BEACH BAG TIME ALMOST HERE

In less than two weeks it will officially be summer and time to start a serious vacation reading plan. If you like light reading with a hint of mystery and a semi-Dickensian setting, consider adding The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton to your list. It’s a story that shifts backward and forward in time so that each of the main characters can add her voice to the tale as well as add more to the details of the mystery of the child found abandoned on the docks. It’s a good escape for a hot summer afternoon.

For another work in a similar vein try The Lace Readers by Brunonia Barry. Intertwined with details of actual lace making and reading facts is the story of a murder, an unusual family and life in a small town. The fact that the small town is Salem, Massachusetts adds yet another intriguing layer.

This Week in Reading October 19 - 25

This week is one with very successful, prolific authors, among them, the golden age mystery team of two writers who called themselves Ellery Queen, espionage writer John Le Carre, fantasy writers Phillip Pullman and Ursula LeGuin, and blockbuster writers Michael Crichton and true crime presenter Ann Rule. Playwright Moss Hart, novelist Anne Tyler, and Batman creator Bob Kane also saw their work enjoyed by milllions.

Nobel prizewinners include England's Doris Lessing who won last year, Austria's Elfriede Jelinek, who won three years ago, and a very early one, Miguel Angel Asturias of Guatamala who won in 1899. Poets include Robert Pinsky, a prior US Poet Laureate, John Berryman, Denise Levertov, Arthur Rimbaud and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

This Week's Question: The Ellery Queen mysteries of the first half of the twentieth century were part of what has been referred to as the Golden Age. Whodunits at the time were generally straightforward with clues laid out fairly as a logic puzzle so that readers could solve the case on their own just before the main detective or his or her less intellectually capable sidekick did at the end. In the Queen books there was even a page near the end asking the reader to do so.

While today's taste have run to police procedurals, suspense, and thrillers, there were "rules" for the Golden Age detective genre that were rarely broken, except by some masters on purpose. In fact, one crime fiction essayist at the time actually did write down what he considered to be the rules of detective fiction. Now mysteries are all over the place. Novelist Plus, the database available to Glendale Public Library card holders lists twenty-seven different types of mysteries in its Recommended Reads. Which ones do you like?

Answer to Last Week's Question: Perhaps not all the good end happily. Perhaps he wasn't that good (in behavior - in writing he was great), but in the last few years of his life uberplaywright Eugene O'Neill had a neurological disease, misdiagnosed at the time as Parkinson's, that prevented him from holding his hand steady enough to write normally. He already had won the Nobel prize for Literature ten years earlier, (1936), but in a flurry to finish before his disease stopped him he wrote in tinier and tinier script using a box of freshly sharpened pencils each day at his house in Danville, California, now a National Park. He completed the Iceman Cometh and Long Day's Journey into Night that way among other works which came to be called the "Tao House plays" from 1939 - 1943. He lived another ten years unable to write. (Today's adaptive technology would keep him writing as long as his brain worked.)

This Week in Reading October 5 - 11, 2008

There are three Nobel prizewinners this week yet it is unlikely that many of us have heard of more than one of them. Francois Mauriac, who is known for writing about the life of Jesus, is only one of two French novelists born this week to win the Literature prize; the other is Claude Simon. Serbo-Croation novelist Ivo Andric is the third.

Otherwise there are writers from around the world with a few bestseller names among them, hugely successful romance writer Nora Roberts, who also writes mysteries as J. D. Robb, fiction, mystery and western author Elmore Leonard, who also gives writers advice, adventure novelist James Clavell, horror novelist Clive Barker, and historian-novelist Thomas Keneally.

This Week's Question: Significantly, this week is when the Nobel prizes are given out. Last year's prize went to England's Doris Lessing. The one for literature this year will be announced Thursday, October 9. Will it be someone you have read? Or will it not be given out this year?

