Season's Readings - 2012

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A special thank you to all of our contributors and to the following people for their assistance in the production of Season’s Readings: Collection Development Librarian, Lisa Dendy Human Resources Analyst, Lakesia Farmer Technology Management Administrator, Jill Wagy North Regional Library Manager, Susan Wright

Season’s Readings is produced by Durham County Library’s Marketing and Development Division: Manager, Gina Rozier Graphic Designer, Hitoko Burke Adult Programming and Humanities Coordinator, Joanne Abel Webmaster, Matt Clobridge Development Officer, Alice Sharpe Grant Writer, Dionne Greenlee

If you have questions or comments regarding this publication, please contact Hitoko Burke: (919) 560-0150 or huburke@dconc.gov

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A collection of reviews written by members of the Durham County Library Family

Table of Contents Friends of the Durham Library. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Fiction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Mystery. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Romance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Science Fiction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Nonfiction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Biography.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Graphic Novels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Young Adult Fiction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Juvenile Fiction.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Juvenile Nonfiction.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 Easy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 DVDs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 Books on CD. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 Ebooks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 Index of Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 Friends Membership Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 2013 Book Sale Dates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

Season’s Readings is made possible by the Friends of the Durham Library, Inc.

Award Winning Publication American Library Association Best of Show for Bibliographies and Booklists North Carolina Library Association Best of Show for Bibliographies and Booklists

4 Friends of the Durham Library

Dear Library Friends, As the holidays are now upon us, the Friends of the Durham Library is pleased to present a gift to you – this year’s Season’s Readings! This annual collection of book reviews, penned by library staff and volunteers about favorite reads, is made possible with the support of the Friends and contributions from the Durham community. As thoughts of the holidays immediately bring to mind visions of special family gatherings, delicious foods and time with friends, we hope that Season’s Readings will also become a part of your family’s holiday traditions to celebrate the joy of reading (and perhaps discover a literary treat for gift giving along the way).

Annually, the Friends of the Durham Library donates funds raised from its memberships and book sales to advance library services, enhance existing collections, provide cutting-edge technology, and to support important library programs, such as Summer Reading, and other special events throughout the year. In 2012, the Friends also continued to award scholarships to library employees pursuing Master degrees in either Library Science or Business Administration to enhance their professional development. This year, the Friends also funded a wide range of projects proposed by staff, from creative program endeavors, to technological improvements, including the following initiatives: • A Fall into Romance Festival • Kindle Fires with protective cases for a “Toddler Tech Academy” • Sensory Storytime, a program for adults with special needs • Let’s Move!, a fitness program initiative based upon a national model, expanded to incorporate literacy along with physical activity for families • Replacement of the DCL Carolina Theatre video collection with DVD copies • Durham Reads Together 2012 collection enhancement works from Margaret Maron’s Deborah Knott series • New floor cushions for children’s storytimes and program activities

Friends of the Durham Library

The Friends of Durham Library works diligently to provide extra resources that support life-long learning for all who visit the library. The majority of the Friends’ funds are acquired through revenues generated from spring and fall book sales, in addition to year-round mini book sales open every day at seven Durham locations: American Tobacco Campus Strickland Building, 334 Blackwell Street; East Regional Library, Main Library, North Regional Library, Southwest Regional Library, South Regional Library and Stanford L. Warren Library.

This holiday season, we hope you are inspired to donate to or volunteer with the Friends, or perhaps visit one of the mini-sales to purchase books for you and those you care about. These are wonderful yet rewarding ways to give back, in cooperation with the Friends of the Durham Library to make a great difference in our community!

Thanks for your generous support, and Happy New Year!

Elsa Woods, President Friends of the Durham County Library Board THE FRIENDS SUPPORT YOUR LIBRARY Successful book sales and a growing Friends membership generate income that supports annual and short-term needs of the library, such as: • Wee Read: places new library books in the hands of children in their classrooms at schools where resources for such materials are extremely scarce • Critically needed replacements of VHS tapes in the juvenile collection and read along titles with cassette tapes for children with CDs • The Discovery Mobile: puts library programs on wheels, including Get Set… Get Ready… Let’s Read! early literacy outreach to family child care homes and Library Youth Partnership teens who deliver storytimes to elementary school children • Summer Reading Club: the most popular of all library programs encourages children and families to read while school is out

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Friends of the Durham Library

SIX GREAT REASONS TO JOIN THE FRIENDS 1. Help make the difference between a good library and a great library.

2. Support library programs and services for children, teens and adults.

3. Shop early at the book sales for the best selection, open to Friends members only.

4. Receive Best of Friends, the Friends’ newsletter.

5. Receive Season’s Readings, an annual booklet of staff reading recommendations.

6. Enjoy a 10% discount at several local bookstores; just show your membership card.

Join the Friends of the Durham Library today. The membership application form is on page 106.

FRIENDS BOARD SEEKS NOMINATIONS The Friends’ Board is always interested in talented individuals who would like to help them raise and spend money! Potential members of Friends of the Durham Library Board may obtain an application and instructions located on the library website at http:// durhamcountylibrary.org/friends_board.php.

FRIENDS BOARD MEMBERS: • Attend monthly meetings on the second Thursday evening of each month • Assist with book sales • Actively participate on a Board committee • Perform other tasks to help the library and the Friends

Friends of the Durham Library

BOOK SALES You can find great bargains on gently used books at the Friends of the Durham Library book sales. Held in spring and fall, book sales at Main Library offer thousands of used books categorized for easy shopping, as well as audiobooks, CDs and DVDs. Paperbacks begin at 50 cents and hard covers at $1. Mini-book sales satisfy bargain-hunters year-round with a smaller selection of books, many in gift-giving condition.

2013 book sale dates and locations are listed on page 107.

DONATING BOOKS FOR THE BOOK SALE The Friends of the Durham Library welcomes donations of gently used books, audiobooks, CDs and DVDs, except for: encyclopedias, magazines, VHS tapes, cassettes and condensed books.You may take your donation to any Durham County Library location during regular hours. Please bring large donations (more than one bag) to the Main Library garage on Tuesday morning between 9 and noon, when the Friends of the Durham Library are present and can help unload. The garage is on the far right side, closest to Holloway Street, as you face the Main Library from the parking lot.

If you must bring your large donation to the Main Library at a time other than Tuesday morning, please come first to the circulation desk and let them know you have a large donation. The security guard will open the garage doors so that you can unload your donation straight into the garage.

If you have a question, or wish to make arrangements with the Friends for a special donation, please contact the Staff Liaison to the Friends, (919) 560-0190.

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Fiction

Fiction An Accidental Affair

by Eric Jerome Dickey

F DICKEY, E.

I had read most of Eric Jerome Dickey’s earlier works, but have not read many of his newer books. I didn’t care for the amount of profanity in this book, but once I started reading, I had to know what would happen next.

The story opens with the lines, “I dropped the .38 on the passenger seat, then sped down a damp Sunset Boulevard. Johnny Handsome was bleeding, limping, running, fleeing, his trek looking like a scene from a horror film.

He saw my car coming and stumbled out of the street before I could mow him down. My anger wanted to chase him. But I was done with Johnny Handsome. For now, I was done with him. I had to get to my home in Los Feliz and kill Regina Baptiste.”

Hollywood screenwriter James Thicke is out for revenge after a scandalous video of his wife, famous actress Regina Baptiste, and fellow actor Johnny Bergs, known as Johnny Handsome, is sent to his cell phone just before it goes viral. After attacking his wife’s lover, James goes into hiding and takes on an alter ego. He eventually resorts to some extreme measures to protect his wife from the cruel and ruthless side of Hollywood.

The story is interspersed with media “clippings” as James follows the tabloid coverage of his wife’s affair and his attack on her lover. He manages to stay connected to his old life while assuming a new one. Despite his best efforts to hide, trouble eventually finds him, leaving him no choice but to take care of the troublemakers. – Lakesia Farmer

Fiction

Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse?

by Max Braillier

F BRALLIER, M.

This gem of a book is just what it sounds like: a choose your own adventure story. Zombie hordes are running wild and you have two to three choices at the end of each section. The choice you make, like in real life, determines what your future choices will be. Will you call your mom? Get a drink? Go to a strip club? Run like hell? Survive? Or be overcome by the terrible hordes and develop your own taste for brains? Those with weak constitutions need not apply – this apocalypse is gritty, gory, and doesn’t care if you’re a nice person – brains are brains. – Lisa L. Dendy

The Chaperone

by Laura Moriarty

F MORIARTY, L.

