A Soldier’s Sacrifice : Memorial Day Reads

May 25, 2013May 21, 2014 / cheshirelib / Leave a comment

To many of us, Memorial Day weekend has come to mean parades, barbecues, or maybe just the kickoff of summer. But the true meaning behind Memorial Day is to commemorate our military men & women who have lost their lives in service to America. After that barbecue, why not check out one of these books that pay tribute to those who’ve served?

Flags of Our Fathers by James Bradley. The story behind the raising of the U.S. flag on the Pacific island of Iwo Jima, February 23, 1945, made famous by the photo on the cover. The men in the photo—three were killed during the battle—were proclaimed heroes and flown home, to become reluctant symbols. For two of them, the adulation was shattering. Only James Bradley’s father truly survived, displaying no copy of the famous photograph in his home, telling his son only: “The real heroes of Iwo Jima were the guys who didn’t come back.” (This book was also adapted for film by Clint Eastwood.)

Jarhead : a Marine’s Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battlesby Anthony Swofford. The author weaves this experience of war with vivid accounts of boot camp (which included physical abuse by his drill instructor), reflections on the mythos of the marines, and remembrances of battles with lovers and family. As engagement with the Iraqis draws closer, he is forced to consider what it is to be an American, a soldier, a son of a soldier, and a man.

Where Men Win Glory : the Odyssey of Pat Tillman by John Krakauer. Irrepressible individualist and iconoclast Pat Tillman walked away from his $3.6 million NFL contract in May 2002 to enlist in the United States Army. Deeply troubled by 9/11, he felt a strong moral obligation to join the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Two years later, he died on a desolate hillside in Afghanistan. Biographer Krakauer draws on his journals and letters, interviews with his wife and friends, and conversations with the soldiers who served alongside him to tell this story.

The Things They Carried by Tom O’Brien. A fictional story of the war in Vietnam, The Things They Carried depicts the men of Alpha Company: Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Norman Bowker, Kiowa, and the character Tim O’Brien, who has survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and writer at the age of forty-three. This critically acclaimed novel is a meditation on war, memory, imagination, and the redemptive power of storytelling.

One to Watch: After Earth

May 19, 2013May 15, 2013 / Susan O. / 1 Comment

After Earth is a big-budget ($130 million) science-fiction adventure film starring Will Smith and his son Jayden as a father & son who crash-land on Earth a thousand years after man has abandoned it, and the adventure they have trying to escape the dangerous wild habitat the Earth has become. Smith himself came up with the basic story, and worked with screenwriter Gary Whitta to carry the idea further. Due for release on May 31, 2013, it is expected to be a blockbuster.

Will Smith, acting as producer, hired director M. Night Shyamalan (Unbreakable, The Sixth Sense, Signs) for the film. This was the first time in twenty years that Shyamalan accepted a project based on someone else’s screenplay (the final screenplay was done by Stephen Gaghan). This would also be Shyamalan’s first digital film.

Science-fiction adventure stories come and go, but what makes After Earth a unique film is the backstory. Normally, a film is scripted, filmed, and then if it is successful, writers are hired to create backstory, a “Bible” from which movie tie-ins, novels, short stories, and future scripts can draw material to make a unified vision of that world. After Earth is the first film to flesh out its backstory before the scripting was even finished. Three expert writers were hired for that task: Peter David, Robert Greenberger, and Michael Jan Friedman, all of whom were well-versed in writing not only successful science-fiction and comics, but media tie-ins as well. All three collaborated in creating the “universe” in which the story takes place, the what, why, where, when and how, working on set with Smith, Shyamalan, and the scriptwriters to make the story as cohesive and believable as possible.

As told to me by Bob Greenberger, the three authors worked from the original Whitta script, taking tiny open references and creating minute details that would answer any questions the production team might have as to what cataclysms sent man from Earth, why Nova Prime, and what happened in the intervening years. Over a period of two years, this background encyclopedia grew to more than four hundred pages! If you’ve seen anything about the film in print, on the internet, or in film references, you can pretty much guarantee that information came from their work.

Of course, such detail and planning spawns stories on its own. Several novels centering around the movie are poised for release: After Earth, the novelization of the film by Peter David, The Perfect Beast (After Earth: Ghost Stories) by Peter David, Robert Greenberger, and Michael Jan Friedman, and After Earth: United Ranger Corps Survival Manual by Robert Greenberger, as well as several short e-stories available for Kindle Purchase, with more to come in the ensuing months.

With a top-notch cast and writing crew like that, how can After Earth be anything but a hit? Check out these other books by these great authors, (or meet them in person at the Shoreleave Science Fiction Convention in Baltimore this August).

Author Profile/Book Review: Against the Edge by Kat Martin

May 11, 2013August 27, 2014 / Linda / 1 Comment

Kat Martin is a New York Times bestselling author of over fifty historical and contemporary romance suspense novels. She currently lives in Missoula, Montana with her husband. Kat is a graduate of the University of California where she majored in Anthropology and studied History. Before starting her writing career in 1985, she was a real estate broker. That’s where she met her husband, Larry Jay Martin, author of more than 20 westerns and mysteries.

