Archive for 2008
As a heavy user of the Overdrive audiobook collection, I am always checking the listings for good books to download, and the book The Soloist: A Lost Dream, An Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music, by Steve Lopez, definitely fits the criteria. Part of why I picked this one was because I wanted to read the book before the movie comes out early next year. After reading the book, I am looking forward to seeing the movie to see how Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx handle their roles.
The Soloist is Steve Lopez’s story of his friendship with Nathan Ayers, an African American man, who he sees playing a battered violin on the street on Los Angeles’ Skid Row. Lopez, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, is always searching for topics, and that was his original motivation for befriending Ayers. He quickly discovers that Nathan is a schizophrenic who was at one time a classical bass student at Juilliard. Nathan stays in L.A. because there is a statue of Beethoven there, and therefore, it is where Beethoven lives.
Lopez portrays his involvement with Nathan over a period of a few years. He works hard to improve Nathan’s life and get him off the streets. There are many setbacks, and although Nathan’s quality of life improves, he will remain mentally ill and will have many ups and downs.
There are many moving scenes in this book, many involving music. One of them is when Lopez takes Ayers to a Los Angeles Symphony rehearsal, which leads to one of the players offering him music lessons. On another occasion, they attend a performance featuring Yo Yo Ma, whose time at Juilliard briefly intersected with Nathan Ayers.
Lopez is a skilled and polished writer, who is very familiar with Los Angeles. His description of Skid Row, and the treatment of the mentally ill and the homeless is grim. And this is a story that seems tailor made for the movies. If done right, it should be a very inspirational and worthwhile film with a great soundtrack.
December 30th, 2008
Mary K. - Central
- these are the well-known lyrics of the folk song Scarborough Fair. Nancy Werlin weaves the tasks featured in a variation of verse two of the song into the suspenseful plot of Impossible. Seventeen-year-old Lucy Scarborough must break the curse of the Elfin Knight by completing the following:
- make a magical shirt…without any seam or needlework.
- find an acre of land…between the salt water and the sea strand…
- plow it with just a goat’s horn…and sow it all over with one grain of corn…
This book is fantastical and fast-paced and impossible to put down. I am not generally a fantasy reader (I know, I know, I said the same thing about vampires), but I would say this book is primarily a romance with thrills and fantasy thrown into the mix. Lucy is a modern American teen, heading off to prom. She is also struggling with an apparent genetic tendency towards mental illness, a horrific date rape, an unexpected pregnancy and a possible family curse. If you like a story where true love battles evil and prevails against all odds, Impossible fits the bill.
This book has been garnering lots of attention and is on the YALSA 2009 Nominations list of Best Books for Young Adults. The modern-day setting serves as a great contrast to the medieval lyrics and elfin curse and is a surprising, spellbinding read. Impossible is my second favorite YA book of the year: stay tuned for my #1 read in an upcoming review.
December 29th, 2008
Molly - Central
Alan’s War: The Memories of G.I. Alan Cope is an engaging and unusual war memoir. It is the story about a military experience that caused a boy to become a man — a long and sometimes surreal process.
But there are no dramatic combat scenes or brutal battles, instead there is 
much celebration of humanity (and the military) at its mundane best. Alan Cope grew up to be a fine man and a splendid raconteur.
Late in Alan’s life, a random encounter with French cartoonist Emmanuel Guibert led to a five-year friendship and collaboration, ultimately resulting in this terrific graphic novel. Originally published as three volumes in France, the new English translation is a single volume — and one of the best books I have read all year.
Alan Cope died in 1999, but Emmanuel Guibert has spent 13 years creating this book, working from taped conversations and Guibert’s vacations to places that Alan lived in the USA, France, Germany, Great Britain and Italy. The art and the text work together seamlessly, telling the story in a wonderfully integrated way.
Alan Ingram Cope grew up in southern California. He remembers being a kid on a bike, delivering newspapers that headlined the attack on Pearl Harbor. Two years later, he turned eighteen and was drafted.
Sent to Fort Knox for basic training (the first vehicle he learned to drive was a tank), Alan received further training and became a radio operations and cryptology instructor. During this time, he developed close friendships with fellow soldiers and a life-long appreciation for music. A falling out with his family left him committed to look on his war experience as an adventure rather than an unfortunate necessity. Alan’s impressively positive outlook shines throughout the book.