The story begins in Wichita, Kansas in 1922 when Cora is asked by a neighbor to travel with their daughter, Louise, to New York City. Cora is to be a chaperone for Louise, keeping a watchful eye on the young girl who is studying dance at a famous studio in the city. But Cora has another motive for traveling with her charge, as she is determined to discover more about the mother who put her up for adoption many years ago. Cora soon realizes that Louise will be a challenge to supervise, as she is very beautiful, intelligent and flirty with men. Sharing a tiny apartment in the city, Louise begins taking classes, and Cora revisits the orphanage to begin the search for her real mother. During the course of the summer, both their lives are drastically changed. Cora meets face to face with her real mother, who wants nothing to do with her, and Louise is offered an exciting dancing opportunity in Philadelphia. This is a fictional account inspired by the true life story of silent film star Louise Brooks. A moving, touching book that will leave you believing that “life is a journey” where one encounters many experiences and people. – Donna Hausmann

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The Fear Index

by Robert Harris

F HARRIS, R.

Alex Hoffman is a wealthy expat American who owns his own hedge fund company in Switzerland. We learn in a flashback that as a young computer researcher at CERN he built an extraordinarily successful system of AI, or artificial intelligence: computer algorithms that allowed computers to learn.

Shaken by the implications of super-intelligent computers, his superiors decide to pull the plug on his all-too-successful research. Alex collapses with a nervous breakdown. He recovers and then enters private business using his learning computers to trade stocks. It makes him rich.

While his AI system (named VIXAL) makes him a billionaire, Alex really longs for isolation from the busy public world. But the world intrudes with violence, breaking into his highly secure mansion. Barely surviving, Alex finds the local police skeptical, even suspicious of him. (Hadn’t he had a mental breakdown? Wasn’t his mansion the most secure?) Alex knows that he must solve the crimes against him in his own way.

His place of business is a stunning glassy, glossy, shimmering high-tech and decidedly paperless office. We join his staff of drone-like stock analysts or “quants” watching the frightening downward plunge of the stock market (a plunge triggered by massive speculative trading of VIXAL).

The market’s “loss of confidence” is driven by fear; this provides the book’s title. The “fear index” is a measurement of the level of fear in the market; an excessively high fear index indicates a potential market collapse.

Alex suspects his system may have gotten out of control and is causing the market disaster that it is risking the world economy just to inflate Alex’s wealth. Oddly VIXAL also seems to be behind the weird personal attacks against him. An evil doppelganger, an Alex duplicate, runs rampant: an anti-Alex consorting with S&M lunatics and building automated fortresses for computers.

Each chapter of The Fear Index begins with a quote from Darwin’s The Origin of Species, emphasizing that the success of a species is achieved through the ruthless pursuit of gaining an advantage over one’s competitor.

The inhuman and ruthless competitor VIXAL, a new species that Alex created to win in the stock market, now must be overcome. And, frighteningly, VIXAL too must overcome. It’s an unseen, thrilling force,

Fiction

an everywhere and out-of-control monster that drives humanity’s own fear index: the not-so-irrational terror of losing wealth, privacy and freedom to a thinking machine. The fear comes when we realize that like innumerable successful species, VIXAL is simply achieving survival. Are we surprised to find it is the stock market that put this on us? – Mark Donnelly

Garden Spells

by Sarah Addison Allen

F ALLEN, S.

Edible flowers and a prophetic apple tree star in Garden Spells along with stoic Claire Waverley and her free-spirited sister Sydney. Set in Bascom, North Carolina, this novel includes a four-page list of delicious edible flowers and herbs and their cures. It’s also available as a book club kit through Durham County Library. Book club kits contain 15 copies of the title in a handy tote bag along with book discussion guides and information about the author, may be kept for six weeks, and are checked out by one member of a book discussion group. – Susan Wright

The Girl Who Chased the Moon

by Sarah Addison Allen

F ALLEN, S.

Teen Emily Benedict visits her family’s hometown of Mullaby, North Carolina, after her mother’s death to find many past and present secrets surrounding Dulcie Shelby and the mysterious Coffey family members who don’t come out at night. Find out why in The Girl Who Chased the Moon. It includes an appendix with a paragraph about each month’s full moon. – Susan Wright

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Hearts of Darkness: a Deadglass Novel

by Kira Brady

F BRADY, K.

Sexy, paranormal, butt-kicking fun, Hearts of Darkness tells the story of nurse Kayla Friday who is drawn to an ethereal version of Seattle after the death of her sister. Kayla doesn’t understand the magic around her that renders electrical machines and gas engines inoperable, nor does she realize that near the Gate of the Land of the Dead, spirits cross back over looking for bodies to possess. But Kira’s a quick study, especially with the sexy, but dangerous, mercenary werewolf Hart helping her unravel the mystery of her sister’s murder. When the pair ends up in the crossfire of a mystical war between ancient mythologies, will Hart be Kira’s protector or her executioner? It was lots of fun finding out in this first book of the Deadglass trilogy. – Gina Rozier

Left Neglected

by Lisa Genova

F GENOVA, L.

It seems unlikely that a book could be a detailed documentation of a medical condition, a compelling story about the human condition and a cautionary tale, at least not without being stuffy, boring or preachy, but Lisa Genova pulls it off. Left Neglected is a fascinating story of a supermom/ career woman who has it all and does it all – that is until she is felled by her own busy life. A moment’s decision to make a cell phone call while driving in terrible weather ends in tragedy. When Sarah Nickerson awakens from her crash, she can no longer sense half of her existence. She suffers from left neglect, a condition where an injured brain cannot fathom the concept of “left.” She cannot feel or control the left side of her body and she says that being asked to look to her left is like being asked to look toward a makebelieve place. Genova, a former neuroscientist, makes a bewildering disease understandable. And some of us may see ourselves in Sarah as she lets go of her old values and works toward a new normal and a new appreciation for her family and friends. – Gina Rozier

Fiction

Lily of the Nile

by Stephanie Dray

F DRAY, S.

Look beyond the cheesy cover to a great historical fiction story of Selene Cleopatra, daughter of Mark Antony and Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt. A back story is Caesar’s discomfort with women of power and fear of religions that include magic and the feminism principle. The sequel, Song of the Nile, carries Selene’s story into her adulthood. These books are very well researched and their vivid characters and descriptions of ancient Rome bring these ancient times to life. – Joanne Abel

Little Stranger

by Sarah Waters

F WATERS, S.

In post World War II Britain, Dr. Faraday is called to Hundreds Hall in Warwickshire to treat the frightened maid of the Ayres family, who own the estate. Faraday has a unique connection with the family in that his mother served as a maid at the house when he was a child. Away for thirty years, he is astonished to find the grand house crumbling, and the mother and brother of this once prosperous family sinking into mental illness. Faraday develops a relationship with daughter Caroline Ayres as a ghostly and malevolent presence makes itself known. As tragic events unfold, the author unravels the Ayres family history as well as the nature of Doctor Faraday himself. – Jan Seabock

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Fiction

The Map of Lost Memories

by Kim Fay

F FAY, K.

Irene has worked for years to build up the collection of rare artifacts in the museum where she works in Seattle. Upon her mentor’s retirement, the curator position is given to a man and she is offered a position beneath him. Irene’s mentor gives her a diary her father left, detailing the way to the scrolls of the Khmer in Cambodia. All Irene has to do is travel to Shanghai and convince another scholar to join her. This scholar just happens to be a wife to a communist revolutionary who is unwilling to let her out of his sight. The year is 1925 and, if Irene succeeds in finding the copper scrolls, it will be the discovery of the century, but the odds are stacked against her. – Lisa L. Dendy

The Night Circus

by Erin Morgenstern

F MORGENSTERN, E.

The Night Circus is the tale of a centuries-old battle between two master magicians waged through their protégés, a young man and a young woman who were brought into magic at a young age for the sole purpose of securing a victory for their masters in this round. The young magicians are merely pawns and their chessboard of The Night Circus, or Le Cirque de Reves, a fantastic traveling odyssey with a fanatical following. The circus shows up in different cities, opens its gates for a few magical nights and moves on. If The Night Circus were set today, fans would follow it on Twitter, but because it is set around the turn of the twentieth century, sightings are communicated by letter.

This book could be called fantasy or speculative fiction, but it includes mystery, romance, adventure and horror. The characters are complex. The settings are diverse. The descriptions are lush. It is the oldest story ever told, in a new and inventive way. Come to The Night Circus; it will be the most interesting night of your life. – Lisa L. Dendy

Fiction

The Night Circus

by Erin Morgenstern

F MORGENSTERN, E.

