Happy Birthday to Neil Gaiman! (November 10)

gaimanhimselfAs of November 10, 2015 Neil Gaiman is 55 years old. He is a supporter of libraries, the arts, and is everything that this librarian could want in an author. Neil is the author of books from a wide range of genre’s, and for every age group. His body of work is extensive, and includes many groundbreaking volumes. He is also the father of three children from his first marriage, now grown adults, and a new baby just born on September 16 with his wife Amanda Palmer who is a singer, song writer, performance artist, and author. To make him even cooler in my eyes, he is also good friends with singer/songwriter Tori Amos and godfather of her daughter. I am admittedly a bit of a fangirl.

gaiman5Gaiman began his writing career in England as a journalist. His first book was a Duran Duran biography that took him three months to write, and his second was a biography of Douglas Adams, Don’t Panic: The Official Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Companion. Soon afterward he collaborated or creating in graphic novels such as Violent Cases, Black Orchid, and Sandman. Over the years he has added picturebooks, children’s fiction, adult fiction, television, film, and theater to his body of work. This includes writing for one of my favorite shows, Doctor Who. He also does the narration for most, if not all, of the audiobook versions of his work.

Neil and his works have won many nominations and awards over the year. A few of the awards include: Kurt Vonnegut Jr Award For Literature, Boston Public Library Literary Lights For Children, CBLDF Defender of Liberty, The “Galaxy” Award (China) for Most Popular Foreign Author, Horn Book Honors, Kirkus Reviews Best Children’s Books, ALA Booklist Editors’ Choice: Books for Youth, Hugo Award, IndieBound Award, and many, many more.

gaiman1Here is a sampling of his works, though far from comprehensive. They are in no particular order.
Picturebooks:
Chu’s Day
Chu’s First Day of School
Chu’s Day at the Beach
The Wolves in the Walls
Blueberry Girl
Crazy Hairgaiman2
Instructions: Everything you’ll Need to Know on your Journey

Children’s and Young Adult Books:
Fortunately, the Milk
M is for Magic
The Graveyard Book
Coraline
Hansel & Gretel: a Toon Graphic
Odd and the Frost Giants
Interworld
The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountainsgaiman3
The Books of Magic
Marvel 1602

Adult Books:
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
The Make Good Art Speech
Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbancesgaiman4
Anansi Boys
American Gods
Stardust
Good Omens
Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions
Neil Gaiman’s Lady Justice. Vol. 1

November is Aviation History Month

aviationConnecticut is rich in history when it comes to aviation.  Some of the biggest aviation manufacturers are located in Connecticut including: Sikorsky, United Technologies, sikorskyLockheed Martin, and Pratt & Whitney.  There are dozens of smaller companies that supply all sorts of parts and support to the aviation industry.  Connecticut is not only home to Bradley airportInternational Airport, but to many small local air fields as well.  There is Candlelight Farms Airport in New Milford, Groton-New London Airport, Markham Municipal Airport in Meriden, Ripley Field Airport in Litchfield  to name a few, along with many heliports throughout the state.  Most of the larger hospitals have heliports, and many companies also have their own heliports.

new englandConnecticut is fortunate to have a wonderful air musuem – The New England Air Museum in Windsor Locks.   And the Cheshire Library is fortunate to offer a pass for reduced admission to this museum, courtesy of the Friends of the Cheshire Public Library.  For more information on this pass, click here.

The library also offers an extensive collection of materials about aviation.  For a list of titles, click here.  Below is a tiny sampling:

Chasing Icarus

Area 51 Black Jets

Fly By Wire: the geese, the glide, the miracle on the Hudson

Birdmen: the Wright Brothers, Glenn Curtiss and the right to control the skies

The Aviator’s Wife Melanie Benjamin (Fiction)

Fly By Night – Ward Larson (Fiction)

Against Wind and Tide – Anne Morrow Lindbergh (Biography)

The Aviator   (DVD)

If you are interested in building paper airplanes, the library offers these titles.