Answer to Last Week's Question: The two authors from last week that most appeared on lists of books banned in America were Truman Capote and Ann Rice. Capote's novel In Cold Blood was on the list of Top 100 Novels and was banned for its violence, profanity, and sex. Ann Rice writing as A. N. Roquelaure had the 53rd most frequently challenged book between 1990 - 2000 for her erotic Sleeping Beauty trilogy. The first novel in the series sold more copies than Rice's Interview with the Vampire and many of our nation's library copies of her books from this era are now missing or lost. Rice has recently returned to her religious roots, and after being "called out of darkness" writes bestsellers about the life of Jesus now.

This Week in Reading July 13 - 19

There's a lot of variety this week among authors from the popular to the academic. As usual, there's a Nobel prizewinner on the list which is Nigerian playwright Wole Soyinka, and one who won the Peace Prize, but is not a writer per se, Nelson Mandela. There is also poet Yeygeny Yevtushenko and philosophers Jacques Derrida and Herbert Marcuse.

There are also quite a few UK names with an influence on culture such as Thomas Bulfinch, Northrup Frye, and Kenneth Clark, along with novelists William Makepeace Thackeray, Iris Murdoch, A.J. Cronin, and contemporary Susan Howatch. Our country is represented by playwrights Clifford Odets, Arthur Laurents and Tony Kushner, along with commercial novelists, Irving Stone, Erle Stanley Gardner, and Clive Cussler.

This Week's Question: Staying with the idea of obscurity, which somewhat obscure California author born this week wrote the following: "Fiction reveals truths which reality obscures."

Answer to Last Week's Question: "Be obscure clearly" was famously written by E.B. White, the author of the children's books, Stuart Little, and Charlotte's Web, but he was also the 1959 editor of the 1918 William F. Strunk book about writing concisely, The Elements of Style, to which he added essays. The book has been referred to by writers and librarians of all kinds simply as "Strunk and White" for years.

Summer Reading: Fatherland by Robert Harris

Fatherland, a 1992 best-selling hard boiled detective mystery with a twist. It’s 1964, twenty years after Nazi Germany’s victory in WWII. Berlin Detective Xavier March finds his investigation of a corpse anything but routine. In the process he uncovers a conspiracy to cover up the crimes of the Nazi regime in order to safeguard an upcoming meeting of Hitler and U.S. President Joseph P. Kennedy.

Robert Harris’ thriller will appeal to fans of tough detectives. The unique alternative history setting adds another layer of interest to this well-written first novel. Harris has gone on to write historical fiction, including a trilogy about the Roman empire. His newest book is The Ghost, about a ghostwriter working on the memoirs of a former British Prime Minister.

Book jacket from my beat up paperback. The Library owns hard copy, large type and audiobook (cassette) versions.

Holiday Fiction

Peggy, the library's new fiction selector, put together a list of Christmas mysteries and novels to enjoy. Here are some brand new holiday books the library has or will have soon.

Shrouds of Holly, a Pennyfoot Hotel mystery by Kate Kingsbury

In Kingsbury's charming third holiday-themed Pennyfoot Hotel mystery (after 2006's Slay Bells), hotel proprietor Cecily Sinclair Baxter is supervising the final details of the decorations in the ballroom while her husband and the stable master head into the woods to gather holly. All too quickly, the horse-and-carriage return driverless, bearing only the corpse of a stranger. Frantic and dissatisfied with the Badger's End constabulary, Cecily takes it upon herself to find the missing men and identify a murderer. The Edwardian England setting ... in this fast-paced cozy will provide warm holiday entertainment for Kingsbury's many fans. (Publishers Weekly)

Christmas Beginning, a novel (mystery) by Anne Perry

Best-selling mystery author Perry continues her yearly Christmas offering (e.g., A Christmas Secret), this time featuring a character from her William Monk series, Superintendent Runcorn. Investigating the murder of a young woman, Runcorn finds himself distracted by the unlikely attentions of a former love interest. (Library Journal)

The Christmas Promise by Donna Van Liere

From the author of the "New York Times" bestseller "The Christmas Shoes" comes the next inspiring novel in her Christmas Hope series: a deeply moving story about second chances and the power of love. (Book Summary) Also, The Christmas Hope.