Magic is real in The Night Circus, where the machinations of two competing magicians pit star-crossed lovers against one another. With beautiful descriptions of a circus rendered in nothing but black and white, Erin Morgenstern spins a tale of two young people raised to fulfill an enchanted bet. Celia is the daughter of Prospero the Magician and Marco is the protégé of the powerful Mr. A. H. Unbeknownst to the young lovers, they are trapped in a fight to the death and their battlefield is “Le Cirque des Reves,” the Night Circus, which opens at nightfall and closes at dawn.

Engaging circus performers, and the fans who encounter them from town to town shape this compelling story of interwoven lives. It will keep you reading to the very end to see if Celia and Marco can weave their magic together to overcome the cynical plans of their mentors. – Gina Rozier

One Coffee With

by Margaret Maron

F MARON, M.

When it was decided to select award-winning author Margaret Maron for this year’s Durham Reads Together, I was thrilled; I had read all of her Judge Deborah Knott books and loved her writing. She introduced me to so many places in North Carolina I had never been to or was just discovering since I’m not a native. So, in honor of her coming to Durham, I decided to read her first series about New York City and Lieutenant Sigrid Harald. One Coffee With is the first book in the series and you can see that Maron has a wonderful way of making her characters come to life. I have finished several books in the series and, although I like the Knott books more, reading Maron’s earlier works have allowed me to see her bloom as a writer. Her last Knott novel took Deborah to New York to meet up with Sigrid (Three Day Town) and her next one brings Sigrid to North Carolina (The Buzzard Table). I can’t wait to read it. – Jill Wagy

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The Paris Wife

by Paula McLain

F MCLAIN, P.

I’ve never liked Hemingway’s writing style, nor the tales of his adventures in combat, or on African safari, or running with the bulls in Pamplona.

However, intrigued by the idea of who actually would have married such a man, I picked up this fictionalized memoir of his first wife, Hadley.

Twenty-eight-year-old Hadley meets 20-year-old Ernest, they are married shortly after and depart for Jazz-Age Paris where such artists as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein and John Dos Passos are living and days are filled with drinking and philosophizing. Hadley finds herself struggling more and more to hold on to their marriage as Ernest travels the world, learning his trade and earning his reputation as a great writer and eventually as a womanizer. To McLain’s credit, she paints Hemingway through Hadley’s eyes, making him a romantic, tragic, and even sympathetic figure. This is Hadley’s story and it will stay with you long after you finish reading it. – Lisa L. Dendy

The Peach Keeper

by Sarah Addison Allen

F ALLEN, S.

This is another fantastic tale by Sarah Addison Allen. The Peach Keeper like its predecessors The Girl Who Chased the Moon, The Sugar Queen, and Garden Spells (all excellent books in their own right), is set in a small Southern town full of familial angst and long-buried secrets. Allen has a phenomenal talent for developing characters while gradually revealing the secrets and lies that have made those characters who they are. Her Southerners are so authentic that they seem to have walked out of the reader’s past instead of the author’s imagination. This should be a hit with fans of Nicholas Sparks. – Lisa L. Dendy

Fiction

The Peach Keeper

by Sarah Addison Allen

F ALLEN, S.

The historic Blue Ridge Madam in Walls of Water, North Carolina, was built by Willa Jackson’s great-great-grandfather. When local socialite Paxton Osgood hires professionals to restore the Madam to her former glory and turn it into a luxurious inn, things get interesting around Walls of Water.

The Peach Keeper is a southern story of haves and have nots. It’s also available in large type. – Susan Wright

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

by Steve Chbosky

F CHBOSKY, S.

Charlie is an unusual kid who just started high school. This book is a series of letters to an unidentified person who he thinks will understand his teenage trials because he wouldn’t necessarily sleep with someone even though he could. Charlie is very smart, but somewhat unbalanced emotionally. He feels shut out from the world the other students inhabit and begins hanging around with an artistic group of kids who act out The Rocky Horror Picture Show and experiment with drugs and sex. His older brother is a college jock who has nothing useful to tell Charlie except how to fight (Charlie hits a boy in self-defense and immediately begins crying afterward). His older sister treats boys like tissues, throwing them away as soon as they become slightly less than new. Charlie struggles to understand the world and how others relate to it, and to him, and eventually discovers what it is that makes him different from the other kids in school. Somewhat reminiscent of Flowers for Algernon in my opinion, The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a beautiful, scary, heartbreaking and ultimately hopeful Bildungsroman. This is not a book for the faint of heart as it includes promiscuity, incest, suicide, drug use, abortion and battery. – Lisa L. Dendy

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Secret Obsession

by Kimberla Lawson Roby

F ROBY, K.

Paige Donahue has spent her entire life feeling inferior to her sister, Camille, who gets all the love and affection from their parents while Paige is treated like the black sheep of the family. As children, Camille had the grades, the friends and their parents' love, while Paige was left with hand-me-downs and criticism. Now as adults, Camille has the perfect life with her husband, Pierce, and her two perfect children in a beautiful home, while Paige is stuck in a small condo with bills she can't afford to pay. Paige is convinced that she is the one who deserves this life, not Camille. Paige will do ANYTHING to take her rightful place as Pierce’s wife.

Paige fakes her own rape with the belief that her sister and brother-in-law will take her in. Once she worms her way into their home, Paige tries to convince Pierce that his wife has been unfaithful. Naturally, he’ll turn to Paige’s bed – won’t he? Things don’t turn out exactly as Paige planned.

Despite all the “evidence,” Pierce is determined to make his marriage work.

You’ll have to read the book to find out what will become of Paige, Camille, Pierce and the rest of the family. – Lakesia Farmer

Fiction

Seraph on the Suwanee

by Zora Neale Hurston

F HURSTON, Z.

Zora Neale Hurston is often distinguished as one of the most prolific writers in the African-American literary tradition due to her vivid, almost surreal representations of black Southern folklore, language and culture according to scholar Hazel Carby. Readers well acquainted with Hurston’s works identify the author’s crafted visions through her use of rich, descriptive language portraying deeply Southern roots. With little thematic variance, Hurston often captures the journey of the black female protagonist as “de mule uh de world,” in search of self. For example, Janie Crawford’s ascension into self-actualization in Their Eyes Were Watching God is the foundation of the canonical illustration of this approach among a myriad of examples where black women are characteristically portrayed by authors of color, not to mention in other attempts by white writers, albeit often less positive.

However in 1947, Hurston abandons her practice of sharing such revelations through the eyes of “colored folks” in Seraph on the Suwanee, the last novel she scribes. In a bold stroke of nonconformity, which mirrors her own unorthodox life, Hurston – an ethnographer, anthropologist and folklorist – evokes a strategy that is rarely employed by African-American authors of the era. With striking candor, she writes about a white female protagonist, Arvay Henson Meserve, a poor “cracker” residing near the basin of Florida’s Suwanee River. Early critiques identify this uniqueness as an aspect rendering the novel flawed in relation to previous Hurston works. They lament that the portrayal of Southern “blackness” is lost as a vehicle for personal transformation, and Seraph, unlike other Hurston texts, fails to be anchored within AfricanAmerican literary traditions of the day. It is also not considered a feminist text.

Some literary experts assert that it is a novel difficult to categorize. Treasures, however, are often found among what’s lost.

Despite attempts to appropriately place Seraph within literary realms, I’m convinced that the novel’s core revolves thematically around the significance of one’s personal sense of place. Without Hurston’s theme of blackness to buttress Seraph or champion the richness of her native Southern culture, the novel must rely upon other constructs to delve into Arvay Meserve’s soul. Instead of portraying the search of self from the viewpoints of black characters, the visualization of Arvay’s search for her own self worth is dependent upon her comfort

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with and acceptance of her personal space and environment. In essence, Arvay’s journey depends upon her discovering and claiming her own sense of place amid the extremities of love and traumatic, painful experiences.

Thus, I assert that Hurston evokes geographic, physical and symbolically conceptualized senses of place that guide Arvay’s journey of affirmation, which expose intimate glimpses of Southern culture in the 1940s. Arvay’s life is confined geographically to the low country of the Florida landscape – figuratively within the confines of “Southernness,” culturally within the unique multicultural realm of the Gulf and spiritually within the very mores established in this Bible-belt region of the country. This relation to place forces Arvay to withdraw into her own personal isolation, not only from the world, but from those closest to her, including her husband, as she attempts to reconstruct her life and search for personal meaning.

