Author Archive
Two young men with the same name were featured in the Baltimore Sun in December 2000. One was named a Rhodes Scholar and the other was wanted for allegedly killing a police officer in an armed robbery. These two young men started out on very similar paths - how did their lives turn out so differently?
The full story of what happened is told by Wes Moore, the Rhodes Scholar, veteran, White House Fellow and successful businessman in The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates. This book should be required reading for all middle school students. That’s around the age things really started to fall apart for the other Wes Moore.
Both boys grew up with loving mothers who wanted their sons to succeed and tried their very best to protect them from a tough environment. Both boys had other family members looking out for them. Both boys were bright but had issues with school. Both boys rebelled at about the same age. One got sent to military school and the other started dealing drugs. By the time they were teenagers, their futures were set. One was on his way to becoming an officer in the military and the other had been arrested multiple times and was headed toward life in prison.
Man, is this a sobering book. I can’t say that I enjoyed it, but I’m so glad that I read it. Even though the subject matter is heavy, it’s very readable. Author Wes Moore is even-handed with details and was able to obtain in-depth background information from the other Wes Moore and his family, as well as family photos. I imagine this title will also be popular with book groups. There’s much to discuss.
August 30th, 2010
Molly - Central
I found Cecily Von Ziegesar’s new novel Cum Laude nearly as entertaining as her Gossip Girl Series, but I’m not sure who the target audience is. It’s marketed as a novel for adults, but is written more like a YA novel, with a plot and setting that I can’t imagine would be all that appealing to fans of the CW show or YA readers graduating from the book series looking for something new to read.
Set in 1992 at a private college in Maine, it’s more of an homage to the grunge-era. Will young adult readers who love the stylish Upper East Side New York girls with their society parties and scandals be captivated by the granola-y Dexter College campus and college freshman with their J. Crew sweaters and flannel L.L. Bean dorm sheets? I don’t know. Adults who read the GG series and are curious about this foray into adult fiction might be interested, but the writing is just so-so.
There is some recreational drug use and sexual activity, but no more than in any GG novel, in my opinion. I’m thinking the book got marketed as adult fiction because the characters are starting college, but the book does not feel like an adult novel to me. It feels more like an episode of Felicity, again minus the NYC setting.
According to the author bio, Von Ziegesar is forty and attended Colby College in the late 80s/early 90s. So I guess she is probably marketing the book to me, an adult fan of Gossip Girl who also attended college around that time, loves J. Crew and is looking for something easy and fun to read. That sounds kind of lame, though, doesn’t it? So, I will end this review encouraging everyone to read Cum Laude! It’s full of sex and drugs and Pearl Jam!
August 23rd, 2010
Molly - Central
Fans of Kathy Griffin know her 90-year-old mother Maggie as a sensible, mid-western voice of reason in the wacky world of Hollywood stars and lifestyles of the rich and famous. She enjoys celebrity spotting at her local West Hollywood Pavilions grocery store, loves her family, knows the value of a dollar, and appreciates a nice glass of wine.
In the ever expanding genre of celebrity memoirs, Tip It: The World According to Maggie by Maggie Griffin is a charming, light addition for fans of both Griffins and for those looking for a refreshing perspective on Hollywood. Tip It is a sweet, funny book that is a combination of memoir, advice and family anecdotes.
Margaret Corbally was one of sixteen children born to Irish immigrants who ran a local grocery in Chicago. She and her husband raised a large family of their own in Oak Park and worked hard to send the kids to Catholic school and then put them through college. Marge, or Maggie as she is known now, moved to California with her husband and daughter Kathy after retirement. Kathy worked her butt off to establish a career “in the biz” with much support and encouragement from her parents. Her parents worked hard to track down stars by crashing celebrity golf events and awards shows. Apparently, Hollywood security was looser in the 1980s and two darling retirees could wander into red carpet events if they happened to be traveling by foot on Santa Monica Blvd. Crafty!
In between the memoir chapters, Maggie provides sensible Depression-era advice on topics like how to recycle rubber bands and paper towels, which golf courses and bars and restaurants to frequent when in L.A. (gay bar Rage has the best happy hour) and an open letter to the “bastard who stole our sword” - you’ll have to read it to believe it. Kathy makes comments in parentheses throughout. I found this annoying at first, but it quickly grew on me.
All in all, this is a very entertaining book. You can’t help but love and admire Maggie. Even if she does think Bill O’Reilly is handsome.
