MADreads

Book reviews by library staff and guest contributors

How does your garden grow?

Cover of Grow What You Love: 12 Foo
A review of Grow What You Love: 12 Food Plant Families to Change Your Life by Emily Murphy

The library owns about two billion gardening books. I’m pretty sure that is hardly an exaggeration. It can be a bit overwhelming.  

So let me recommend one as a librarian and a gardener: Emily Murphy’s Grow What You Love: 12 Food Plant Families to Change Your Life. It isn’t the only gardening book you’ll ever need, but it’s a darn good start.

Posted by Tyler F on Jul 10, 2018

Diary of a reluctant killing machine

Cover of All Systems Red
A review of All Systems Red by Martha Wells

"I could have become a mass murderer after I hacked my governor module, but then I realized I could access the combined feed of entertainment channels carried on the company satellites. It had been well over 35,000 hours or so since then, with still not much murdering, but probably, I don't know, a little under 35,000 hours of movies, serials, books, plays and music consumed. As a heartless killing machine, I was a terrible failure."

Posted by Jane J on Jul 5, 2018

Buddha and bharal

Cover of The Snow Leopard
A review of The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen

The Snow Leopard, Peter Matthiessen’s melancholic and metaphor-laden Himalayan travelogue, a true story, is an essential, definitional work of 1970s American literature. It is also one of my favorite books of all time.

Posted by Tyler F on Jul 2, 2018

The warmth shines through

Cover of A Rogue of Her Own
A review of A Rogue of Her Own by Grace Burrowes

Grace Burrowes is pretty much an auto-read for me when it comes to historical romances. I don't get to every book of hers the minute it comes out, but eventually I'm going to read them. And the reason she's on my auto-read list is because she just does what she does so well. She writes engaging heroes and heroines. Her historical settings are well done - no major klinkers like a Lady Kardashian in Regency England. And the emotional journey she creates in each book always hits me just right.

Posted by Jane J on Jun 27, 2018

At the center of the story

Cover of The Real Lolita: The Kidna
A review of The Real Lolita: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel that Scandalized the World by Sarah Weinman

What image comes to mind when ‘Lolita’ is mentioned? A knock-kneed schoolgirl, all innocence and trust, a puppet under the thrall of pedophile? A calculating ingénue who knows more than she lets on, as envisioned by Stanley Kubrick in his 1962 film? The brilliant, if unsettling, creation of one of the great masters of American writing?

Posted by Katie H on Jun 22, 2018

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