The Gift by Richard Paul Evans

Evan's latest Christmas offering (after The Christmas Box and Finding Noel) is the story of Nathan Hurst, a man with a troubled family past. Nathan, who has Tourette's syndrome, travels across the country as a detective for a retail chain. While stranded at the airport just before Thanksgiving, he invites a stranger, Addison, and her two children to share his hotel suite until a storm passes. Nathan finds himself falling for Addison and mysteriously cured of his syndrome by her son's touch. Evans's inspirational titles are perennial best sellers. (Library Journal)

Santa Cruise, a holiday mystery at sea by Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark

At the start of the lighthearted fourth yuletide mystery from the bestselling mother-daughter Clarks (after 2004's The Christmas Thief), Randolph Weed, "self-styled commodore," launches his newly refurbished boat, the Royal Mermaid, from Miami with a "Santa Cruise" to raise money for charity and reward 400 "Do-Gooders of the Year." Meanwhile, Weed's greedy nephew, Eric Manchester, has made a secret $2 million deal with escaped felons Bull's-Eye Tony Pinto and Barron Highbridge to keep them hidden aboard the Royal Mermaid until it reaches Fishbowl Island, where they can make trouble out of federal jurisdiction. Fortunately, there are plenty of Do-Gooders to foil the bad guys, notably the mystery mavens of the Oklahoma Readers and Writers group and sleuthing philanthropist Alvirah Meehan. Full of mystery-lite cheer ... (Publishers Weekly)

A Christmas Visitor, a Cape Light novel by Thomas Kinkade

[Yes, that Thomas Kinkade, the artist!] Christmas comes again to the little town of Cape Light and the spirit of the season gives its residents hope and happiness. (Book Summary)

And. finally, here's a book with has at least one story dealing with other, equally interesting traditions at this time of year:

Mystery Midrash, an anthology of Jewish mystery and detective fiction edited by Lawrence W. Raphael

"This is not `Christmas in the country', Mother," I snapped, too sharply. That "old flame" had hurt. "Russo's just an old friend now, and he asked me to do him this favor. It's a huge family wedding, his mother can't make it, and somebody's got to represent Mike's side of the family. (Excerpt from first story.)

Raphael serves up a feast of well-chosen tastes and textures in this collection of 13 original stories by well-known authors whose characters span the spectrum of American Jewish experience, from secular to orthodox. (Publishers Weekly)

Tempting Titles: Fresh Fiction - July

FICTION

April in Paris by Michael Wallner

It is the summer of 1943, and Wehrmacht corporal Roth finds himself in Paris, translating SS interrogations of French prisoners. He hates the brutality that follows, but it is preferable to being at the front, isn't it? Wanting to find some measure of escape, he secretly trades in his uniform for a checkered suit and transforms himself into Monsieur Antoine, a Frenchman. In this guise, he meets Chantal, a bookseller's daughter who is also a member of the Resistance: he is enchanted by her, she is suspicious of him. Yet when the SS raid the barbershop where Chantal's fellow activists gather, he proves he isn't her enemy despite his nationality. Then, after a bombing at a brothel that kills high-ranking German officers, Roth is suspected of treason and now the translator is the detainee. As Antoine, he had only wanted to "flee reality." Now, reality is all around him. Actor/screenwriter Wallner describes occupied Paris with all the detail and clarity of a spring day. The reader is sympathetic to the hapless Roth, who, despite his contributions to the Nazi machine, is just a young man looking forward to the end of the war. (Library Journal Review)

MYSTERY

A Stranger Lies There by Stephen Santogrossi.