He arrived in France on February 19, 1945 — his twentieth birthday. After a tantalizing glimpse of Paris (just the name of the city, painted on a wall outside of a stalled train), his unit was shipped to Normandy — where they idled for two months because their weapons were accidentally lost. Alan’s war involved a lot of time spent sneaking away to connect with friends, and he made friends not only with fellow soldiers but also individuals and families in the countries he was stationed in.
After the war, Alan stayed in Europe and spent most of his adult life working for the American military. Following a religious calling, he briefly returned to attend college in California, but left in 1948. Disillusioned with religious faith and with America, he never returned to the U.S.
Emmanuel Guibert was so taken with Alan’s descriptive skills and storytelling that he has vacationed to places described in the book — his renderings of the California redwoods are awesome, you can imagine walking through his Bavarian villages and French towns. Guibert uses an interesting combination of textured India ink washes and fine, clean lines. A fascinating sample of part of Guibert’s technique, involving “painting” with water can be viewed on this video, posted on American publisher First Second’s web site.
Alan Cope’s story is wonderful in both its minutiae and outlook. There is a lot that is absurd about Alan’s military experience: tales of misbehavior and incompetence and brutishness, but also stories of gentleness and humor and enduring friendships. Guibert’s commitment to preserving his friend’s oral history may result in a second work, about Alan Cope’s California childhood. Tentatively title “Alan’s Youth”.
Alan’s shining resilience and inherent decency, together with Guibert’s spectacular art, give this book a lot of power.
December 26th, 2008
Barbara - Alicia Ashman
If I was going to Hawaii for a January getaway (wishful thinking) I probably wouldn’t lug along Wally Lamb’s new 740-page novel The Hour I First Believed for the ride. However if you’re trapped by a Wisconsin snowstorm for a few days (more realistic thinking) this might be one to keep you distracted from all the 
shoveling you’ll have to do. After a ten year hiatus during which he worked with emerging writers at a Connecticut Women’s Prison, Oprah-blessed writer Wally Lamb’s new book HIFB is a long, engaging story about Caelum Quirk, a high school English teacher whose connection with the 1999 Columbine incident sends his life in unimaginable directions.
There are numerous plotlines in this story that spiral out from that fateful day, most importantly how it affects Caelum’s wife Maureen, a school nurse that was trapped in the library during the siege. Still suffering from PTSD, Caelum and Maureen move back to Connecticut from Colorado. The move is spurred not only by the Columbine aftermath, but also because Quirk’s Aunt Lolly has died and left him with the family farm. Like every good family farm, this one has lots of secrets that are revealed to Quirk. Maureen’s PTSD turns ugly and she soon becomes addicted to pain medication. Tragedy occurs again for the Quirks and without giving too much away, let’s just say there are many prison scenes and it isn’t just because it’s where Aunt Lolly used to work. Caelum’s story is complicated and rich and Lamb does a good job with making it seem authentic; his main character is flawed and he doesn’t always seem like the hero of the story.
My only complaint about HIFB was not necessarily the length, but the inclusion of Aunt Lolly’s Quaker great-grandmother’s life that Lamb explores as he finds out even more family secrets through his descendant’s belongings hidden up in the attic. This ended up becoming a story within the story and distracted me from the original Caelum one that was so enjoyable. I’m guessing after years of writing experience, editors probably don’t give Lamb the same red pencil treatment as other writers and that is how this section remained so long.
Overall, this one deserves a B+, though some other reviewers have not been as generous. So if you’re preparing for another snowstorm rather than a Hawaiian getaway, get your name on the hold list for HIFB or check out our rental collection next time you stop by your favorite library branch. Donations to my January Hawaiian getaway can also be dropped off at your local branch 
December 26th, 2008
Katharine - Sequoya
Michael Pollan’s recent bestseller The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals is one of those scary looking, thick nonfiction books. You
know the kind: you’re quite proud of yourself when you checkout or buy this big, hefty book because it’s going to make you smarter, but then it sits on your shelf, making you feel guilty and, let’s face it, kind of inferior because you just aren’t ambitious enough for your pleasure reading to become project reading. Worse yet, you put it on your coffee table to impress guests, but then must sheepishly admit that you haven’t started reading the darn thing when they ask you if it’s good. Well, I actually proved myself wrong this time and managed to read (and enjoy!) this big, fat nonfiction book, but if this practice sounds vaguely familiar to you perhaps you should try Pollan’s 
latest, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto.