The novel, often as churned and meandering as the Suwanee River itself, ultimately carves its own path within the reader’s soul to arrive at a place of peace. It is a virtually unknown read worth discovering. – Dionne Greenlee

Sheer Abandon

by Penny Vincenzi

F VINCENZI, P.

Martha, Clio and Jocasta meet on an adventure to Thailand in 1985. Fifteen years later, Martha is a successful lawyer with a budding political career, Clio is a successful pediatrician married to a boorish surgeon who belittles her and Jocasta is a tabloid reporter in a stalled relationship. Kate is a sixteen year old fledgling model who has begun to search for her biological mother. “Baby Bianca,” as Kate was known as a baby, was all over the news after being abandoned at Heathrow in a cleaning closet. Her mother was returning from Thailand. Reading this book was like seeing the pieces of an intricate puzzle fall into place one by one. – Lisa L. Dendy

Fiction

The Sixth Man

by David Baldacci

F BALDACCI, D.

Award winning, best-selling crime novel author David Baldacci continues thrilling devoted fans of his work with this latest installment pairing former FBI agents turned private investigators Sean King and Michelle Maxwell.

Baldacci has the uncanny ability to show the nasty, seedy side of the intelligence community – a world unknown to the average person – while simultaneously displaying the human character flaws of antagonists and protagonists alike.

The storyline revolves around an unlikely convicted serial killer Edgar Roy, a not so ordinary person that possesses the brain and neurological abilities akin to the world’s greatest super computer. Because of his unusual abilities to put bits of information together to see catastrophes and terror attacks before they occur, Roy is in great demand by numerous agencies and individuals. But the line between the good guys and the bad guys is often blurred. Once a lawyer ends up dead and happens to be found by King and Maxwell, they become involved in another mystery with many twists and turns.

In the middle of this action packed ‘whodunit’ are Baldacci’s usual archetypal characters: mad scientist, greedy but deadly business man, deadly killers for hire and local law enforcement that helps or hinders the investigation. This is the fifth outing for the two private eyes King and Maxwell and Baldacci does not seem intent on letting on about their evolving relationship – to the chagrin of female readers. Although this book’s basic elements are standard crime novel fair (i.e. empathetic characters; believability; fair play and integrity and likely suspects) this suspense-filled page turner keeps the reader guessing until the end. This is one to add to your crime novel reading book shelf. – Carter Cue

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Sugar Queen

by Sarah Addison Allen

F ALLEN, S.

Since her father’s death, Josey Cirrini – the Bald Slope, North Carolina, resident with a well-known and deserved reputation for being a spoiled, temper tantrum throwing, wild child – has become a recluse until she discovers Della Lee Baker living in her secret closet along with all of her hidden sugary treats. The sole highlight of Josey’s day has been her predictable on-the-front-step daily meeting and greeting of the postman who delivers her mail. Will her life ever become sweet like the Tootsie Pops, Hershey’s Kisses, Little Debbie snack cakes and Moon Pies Josey stocks in her closet? Sugar Queen is also available in large type and as an audio book. – Susan Wright

Tigers in Red Weather

by Liza Klaussmann

F KLAUSSMANN, L.

Nick and Helena are cousins who grew up together and go their separate ways when WWII ends. Helena travels to California to marry a charismatic quasiHollywood producer and Nick goes to meet her husband who is returning from the war. Years later, when the two cousins come together for a summer at Tiger House, the family home on Martha’s Vineyard, their children find the body of a murdered woman. That discovery proves to change the course of the families forever. Yet, this is not really a murder mystery. Told from multiple perspectives and time periods, it is a compelling, disturbing, somewhat Gatsby-esque tale of hopes, dreams, disillusionment, dysfunction and the power of love and family ties. Interesting note: Liza Klaussmann is the great, great, great granddaughter of Herman Melville. – Lynne Barnette

A Wanted Man: A Jack Reacher Novel

by Lee Child

F CHILD, L.

This is the first of the Jack Reacher novels I have read. He is a fullydeveloped character who jumps right off the page from his physical description and his actions. He is trying to hitchhike to Virginia when he is picked up by a car of what looks like middle management workers leaving a conference. Nothing is what it seems and Reacher spends the whole novel unraveling who is actually who they say they are. The FBI, the State Department and others get involved as the body count rises and the tension is ratcheted higher and higher. – Lisa L. Dendy

Mystery Fiction

Mystery Fiction Bootlegger’s Daughter

by Margaret Maron

F MARON, M.

For the 1992 edition of Season’s Readings I wrote, “My favorite mystery of the year! Contains a great new attorney Deborah Knott, the best fictional evocation of North Carolina in a long time, and a tangled plot involving a 20-year-old murder. What’s more, Deborah has a good sense of humor.

I can’t wait for more.” And in the past 20 years, Margaret Maron has continued to write wonderful mysteries that showcase North Carolina riches and issues.

It is hard to pick other favorites, but Shooting At Loons, set on Harkers Island and Uncommon Clay set in Seagrove are in that mix. I reread the whole series for Durham Reads Together, and think I enjoyed it even more this time. Instead of trying to solve the mystery before Deborah, I slowed down and enjoyed the descriptions of the settings and the characters much more this time around. – Joanne Abel

Breakdown

by Sara Paretsky

F PARETSKY, S.

V. I. Warshawski returns – older and wiser than before, but just as passionate as ever. She wades into the world of immigration politics and the toxic political atmosphere surrounding them in this page-turner. A Senate candidate’s daughter and her book group try to re-enact a ritual from a book they read. They end up witnesses to a murder that endangers all the girls. V.I. sets out to find what was really going on. One of the first of the women detectives is still one of the best. – Joanne Abel

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Mystery Fiction

The Crossing Places

by Elly Griffiths

F GRIFFITHS, E.

The Crossing Places is the first title in a series featuring Ruth Galloway, an archaeologist/professor who lives in a remote area near Norfolk, England.

Ruth is a single, independent, somewhat prickly woman who loves the desolate salt marshes and her quiet life there. When human remains are uncovered in the marsh, Chief Inspector Harry Nelson asks Ruth to examine them, hoping they will provide a clue in the disappearance of a child more than ten years ago. These bones are determined to be from ancient times, but Ruth remains involved in the case when another young girl is reported missing. Ruth tries to balance her academic life, demanding parents, visits from old friends and colleagues, and her professional relationship with the equally prickly Harry Nelson. As the mystery grows, threats begin, and the search for the young girl intensifies. Highly atmospheric, this story is a great beginning to a new series. Start here, but continue to read the other titles in Griffiths’ series: The Janus Stone, The House at Sea’s End and, her latest, A Room Full of Bones. – Lynne Barnette

Death on the Lizard

by Robin Paige

F PAIGE, R.

Writing as Robin Paige, the husband and wife mystery writers Susan Wittig Albert and Bill Albert place their husband and wife detective team on the far southwest coast of Cornwall during the Victorian era of new inventions and new roles for women in English society. The Lizard Peninsula, sheltered on the east and windswept on the west, is the setting for a mystery involving a drowning in Frenchman’s Creek and industrial espionage of the newly unveiled Marconi wireless transmitter on the rocky coast. International spies, swindlers, spiritualists and grief stricken mothers are only a few of the characters that complicate the scene for gentleman detective Charles, Lord Sheridan and Kate, his American novelist wife. The authors skillfully depict the stunning Cornish landscape in this cozy mystery. This is the last in the Victorian Detective series; the first is Death at Bishop’s Keep. – Jan Seabock

Mystery Fiction

Killer Market

by Margaret Maron

F MARON, M.

Have you read any of Margaret Maron’s killer mysteries set in fictional Colleton County, North Carolina? Until Durham Reads Together 2012, I’d never picked one up, but DRT inspired me to check out the mystery series featuring character Deborah Knott as the bootlegger’s daughter who begins her career as a lawyer and then is elected district court judge.

One of my favorites now is Killer Market, number five in the series. In this installment, Judge Knott is assigned for a week to nearby High Point, NC, to substitute for a vacationing judge – but this is not just any week; it’s the week that the International Home Furnishings Market takes over.

In searching for a room, Deborah literally stumbles into an eccentric “Mrs. Jernigan” who is attending the market loaded down with tote bags and plastic bags filled with freebies and leftover food boxes. Thus begins a strange week of courtroom custody cases by day followed by afternoons and evenings involved in investigating the mysterious death of furniture executive Chan Nolan. (Yes, Deborah is always getting her nose into things that are not necessarily her business or her job.) This mystery is also available in large type and as an audio book. – Susan Wright

Sookie Stackhouse Series

by Charlaine Harris

F HARRIS, C.

Vampires and other supernatural creatures are the new black. Books with supernatural creatures can fall into the genres of mystery, horror, romance, fantasy, or all of the above, confusing the poor librarians who select, buy, catalog and process the books. The Southern Vampire series definitely contains all of these genres. Due to the overwhelming popularity of this series, I decided to start with the first title, Dead Until Dark, and give it a try. As a reader of fantasy but not much of a vampirophile, I was surprised how much I enjoyed this series. Sookie Stackhouse, telepathic small-town Southern waitress, has a lot of spunk and guts (like most of us Southern women). A literary weeble, she may wobble but she doesn’t fall down. Sookie has enough “everyman” characteristics for us to identify with her and enough exotic charms to entice us with her unfamiliarity. As she makes her way through life with her gift (“it’s a gift and a curse” as Mr. Monk would say),

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she meets all types of fanciful creatures (even in her own family) while seeking love and security. Even people who don’t particularly like vampires will probably like Sookie. Give her a try. She already knows what you’re thinking anyway. – Lisa L. Dendy

Three-Day Town

by Margaret Maron

F MARON, M.

Margaret Maron’s latest title combines the worlds of her two mystery series by sending NC-based Judge Deborah Knott and husband Dwight to New York City for a much-delayed honeymoon. Maron writes mysteries, though, not romances, so it isn’t long before a body turns up. The scene of the crime is a New York high rise with an old fashioned manual elevator, and the deceased is found in Deborah and Dwight’s “honeymoon suite.” The novel introduces an interesting collection of characters that live in the building.

It also juxtaposes Maron’s two mystery series nicely, as Deborah works with – but mostly without – her distant cousin, Lt. Sigrid Harald, to solve the mystery before any more residents are killed. – Gina Rozier

Romance

romance Dream Lake

by Lisa Kleypas

ROMANCE F KLEYPAS, L.

A ghost keeps this sweet romance from becoming predictable. Alex Nolan, bitter and cynical – a grown child of alcoholic parents – is well on his way to becoming an alcoholic himself. He is haunted by a former fighter pilot who no longer knows who he is or why he can’t move on. Enter Zoe Hoffman, a hurting but hopelessly upbeat innkeeper who is healing from her own broken heart. Slowly Zoe and Alex each begin to heal, as the ghost unravels the mystery of what he must complete before he can move on.

But Alex’s demons are stubborn, and he risks losing everything as he pulls back into his shell. Will he overcome his past and accept Zoe’s love? Will the ghost find his way back to the girl he left behind? It’s a romance, so of course the ending is a happy one, but it is fun getting there. – Gina Rozier

A Lady Awakened

by Cecelia Grant

ROMANCE F GRANT, C.

At the end of 2011, Grant burst into the romance world with a book that seemed to embrace all the tropes of the genre and turned them on their head.

Martha Russell is a restrained, quiet widow willing to exchange her body for the safety of her servants in what is little more than a business deal. The servants and estate are her responsibility; something she takes very seriously.

Young and a little irresponsible, Theo Mirkwood isn’t sure if he should be insulted by Martha’s offer of money in exchange for conception. He is repulsed by her unwillingness to view their daily encounters as anything other than a business deal, but as they lie in bed afterwards, Theo and Martha talk.

And, despite their uncomfortable physical relationship, they begin to fall in love.

A Lady Awakened is a book to savor. Grant slowly doles out details about her characters and their world, sometimes with maddening detail. You won’t love Martha on the first page; chances are good

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you won’t even like her. Slowly, along with Theo, you will crack Martha’s shell and learn about the scared woman underneath all the reserve. Ultimately, you will luxuriate in the time you spent falling in love with Theo and Martha as they fell in love with each other. – Jennifer Lohmann

Who Said It Would Be Easy

by Cheryl Faye

ROMANCE F FAYE, C.

A love story of faith, Charisse Ellison is a single Christian that is new to her faith. She is beautiful and loved by family and friends. While attending a wedding, Charisse meets the handsome Stefan Cooper, a real estate agent who is also a playboy. Stefan has no intentions of falling for Charisse. She is a Christian and while he doesn’t want anything to do with God, Stefan is intrigued by Charisse’s intellect and her faith. Follow Charisse and Stefan on a journey of love, faith, hope and fear. As a couple, their faith is tested; they learn how to endure and how it is important to keep God first. – Placedia Nance

Yours to Keep

by Shannon Stacey

ROMANCE F STACEY, S.

Sean Kowalski has left the army to discover he’s been engaged (without his knowledge) to Emma Shaw for years. Emma needed a fiancé to assuage her grandmother’s worries about her living alone, but now her grandmother is coming for a visit and Emma needs a person – not just a name. Newly a civilian, Sean’s willing, but he’s pretty sure his new fiancé is crazy and convincing his family to play along is no easy feat.

This is nearly a perfect contemporary romance. It is laugh-out-loud funny and there is a lot of heart. If you like the Kowalski family, there are more in the series. – Jennifer Lohmann

Science Fiction

science fiction The Games

by Ted Kosmatka

SCIENCE F KOSMATKA, T.

In the not-too-distant future a new “sport” has been added to the Olympic Games. The Gladiator Competition, in which genetically engineered contestants fight each other to the death, has quickly become the most popular part of the Olympic Games and has proven a boon to the genetic engineering industry throughout the world. It is a contest with only one rule – no human DNA can be used.

Silas Williams is the geneticist in charge of the development of the U.S. contestant for the thirty-eighth Olympic Games. Despite a successful record with Silas’ previous designs, the U.S. Olympic Commission decides to use a design produced by the experimental Brannin computer to create their next contestant.

As the creature develops, Silas begins to question what they have made.

Unable to connect the genetic code provided by the Brannin computer to any living creature, he calls in xenobiologist Vidonia João. With the creature growing rapidly in strength and intelligence, Silas finds his doubts turning to fear.

The Games is an exciting scientific thriller. Although the reader may have some idea where the story is going, Kosmatka succeeds in creating a sense of dread and suspense as the Olympic Games approach and things begin to go terribly wrong. – Shelley Geyer

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Ready Player One

by Ernest Cline

SCIENCE F CLINE, E.

As a child of the 1980s, I lived for my Atari 2600 game console and the latest John Hughes movie (Bueller…Bueller). Now as an adult, I crave rumors about the next Android device and am amazed that NASA landed a rover on Mars using a sky crane. Yes, I’m a geek and proud of it. So imagine my delight to find a book that tapped into 1980s nostalgia while indulging my futuristic, tech-obsessed side. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline takes place in a near-future world filled with poverty and despair. When billionaire game designer James Halliday dies and leaves his fortune and the future of his massively popular OASIS online world to the person who can complete a series of puzzles steeped in 1980s pop culture, protagonist Wade Watts navigates online and real-world pitfalls in an attempt to beat everyone else to the prize. While the 1980s references abound, you don’t need to be an encyclopedia of (useless) 1980s trivia to enjoy this coming of age story.

But, if you’re like me, and enjoy the trip back to the glorious time of hair bands and jam shorts, the book will be that much more enjoyable.

Oh, and if all that wasn’t enough, the audiobook version is read by Wil Wheaton. Totally awesome! – Matt Clobridge

Science Fiction

Ready Player One

by Ernest Cline

SCIENCE F CLINE, E.

No one was more skeptical about this book than me. Ender’s Game, anyone? But this tightly-packed tome of ‘80s pop culture nuggets gives so much more to ‘80s geeks than Orson Scott Card. I truly enjoyed this book for what it is – an epic quest through the ultimate world of ‘80s pop culture. Wade Watts (screen name Parzival), like so many others in his not-so-distant-future world, is more interested in interacting inside the OASIS, a virtual world built by James Halliday, than in what little remains of the decaying physical realm outside. He is on a Willy Wonka-esque quest to find the “Easter Egg” hidden inside the OASIS, for the ultimate prize: control of the recently deceased Halliday’s company (and sizeable fortune). Of course there are bad guys who team up and use real-world resources to get ahead in the hunt. Wade has no resources to speak of other than his total dedication to all items Halliday and ‘80s geek culture: movies, video games, computers, and pop songs. He learns a little about life in the real world along the way, with some real-life danger and relationship issues. – Lisa L. Dendy

Snuff

by Terry Pratchett

FANTASY F PRATCHETT, T.

Sir Terry Pratchett, lord of British fantasy and satire, continues his Discworld series with aplomb in this entertaining novel. Sir Samuel Vimes, Commander of the Ankh-Morpork Watch is traveling to his country estate with his wife Sybil, son Young Sam and worldly manservant Willikins. Sam Vimes is a city boy through and through and neither the odd noises nor the ideas of the landed gentry sit well with him. Luckily for his Grace, Sybil was brought up on this estate and knows which way the wind blows politically.

As Young Sam learns more about Poo, Older Sam knows there’s something afoot and treads on a few toes while trying to sniff it out. With a cowardly Chief Constable, the Poo lady, a retired copper bartender and a stinky blue Goblin to help out, Sir Samuel fights the good fight and has a few bacon sandwiches. – Lisa L. Dendy

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Science Fiction

The Waters Rising

by Sheri S. Tepper

SCIENCE F TEPPER, S.

I think Tepper is one of the most original science fiction writers around.

While my favorite book by her is the brilliant The Gate to Women’s Country (1988), this one is a gem. In a post apocalyptic world, new dangers arise.

The waters are rising and humans are moving their cities higher and higher and soon will run out of land. A new (or is it an old) killer is stalking the land. An unlikely band of characters carry the one girl child who might hold the key to both problems. A wonderfully visionary world and interesting science and characters keep me thinking about this book long after I’ve finished reading it. – Joanne Abel

Nonfiction

nonfiction 27 Views of Durham: The Bull City in Prose & Poetry

by Steve Schewel

810.809 TWEN

Ok, I don’t try to hide it…I love Durham! If you do too or wonder WHY people do, then this book is for you! A compilation of essays, poems and song lyrics written by diehard Durhamites, that explains why they have chosen to live in this gritty, artsy, food-loving, entrepreneurial, funky and cool “Bull City.” – Alice Sharpe

Almost Invisible

by Mark Strand

811 STRAND

Almost Invisible is a collection of prose poetry (paragraphs, in case you’ve not seen the form before). Prose poems are great for the people who aren’t used to poetry. While there’s not as much rhyme and meter, the form is more accessible. Strand’s collection is full of wonderful surprises. Some of the poems create beautiful images, some make you think, some are a little sad and occasionally (like “A Banker in a Brothel of Blind Women” or “Harmony in the Boudoir”) they have twisting last lines that made us laugh out loud. – Jennifer Lohmann

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Nonfiction

America Aflame: How the Civil War Created a Nation

by David Goldfield

973.711 GOLDFIELD

A wonderful history of how the Civil War really created a national identity and the country we live in today. The chapters on reconstruction are brilliant. “Except for a brief period of collective anger in 1866-1867, when white southerners threatened to reverse the verdict of the war (ending slavery), northerners were keen to let the South go on its way as long as it did not interfere with the nation’s progress.” This attitude led in turn to the south “winning” the peace, and the creation of Jim Crow segregation. The history of the times is mixed with writings from the period. I very much enjoyed the use the authors made of Walt Whitman poems. – Joanne Abel

America’s Constitution: A Biography

by Akhil Reed Amar

342.029 AMAR

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If you want to understand more about how one of the landmark documents of civilization, the U. S. Constitution, came to be and what it means for you, read America’s Constitution: A Biography. America’s Constitution is a readable, entertaining, yet thorough study of the intellectual and political origins of the Constitution. Akhil Reed Amar, a constitutional law scholar at Yale University, explains not only what the Constitution says, but also why the Constitution says it.

In the opening chapter, Amar reviews the history of the constitutional convention and ratification process. The remaining chapters review each article or amendment section by section and occasionally word by word and explain the ideas behind the words; that is, the historical, intellectual and political knowledge that the framers drew upon and incorporated in the document.

My interest in this book came from questions I have about what is meant by “original intent” as it pertains to the writers of the Constitution.

America’s Constitution gave me a much better understanding of not only what the Articles mean, but also why they were written the way they were.

– Bill Nesmith

Nonfiction

Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy

by Donald B. Kraybill, Steven M. Nolt and David L Weaver-Zercher

364.152 KRAYBILL

After attending a library program on the Amish, I was intrigued by a story in the film that we watched. I had not heard of the killing of eight girls and wounding of two more in their schoolhouse by a neighbor, nor how the Amish community reacted with rapid forgiveness. This is not a simple story, but an in-depth look at the Amish culture and beliefs that put forgiveness at the top of the moral values, but yet holds members of their church to strict standards that seem to forgo forgiveness while offering it freely to strangers.

This is a thought provoking read. – Joanne Abel

The Best Care Possible: A Physician’s Quest to Transform Care Through the End of Life

by Ira Byock

616.029 BYOCK

This very readable book, while it deals with end of life issues, also deals with serious illness whenever it may come. While palliative care grew out of the hospice movement, it is not just for end of life, and palliative care units in hospitals are a new specialty, supporting not just end of life but other seriously ill patients. You will be happy to know that one of the handful of “high-functioning, lower-cost health care systems” Byock mentions is in Durham, NC. – Carol Passmore

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Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West

by Dee Brown

970.5 BROWN

Do you think you know what happened to the American Indians in the West? If you’ve not read this book yet, then you have no idea.

The book starts with a listing of the tribes on the East Coast and when those tribes were wiped out. Brown then goes through the battles the major tribes waged to keep their land, their language, their religion and their lives in heartbreaking after heartbreaking chapter. But it’s important to read, because it’s important to know our nation’s history.

Be prepared for a rough read. Brown doesn’t sugarcoat or brush over any of the history, nor does he lessen the impact of his work by adding further thoughts, insights or any such nonsense at the end. The book closes as it began – with unnecessary and senseless death. – Jennifer Lohmann

Collected Poems

by John Betjeman

821 BETJEMAN

John Betjeman was a new poet for us, and he’s equally good for people unfamiliar with poetry. Not only is his subject matter accessible, but his poems have an ear-catching rhythm and often easy rhymes. For a giggle, read “Diary of a Church Mouse.” If you’re an Anglophile, Betjeman’s poetry often has a fumbling, warm older gentleman appeal (he was also a popular television figure) and his interest in architecture is revealed in his many poems about places in England. – Jennifer Lohmann

The Conference of the Birds

by Peter Sis

891.551 SIS

In this book, Peter Sis illustrates the 12th century Persian epic poem by Farid al-Din Attar. While this is his first book for adults, you can find his illustrations in a number of Easy and Juvenile titles, several of which have won Caldecott awards. My favorite of his books is Tibet: Through the Red Box (951.5 SIS). In most of his titles you will find mandalas, mazes, mystical beasts and the occasional monster. – Carol Passmore

Nonfiction

Dogs Make Us Human

by Mason Moussaieff

636.7 MASSON

This is a lovely book of photos of dogs from around the world, with sections about dogs and love, play, streetwise dogs, and both working dogs and pampered dogs. Read the commentary or just enjoy the photos.

– Carol Passmore

The God Species: Saving the Planet in the Age of Humans

by Mark Lynas

304.28 LYNAS

This is a very controversial book, faulting both traditional environmentalists as well as climate deniers. Lynas makes the case that humans are near tipping points, that once crossed will alter the earth’s ecosystems in probably fatal ways. But he believes that science and human intelligence can solve these problems and that we must step up to the plate and acknowledge that we are co-creators of our world: our actions fundamentally change the natural systems of the planet. Lynas reports the results of an expert group of leading scientists from around the world who identified nine “planetary boundaries.” They tried to come up with actual numbers for each boundary.

These include ones you might guess, such as biodiversity, climate change and toxics; but also ones like land use, aerosols, ocean acidification and nitrogen. He believes the only chance we have to stop climate change is to embrace nuclear power as well as renewals, and do it soon. After reading all the places that we humans are close to really screwing up, I was not as hopeful as Lynas seemed at the end of the book. Does humanity have a godlike will to look beyond its immediate wants and take the longer view? It seems our very survival as a species will depend on it. – Joanne Abel

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The Good Food Revolution: Growing Healthy Food, People and Communities

by Will Allen

631.5 ALLEN

Will Allen is a pioneer in the commercial urban agriculture program that seeks to turn a city’s food wastes into soil that is used to grow food. This in turn provides jobs for the community, revitalizes neighborhoods and makes healthy food accessible to all. His vision is for a “world without fences, because to build a new food system, we’re going to need everyone at the table.” This inspiring book is part autobiography and part guidebook for how any place can begin to join this most important movement to provide local, healthy, sustainable food for many and not just the few. Allen makes the case that equal access to good food should be a civil right. – Joanne Abel

Nonfiction

The Good Food Revolution: Growing Healthy Food, People and Communities

by Will Allen

631.5 ALLEN

Will Allen is a former professional basketball player, corporate executive turned sustainable urban farmer, ecological food activist and winner of the prestigious MacArthur Genius Award. In Good Food Revolution, he presents not only his life’s trials, tribulations and triumphs, but a serious look at the socio-economic and racial disparities relative to food cultivation and consumption that have come about as a result of corporate malaise, bureaucracy and government inefficiency.

