Author Archive
Well, I’m not 100% sure about that, but I can tell you which books at the Madison Public Library have been checked out the most times over the last 15 years. Our library automation department can run these really cool reports that tell us which books might need to be replaced or removed depending on how many times they have been checked out over the years and I thought y’all might be interested to know which books have circulated the most here in Madison. You might think that the lists include big books like The Kite Runner or Water for Elephants, but you would be wrong.
See for yourself what people are finding at the library:
Fiction
- 1st to Die: A Novel by James Patterson.
- The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood.
- The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks.
- A Walk to Remember by Nicholas Sparks.
- Keeping Faith: A Novel by Jodi Picoult.
- The Return Journey by Maeve Binchy.
- Paper Money by Ken Follett.
- Her Father’s Daughter by William Coughlin.
- Desire and Duty: A Sequel to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice by Ted and Marilyn Bader.
- Range of Motion by Elizabeth Berg.
Nonfiction
- The Pokemon Trainer’s Guide.
- The Snoopy Festival by Charles M. Schulz.
- Japanese Style by Susan Slesin.
- The World of LEGO Toys by Harry Wiencek.
- Batman, from the 30s to the 70s by E. Nelson Bridwell.
- Origins of Marvel Comics by Stan Lee.
- Son of Origins of Marvel Comics by Stan Lee.
- Color Style: How to Identify the Colors that are Right for Your Home by Carolyn Warrender.
- The Not So Big House: A Blueprint for the Way We Really Live by Sarah Susanka.
- A Treasury of Knitting Patterns by Barbara G. Walker.
The books in the top ten spots in the fiction category have gone out an average of 14.5 times per year, and the books in the top ten nonfiction category have gone out an average of 13.64 times per year, which is more than once a month! This is fantastic considering that the loan period is 28 days. 1st to Die gets checked out an average of 17.69 times a year!
I consider myself to be a “big reader” but I’ve only read one book from each list: The Handmaid’s Tale, which was assigned reading for a Women’s Studies class at the UW nearly twenty years ago, and The Snoopy Festival (I love Joe Cool!). Something that I found very interesting about the nonfiction list is that once you get into the top 50, there are a ton of cookbooks. They just never go out of style. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby and To Kill a Mockingbird do show up in the top 100 fiction titles, but so does Forever by Judy Blume, Bridget Jones Diary and almost everything by John Grisham.
Looking at the number of times these books get checked out, we know one thing: Madison likes to read!
October 30th, 2009
Molly - Central
Sometimes you really do need to give a book a little more time. The prologue of Confections of a Closet Master Baker: One Woman’s Sweet Journey from Unhappy Hollywood Executive to Contented Country Baker by Gesine Bullock-Prado really lost me. I understand that the author was trying to set up her lifelong love of sweets, but this chapter was kinda weird. She remembers back to a Christmas spent in Austria and how the holiday stockings were delivered by a raggedy St. Nikolaus and his demon sidekick, Krampus. I may, in fact, have nightmares about this. I thought I was getting into chocolate chip cookies and some Hollywood style hissy fits. I wasn’t prepared at all for the Krampus.
But continuing on to chapter one I get exactly what I want: a memoir of why a successful Hollywood executive (and sister of famous actress Sandra Bullock) would want to pack it all up and leave for Vermont to open a bakery. We also get some kick ass recipes. I am committing the recipe for Golden Eggs to memory. It is that good. Vanilla cake with a sugar and cinnamon coating that makes it taste like a donut. Mmmmm.
Each chapter is set up with a title and time, the time corresponding to what time of day certain events happen in the life of a baker. Example, 3:00 a.m. wake up. 4:00 a.m. arrival at the bakery and convection oven preheating. 5:00 a.m. tart filling. You get the idea. Each chapter also contains memories, insight and recipes. I love, love, love this. Gesine’s mother is German and a lot of the recipes and memories are inspired by the treats Gesine ate growing up in Germany as well as family traditions carried on after moving to the U.S., which is fascinating stuff. Having grown up eating apfelkuchen myself, this was very enjoyable reading. But I will not lie to you, I almost hung it up after the Krampus chapter. I’m still a little freaked out.
