Six Picks : Books About Books

April 13, 2015March 17, 2015 / Louise / Leave a comment

For book lovers, nothing beats a good book. Except, maybe, a good book about books! Bibliophiles rejoice, here are 6 great novels that celebrate the written word and those who treasure it.

1. The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde. In a world where you can actually get lost (literally) in literature, Thursday Next, a notorious Special Operative in literary detection, races against time to stop the world’s Third Most Wanted criminal from kidnapping characters, including Jane Eyre, from works of literature, forcing her to dive into the pages of a novel to stop literary homicide.

2. The Reading Group by Elizabeth Noble. The Reading Group follows the trials and tribulations of a group of women who meet regularly to read and discuss books. Over the course of a year, each of these women become intertwined, both in the books they read and within each other’s lives.

3. Inkheart by Cornelia Funke. Meggie, 12, lives a quiet life alone with her father, a bookbinder. But her father has a deep secret–he possesses an extraordinary magical power – he can “read” fictional characters to life. Trouble begins when one of those characters abducts them and tries to force him into service.

4. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. Living with a foster family in Germany during World War II, a young girl struggles to survive her day-to-day trials through stealing anything she can get her hands on, but when she discovers the beauty of literature, she realizes that she has been blessed with a gift that must be shared with others, including the Jewish man hiding in the basement.

5. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. A boy named Daniel selects a novel from a library of rare books, enjoying it so much that he searches for the rest of the author’s works, only to discover that someone is destroying every book the author has ever written.

6. Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan. After a layoff during the Great Recession sidelines his tech career, Clay Jannon takes a job at the titular bookstore in San Francisco, and soon realizes that the establishment is a facade for a strange secret.

Book Club Picks – Fantasy

April 8, 2015March 23, 2015 / Linda / Leave a comment

Is your book club looking to escape the here and now? Try reading a fantasy and discover a new dimension.

Written In My Own Heart’s Blood – Diana Gabaldon – After being presumed dead, Jamie Fraser returns to find that his best friend has married his wife, his illegitmate son has discovered who is father is, and his nephew has decided to marry a Quaker.

The Bone Clocks – David Mitchell – Interweaves six narratives spanning the period between 1984 and the 2030s to chronicle a secret war between a cult of soul-decanters and a small group of vigilantes who would take them down.

The Ocean At The End of the Lane – Neil Gaiman – Presents a modern fantasy about fear, love, magic, and sacrifice in the story of a family at the mercy of dark forces, whose only defense is the three women who live on a farm at the end of the lane.

Fool’s Assassin – Robin Hobb – llegitimate royal and former assassin FitzChivalry Farseer masquerades as a country squire with his beloved wife, but finds himself drawn back to his former life by old allegiances.

Visions – Kelley Armstrong – Estranged from Gabriel when his past comes to light, Olivia Taylor-Jones receives a sinister warning in the form of a murder victim dressed to look like her and struggles to learn the truth about the victim, the role of her new home, and her susceptibility to old enemies.

The Heavens Rise – Christopher Rice – When Niquette Delongpre is exposed to a small parasite deep in the swamps outside of New Orleans, she must come to grips with her mysterious and dangerous new powers to battle against a rising evil.

Innocence – Dean Koontz – Foraging for supplies by night in a beautiful but hostile urban world where strangers would kill him on sight, Addison endures a solitary existence before meeting a quicksilver girl engaged in a dangerous duel of wits with a malicious, well-placed enemy.

The Witch’s Daughter – Paula Brackston – Witnessing the death of her witch mother in the spring of 1628, Bess Hawksmith turns to secluded warlock Gideon Masters for protection and learns formidable powers, including immortality, skills she begins teaching to a new apprentice centuries later.

10 Books We’re Looking Forward to in April

April 3, 2015March 23, 2015 / Louise / Leave a comment

April is typically a month of new beginnings. The snow is gone (we hope), the grass, leaves, and flowers are starting to grow, and plenty of new books are hitting the shelves. Who knows, it may even get warm enough to read outside!

Every month, librarians from around the country pick the top ten new books they’d most like to share with readers. The results are published on LibraryReads.org. One of the goals of LibraryReads is to highlight the important role public libraries play in building buzz for new books and new authors. Click through to read more about what new and upcoming books librarians consider buzzworthy this month. The top ten titles for April are:

At the Water’s Edge by Sara Gruen
The Royal We by Heather Cocks & Jessica Morgan
A Desperate Fortune by Susanna Kearsley
The Dream Lover by Elizabeth Berg
Still the One by Jill Shalvis
Inside the O’Briens by Lisa Genova
House of Echoes by Brendan Duffy
The Precious One by Marisa de los Santos
The Bone Tree by Greg Iles
Where They Found Her by Kimberly McCreight

Linda Reads: The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

March 29, 2015March 5, 2015 / Linda / Leave a comment

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah is a poignant, beautifully written book that takes us back in history to France during World War II.