Part how-to manual, urban farming, sustainability manifesto and part memoir, The Good Food Revolution traces Allen’s agrarian roots to rural South Carolina – where his ancestors were very much a part of farming culture – and his parents’ move to Washington, D.C./Maryland to find a better way of life away from the vestiges of Jim Crow segregation and poverty. Although Allen thrives in Maryland as a much heralded high school basketball player, his father and mother’s self sufficiency exemplified by hunting small animals or planting vegetable gardens, instills in Allen what later becomes his life’s mission and occupation.

The continuous flashbacks and references to people who are a part of Allen’s personal narrative tends to disrupt the flow of the story at times, but these interactions and human experiences with family, employees, local Milwaukee youth, etc. add a human touch to Allen’s inspirational story and burgeoning company Growing Power.

In addition to providing concrete examples of urban farming and life lessons learned, the author summarizes key issues at the end of each chapter. This small book gets a thumbs up! – Carter Cue

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Happier at Home

by Gretchen Rubin

158 RUBIN

In Rubin’s second book on happiness, she focuses her attention on home and family. Using husband Jamie and two daughters Eleanor and Eliza as examples, she makes one realize how important the people closest to you are in bringing about happiness. Each month, beginning in September, a topic of interest is covered beginning with marriage, then parenthood, interior design, possessions, time, family, body and neighborhood. Great thoughts are given throughout each chapter to make the reader realize there are many projects and ideas to use in and around your home.

“Act the way you want to feel” is mentioned many times throughout the book. Basically, you cannot make others happy, but with a positive attitude, you can make a difference in how you react to negativity in others. Did you ever think of having a holiday breakfast for Valentine’s Day and decorating the table with red candies, flowers and pancakes in the shape of hearts?

Little things done around the home can make all the difference in bringing joy to family members. An interesting nonfiction work that will give the reader plenty of suggestions in the pursuit of happiness. – Donna Hausmann

How to Survive the Titanic: The Sinking of J. Bruce Ismay

by Frances Wilson

910.916 Wilson

The title of this book attracted me at first, then I found out who J. Bruce Ismay was, and the intrigue grew from there. Like many others, I have always been fascinated by the Titanic, but I was unaware of J. Bruce Ismay.

The author, Frances Wilson, has thoroughly researched her subject, mixing objectivity with a trace of sympathy. In the middle of the book, she begins to compare Ismay to the main character of Lord Jim, a book written by Joseph Conrad. Ismay’s life parallels Jim’s life with uncanny similarities. Both are tragic characters, both misunderstood and often vilified by others. As I read Ismay’s account of his escape from the Titanic in a lifeboat, I wondered what I would have done. Are you a coward for trying to save your own life, or do you have a responsibility to risk death by trying to save others? Tough questions are posed to the reader as you learn different accounts and accusations. What is certain is that Ismay survived the Titanic physically, but it permanently damaged the remainder of his life. – Archie Burke

Nonfiction

Make the Bread, Buy the Butter: What You Should and Shouldn’t Cook from Scratch – Over 120 Recipes for the Best Homemade Foods

by Jennifer Reese

641.3 REESE

This cookbook will have you laughing out loud, as well as rethinking some of your cooking habits. I loved the recipe for oven fried chicken, and found her story of chickens, turkeys and ducks hysterical. She references all the big names in the foodie movement and offers practical comments along the way. – Joanne Abel

MWF Seeking BFF: My Yearlong Search for a New Best Friend

by Rachel Bertsche

070.92 Bertsche

I absolutely loved this book. It is about a woman named Rachel who (like the title suggests) is searching for a new best friend in the area she recently moved to with her boyfriend. She joins several book clubs and women’s groups, and tries going out with ladies from her job after work, renting/ hiring a “friend” and even going on multiple friendship “speed dates.” I was constantly laughing out loud and reading parts to my boyfriend (which I know he greatly appreciated!!). I wanted to be Rachel's BFF!! I loved her many references to the television series Friends and Law and Order: SVU. This book has made me think about my past and present friendships and the value I place on them. I have been married before and most of my BFF's were ones I made through my ex-husband’s friends. They were girlfriends/wives of his friends. Once the marriage ended, so did some of the friendships. The friends who stayed around were my "lifers." They are the ones who will stick with me through anything. This book gave me some great ideas on how to expand my circle of friends, and it reminded me to keep in touch with my “lifers.” – Jessica Adams

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Nonfiction

My Empire of Dirt: How One Man Turned His Big-City Backyard into a Farm: A Cautionary Tale

by Manny Howard

630.974 HOWARD

This memoir is not necessarily a city dweller’s ode to recreate the Jeffersonian gentleman farmer’s edict of living off the land, while sustaining oneself through the sweat of one’s labor or simply gaining some understanding of society, nature and ecological balance a la Henry David Thoreau. Ultimately, at the end of the author’s mad-cap journey to feed himself for 30 days from the farm he has constructed behind his Brooklyn, NYC house, the reality sets in that it is hard to grow one’s own food – much less live off the land.

At the outset it appears this particular adventure should be a cake-walk for Howard, given his previous journalistic forays as a documentary filmmaker in Afghanistan or tracking down celebrity chefs in foreign countries while on assignment for a magazine. But this task, which began as a magazine article and then became a full length book assignment, tests Howard’s aptitude as a real “he-man.” His wife Lisa, a publishing executive, is often angry with him; he cuts off a portion of his pinkie finger while skinning a chicken; he loses most of the vegetables (those that do thrive) to an unexpected tornado; and his rabbits purchased for meat succumb to various ailments and poor care.

There are, however, several aspects probably used for literary impact that seem a bit disconcerting, including the long recollection about boxer Roy Jones, Jr. and his passion for cock fighting, and the frequently quoted voice of economic critic and farmer Wendell Berry. But overall, the book is good.

It peaks and ebbs toward tedium in some chapters but Howard’s experiment in farming is hilarious and informative. – Carter Cue

Nonfiction

The New Southern Garden Cookbook: Enjoying the Best from Homegrown Gardens, Farmers’ Markets, Roadside Stands & CSA Farm Boxes

by Sheri Castle

641.597 CASTLE

Have you ever wondered what to do with all the zucchini that your neighbor has brought over from their garden? Try the dark chocolate zucchini cake with ganache glaze. It’s fantastic! This collection of over 350 recipes, from Chapel Hill author Sheri Castle, is organized alphabetically by fruit or vegetable, and aims to take advantage of fresh, locally grown produce. If you want to know how to pickle ramps, this book is for you. – Janet Levy

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Nonfiction

The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics: The Personalities, Elections, and Events That Shaped Modern North Carolina

by Rob Christensen

NC 975.604 CHRISTENSEN

It would be difficult to find another state that can rival the institution known as North Carolina politics. Chicago may be known for its corrupt political machines, but the predictability of most of those characters involved pales in comparison to the complexity, and at times, brilliance, of those whose names adorn government buildings across our great state. In the game of politics, North Carolina is the Super Bowl.

In his book, Rob Christensen of the News and Observer weaves together the stories of North Carolina's political folklore to paint a more complete picture of the history of North Carolina politics. Christensen does an excellent job of drawing the reader into the context in which past political leaders were operating when making decisions that to date, still have an impact on our state. O. Max Gardner, Terry Sanford, Kerr Scott and Jim Holshouser are just a few of the pillars of North Carolina politics who are explored.