So it’s a good thing I have a new carrot cake recipe to test that calls for nine pounds of butter! Well, not quite, but all of the recipes included in this book have full-fat, real ingredients. Totally worth it! That’s what baking is all about! I was this close to planning a trip to Montpelier, VT, to visit Gesine Confectionary & Gourmet Market, but it looks like they closed up shop and Gesine is preparing to open a new bakery in Austin, TX. I will keep my eye out for that one. And in case you’re wondering, it’s Geh-see-neh.
October 26th, 2009
Molly - Central
…and one I might add, that won’t turn your stomach. Well, probably won’t turn your stomach. It depends on your tolerance level for dysfunctional families and relationships.
I have been reading WAY too many books lately that shed some blindingly bright light on the way our food is grown, produced, prepared, killing us slowly, whatever. This is not that kind of book. It is rather the kind of book that waxes poetic about pulpy purply tomatoes that smell of earth and summertime.
Gourmet Rhapsody by Muriel Barbery, takes place in the famed Parisian apartment building that The Elegance of the Hedgehog is set in. Acclaimed food critic Pierre Arthens is dying and everyone close to or estranged from him gets a chance (or chapter) to make their feelings known. The critic might have been a supreme talent as far as food writing goes, but he was a lousy husband and father.
While on his deathbed, he struggles to identify a particular flavor that has influenced his life more than any other. This is where the food writing gets good. Deliciously good. But while he is consumed by identifying this lost flavor, he neglects his family and friends, just as he had during his healthy days. So really, what good is the flavor? And what has truly been lost?
This book will make you think about food, about family and about appreciating life while you have it.
October 15th, 2009
Molly - Central
I wish I had known this before I started reading The Color of Earth by Kim Dong Hwa: the author is a very famous creator of Korean manhwa, which is a general term for comics and cartoons in Korea, and it was a big deal for him to write a graphic novel series about women. I didn’t learn this until I read the afterword, and it really makes a difference in the story, at least for me.
The Color of Earth is the first in a trilogy featuring a young girl named Ehwa and her mother, a widowed tavern owner in a country village around the turn of the century in Korea. Ehwa ages from about seven years to fifteen in the first book and while she is experiencing a sexual awakening, her mother is experiencing a sexual re-awakening. This is where I wish I had known it was a big deal for this author to be writing about women, because I was initially skeptical. Something seemed a little off to me, and I wasn’t sure if it was the translation or the culture or the time period in which the story was set. After reading the very earnest author’s note and learning a little more about him and what he’s all about, I re-read the first book with a heightened sensitivity and it meant a lot more.
The second book in the trilogy, The Color of Water, was released in the U.S. earlier this summer and focuses on a teen-age Ehwa in her first serious love relationship and her mother’s on/off relationship with a traveling salesman. There’s a bit of a cliff-hanger at the end, with both mother and daughter basically left alone and in tears. The third book, The Color of Heaven, was released in September, so you won’t have to wait a long time to find out what happens to Ehwa and her mother, which is good, because you can’t help but want these two to be happy.
The artwork is exceptionally beautiful. There is so much attention to the Korean landscape, flowers and insects in particular, many of which are symbolic, that at times it is hard to keep going with the story. Your eyes will be busy appreciating the illustrations.
And the U.S. publication of the trilogy is tailor made for book groups, (if your book group is cool with sexual content in a graphic novel format). The second book has a reading guide in the back of the book and questions for groups that pertain to the relationships, the location and time period for books one and two. It’s a wonderful story and whether you are new to the genre or a die-hard fan of graphic novels, you won’t want to miss this.