Published two years after The Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food is a slim and succinct follow-up book. The Omnivore’s Dilemma is Pollan’s journey into the origins of our food. He takes the reader along for the ride as he uncovers exactly how four distinctly different meals came to be- from a McDonald’s meal, to a Whole Foods grocery run, to an old fashioned “hunting and gathering” meal, Pollan covers all bases as he describes exactly what it takes to make our food and exactly what is in our food. Turns out the answer is a lot of corn. Think of In Defense of Food as a nice companion piece to The Omnivore’s Dilemma. If you haven’t read Omnivore’s Dilemma, think of it as the abridged newer edition with answers!
If the first book presented the problem, then the second book offers a solution to the dilemma. The premise (or solution) of Pollan’s manifesto is simple: eat food, not too much, mostly plants. Sounds quite simple, but Pollan’s extensive research and convincing argument both prove that what sounds easy in theory might not be so easy in practice. For starters, food marketing is a multi-billion dollar industry and the average American’s definition of “healthy” food is deeply flawed since the advent of processed food and the advent of restrictive dieting (Atkins, low fat, no carbs, etc.) In addition, the manner in which we eat and our relationship with food has changed dramatically in the past few decades. Pollan argues that Americans often eat processed and packaged “food” alone and on-the-go rather than cooking a meal to share, slowly, with friends and family.
In the hands of another writer, the argument and solution could have easily come off as boring, too geeky, or difficult to understand. Pollan, however, is a gifted writer who understands the notion of too much information, yet never dumbs it down. His advice is practical and relatively easy: e.g. avoid food products that contain ingredients that are unpronounceable, eat well grown food from healthy soils, shop at farmers’ markets, cook and, if you can, plant a garden. If you want a condensed version of the manifeso, check out Pollan’s open letter to the next president, which was published in the New York Times magazine shortly before the presidential election.
Maybe I can handle the big, smart books after all… I think I’ll give Pollan’s Botany of Desire a try.
December 23rd, 2008
Mary - Lakeview
It’s not often that I don’t finish a book. But I put this one down one day and never got back to it. I wanted to like it. I’ve read some of Edwidge Danticat’s fiction and loved her lyrical language and her sense of place. But her family history, Brother, I’m Dying, just didn’t keep my interest, and certainly did not show the same beautiful language of her other books. But maybe you should decide for yourself. It was the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography.
Danticat was born in Haiti, right around Duvalier’s time. The country is a mess politically, with people disappearing and being murdered, rank with poverty. Danticat’s dad emigrates to New York when she is 2, followed by her mother, when she is 4. She and her younger brother are left in the care of her Uncle Joseph, a pastor. It ends up being 8 years before she joins her parents. In the meantime, Joseph, a sweet and caring man, loses his voice to throat cancer, and cannot preach to his flock, something he lived for. Danticat becomes his interpreter, helping him on his trips to shops and doctors. But it also makes the separation from her parents much more difficult, since her father would call Joseph and would share much more information with him than with his very young daughter.
Eventually her parents bring her to New York, where she does not feel part of the family she belongs to. She has 2 more brothers, who immediately take to their older siblings. But the long separation has taken an emotional toll.
The story is told in 2 time periods, the past and the near present, when Danticat finds out she is pregnant at about the same time that she finds out her dad is dying from a lung ailment. Her dad is very accepting of his situation and works at preparing his family for the inevitability of his death.
And this is where I stopped. Maybe my expectations were too high for this book. But the emotional distance she felt throughout her life, seemed very apparent in her writing. It seemed as if she was writing a news story in very simple language with very little subjectivity or emotional connection involved. I don’t get it, either, because all the reviews I read rave about it. Maybe if I had hung on, through the total implosion of Haiti and Joseph’s doomed final trip to the United States, it would have resonated more for me. But maybe I also stopped just in time. Reading once again about a country who treats people like chattel (and I’m not mentioning which country here) is just too painful.