In Santogrossi's engrossing, dark debut (winner of the St. Martin's Press/Malice Domestic contest for Best First Traditional Mystery Novel), the curiously endearing protagonist, Tim Ryder, wakes up one morning to find a dead body on his Palm Springs, Calif., lawn. Ryder, a carpenter, wonders if the murder is connected to testimony he gave against a co-conspirator in a criminal case 30 years earlier, when he did time for a bungled robbery, a misguided attempt to raise money for anti–Vietnam War protests. With the next current-day casualty, the matter becomes more urgent, and even more personal, and Tim is determined to find the killer. On occasion, Santogrossi veers off into preachy description, breaking the cardinal show-don't-tell rule, but his well-drawn characters, unexpected resolution and sharp casual insights make for an energizing read. (Publisher's Weekly Review)

SCIENCE FICTION

Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer.


Starred Review. Nearly 40 years have passed since Dr. Sarah Halifax cracked an encoded message from an alien intelligence. A second encoded message presages the start of a human-alien dialog, and Sarah, now in her eighties, is offered a rare rejuvenation procedure to enable her to live long enough to usher in a new era. When the process succeeds for her husband but fails for her, she must continue her efforts at breaking the new code while coping with a husband with whom she can no longer grow old. Sawyer (Calculating God), winner of the Hugo and Nebula awards, is no stranger to controversial issues. This tale raises many questions about the ethics of life extension. Above all, the author's characters bear their human strengths and weaknesses with dignity and poise. An elegantly told story for all libraries; highly recommended. (Library Journal Review)

Tempting Titles: Fresh Fiction - May

FICTION:

God of Animals by Aryn Kyle

Kyle's novel begins as adolescent narrator Alice Winston recounts the almost simultaneous departure of her sister, Nona, who elopes with a rodeo cowboy, and the drowning of Polly Cain, one of Alice's classmates. These events loom like specters over the rest of the novel, which brims with a confidence and assuredness atypical of a debut. In light of Nona's exodus, Alice becomes her father's primary assistant in tending the family's barn and her bedridden mother's intermediary to the outside world. Alice's penchant for prevarication—she makes a pretense of having been Polly Cain's best friend—helps her repel this harsh reality. In Alice, Kyle has created an adolescent voice that is charming and authentic but that also has its irksome tics: surprising events always inspire such hyperbolic responses as "the air around me sucked to the rims of the earth" and "Everything was coming undone…the entire world breaking into pieces beneath me." In the long run, though, this is a carp, as the voice exerts an irresistible pull. The prospect of other people leaving—Alice's father with a woman he trains—and the revelation of characters' secrets keep the reader glued to the story. Highly recommended for all public libraries. (Library Journal 2006)


MYSTERY:

Died in the Wool by Rett MacPherson

Torie O'Shea, genealogist and president of the New Kassel, Mo., historical society, unearths long-buried family secrets when she puzzles out the strange 1920s suicides of siblings Glory, Whalen and Rupert Kendall in MacPherson's homespun 10th Torie O'Shea mystery (after 2006's Dead Man Running). The old Kendall house is put up for sale, and Torie hopes to buy and reinvent the home as a textile museum, honoring Glory Kendall, a skilled quilter. But Torie's interest broadens beyond historic fabric and needlework when she begins researching the odd circumstances surrounding the deaths of the Kendalls, who were survived by their father, Sanders. The ominous intrigue touches the present day when a friend of Torie's is poisoned with the same substance found long ago in Glory's body. Torie's determined historical detective work will absorb cozy readers. (Publisher's Weekly Review, March 2007)


SCIENCE FICTION:

For a Few Demons More by Kim Harrison

Harrison's (A Fistful of Charms) "Hollows" series moves to hardcover with this fifth volume, which once again finds witch/independent bounty hunter Rachel Morgan in trouble with werewolves, vampires, and demons. A rash of werewolf suicides brings Rachel into another mystery, and when it becomes clear that the obvious suspects aren't behind the murders, Rachel discovers a motive rooted in an ancient curse. Meanwhile, Rachel's relationships with vampires Ivy (her roommate) and Kisten (her boyfriend) continue to evolve in different directions, resulting in a little jealousy and a lot of tension. Other familiar characters, including recovering demon Ceri and perennial villain Trent Kalamack, make appearances that will satisfy and entertain readers of Harrison's earlier books. The well-crafted world of the Hollows continues to grow more complex, and this book relies so much on the setup from the previous book that readers new to the series may find themselves lost. Harrison's following has grown as readers continue to discover her work, and fans of the early books in Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series will enjoy Rachel Morgan's supernatural adventures. Recommended for public libraries. (Library Journal 11/15/06)