August 18th, 2010
Molly - Central
The NPR audience cast more than 17, 000 votes to select “Killer Thrillers” - the most pulse-quickening, suspenseful novels ever written (along with Truman Capote’s sensational true-crime book). Find the top ten titles listed below in our library catalog:
1. The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris
2. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
3. Kiss the Girls by James Patterson
4. The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum
5. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
6. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
7. The Shining by Stephen King
8. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
9. The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy
10. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Two of my favorites, The Hunger Games and In the Woods are featured at 60 and 61. Visit NPR for the complete list of 100 Killer Thrillers.
August 7th, 2010
Molly - Central
Librarian Kathy recently commented on MADreads about the second annual Hottest Graphic Novels of Summer list from GraphicNovelReporter.com. I appreciate a nice list like this and am always looking for graphic novel guidance and recommendations, so I am slowly making my way through it.
Some background about my graphic novel tastes: I prefer them ridiculously girly and colorful. The now defunct DC Comics imprint Minx was the best. The Babymouse series? I adore the cleverly cute pinkiness. For stories with a message, I lean towards the strong, arty girls with a fight to fight, like those written by Hope Larson or Marjane Satrapi.
I am discovering that while I love some of the books on this list of Hot Graphic Novels, others are really not my cup o’ tea. And some I never would have read if they weren’t on a list and I’m glad I did.
Here’s the twitterized version of what I have to say about:
Artichoke Tales by Megan Kelso - story of civil unrest in the land of forks and ladles where people have artichoke leaves instead of hair. Mature themes.
Billy Hazelnuts and the Crazy Bird by Tony Millionaire - silly story of a gingerbread hero trying to get an owlet back to its mother. Some slapstick violence à la Tom and Jerry. OK for kid readers.
Ghostopolis by Doug TenNapel - boy ghost wrangler with special powers. Very exciting visually and action-wise. I don’t normally choose boy books, but I liked this. Great for kid readers.
How I Made It to Eighteen: A Mostly True Story by Tracy White - this is just my thing. Tortured seventeen-year-old artist girl recounts her stay in a mental hospital and how she found happiness. Mature themes, OK for young adults.
Neil Young’s Greendale by Josh Dysart - based on Neil Young’s 2003 concept album. Set in California. A family of witchy women fight for the environment while the world wars over oil. Pleasantly surprised by this one. Mature themes.
The Popularity Papers: Research for the Social Improvement and General Betterment of Lydia Goldblatt and Julie Graham-Chang by Amy Ignatow - journal entries of best friends hoping to become popular in middle school. After some setbacks, true friendship prevails. Funny and realistic. OK for kid readers.
Wally Gropius: The Flush Bobby Soxer by Tim Hensley - darkly disturbing story of umpteen millionaire disguised as Richie Rich for a demented, adult reader. Very mature themes. Did not enjoy.
Anybody else working on this list or have other graphic novels to recommend? Wilson by Daniel Clowes is something I plan on reading soon.
August 2nd, 2010
Molly - Central
I’ve never read Mary Balogh before, but I was in the mood for a nice, old-fashioned little Regency romance and this book received a glowing review in Library Journal. It’s a short novel, just under 200 pages, and zips right along.
A Matter of Class features wealthy, attractive characters, a touch of scandal, some tree climbing, petticoat rumpling and a delicious plot twist. The requisite handsome bad boy, Reginald Mason, is the son of a wealthy coal baron (not considered a gentleman) and lives across the river from beautiful, spirited, Lady Annabelle Ashton, daughter of the neighborhood Earl. Their fathers have been feuding for thirty years, but circumstances have recently changed.
Lady Annabelle has just been caught running off with her father’s coachman and Reggie has rung up some gambling debts. Her disgrace and his wild ways anger their fathers enough to propose something drastic. They set aside their feud for a few moments in order to find a mutually acceptable plan to re-establish order. Reggie will propose to Annabelle in order to restore her virtue and Annabelle will accept because her father is broke and needs the Mason’s money.
Will these wayward, charming, and good-looking children of sworn enemies make an arranged marriage work? Or do they have something else planned to toy with their parents? You may be surprised!
July 27th, 2010
Molly - Central
I love you so and don’t want to give you up. I love the way you feel in my hands, the weight of your pages, the quality of your paper, the colors of your illustrations. I love your little ribbon bookmark and the way I can pick you up and set you on my nightstand or put you in my bag to take with me and save for later.
Reading you aloud is a special activity that I share with my child. He grabs for the pages while I turn them, but soon he will be turning them on his own. We talk about the colors and the images, repeating interesting words and phrases. You are just the right size for holding close and snuggling.
