, he took me to our local Jonesboro library and told me that I could read any book in the building so long as I promised to talk to him about it if I read something I didn’t understand. I think…
“Navigational grimspace ‘jumper’ Sirantha Jax forms an army to defend colonists stationed on the outskirts of space from a legion of flesh- eating aliens.” [Publisher’s Summary] This is the fourth book in the Sirantha Jax series. The books are best read in order. I thought I had learned something from reading the last three books…
J.R. Ackerly’s Memoir My Dog Tulip has just been re-released in anticipation of the new animated film based on the book. The distinguished British man of letters, Ackerley hardly thought of himself as a dog lover when, well into middle age, he came to adopt Tulip – a beautiful, yet intolerable 18-month-old German shepherd. To…
Join us tomorrow, September 8th, at 7:00 pm for an author visit with Lynne Griffin Ms. Griffin will be discussing her most recent release, Sea Escape, and will follow the event with a signing. Borders Books will be selling copies of Ms. Griffin’s books before and after the event. Light refreshments will be served. There…
Publisher’s Summary: “Shades of Milk and Honey is exactly what we could expect from Jane Austen if she had been a fantasy writer: Pride and Prejudice meets Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. It is an intimate portrait of a woman, Jane, and her quest for love in a world where the manipulation of glamour is…
Publisher’s Summary: “Billy is sent to London in the midst of a Luftwaffe bombing offensive to investigate the murder of a Soviet official. There’s reason to believe that the crime could be connected to the recent discovery of mass graves in the Katyn Forest, where thousands of Polish officers were executed. Is a killer is…
Publisher’s Summary: “New York City, 1945. Marjorie Jacobson and her best friend, Marty Garrett, arrive fresh from the Kappa house at the University of Iowa hoping to find summer positions as shopgirls. Turned away from the top department stores, they miraculously find jobs as pages at Tiffany & Co., becoming the first women to ever…
Total Eclipse is the last book in Rachel Caine’s phenomenal Weather Warden series. As the book opens, the wardens and the djinns have all lost their powers and Mother Nature is on the warpath. Things have never been so dire. Joanne and David have also had their powers stripped and are helpless as they watch…
Do you read the dedications or just flip to the start of a book? If you’re the kind of reader who is interested in who gets the honor of being mentioned at the beginning of a book, you might enjoy this article by Nigel Farndale.
In the 19th book in this series, Roman detective Marcus Didius Falco travels to Alexandria with his family so that his pregnant wife can see the pyramids. This menagerie which includes, Falco and his wife, two young daughters, an adopted teenage daughter and Falco’s brother-in-law stays with Falco’s outcast uncle and his partner. As one…
Life in Three Pines, a small, tight-knit town on the outskirts of Montréal, is quiet. Residents pass time in the company of friends, art, and various other clubs. Until the morning that Jane Neal, a beloved member of the community, is found dead in the woods. Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec…