Whale of a Tail

September 12, 2016September 8, 2016 / Susan O. / Leave a comment

The Book of Lists – a wonderful book of eclectic knowledge by David Wallechinsky – lists Moby Dick, by Herman Melville, as the Number One Most Boring Classic of all time.

I can’t disagree.

It’s not an easy read, combining flowery Miltonian prose, poems, sea shanties, Shakespearean asides, and some detailed exposition on whaling. The only way I made it through at all was by looking for the thematic and quote references used in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan for a term paper (and there are a long list of them).

Don’t judge me. An easy English credit with an A is still an English credit.

Moby Dick, the story of Captain Ahab’s obsessive pursuit to revenge the loss of his leg to a white whale, was based on a number of true stories – an actual white whale named Mocha-Dick, and the sinking of the whaling ship Essex in the Southern Pacific in 1820. The book was first published in 1851, but never gained ground. By the time of Melville’s death more than 30 years later, only 3,000 copies had been sold.

When cut up and rehashed to a sensible, modern vernacular, Moby Dick is a good, straight adventure novel at heart, the story of a man who feels wronged by a whale and will do anything, risk anything or anyone, to have his revenge, and a giant marine mammal who’s been around enough not to fear a wooden fish filled with pesky mariners. And there have been a number of decent movie adaptions to capture that fatal showdown.

The most recent, and most intriguing, is In the Heart of the Sea. This one gives the story a twist by going back further, to tell the tale of the Essex, as Melville is learning the facts and trying to write Moby Dick. Starring Chris Hemsworth, current action-hero, it’s a worthy film that covers all the points without getting bogged down in Melville. It’s the story behind the story, so to speak.

The “classic” Moby Dick tale comes from 1956, starring Gregory Peck, with a screenplay by Ray Bradbury. A masterpiece of its time, it’s dated for today’s audiences.

A longer but more modern version is 1998’s Miniseries, starring Patrick Stewart as Ahab (and Gregory Peck as Father Mapple, originally played by Orson Welles). Running four hours, it won Gregory Peck an Emmy award for Best Supporting Actor.

If you’ve hacked through Moby Dick, or enjoyed watching one of the films, there are similar books and films certain to keep your whaling interest. Leviathan, by Eric Jay Dolin, will give you a history of whaling in America. In the Heart of the Sea began as a book by detailed historian Nathaniel Philbrick. War of the Whales by Joshua Horwitz uncovers the true story of an ultrasonic submarine detection program run by the US Navy that was causing whales to beach themselves. To learn more about several different types of whales, try The Grandest of Lives : Eye to Eye with Whales by Douglas H. Chadwick. For stories that mimic Moby Dick but aren’t about whales, try Ray Bradbury’s Leviathan 99, or, of course, Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan. If you want to go for the thematic stretch, you could include the musical Sweeney Todd here, too. “To seek revenge may lead to Hell/ but everyone does it and seldom as well.” Of course, the perfect summer trip is to recreated whaling village Mystic Seaport, where you can walk the decks of the whaler Charles W. Morgan and feel the wind of the sea in your hair.

Whales Charles_W_Morgan_2008 aren’t fish. They’re aquatic mammals: they breathe air, give birth to live young (ones that weigh a full ton), and feed them off milk just like any other mammal. They are known to be intelligent, and the scenario of Moby Dick, of such a mammal remembering who may have harmed it and seeking out revenge of its own, is entirely in the realm of possibility.

Classic Spinoffs

August 29, 2016August 15, 2016 / Kaitlin / Leave a comment

Have you read any classic books? Even if you haven’t, you can still enjoy the books on this list. These are inspired by classics as they tell the stories of supporting characters, are prequels or sequels to the classic stories, or even retell the classics themselves. Read them all!

Gertrude and Claudius by John Updike
This prequel to Hamlet tells the story of Gertrude Queen of Denmark before the action of Shakespeare’s Hamlet begins. Updike brings to life Gertrude’s girlhood as the daughter of King Rorik, her arranged marriage to the man who becomes King Hamlet, and her middle-aged affair with her husband’s younger brother.

Madame Bovary’s Daughter by Linda Urbach
This continuation of Flaubert’s classic Madame Bovary finds twelve-year-old Berthe cast off by society in the aftermath of her mother’s suicide and sent to live with her impoverished grandmother, from where she eventually rises through the ranks of Charles Worth’s famed fashion empire.

The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, or, On the Segregation of the Queen by Laurie R. King
In 1914, a young woman named Mary Russell meets a retired beekeeper on the Sussex Downs. His name is Sherlock Holmes. The Great Detective is no fool, and can spot a fellow intellect even in a fifteen-year-old woman. So, at first informally, then consciously, he takes Mary as his apprentice.

Juliet’s Nurse by Lois Leveen
A new telling of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, from the perspective of Juliet’s nurse. In Verona, a city ravaged by plague and political rivalries, a mother mourning the death of her day-old infant enters the household of the powerful Cappelletti family to become the wet-nurse to their newborn baby. As she serves her beloved Juliet over the next fourteen years, the nurse learns the Cappelletti’s darkest secrets.

Ruth’s Journey by Donald McCaig
A prequel to one of the most beloved and bestselling novels of all time, Gone with the Wind. The critically acclaimed author of Rhett Butler’s People magnificently recounts the life of Mammy, one of literature’s greatest supporting characters, from her days as a slave girl to the outbreak of the Civil War.

Revenge by Stephen Fry
This brilliant recasting of the classic story The Count of Monte Cristo centers on Ned Maddstone, a happy, charismatic, Oxford-bound seventeen-year-old whose rosy future is virtually pre-ordained. Handsome, confident, and talented, newly in love with bright, beautiful Portia, his father an influential MP, Ned leads a charmed life. But privilege makes him an easy target for envy, and in the course of one day Ned’s destiny is forever altered.

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
A woman discovers that the past of her family is connected to the stories of Vlad the Impaler, the man who inspired Dracula and must decide whether to follow her father in a hunt that nearly brought him to ruin years ago, when he was a vibrant young scholar and her mother was still alive.

Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein: Prodigal Son
This is a retelling of Frankenstein set in New Orleans. In the 19th century, Dr. Victor Frankenstein brought his first creation to life, but a horrible turn of events forced him to abandon his creation and fall away from the public eye. Now, two centuries later, a serial killer is on the loose in New Orleans, and he’s salvaging body parts from each of his victims, as if he’s trying to create the perfect person. But the two detectives assigned to the case are about to discover that something far more sinister is going on…

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Jean Rhys brings into the light one of fiction’s most mysterious characters: the madwoman in the attic from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. Set in the Caribbean, its heroine is Antoinette Cosway, a sensual and protected young woman who is sold into marriage to the prideful Rochester. In this best-selling novel, Rhys portrays a society so driven by hatred, so skewed in its sexual relations, that it can literally drive a woman out of her mind.

Monsignor Quixote by Graham Greene
When Father Quixote, a local priest of the Spanish village of El Toboso who claims ancestry to Cervantes’ fictional Don Quixote, is elevated to the rank of monsignor through a clerical error, he sets out on a journey to Madrid to purchase purple socks appropriate to his new station. Accompanying him on his mission is his best friend, Sancho, the Communist ex-mayor of the village who argues politics and religion with Quixote and rescues him from the various troubles his innocence lands him in along the way.

There are many, many more books that are inspired by the classics. Sometimes even classics are inspired by other classics! What are your favorite classic spinoffs?

Flowers Are Blooming

August 15, 2016July 13, 2016 / Linda / Leave a comment

flowers 2

Everywhere you look, there are beautiful flowers blooming. Nature’s artwork is a feast for the eyes. Another feast for the eyes, is a good book to read. To continue with the flower theme, here’s a list of fiction books with ‘flower’ in the title. Pick a title, find a beautiful place to sit, and enjoy your reading!

The Language of Flowers – Vanessa Diffenbaugh.
Discovering the symbolic meanings of flowers while languishing in the foster-care system, 18-year-old Victoria is hired by a florist, a situation that leads to a romantic prospect and the confrontation of a painful secret from her past.

All The Flowers Are Dying – Lawrence Block.
Matthew Scudder, with his eye keenly on retirement, unofficially investigates the suspicious online suitor of an acquaintance, and finds his own life in grave danger.

Send No Flowers – Sandra Brown.
Since the death of her husband, Alicia Russell has struggled to take care of her two young sons alone. Now fiercely independent, she is determined to never again depend on another person. But when a sudden storm threatens to ruin a family camping trip, Alicia finds it hard to say no to a stranger offering a night’s refuge–especially when the man playing hero offers much more than shelter from the storm.

A Hundred Flowers – Gail Tsukiyama.
A tale set during the Chinese Cultural Revolution follows the struggles of Kai Ying to safeguard her family when her teacher husband is arrested and sent to a “reeducation” labor camp for criticizing the Communist Party.

The Blood of Flowers – Anita Amirrezani.
After her father dies without leaving her with a dowry, a seventeenth-century Persian teen becomes a servant to her wealthy rug designer uncle in the court of Shah Abbas the Great, where her weaving talents prove both a blessing and curse.

Flowers on Main – Sherryl Woods.
When she abandons Chicago and returns home to open a flower shop, writer Bree O’Brien finds her new life anything but peaceful when her estranged mother arrives and her former lover, Jake Collins, tries to run her out of town.

The War of Flowers – Tad Williams.
When his music career becomes stagnant, thirty-year-old Theo Vilmos seeks solace in a secluded cabin in the woods where he discovers an old book written by his great-uncle that transports him into the terrifying world of Faerie – a strange and dangerous place that holds the key to his destiny.

Queen of the Flowers – Kerry Greenwood.
Chosen Queen of the Flowers for St. Kilda’s first Flower Parade festival, Phryne Fisher finds the glamour of her crown wearing off when one of her attendants vanishes. She launches her own investigation, which is complicated by the disappearance of her adopted daughter Ruth and a not-so-pleasant reunion with an old lover.

All The Flowers in Shanghai – Duncan Jepson.
A young Chinese woman plots revenge after being forced into a cruel arranged marriage in 1930s Shanghai as the entire country begins to become gripped in a growing call for revolution.

The Art of Arranging Flowers – Lynne Branard.
After 20 years as an intuitive florist who has helped her friends, neighbors, and customers with their romances, celebrations, and sympathy gestures, Ruby Jewell looks to the power of that community to heal her floundering spirit after her sister’s death.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan – Lisa See.
A story of friendship set in nineteenth-century China follows an elderly woman and her companion as they communicate their hopes, dreams, joys, and tragedies through a unique secret language.

What’s Trending at Cheshire Public Library

August 6, 2016July 13, 2016 / Linda / Leave a comment

what's trending

It’s not only the newest titles that are popular among our patrons. Here are the top ten older fiction books trending at the library.

The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy.
In 1969 in Kerala, India, Rahel and her twin brother, Estha, struggle to forge a childhood for themselves amid the destruction of their family life, as they discover that the entire world can be transformed in a single moment.

The Goldfinch – Donna Tartt.
Taken in by a wealthy family friend after surviving an accident that killed his mother, thirteen-year-old Theo Decker tries to adjust to life on Park Avenue.

Orphan Train -Christina Baker Kline.
Close to aging out of the foster care system, Molly Ayer takes a position helping an elderly woman named Vivian and discovers that they are more alike than different as she helps Vivian solve a mystery from her past.

Gone Girl – Gillian Flynn.
When a woman goes missing on her fifth wedding anniversary, her diary reveals hidden turmoil in her marriage, while her husband, desperate to clear himself of suspicion, realizes that something more disturbing than murder may have occurred.

The Girl On The Train – Paula Hawkins.
Obsessively watching a breakfasting couple every day to escape the pain of her losses, Rachel witnesses a shocking event that inextricably entangles her in the lives of strangers.

The Kitchen House – Kathleen Grissom.
Working as an indentured servant alongside slaves on a tobacco plantation, Lavinia, a seven-year-old Irish orphan with no memory of her past, finds her light skin and situation placing her between two very different worlds that test her loyalties.

Big Little Lies – Laine Moriarty.
Follows three mothers, each at a crossroads, and their potential involvement in a riot at a school trivia night that leaves one parent dead in what appears to be a tragic accident, but the evidence shows it might have been premeditated.

The Invention of Wings – Sue Monk Kidd.
Traces more than three decades in the lives of a wealthy Charleston debutante who longs to break free from the strictures of her household and pursue a meaningful life, and the urban slave, Handful, who is placed in her charge as a child before finding courage and a sense of self.

One Plus One – JoJo Moyes.
A single mom trying to raise a bullied stepson and a mathlete daughter finds an unexpected rescue in the form of an obnoxious tech millionaire named Geeky Ed.

Winter Garden – Kristin Hannah.
Reunited when their beloved father falls ill, sisters Meredith and Nina find themselves under the shadow of their disapproving mother, whose painful history is hidden behind her rendition of a Russian fairy tale told to the sisters in childhood.

Looking For Some Hot Romance to Read?

August 3, 2016June 28, 2016 / Linda / 1 Comment

hearts 2

We’re into the hot and steamy summer. Here’s a new author with a hot romance series to help you feel the burn.

Chanel Cleeton is the author of the new series Wild Aces. It’s about a group of F-16 fighter pilots who fly fast, love hard, and live dangerously. The stories are sexy, funny, emotional, and heart wrenching. These are the very realistic portrayals of relationships between military and non-military couples – touching on the struggles and triumphs of loving a military person.

The first book in the series is Fly With Me. While partying in Las Vegas, clothing boutique owner Jordan Callahan takes a gamble on U.S. Air Force fighter pilot Noah Miller, but when the dangers of his job become all too real, she must decide whether or not she is ready to risk everything for love.

Having the story told from both Jordan’s and Noah’s point of view in vivid detail was an added bonus. The author nailed the dynamics between them – the reader feels their frustration, their happiness, their love, their wild ride of emotions. The characters are in their 30’s or older, so there is a bit of maturity about the story. The secondary characters prove to be just as interesting as the main couple and you’ll be eager to read about them in upcoming books.

Being in love is hard. Being in the military adds a whole other dimension to it. This is a beautifully written story that let’s you inside the emotional journey.

Book two is Into the Blue . Eric Jansen—call sign Thor—loves nothing more than pushing his F-16 to the limit. Returning home to South Carolina after a tragic loss, he hopes to fix the mistake he made long ago, when he chose the Air Force over his fiancée. Becca Madison isn’t quick to welcome Thor back. She can’t forget how he shattered her heart. But Thor won’t give up once he’s set his sights on what he wants—and he wants Becca. Thor shows Becca that he’s no longer the impulsive boy he used to be, and Becca finds herself irresistibly drawn to him. But will Thor be able to walk away from his dream of flying the F-16 for their love or does his heart belong to the sky?

About The Author

chanel Originally a Florida girl, Chanel moved to London where she received a bachelor’s degree from Richmond, The American International University in London and a master’s degree from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Chanel fell in love with London and planned to stay there forever, until fate intervened on a Caribbean cruise and a fighter pilot with smooth dance moves swept her off her feet. Now, a happily ever after later, Chanel is living her next adventure. She started out with publishing e-books and has now graduated to paperback novels.

Caution: This series may be too sexually explicit for some readers. (But you can do what I do, skip over the explicit parts. These books are too good to pass up!)