We’ve only just met, but in a way, I’ve known you forever. I’ve spent a lot of time with your fellow books over the years. Many of them have been guests in my home and some have taken up permanent residence. Big and tall, thick and small, hardcover and paperback, many are neatly shelved, some haphazardly stacked on tables.
I’ve laughed and cried and learned so much from all of you over the years. I’ve played favorites and snubbed others. Some of us hit it off and some of us don’t. I understand that even if we don’t make it to the end, you will be exactly right for someone else. I still appreciate our time together. I wanted to thank you and tell you how important you are to me.
I’m just not ready to read you* on a screen.
*Letters to Everyone and Anyone and The Squirrel’s Birthday and Other Parties: Stories by Dutch author Toon Tellegen are absolutely the dreamiest, darlingest, most charming books for children.
July 19th, 2010
Molly - Central
I really like Kelly Corrigan’s writing. I don’t necessarily agree with everything she writes, but I appreciate her honesty and humor. It’s not easy writing about cancer in a funny way, but she sure did that in The Middle Place, so I was eager to read her new book about parenting.
Lift is a slight book and I was able to read it straight through twice in a couple of hours. Essentially, it’s an open letter to Kelly’s children to give them an idea of what she’s thinking and feeling about them and about being their mother while they are young. It’s personal, candid, and made me weepy.
A couple of stories really got me: she recounts a serious medical scare and time spent at the children’s hospital with her younger daughter. She had been at this same hospital years earlier when she was on a work assignment photographing babies in the NICU and she compares her attitudes during these separate visits. She writes of the tragic death and funeral of her favorite cousin’s teenage son and how a family continues to live life after something like that happens. She also shares the difficult decision a friend made to become a single parent and how it worked out in the most amazing way.
Not all of the thoughts or stories are tragic. Kelly admits that she doesn’t like to cook and worries that her family doesn’t eat dinner together. She questions the length of time she did or didn’t nurse her babies. She yells at her kids. She’s a real person and I find this very relatable.
The title of this book is taken from a description of hang gliding, “turbulence is the only way to get altitude, to get lift. Without turbulence, the sky is just a big hole. Without turbulence you sink,” (page 42). Parenting is just like this.
July 13th, 2010
Molly - Central
The Male Brain by Louann Brizendine is a short book that explains so much about male behavior. It’s all about the hormones. Mainly (or should I say manly?), it’s about the testosterone.
Brizendine starts with the Greek Gods and testosterone stars as Zeus. Many other hormones make an appearance, including vasopressin, estrogen, and a hormone called MIS (mullerian inhibiting substance). Brizendine details how the various hormones affect male development from conception through childhood, to the teen years and into mature manhood.
All of the life phases are marked by different levels of testosterone, but the chapters I found the most remarkable focused on the toddler, teen and daddy brains. There are surges in testosterone in the toddler and teen years. Toddler boys must move or die! That makes sense and anyone who has seen a two-year-old banging his toys around knows it’s true. Do you have a sullen teen at home? It takes a while for that huge surge in hormones to level out.
And things get really crazy with expectant fathers. Pheromones from the mom affect the hormones in the dad. Testosterone decreases and prolactin increases. Couvade syndrome, or sympathetic pregnancy, can start at the end of the first trimester and can contribute to weight gain and nesting in dads. After the baby is born, the brain is rewired to put the daddy on high alert, to hear the baby crying, for example. Senses are heightened in the same way senses are heightened when one falls in love. This sensitivity is intensified with skin-to-skin contact. According to Brizendine, this combination of hormones, brain rewiring and physical touch enables new fathers to experience some serious baby/daddy bonding. The daddies who bond with their babies lead to better health for the daddy, the baby, the mommy, the marriage, and I daresay, society as a whole.
There’s a lot of complex information here, but for me, I am looking at my son, my husband, my father and my brother in a whole new light. It’s great! If only I could get them to read Brizendine’s The Female Brain…
June 28th, 2010
Molly - Central
The network television season has wound down, are you starting to go through withdrawal? I am kicking off my summer reading with a TV spin-off novel written by the fictional novelist Richard Castle.
Castle is a fun murder mystery show that airs on Mondays on ABC. It features a popular male mystery novelist shadowing a tough female detective in order to gain inspiration for a new book series. It’s set in NYC, there’s a lot of witty repartee, fairly charming police interactions, wacky family members and a touch of romance. It’s definitely not as gritty as many current police procedurals, but the crimes are still interesting and the novelist and the police work in tandem to solve the crime of the week.