The Year of Fog by Michelle Richmond

Photographer Abby Mason’s life is turned upside-down when her fiancé’s young daughter Emma disappears at the beach. Her fiancé Jake is convinced that his daughter drowned that day but Abby believes she was kidnapped and is determined to find the little girl . While the novel chronicles Abby’s search for the missing girl, it also reveals insight into her life, her past, and her passions.

The gripping plot and smooth writing-style will keep you quickly turning the pages up to the end. The Year of Fog is no doubt a satisfying read.

Cage of Stars by Jacquelyn Mitchard

At age twelve Ronnie Swan witnesses the brutal killing of her younger sisters in the backyard of their rural Utah home. Strong faith provides Ronnie’s parents with the strength to forgive the killer of these two girls, but Ronnie cannot. Years pass and eventually she discovers that her sisters’ killer has moved with his family to San Diego. Still angry, Ronnie follows him there and begins a new life, determined to get revenge on this man.

The compelling plot, realistic characters and comfortable writing style make Mitchard's latest book a worthy read.

Tempting Titles: Fresh Fiction - April

FICTION:

Whitethorn Woods by Maeve Binchy

"When a new highway threatens to bypass the town of Rossmore and cut through Whitethorn Woods, everyone has a passionate opinion about whether the town will benefit or suffer. But young Father Flynn is most concerned with the fate of St. Ann's Well, which is set at the edge of the woods and slated for destruction. People have been coming to St. Ann's for generations to share their dreams and fears, and to speak their prayers. Some believe it to be a place of true spiritual power, demanding protection; others think it's a mere magnet for superstitions, easily sacrificed. Not knowing which faction to favor, Father Flynn listens to all those caught up in the conflict, and these are the voices we hear in the stories of Whitethorn Woods - men and women deciding between the traditions of the past and the promises of the future, ordinary people brought vividly to life by Binchy."--BOOK JACKET.

MYSTERY:

What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman

Starred Review. A driver who flees a car accident on a Maryland highway breathes new life into a 30-year-old mystery—the disappearance of the young Bethany sisters at a shopping mall—after she later tells the police she's one of the missing girls. As soon as the mystery woman drops that bombshell, she clams up, placing the new lead detective, Kevin Infante, in a bind, as he struggles to gain her trust while exploring the odd holes in her story. Deftly moving between past and present, Lippman presents the last day both sisters, Sunny and Heather, were seen alive from a variety of perspectives. Subtle clues point to the surprising but plausible solution of the crime and the identity of the mystery woman. (Publisher Weekly Review)

FANTASY:

Odalisque by Fiona McIntosh

"Captured by slave traders in the inhospitable desert, Lazar fought his way to freedom, earning the coveted position of Spur of Percheron. Charged with protecting his adopted city from enemies on both sides of its walls, he has led a charmed life as confidant to and protector of Zar Joreb for many years. But now Joreb is dead. Though Joreb's well-intentioned fifteen-year-old heir, Boaz, will take the title of Zar, the balance of power lies in the hands of his beautiful and cruelly ambitious mother, a former harem slave who rose to power by the Zar's favor. Aside from Lazar, whom Boaz trusts and respects, the young Zar's only friend is Pez, the court jester, a misshapen dwarf whose tricks and diversions are accepted only because he is know to be mad. When a stunning young girl is brought to the palace to fill a space in Boaz's harem, both Boaz and Lazar are surprised by their unexpectedly strong reactions to her. But Ana, the odalisque, finds the closeted world of the harem stifling and unbearable. And unbeknownst to all, the gods themselves are beginning to rise in a cyclical battle that is just the beginning, and will enmesh everyone in the palace in a struggle for the very soul of Percheron."--BOOK JACKET.