The book starts off in present day and the story is told by an elderly woman facing a move into a nursing home to face her last battle, cancer. But first, she has something she must do.

The story follows two sisters, Viann and Isabelle Rossignol, who have always been close despite their differences. Younger, bolder sister Isabelle lives in Paris while Viann lives a quiet and content life in the French countryside with her husband Antoine and their daughter. When World War II strikes and Antoine is sent off to fight, Viann and Isabelle’s father sends Isabelle to help her older sister cope. As the war progresses, it’s not only the sisters’ relationship that is tested, but also their strength and their individual senses of right and wrong. With life as they know it changing in unbelievably horrific ways, Viann and Isabelle will find themselves facing frightening situations and responding in ways they never thought possible as bravery and resistance take different forms in each of their actions.

Ms. Hannah writes heartfelt, vivid descriptions taking great care with every detail. You will be transported to wartime France. You will feel all the pain, joy, love, and hardships of the Rossignol family and those who interact with them. I read the book in one sitting, unable to put it down and the story still lingers with me a month later. It earned a spot on my top ten favorite books list.

National Joe Day

March 26, 2015March 13, 2015 / Mary / Leave a comment

National Joe Day is a little-known holiday. Although not designated by Congress as an official national holiday, it is celebrated every year on March 27th.

The point of the holiday is for everyone to call himself Joe for at least this one day. (If you’re female, you can become Jo—short for Josephine.)

We’ve all heard of Joe Blow, Average Joe, Ordinary Joe, Lucky Joe, Joe Cool, Good Joe and G.I. Joe. Joe simply stands for the everyman, for the underdog or the common man. By the way, Joe Blow was first recorded as military slang referring to the average working guy.

Curious, I skimmed through our online catalog to see how popular Joe was for book titles and hit the Joe jackpot.

Joe, A Novel by Larry Brown

Joe Ransom is a hard-drinking ex-con pushing fifty who just won’t slow down–not in his pickup, not with a gun, and certainly not with women.

Calico Joe by John Grisham

It’s the summer of 1973, and Joe Castle is the boy wonder of baseball, the greatest rookie anyone has ever seen. The kid from Calico Rock, Arkansas, dazzles Chicago Cubs fans as he hits home run after home run, politely tipping his hat to the crowd as he shatters all rookie records.

The Book of Joe by Jonathan Tropper

Right after high school, Joe Goffman left sleepy Bush Falls, Connecticut and never looked back. Then he wrote a novel savaging everything in town, a novel that became a national bestseller and a huge hit movie. Fifteen years later, Joe is struggling to avoid the sophomore slump with his next novel when he gets a call: his father’s had a stroke, so it’s back to Bush Falls for the town’s most famous pariah.

Silent Joe by T. Jefferson Parker

Joe Trona spends his days as a deputy for the Orange County sheriff’s department and his nights as an aide to Will Trona, the influential politician who rescued him from the Hillside Children’s Home. An expert in firearms and martial arts, Joe has been backing Will up for a long time. Still, his skill isn’t enough to keep Will alive, and when his father is killed right in front of Joe’s eyes, the young deputy vows to avenge him.

Joe College by Tom Perrotta

Danny, a Yale junior, is spending Spring break behind the wheel of the Roach Coach, his father’s lunch truck, which plies the parking lots of office parks in central New Jersey, using the time to try and make sense of a love life that’s gotten a little complicated. A comic journey into the dark side of love, higher education and food service.

Where is Joe Merchant? A Novel Tale by Jimmy Buffett

Where is Joe Merchant? That’s what his sister, Trevor Kane, the hemorrhoid-ointment heiress, wants to know. For Desdemona, Merchant is the missing link in her ongoing communications with space aliens. Tabloid journalist Rudy Breno only cares that Merchant gets bigger headlines than Elvis. And for renegade seaplane pilot Frank Bama, the mystery of the presumed-dead-but-often-sighted rock star is turning his life upside down.

Joe Victim: A Thriller by Paul Cleave

Joe Middleton’s story is this: He doesn’t remember killing anyone, so there’ s no way a jury can convict him of serial murder. He calls himself Joe Victim, trying, as he awaits trial, to convince the psychiatrists that he wasn’t in control of his actions, trusting that the system will save him in the end.

And if that doesn’t satisfy your Joe longings, there are entire series devoted to Joes:

Joe Burgess mysteries by Kate Flora

Joe DeMarco novels by Mike Lawson

Joe Grey mysteries by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

Joe Gunther novels by Archer Mayor

Joe Kurtz novels by Dan Simmons

Joe Ledger novels by Jonathan Maberry

Joe Pike novels by Robert Crais

Joe Rush novels by James Abel

Joe Sandilands mysteries by Barbara Cleverly

So call yourself Joe, buy a cup of Joe, and peruse one of the many Joe books, all in celebration of National Joe Day.

(PS. Share this with all the Joes you know and make their day special.)