Rick Castle’s popular Derek Storm novels have made him somewhat of a literary superstar on the show, but he’s got a touch of writer’s block and needs inspiration for his new series featuring NYC detective Nikki Heat. That is why he is shadowing Detective Kate Beckett. This is where things get a little goofy. The novel written by Richard Castle on the show is called Heat Wave. But this same book, also written by the fictional novelist Richard Castle, has been published by Hyperion in our world. The author acknowledgments at the back of the book refer to the fictional mother and daughter on the show, as well as the names of the actual actors who play the characters on the show. Rick Castle regularly plays poker on the show with Stephen J. Cannell and James Patterson, so I have some suspicions about who the real author is, but it’s all fun.
The plot goes like this: Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jameson Rook is researching an article about NYPD and is shadowing Detective Nikki Heat as she investigates the murder of a real estate tycoon. Add on a gambling addiction, the Polish-American mafia, art thieves and a variety of high-speed chases during a heat wave blackout and you’ve gotten yourself to the end. The novel reads just like the show, with lots of witty repartee and charming police interactions. Plus sex. Not bad!
I haven’t read too many of these real “fake” novels, but it’s kinda addictive. The Lost novel Bad Twin, also published by Hyperion, was entertaining, too, and now that I’ve seen the finale for that show, the purgatory anagram of fictional author Gary Troup seems so obvious. I don’t know that Heat Wave contains clues to the show, but it reads fast and furious for fans of Castle and those looking for a quick mystery.
June 16th, 2010
Molly - Central
I consider myself to be a member of “Team Jacob” but after reading The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner: An Eclipse Novella by Stephenie Meyer, I have new sympathy for vampires.
Published just in time for the major motion picture release of Eclipse at the end of the month, this novella presents a different point of view from the novel Eclipse. Bree Tanner is one of the (previously) unnamed newborn Seattle vampires who arrive to fight the Cullens and the wolf pack at the end of Eclipse. She’s maybe in the book for a page or two, and it wasn’t until I got to the big fight in the novella that I could even place who she was.
Her story is very sad.
Bree is a starving young runaway lured by a manipulative vampire who offers her a hamburger. She then finds herself part of a wild coven of young vampires wrecking havoc on Seattle. She is bewildered, confused and discovers that she has been lied to. And then she is basically sent off to war in a chaotic vampire army with no leader. Poor thing.
Whatever your feelings about the Twilight saga (I am very excited about the movies, a little tired of the books, and whatever faults there may be with editing and her use of the word “beautiful”, I think Meyer is a great storyteller) this novella stands on its own. It’s short and bittersweet and I was left wanting more instead of thinking it could have been a few hundred pages shorter. That’s what I love about the novella in general. It leaves the reader wanting more.
June 11th, 2010
Molly - Central
What was I thinking with this one? Well, I’ll tell you what happened. I am an unabashed fan of popular biography. It all started when I was a kid and worked my way through the ancient “Childhood of Famous Americans” biography series at my library. They were all conveniently shelved together in the 921s, so I just worked my way through the bunch. But I soon outgrew Elizabeth Blackwell, Girl Doctor and Jane Addams, Little Lame Girl and needed something more. I moved on to Kitty Kelley’s Jackie Oh! and never looked back.
I’m not particular about the biographies I read. Unauthorized is just fine with me. Add memoir to the mix and stir it up. If the person is interesting to me, I’ll read about them. I’ve read at least five biographies of Katharine Hepburn and three about Martha Stewart. I’ve read about celebrity chefs and professional wrestlers, scientists and royalty. Like I said, I’m not particular.
But I have to draw the line here. To be fair, The Day I Shot Cupid: Hello, My Name is Jennifer Love Hewitt and I’m a Love-Aholic by Jennifer Love Hewitt is not really a biography; it’s more of an advice book on dating. With advice from J. Love based on her life and dating experiences. This includes bedazzling female body parts and itemizing the cost of items needed for a date night ($250 for make-up, $30 for mani-pedis, $45 for a nightie from Victoria’s Secret, etc.).
She’s a sweet girl and I wish her well, but this book is really thin on content. Up front, Love tells the reader that she was inspired to write this book while sharing tequila with friends and family in Cabo Wabo after a bad break-up. I’m thinking it was therapeutic for her to get this all down, and for that I say, good for her. But I felt a little gross after it was all over. It’s a tiny book, so thank goodness I didn’t spend that much time with it.
I’m sure I would have enjoyed her actual biography.
June 5th, 2010
Molly - Central
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