October 1st, 2009
Molly - Central
I didn’t receive a lot of guidance in terms of reading when I was a kid; I was basically allowed to read whatever I liked and if I didn’t understand something, I looked it up. This wasn’t really a problem until I started reading Holocaust literature, but that’s a story for another day. My parents were very free and breezy with books. There were always a lot of books lying around the house, I was allowed to check out whatever I wanted from the library and my mom would buy me a paperback whenever we were at the book store. By the time I was ten or eleven, I had accumulated a collection of fairly typical “young teen” paperbacks–basically whatever was on the teen shelf at B. Dalton in the 80’s. This included everything by Judy Blume, Paula Danziger, Norma Klein and Paul Zindel. It also included a lot of adventure romances, in particular, the awesome historical Sunfire series published by Scholastic which featured young girls traveling incognito across the prairie on wagon trains, fighting for their family land during the Civil War or striking it rich during the Gold Rush. I’ve always been a little embarrassed about loving this series, but I feel totally vindicated after reading Shelf Discovery: Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading by Lizzie Skurnick.
Skurnick pulls together the books that she remembered reading as a kid (and re-reading as an adult) and while there are some obvious gaps with my own reading (I’d never read any Lois Duncan until I was an adult, working as a Children’s Librarian), we read a lot of the same books. Mostly very girly. Including the Sunfire series.
Described as a reading memoir, Shelf Discovery sets up types of books with an opener for each chapter, like tragic girls or paranormal girls or girls on the verge of womanhood. Following the openers are book reports on books that fit the theme, complete with the original cover of the book. So fun! Now, like I said, there are some gaps in my reading history, so I glossed over the reports of the books I haven’t read, or (God forgive me, Madeleine L’Engle) I didn’t enjoy reading, but I am sure any girl who has been through middle school in the last thirty years has read at least some of these books.
The author has written extensively for the top review guides including the New York Times Book Review and literary blogs like Jezebel.com and has written ten books in the Sweet Valley High Series as well as other teen series. If she hadn’t said she was three years old in 1970 in one of the essays, I would have put the author in her thirties or forties anyway because all of the books have older publication dates and are referred to as “vintage YA literature”. Nothing was published after the 1990s, and books that I know have been really popular with teens and adults who read teen books, like the Weetzie Bat books, aren’t included.
If you, too, are of the vintage that read these books when they were new(er), love “vintage YA literature” or want to take a trip down “The Cat Ate My Gymsuit” lane, this book is funny and insightful. And hey, if you loved the Sunfire series, you’re in good company!
September 15th, 2009
Molly - Central
= true love forever. Or at least a good go at it. The dairy farmer missing two fingers is named Benny and the beige librarian is named Shrimp and they are the stars of the wacky romance in translation Benny and Shrimp by Katarina Mazetti.
I will call this a romance, even though on the spine of the copy I checked out from the library, there was a “literature” sticker. I do find that curious - is it “literature” because it was written in Sweden and that makes it more literary than if it were written in the States? Because this book is an all-out romance. We’re talking meet (not so) cute, an awkward first date, lots of crazy sex, lots of tender moments, lots of will they make it or are they just too different? Hope hope hope. Want want want. Sigh sigh sigh. You get the picture. It’s a romance. A really good one.
Even though Benny and Shrimp are living in modern day Sweden, the feeling of this book is very similar to The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. The community is small and rural, the characters are oh, so quirky, and opposites attract when it comes to the couple in question. The book is not written in letters, but in alternating chapters. Shrimp’s chapters are decorated with a star and fleur-de-lis pattern and Benny’s with little cows.
You may learn a lot about dairy farming. Unless you already know a lot about dairy farming, this being Wisconsin and all. Regardless, it is a reminder to us all that it takes a lot of hard work to run a dairy farm. Hard, hard work that never really ends. You will not learn so much about being a librarian.
I know I say this several times a year, but I haven’t said it yet: this is my favorite book of the year. It’s everything that the cover blurb says it is, offbeat, charming, and fun. And it really makes your heart hurt.