Most of her ideas for books just pop up in her head, but she does occasionally get ideas from newspapers and television. Her books are published in twenty foreign countries.

Against the Edge is book number eight in the Against series. You don’t need to read the others in any order as they stand alone just fine.

Former Navy SEAL Ben Slocum receives the shock of his life when a stranger appears on his doorstep announcing that a child he didn’t even know he had is missing. Claire Chastain is a friend of the boy’s late mother and is desperate to find him and seeks Ben’s help. They band together to track down the kidnapper, all the while trying to fight the attraction they feel for each other. Ben enlists the help of his fellow private investigators and end up traveling through several states in search of an off grid survivalist group who might have his son, Sam. To add an interesting twist to the story, Claire’s old boyfriend shows up with his own trouble that Claire gets drawn into.

This book is filled with drama, suspense, action, romance, and likeable characters. It is fun to watch Ben and Claire’s relationship take hold. The author weaves a believable story of both characters’ pasts that adds great interest to the book. The secondary characters (some have been introduced in past Against books) add another enjoyable layer.

Listen Up! with an Audiobook

April 22, 2013April 17, 2013 / Susan O. / Leave a comment

Don’t have time to read? Driving a long commute, or perhaps an out-of-state trip? Do you have trouble focusing on printed words? Try an audio book! Cheshire Library has a large collection of books on cd, from mysteries to romance, to fiction, non-fiction, science-fiction, and foreign languages, and we add at least one new selection a day. Here’s a list of just some of our newest additions in the past month:

Whiskey Beach by Nora Roberts

Toms River by Dan Fagin

The Hormone Cure by Sara Gottfried

Suspect by Robert Crais [Cover]

Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell

Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody

Pukka’s Promise: The Quest for Longer-lived dogs by Ted Kerasote

Rita Moreno: A Memoir By Rita Moreno

The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte [Cover] Cristo by Tom Reiss

The Dogs of War by Lisa Rogak

When Your Parent Becomes Your Child by Ken Abraham

Car Talk: 25 Years of Lousy Car Advice

Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II by Keith Lowe

A Land More Kind than Home by Wiley Cash

The Butterfly’s Daughter by Mary Alice Monroe

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte

Red Ink: Inside the High-Stakes Politics of the Federal Budget by David Wessel

My Beloved World by Sonia Sotomayor

Author Profile: Nora Roberts

April 21, 2013June 5, 2014 / Linda / 1 Comment

Nora Roberts was born in Silver Springs, Maryland, the youngest of five children. She married young and worked briefly as a legal secretary – “the worst ever”. After her two sons were born, she became a stay at home mom and immersed herself into gardening, canning, stitching and knitting.

Her road to writing began during the February blizzard of 1979. Stranded at home with her two young sons and a lack of chocolate, she was looking for some non-child related entertainment. Coming from a family of readers, she got a notebook and started writing down a story that was in her head. She knew then that writing was the thing she was supposed to do.

She started writing category romance (also known as “series”), since she had just started reading Harlequin romances. At the time, Harlequin had mainly British authors and was the only publisher of category romances. All of her manuscripts were rejected.

In 1980, she heard of a new publisher, Silhouette, who was looking for American authors to write category romances and in 1981, they bought Nora’s first manuscript, Irish Thoroughbred.

In July 1985, Nora married her second husband – a local carpenter she hired to build some shelves for her home. He went on to build many things in her home – including a solid marriage.

In 1987, she began writing single title books for Bantam. In 1992, she moved to writing single title hardcovers as well as original paperbacks for Putnam under the name of Nora Roberts and J.D. Robb.

In the early years, she wrote when she could squeeze in the time between her sons’ school time and activities. Now she spends 8 hours a day, every day, writing. She has written over 200 books. When she’s not writing, she tries to exercise in her pool or elliptical trainer and she is an avid gardener.

Nora’s husband, Bruce Wilder, owns a bookstore named Turn the Page Bookstore and Café in nearby Boonsboro, Maryland. Directly across the street was an old, run down hotel which Nora and her husband bought in 2007. They began renovating it into a bed and breakfast called Inn BoonsBoro. This was not an easy undertaking. In February 2008, the Inn caught fire and was completely destroyed, and many buildings on the block were damaged. Undaunted, they started from scratch and in February 2009, the Inn opened to rave reviews. This experience inspired The Inn BoonsBoro Trilogy. The titles of this trilogy are: The Next Always, The Last Boyfriend, The PerfectHope.

Some fun facts:

Since 1999, every Nora Roberts and J.D. Robb book has made the New York Times bestseller list. Fifty-three have debuted at number one.
Celebrity in Death is the 34^th book in the series.
She is the third author to sell more than one million Kindle books.
Her books are published in over 34 countries.
If you place her books from top to bottom, they would stretch from New York to Los Angeles 18 times.
Many of Nora’s books have been made into movies shown on Lifetime television.
Nora was one of the first authors to communicate via the web when she launched her website in 1996.

Her latest book as Nora Roberts is Whiskey Beach and as J.D. Robb, the title is Calculated In Death and are available at the Cheshire Library.