December 22nd, 2008
Lisa - Central
The time when everyone publishes an end-of-the-year list. If the New York Times can do it, why not me? I’ve really only been keeping track of my reading since July 1, so here are many of the books I’ve read since then.
Brown, Wayne. Landscape with Heron. Insightful vignettes, newspaper columns, essays, and stories about life in Trinidad and Jamaica.
Bukoski, Anthony. North of the Port: Stories. UW-Superior’s Bukoski elegantly tells stories of displacement. Reader at the Wisconsin Book Festival.
Burton, Richard F, Sir, translator. The Arabian Nights. Simply the best. Bawdy, violent, fantastic, and clever; Disney’s Aladdin it ain’t.
Calvino, Italo. The Baron in the Trees. An Enlightenment-era baron seeks his utopia among the trees. Playful and smart, but not without its emotional moments.
Chekhov, Anton. Stories. Chekhov’s stories are as sharp and true-to-life as ever.
Eprile, Tony. Temporary Sojourner, and other South African Stories. A pointed look at apartheid-era South Africa combined with stories about coming of age in that country and in the United States. Publishers Weekly: “Vibrant.”
Fitzgerald, F Scott. The Great Gatsby. See my review here.
Foos, Laurie. Before Elvis There Was Nothing. Before the end of the novel, a woman has a horn growing out of her forehead. Booklist: “Leave it to Foos to write such a stunningly ironic, page-turning commentary on public image, beauty, and celebrity.”
Hemingway, Ernest. The Nick Adams Stories. Some of the best short stories written in the English language.
Hemon, Aleksandar. The Lazarus Project. See my review here. Reader at the Wisconsin Book Festival.
Lowenthal, Michael. Charity Girl. Tells the story of women rounded up during World War I because of their sexual behavior. Publishers Weekly: “Lowenthal ably captures the transformation of a naïve adolescent into a woman in his provocative story.”
Lychack, William. The Wasp Eater. A ten-year-old boy finds himself caught in the middle when his father is kicked out of the house for adultery. Booklist: “Beautifully understated, delicately crafted.”
Maraniss, David. Rome 1960: The Olympics that Changed the World. See my review here. Reader at the Wisconsin Book Festival.
McCarthy, Cormac. The Road. Small words and small actions are given the thought and attention they deserve as a father and son traverse a post apocalyptic wasteland.
McEwan, Ian. Atonement. You saw the movie, now read the book.
McEwan, Ian. First Love, Last Rites. A collection of some of McEwan’s rich and strange early stories.
Mignola, Mike. Hellboy. Awesomely drawn monster tales make the best bedtime reading.
Millhauser, Steven. Dangerous Laughter: Thirteen Stories. Srange tales and eerie fables for fans of Borges and the New Yorker. Check out his recent essay “The Ambition of the Short Story.”
Mori, Kaoru. Emma. Mori’s “maid mania,” as she calls it, resulted in this delightful manga series about finding love in Victorian England.
Mori, Kyoko. Stone Field, True Arrow. When a woman’s father dies, she is forced to reconsider her safe but sterile life. Publishers Weekly: “Graceful in its simplicity of language.”
Murakami, Haruki. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. See my review here.
Nabokov, Vladimir. Lolita. Nabokov’s “love letter to the English language” and one of the most notorious books ever published.
Proulx, Annie. Brokeback Mountain. See Atonement, above. From the collection Close Range: Wyoming Stories.
Strout, Elizabeth. Olive Kitteridge. Interrelated short stories bring the titular character to life. Reader at the Wisconsin Book Festival.
Unger, Nancy. Fighting Bob La Follette: The Righteous Reformer. Well-researched one-volume look at La Follette and the Progressive Era. New to Wisconsin? Lived here all your life, but want to learn more about your home state? Check it out!
Verdelle, AJ. The Good Negress. A young woman tries to find her place in her family and in the world. Publishers Weekly: “Consistently absorbing and beautifully detailed.”
December 21st, 2008
Jon - Central Library
British novelist Catherine O’Flynns’s What was Lost is my buried treasure. 