September 3rd, 2009
Molly - Central
Chances are that this edifying little book originally published 38 years ago would not have gained steam again without the amazing video footage shown on YouTube to millions worldwide. I’m talking about A Lion Called Christian, the story of a lion cub purchased at Harrods luxury department store in London and raised by two Aussie blokes until he’s too big to live in the city and with humans.
Christian gets reintroduced to the wild in the Coast Province of Kenya at the Kora National Reserve and is later joyously reunited with the Aussie blokes who raised him. The reunion is filmed as part of a documentary about George Adamson, best known through the award-winning Born Free, who lived at the Kora Reserve and rehabilitated captured or orphaned lions into the wild.
If you have seen the video or looked at the stills on the cover of the book, you can’t help but notice the bond between Christian and his original owners Anthony Bourke and John Rendall. They obviously had a loving and playful relationship. It will only take you a couple of hours to read about what it was like to live in a London flat with a growing lion cub, what types of feeding and exercise was necessary and the difficulty of getting a lion from England to Kenya. What a story!
August 11th, 2009
Molly - Central
2008 was a great year for witches. Brunonia Barry’s The Lace Reader and Kathleen Kent’s The Heretic’s Daughter were both excellent reads. John Updike’s The Widows of Eastwick was rather eh, but still a big book as far as witches go. Even if that book was only eh, I spent far too much time going back to read the Witches of Eastwick and then watching the 80’s movie. I had never seen the movie before and found it highly entertaining, if only for Cher’s fantastic hair.
I predict the witch book this summer is going to be the biggest one, yet. The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe combines elements of all three of last year’s books. There’s mystery and intrigue. There is a modern day Salem element with flashbacks and psychic visions of previous Salemites. The main character, Connie Goodwin, is a Harvard graduate student specializing in American Colonial life, so there’s history, history, and more history. And there is a common thread that ties generations of women together: women who have special skills with herbs and healing and possibly other more magical powers.
The plot revolves around Connie discovering an exciting primary source for her dissertation. She desperately needs to come up with something new and starts investigating the possibility that a centuries old book of recipes or “physick book” is still floating around. Her advisor is a little too invested in her finding the book and weird things start happening after she relocates to her grandmother’s home outside Salem. When Connie finds some old “recipe” cards in her grandmother’s kitchen written in Latin, the plot really starts to heat up.
This book certainly gets you thinking about women and their role in the history of medicine. Many of the books about the Salem witch trials focus on the innocence of the accused or what the idea of witchcraft stood for in a Puritanical society, but this book draws attention to the women who did have special skills in healing. The witches and their physick as presented in this book more closely resemble modern medicine than blood letting or blistering or prayer, common medical practices in Colonial times. It makes you wonder how much progress may have been lost because women and their recipe books were not trusted or taken seriously.
You may also wonder what hidden gems are tucked away in the special collections of libraries, though I’m pretty sure we don’t have any physick books shelved alongside the local yearbook collection here in the basement at Madison Public Library. If you’re looking for a spellbinding physick book, stick with Deliverance Dane.
July 29th, 2009
Molly - Central
I never got around to reading Go Green, Live Rich: 50 Simple Ways to Save the Earth and Get Rich Trying by financial guru David Bach last summer, and it has been hanging over my head ever since. Boy, am I glad I finally took the time to read this - I am going to get rich! How’s that, you ask? By doing easy, simple things that protect the earth and my finances. Hmmmm. But isn’t going organic and “green” more expensive? I understand the idea of protecting our resources and saving the Earth, but how does one get rich?
The author doesn’t expect you to do all 50 steps, but working on even a few of them gets you on the right track to saving the Earth and saving money. He breaks it all down for you dollar by dollar for each step–what you would save and how you would reduce if you were to follow the step. You may be surprised that you are already doing many of the steps, in which case, reading the book will make you feel righteous and proud!