  

 

Famous People Make Great Fictional Sleuths

I love it when well-known historical figures pop up in books I am reading. Since I could (and probably will!) write several posts on this topic, I thought I’d start with one of the most popular ways that famous people of the past get cast in novels: as amateur sleuths.

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Let’s begin with Eleanor Roosevelt, who appears as the chief mystery-solver in the Eleanor Roosevelt Mystery series  written by her son, the late Elliot Roosevelt. This enchanting series is a blend of fictionalized history and cozy mystery with a strong dollop of the atmosphere of the Roosevelt White House years as it can only be portrayed by an insider.

Going back in time to 18th century London, we encounter Benjamin Franklin in the mystery series by Robert Lee Hall. Books like, London Blood: Further Adventures of an American Agent Abroad, tell of Franklin’s detective experiences. His illegitimate son Nick, the narrator, is at Franklin’s side through the seven adventures that take place during the time Franklin was in England to intercede for the American colonies with the British government.

Jacket.aspxWho’s next? Jane Austen, of course, in the series by Stephanie Barron. Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor is the first in this series that depicts Jane as a sleuth with a subtle sense of humor and an eye for noticing, with excruciating exactness, nuances in the behavior of others.

And then there’s the ultimate real-person-as-fictional-sleuth genre in which famous authors cast themselves as the main crime solving character! Famous for this type of series are Steve Allen and Ed Koch. Allen penned a series featuring himself and his wife, Jayne Meadows. Books like Die Laughing are written with Allen’s trademark humor and wit. Former mayor of New York Koch also starred himself in stories such as The Senator Must Die, in which Hizzoner out-sleuths everyone around him.

I have to admit, though, my favorite mystery series that highlights the famous is Stuart Kaminsky’s Toby Peters mystery series. Although Toby Peters is a fictional character, his cases in the Hollywood of the thirties and forties bring him in contact with famous clients such as Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Charlie Chaplin, Salvador Dali and many others. These famous people often help him solve the case. I especially loved To Catch a Spy featuring Cary Grant, who may or may not be spying for the U.S. government during the early days of World War II, and A Fatal Glass of Beer, featuring a hard-drinking, hard-talking, shotgun-wielding W.C. Fields.

Looking for more? Try these:

Jacket.aspx3The Beatrix Potter mystery series by Susan Wittig Albert

Blue Suede Clues: A Murder Mystery featuring Elvis Presley by Daniel M, Klein

Hemingway Deadlights by Michael Atkinson (featuring Ernest Hemingway)

The Color of Death by Bruce Alexander (featuring Sir John Fielding, founder of the first police force in London in the 1700s.)

A Marked Man by Barbara Hamilton (featuring Abigail Adams)

Escape Artist: an Edna Ferber mystery by Ed Ifkovic

The Illusion of Murder by Carol McCleary (featuring reporter Nellie Bly)

 

 

On Our Shelves: Romance

love

Now that the kids are back to school, find a comfy chair, put your feet up and lose yourself in a sizzling romance!

Contemporary

Home by Morning – Kaki Warner

Truly Madly Montana – Fiona Lowe

I Want You To Want Me – Erika Kelly

Truly Sweet – Candis Terry

Trouble When You Walked In – Kieran Kramer

Made For Us – Samantha Chase

The Name of the Game Jennifer Dawson

All Wrapped Up – Kimberly Kincaid

Snowflake Bay – Donna Kauffman

Love Somebody Like You – Susan Fox

Playing with Fire – Kate Meader

All I Want – Jill Shalvis

Historical

The Daughter of an Earl – Victoria Morgan

The Duke Can Go to the Devil – Erin Knightley

Put Up Your Duke – Megan Frampton

The Highlander Takes a Bride – Lynsay Sands

All The Ways to Ruin A Rogue – Sophie Jordan

The Earl Claims a Bride – Amelia Grey

The Legend of Lyon Redmond – Julie Ann Long

Some Like It Scot – Suzanne Enoch

Tall, Dark and Wicked – Madeline Hunter

Romantic Suspense

Exit Strategy – Lena Diaz

Hard to Let Go – Laura Kaye

Hot Point – M.L. Buchman

Claimed – Elle Kennedy

Paranormal

Flight From Death – Jasmine Galenorn

Vipers Rule – Stephanie Tyler

Earth Bound – Christine Feehan

Binding TIes – Shannon K. Butcher

 

Love & Laughter: 10 Romances That Will Make You Laugh Out Loud

Light, lovely, and hilarious, these books are perfect for rainy days and lazy weekends. Indulge yourself in a little humor and romance!

AnyoneAnyone But You by Jennifer Crusie
For Nina Askew, turning forty means freedom—from the ex-husband, their and stuffy suburban home, freedom to focus on what she wants. And what she wants is something her ex always vetoed—a puppy. A bouncy, adorable puppy. Instead she gets…Fred. Overweight, middle-aged, a bit smelly, Fred is light-years from perky. But he does manage to put Nina in the path of Alex Moore, her gorgeous, younger-by-a-decade neighbor.

Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie KinsellaShop
Becky Bloomwood has a fabulous flat in London’s trendiest neighborhood, a troupe of glamorous socialite friends, and a closet brimming with the season’s must-haves. The only trouble is, she can’t actually afford any of it

EnchantedEnchanted, Inc. by Shanna Swendson
Katie Chandler quickly learns that office politics are even more complicated when your new boss is a real ogre, and you have a crush on the sexy, shy, ultra powerful head of the R&D department, who is so busy fighting an evil competitor threatening to sell black magic on the street that he seems barely to notice her. Now it’s up to Katie to pull off the impossible: save the world and–hopefully–live happily ever after.

Single in Suburbia by Wendy WaxSingle
Amanda’s husband has just traded her in for an affair with a teenybopper. Brooke is a trophy wife collecting dust. And Candace (Don’t call me Candy) has had too many husbands and too little love. What do these three unlikely accomplices have in common besides a Little League team called the Mudhens? A plot to reclaim a little r-e-s-p-e-c-t.

RosieThe Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion
Meet Don Tillman, a brilliant yet socially inept professor of genetics, who’s decided it’s time he found a wife. In the orderly, evidence-based manner with which Don approaches all things, he designs the Wife Project to find his perfect partner: a sixteen-page, scientifically valid survey to filter out the drinkers, the smokers, the late arrivers.

The Grand Finale by Janet EvanovichFinale
Berry Knudson had a talent for disaster, but when she climbed a tree to rescue a kitten, she wasn’t prepared for the scrumptious hunk undressing in a nearby window, or her dive downward that smashed Jake Sawyer’s pizza and won his heart!

dogsMust Love Dogs by Claire Cook
Divorced preschool teacher Sarah Hurlihy’s first mistake is letting her bossy big sister write her personal ad. Her second mistake is showing up to meet her first date in more than a decade. Now she’s juggling her teaching job, her big, rollicking, interfering south-of-Boston Irish family, and more men than she knows what to do with.

Recipe for Disaster by Stacy BallisRecipe
A delicious broth of a novel about a woman whose perfect life falls apart in spectacular fashion–leaving her with a house to restore, an antique cookbook (but no cooking talent), and one very unhappy schnauzer.

LadyThe Little Lady Agency by Hester Browne
To avoid embarrassing her father, a Member of Parliament, Melissa dons a blonde wig and becomes “Honey,” a no-nonsense bombshell who helps clueless bachelors shop, entertain, and navigate social minefields. She even attends parties if a client needs a “date.” But when a dashing American starts to request Honey’s services on a regular basis, it’s only a matter of time before Honey’s and Melissa’s worlds collide….

My Heart May Be Broken but My Hair Looks Great by Dixie CashHair
Debbie Sue Overstreet and Edwina Perkins-Martin have never encountered a problem that couldn’t be fixed with a strong margarita, a whole lot of hairspray, and an ear for gossip. No doubt about it, hearts are definitely going to get broken, but if these gals have anything to do with it, the hairstyles around town are still gonna look great!