Set in 1980’s England this story revolves a young girl named Kate and her mysterious disappearance and how it relates to the local shopping mall Green Oaks. That one sentence description doesn’t do this outstanding first novel justice though, here’s more about it.
Ten-year old Kate Meany lives with her grandmother and dreams of being a private investigator. Her best friends are a 22-year-old son of a shopkeeper Adrian and a stuffed monkey that she takes on her stakeouts. Kate’s grandmother wants to send her to a boarding school, but Kate would rather keep hanging out with her friend Teresa at her public school. One afternoon when Kate reluctantly goes to take an admittance test for the boarding school, she disappears. The ensuing investigation points towards Adrian, who had accompanied her on the bus the morning she went to take the test. Adrian soon leaves town and “what happened to Kate?” is never resolved.
Fast forward twenty years to the Green Oaks shopping mall where Adrian’s sister Lisa is working a dead-end record store job. She’s not happy, hasn’t talked to her brother in ages and has horrible relationships with the people around her, until she meets one of the Green Oaks security guards Kurt who has plenty of tragedy in his life also. Their friendship brings great change in their lives and also helps solve the mystery of what happened to little Kate years ago.
If you are a fan of Kate Atkinson, this book is very similiar. O’Flynn’s writing is excellent and this first time novelist won the Costa Book Award and also was highly reviewed by the Guardian. During this holiday shopping time when unfortunately many of us end up in malls, this book may make you look at people who are working and shopping there alittle bit differently this year.
December 18th, 2008
Katharine - Sequoya
Wisconsin’s history of hauntings and spooky stories is rich indeed. When I was a kid, Haunted Wisconsin by Beth Scott and Michael Norman was THE book to check out from the school library. It has since been rewritten and reprinted by Michael Norman and is still very popular at the public library. Haunted Wisconsin contains new and old ghost stories set in Wisconsin, divided by region, and the ghostly locations referenced are fairly easy to track down. This is very handy when at sleepovers, when traveling, or when trying to win a bet with a sibling, in order to make quick references to places visited, etc.
I consider this to be the quintessential guide to ghosts, apparitions and supernatural occurrences in the area. Michael Norman, a former college professor from River Falls, might be regarded as the North American ghost expert–he has written several other books on the area including Haunted Heritage, Haunted Homeland, and Historic Haunted America.
If you are looking for a new offering in this genre, you won’t want to miss Spooky Wisconsin: Tales of Hauntings, Strange Happenings, and Other Local Lore retold by S. E. Schlosser. Spooky Wisconsin covers more Wisconsin history and folklore than Haunted Wisconsin. The tale of the shrouded horseman, for example, shares quite a bit about the history of beer brewing in Milwaukee. Indian mounds, Mississippi river pirates and early miners and loggers make appearances alongside Paul Bunyan, elfin Tommy knockers, and kobold toymakers. The writing style makes for great storytelling, perfect for sharing in front of a cozy fire or before bedtime for those who like a scary story that is not too scary.
Both Haunted Wisconsin and Spooky Wisconsin are great gift ideas for ghost and folklore enthusiasts, those who collect local memorabilia, and former Wisconsin-ites looking for a frighteningly fun taste of home.
December 16th, 2008
Molly - Central
During the presidential campaign I was obsessed. I watched every scrap of punditry, I read every newspaper article, I spent hours at night catching up on blog posts. I was a campaign junkie. So what’s an addict to do when she’s cut off cold-turkey? Watch old Sarah Palin clips on YouTube? Okay, maybe, especially the one with the turkey! Read about Obama’s transition team and quest for a puppy? Sure. But none of that quite gets at what I want. What’s a librarian to do? Find something to read.
Baring Arms by Jo Ann Power is the second mystery featuring five-term congresswoman Carly Wagner. Carly is a divorced mom who juggles caring for her pre-teen daughter and maintaining her political career (both at home in Texas and in Washington). She’s doing well enough that her party is considering have her give a keynote address at the national convention. Her political ambitions are endangered when her daughter, Jordan, finds Judge Goodwin Deeds strangled in his home. In order to protect Jordan and her career, Carly puts her insider savvy to good use. She’s determined to find out who did the deed before more damage is done. Assisting with the investigation is the mysterious Mr. Jones who may or may not have her best interests at heart.