Some of the 50 ways to save the Earth:
- Maintain your car. You will save up to $798 in gas every year if you keep your tires properly inflated, don’t haul around unnecessary weight, get a tune-up and don’t drive like a maniac.
- Get rid of junk mail. You will not be tempted to buy anything and together we all save 100 million trees a year. The average adult receives 40 pounds of mail a year, most of which goes to a landfill unopened. Recycle it, and even better, call 888-5OPTOUT to cut down on junk mail, cancel your catalogs at www.abacusoptout.com or sign up for just the catalogs you really want at www.catalogchoice.org.
- Eat less meat. You will save on your grocery bill and you will help cut down on methane from captive livestock. Nearly a fifth of all greenhouse gas emissions caused by humans is from this. Yikes. You don’t have to become a vegetarian, just cut out meat one day a week to start with.
- Use compact fluorescent light bulbs. You can save $45 over the life-time of a bulb. CFLs use 75 percent less electricity than traditional incandescent bulbs and last up to 10 times longer.
- Vampire electricity. Some appliances just drain electricity like crazy, even when they are not in use. Check out the MG&E Watt’s Up Energy Meter at the library for free and start compiling a list of home appliances that suck up electricity. You may be surprised at what an unplugged coffee pot will save you.
- Calculate your carbon footprint. It just takes a couple of minutes and will help you gain an understanding of how your own actions and lifestyle affect the planet and your finances. Once you know your score, you can figure out what to do to lower it. A good place to start is Madison Gas and Electric’s C02gether. You can access your monthly MG&E bills and calculate your carbon footprint by entering household data, monthly energy use and average amounts of monthly transportation miles, MPG and modes of transportation. You can then track and journal your efforts by registering for free at C02gether.
For me, though, it all comes down to the latte factor. What am I spending money on that is bad for the environment and costing me money? I am done with bottled water and paper coffee cups. Sometimes it is a pain to haul my thermal cup and water bottle around, but I hardly think about it anymore. Now if only I could get my boss to agree to telecommuting to work one day a week…
July 16th, 2009
Molly - Central
I am not exaggerating about this. Kelly Corrigan’s account of dealing with breast cancer at the same time that her dad is dealing with bladder cancer is a funny, funny book. I laughed out loud while reading it on a plane. That’s crazy, right?
The title of the book, The Middle Place, refers to the generation that is parenting and being parented at the same time. Kelly is a grown woman, a writer living in California with a family of her own, when she discovers a lump in her breast. She has a biopsy and discovers she has late-stage breast cancer. While she is recounting her trials with chemotherapy, radiation, and the many drugs she is taking, she fills us in on her childhood and family. She grew up in a tight-knit Irish Catholic family in Philadelphia and her relationship with her dad is one for the books. He is one of those perpetually upbeat, energetic, affectionate people that everyone loves. When she finds out that his cancer has returned, she is devastated. She is torn between wanting him to come take care of her and trying to manage his care from the opposite coast.
Cancer is tough, but people are tough, too, and the way Kelly takes on her treatment and then her father’s is nothing short of admirable. But this book is not all cancer, all the time. There’s a lot of love and life in these pages. Adorable toddlers and preschoolers, adventures abroad, the Dot-com bust and what it means to be a Corrigan (does your family have a fight song? C-O-double R-I-G-A-N spells Corrigan). Kelly’s the kind of woman who honestly admits to fighting with her mother over Guess jeans in 1984, losing a coveted job at The Limited AND her virginity in the same chapter that follows her reaction to a three-year-old calling her bald, chemo-ridden self “monster”. How does one combine all of these things seamlessly? I’m telling you, it is funny.
This is probably one of those books that you have been thinking about reading, that is making the rounds of the book groups, and I say, why wait? Don’t put it off, it is surprisingly light and you will feel enriched and grateful after reading it.
July 1st, 2009
Molly - Central
But I really heart Hilary Liftin, author of Candy and Me: A Love Story, a book that does not refer to Candy Spelling. Even though Liftin co-authors both of Tori Spelling’s biographies: New York Times bestselling sTORI telling and the new Mommywood. Is it confusing to start this review with that?
Let’s go back to the beginning. I will never tire of Hollywood princess Tori Spelling and her stories of growing up as the privileged daughter of one of the most popular prime-time television producers of all-time. What’s not to love about growing up in a home large enough to house a bowling alley and gift-wrapping room? (OK, I know she didn’t live at “The Manor” until she was 17, but she still had Halloween costumes designed by Nolan Miller.) It is fascinating to read about her tempestuous relationship with her mother and $30,000 wedding gowns and starring roles on popular television shows. I am an unabashed fan of Beverly Hills, 90210 and couldn’t wait for Tori to pick up her role as the now grown-up fashion designer Donna Martin in the new 90210 series. Her character is silly and down-to-earth and so it seems, is the real life Tori.
Where sTORI telling takes on Tori’s own growing up in Hollywood, Mommywood tackles parenting in la-la land. And it is crazy. But told with humor and recognition of the craziness. Like I said, the real life Tori seems to be down-to-earth and funny. Her relationship with her mother and her own life as a Hollywood child color her every move as a parent, but she is trying her best. She changes her babies’ diapers, struggles with temper tantrums and tucks her kids in at night. She also gets invited to red carpet events, receives expensive merchandise for free and celebrates birthdays with other celebrities and their babies at somewhat over-the-top, but not totally excessive parties. I mean, a moon bounce, magician and bakery cakes are not unheard of even in these parts, right?
I listened to Tori read the audio book and it was very funny. I have a special something for audio books read by the author and this was no exception. Tori has great comedic timing and these are her stories. I also really like Hilary Liftin’s writing, and whatever finessing she might have had with Tori’s stories, it all works.
This definitely kicks off summer beach reading season for me. If you are looking for a little taste of lifestyles of the rich and famous and aren’t squeamish when it comes to swim diapers gone wrong (in a private pool, of course), take a trip to Mommywood. And don’t forget Candy and Me: A Love Story. Cola flavored Bottle Caps rule!
June 22nd, 2009
Molly - Central
What are The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears–friendship and love and a chance to start over or loneliness, despair and lost hopes and dreams? First-time novelist Dinaw Mengestu’s story of an Ethiopian immigrant grocer living in Washington, D.C. quietly draws the reader into the Logan Circle neighborhood that is slowly transitioning from an area of poverty and vice into one filled with gentrified homes owned by professors and lawyers. What happens to the residents, both old and new, when a neighborhood moves on?
Stephanos flees Addis Ababa after his father’s murder some eighteen years before the start of the novel and opens the Logan Market shortly after that. Chapters jump from the present day and back throughout the years with Stephanos as an idealistic teenager of privilege in Africa, as a young man with big dreams for his corner store, playing drinking games with his D.C. friends Kenneth from Kenya and Joseph from the Congo, and culminating in a brief (the briefest) romance with the white professor who moves in next door. All the while, the reader knows that the neighborhood where Stephanos currently resides is in serious trouble, as is he.
Stephanos struggles with leaving his mother and brother behind in Ethiopia, he struggles with being a poor immigrant in America, he struggles with his store, he struggles with love and relationships, and he struggles with what he wants to be and do. You know how some books stay with you on and on because the characters are written so well, be it inspiring or infuriating? That is this book for me.
The title of the book comes from a quote from Dante’s Inferno, as Dante emerges from Hell:
Through a round aperture I saw appear,
Some of the beautiful things that Heaven bears.
Where we came forth, and once more saw the stars.
I’m not sure if the main character Stephanos discovers the beautiful things that Heaven bears upon his own emergence from hell, but there is much beautiful writing to be found here. And much to discuss.
June 9th, 2009
Molly - Central
Previous Posts