Though the first in this series (Missing Member) had a little bit more of the behind-the-scenes political machinations I like to read about, this Beltway mystery did help ease me off the political juice. But I’m not totally there yet - I’m feeling the urge to visit the blogs again. So if you have suggestions that will satisfy my craving for politics, I’d love to hear them.
December 15th, 2008
Jane J. - Central Library
Listening to an audiobook is a great way to “read” a book. A good
audiobook can help a long car trip pass quickly, is a good companion on a walk, or while doing chores. They are great for vacations, especially those that can be downloaded and taken along on a portable device. I downloaded several books on my last vacation and the one I enjoyed the most was Belong to Me by Marisa De Los Santos. This is a sequel to Love Walked In, which I also enjoyed, but it is not necessary to read it first.
Cornelia Brown is newly married to a doctor, Teo, and settling into suburban life and she is finding fitting in harder than she expected. One of the first people she meets is neighbor Piper who is judgmental and difficult. Despite that a friendship slowly forms between them, especially after Piper discovers that her best friend is dying of cancer.
Dev is a young boy who also has trouble fitting in. He is very intelligent, the only child of a single mother, Lake, and at first is an outcast. His life is better after Lake enrolls him in a school for the gifted and after Cornelia comes into his life through her friendship with Lake. Through Cornelia, Dev eventually meets Clare, another troubled teen and they become fast friends as well.
The story is told from three points of view: Cornelia’s, Piper’s and Dev’s. It is about acceptance, friendship, and family ties. The reader, Julia Gibson, does a good and unobtrusive job. De Los Santos is also a poet and it shows in her writing, which is very descriptive.
This is a great book to listen to or to read.
December 12th, 2008
Mary K. - Central
A while back, someone with a good understanding of my obsession with English costume dramas suggested that I watch Cranford, the new PBS/Masterpiece production based in part on Elizabeth Gaskell’s novel of the same name. Having never read anything by Gaskell and associating her, unfairly, with the most sentimental of Victorian English novels, I didn’t get around to the DVDs until recently. I soon realized that my previous prejudices were completely wrong, and I was smitten. After enjoying the series, I picked up the original novel, curious as to how Gaskell’s serialized novel of 1853 would stand up to readers 150 years later.
Happily, Cranford turned out to be a throughly enjoyable and surprisingly modern read. Centered on the tiny town of Cranford in the 1830s, Cranford tells the story of two sisters of a slightly advanced age, trying to maintain a genteel existence while fending off modernity. Their main comfort is gossip, and since Cranford is populated almost entirely by women in circumstances very similar to their own, Miss Deborah and Miss Matty find plenty to talk about. Gaskell’s later books are primarily concerned with class differences and an increasingly industrial nation, and through several vignettes, many of the same issues pop up with a more muted tone in Cranford. Miss Matty hopes to reconnect with a man whose lower class status made him unacceptable in her youth, and the town is thrown into an uproar when suspicious strangers (men, no less) seem to threaten the peace. In the final chapters, Miss Matty comes to grips with the realization that she might have to undergo a profound change late in life, which even her resourceful friends might be hard-pressed to help with.
Gaskell creates her characters and their adventures with an affectionate tone that still has a slightly satirical edge (Miss Pole, my favorite character in both book and film, is a creation that both Dickens and Austen would have been proud to have invented). Yet their stories of struggling to retain their independence despite economic problems and a changing way of life still resontates today. Fans of such modern authors as Jan Karon, Jennifer Chiaverini and even Debbie Macomber might find the women-centered, small town setting of Cranford to their liking, while neophytes to Gaskell could consider the novel a good introduction to her longer, later works.
December 11th, 2008
Katie H.
Previous Posts
As a heavy user of the Overdrive audiobook collection, I am always checking the listings for good books to download, and the book The Soloist: A Lost Dream, An Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music, by Steve Lopez, definitely fits the criteria. Part of why I picked this one was because I wanted to read the book before the movie comes out early next year. After reading the book, I am looking forward to seeing the movie to see how Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx handle their roles.