As a student of politics in my life before libraries, I found no shortage of mindnumbing texts on the subject. Readers will find that Christensen has made this a very enjoyable read. It is similar to reading about your family history and finding out about those distant relatives you’ve heard many stories about. This will be a great starting place for all who have an interest in and want to understand how North Carolina became the best state in the union. – Terry B. Hill

The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry

by Jon Ronson

616.858 RONSON

I heard about Jon Ronson and this book on the NPR show This American Life, and was instantly curious about the psychopath test. The book is compelling, humorous and poignant. If you are interested in psychology and the study of our society, Ronson will lead you through a series of interviews that are fascinating and revealing. There isn’t much hard science in this book, but that’s not why you pick it up and read it. You want to find out how crazy you are, or maybe even the people around you. The claim is that one out of every one hundred people is a psychopath. Read the book, take the test and then you too can look at every person you meet and wonder if they are the one. – Jill Wagy

Nonfiction

Pulphead: Essays

by John Jeremiah Sullivan

080 SULLIVAN

Perhaps it’s strange to recommend a book of essays everyone seems to call “uneven.” Pulphead is uneven. Some essays are incredibly moving (“Upon This Rock”), others veer off in unexpected directions (“Feet in Smoke”) and others introduce you to the unusual (“Unnamed Caves”). You will forget some essays minutes after you read them, while others will stick with you for years.

Wilmington-author Sullivan’s writing is magical throughout the book.

His essays are funny, without taking cheap potshots at easy targets, and he has sentences you will want to read over and over, just so that you fully appreciate how well crafted they are. What makes this book uneven is the subject matter, and so it will be uneven for everyone differently. I may have loved an essay you only find so-so. You may find meaning in an essay that went completely over my head. But we can both agree that he immerses himself in his subject matter, attempting to fully understand and translate it to his reader.

And we’ll both agree that “Feet in Smoke” was one of the best essays we read this year. – Jennifer Lohmann

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking

by Susan Cain

155.232 CAIN

I first saw Susan Cain in a Ted Talk about this book, and I was immediately hooked. I felt like I was reading about myself when she talked about introverts. I loved the chapters on Dale Carnegie and Tony Robbins. For so long I thought I had to follow their kind of thinking because being an introvert was a bad thing, Cain shows us that not only is being an introvert a good thing, introverts should be celebrated. I wholeheartedly agree – although I prefer to keep it quiet. – Jill Wagy

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Nonfiction

Rogues Gallery: The Secret History of the Moguls and the Money That Made the Metropolitan Museum of Art

by Michael Gross

708.147 GROSS

Journalist and author Michael Gross, the writer of Genuine Authentic: The Real Life of Ralph Lauren and 740 Park: The Story of the World Richest Apartment Building, casts his keen investigative eye once again on an honored institution of American life – this time the venerable Metropolitan Museum of Art. This fact-filled tome may appall the serious art history connoisseur for its diabolical hubris, but will gleefully delight those interested in the underbelly of the art world or the “hoity-toity” that occupy it.

Rogues Gallery starts out simply enough with general background information about the founders and why the organization was formed. But once the foibles of the first director Luigi Palma di Cesnola emerge in the narrative, the reader is treated to a cornucopia of egomania, intrigue, incompetence, fierce competition, corruption, theft and some of the best art the world has ever seen. Gross shocks the reader and throws in a dose of humor.

The book is organized by individual names in a chronological sequence and includes such worthies as J. Pierpont Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, Thompas P. F. Hoving, Robert Moses and Anette Engelhard (e.g. Anette de La Renta), most of whom have already been written about in singular biographical works.

Much of the contemporary insider information on the Met comes from the erstwhile, charismatic former director Tom Hoving, a person some critics say never met a microphone or reporter he did not like. However, it appears his intel does not disappoint, as many of the directors and trustees that decline to talk to the author are not spared from becoming fodder for speculation under Gross’s eagle-eyed scrutiny.

The book is rich in details and facts, but several chapters bog down the reader due to this onslaught of historical detail. One possible shortcoming of this book was a lack of photographs. It would have been wonderful to see pictures of Palma di Cesnola or some of the other characters portrayed in the book. In spite of this, the book is a must-read for the student of art history. – Carter Cue

Nonfiction

Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit

by Barry Estabrook

635.642 ESTABROOK

Wow. If you need more reasons for not buying out of season tomatoes besides the taste, this book will be an eye opener. It focuses on the winter tomato crop grown in Florida and the control of it by the Florida Tomatoes Growers Exchange. They are one powerful group. They decide what a tomato should look like. For example, the grower of the “ugly” tomatoes you can find now in different stores had to sue the FTGE in court to sell his better tasting tomatoes because they didn’t fit the rules. The FTGE fought a one penny per pound increase for farm workers who work under horrid conditions. (The stories of the State of Florida prosecuting cases of actual slavery where farmers said, “We used to own our slaves, now we just rent them,” is truly horrific in the twenty-first century.) I won’t talk about the chemicals it takes to grow tomatoes in sand, but you can imagine what it does to the workers and their children. While offering no solutions, the book ends with a trip to northwestern Peru, the home of the wild tomato, where the hope for a better tasting, less chemically dependent tomato resides. – Joanne Abel

Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness

by Dave Ramsey

332.024 RAMSEY

Dave Ramsey states his purpose is to “show people the truth about debt and money, and to give them hope and tools necessary to set themselves free financially.” In this self-help book, Dave gives practical and honest advice about budgeting, getting rid of debt and savings. This is a great book for anyone who is interested in learning how to manage money and become debt free. – Placedia Nance

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Biography

Biography A Hope in the Unseen: An American Odyssey from the Inner City to the Ivy League

by Ron Suskind

B JENNINGS, C.

This is a great read for students and adults! The author follows Cedric Jennings from his senior year at one of the worst public, inner-city schools in the D.C. area through his first two years at Brown University. The book detailed the challenges Cedric faced growing up, dealing with peer pressure at school where no one cares about going to college, home situations to rise above and his journey to being accepted into an Ivy League college. It will inspire and motivate everyone that you can overcome any challenges in life and be what you want to be. I think it is particularly a good read for high school students. – Anita Robinson

Leo and His Circle: The Life of Leo Castelli, 2010

by Annie Cohen-Solal

B CASTELLI, L.

In today’s cash-saturated global arts market that routinely fetches savvy auction houses and popular artists million dollar sales, it is easy to assume that this trend has been common place over the past seventy years. However, few people are probably aware that this desire by wealthy collectors to pay a small fortune for a cherished art work might be more constructed than inherent and is due in large part to elegant, genteel art dealers such as Leo Castelli.

In her expansive and detailed biography Leo and His Circle: the Life of Leo Castelli, Annie Cohen-Solal delves deeply into the early life of the fomer Leo Krausz, the son of a well-to-do Hungarian banker father and Italian mother born to a family of merchants in the Austro-Hungarian city of Trieste.

However, before the reader can see how the art dealer Castelli works, they must first plod through over one hundred pages of genealogy and historical background on the Krausz-Castelli clans interspersed with the sociopolitical saga of Hitler’s Nazi program that forced Jews (such as Castelli and

Biography

family) from Europe. The lengthy family history does lay the groundwork for understanding Castelli’s later drive and tenacity as a successful art dealer – a career he starts at the age of 50 in the confines of his spacious New York City apartment that he shares with his first wife Illeana.

In short order, in spite of not having a formal art background, his intuitive risk-taking nets unknown, soon-to-be famous artists such as James Rosenquist, Cy Twombly, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Lee Bontecou, Frank Stella and Roy Lichtenstein. Castelli’s reputation as dealer extraordinaire is cemented as a result of many firsts: providing monthly stipends to artists; increasing price values via auctions and museum purchases; and his trademark relentless sales pitches to only selected buyers.

Castelli even expanded his gallery reach and clientele by launching satellites in numerous national and international locales.

The major shortcoming of this well-documented book is the author’s personal friendship with Castelli which inhibits her from really digging into his life as a gallerist. Thus there is no mention of his serial womanizing or his aloofness towards family and acquaintances. Also, because this work was translated from French to English, there are errors relative to spelling and historical context. But, overall, the reader is given a well-documented biography on a seminal figure in modern art. – Carter Cue

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Biography

Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake

by Anna Quindlen

B QUINDLEN, A.

If you are a woman who has ever been married or had children or friends, you will find yourself in this book. Anna Quindlen is a Pulitzer Prize winning author whose books should not be missed. In this biography, Quindlen touches on so many topics that appeal to baby-boomer age women. At one point when I was reading this book, I stopped and texted a long passage to my daughter because it was EXACTLY what our relationship is like now. Quindlen is a few years older than me and so many of her observations paralleled my own life; however, she can put into words things I have felt and experienced in a way I never could.

If you have never read her non-fiction before, give her a try. Her book A Short Guide to a Happy Life is one I re-read every year and have given as gifts to many friends and family. The first time I read it, I was sitting in the parking lot of the bookstore where I bought it – finished it right there and then went home and read it again. – Jill Wagy

Old Before My Time: Hayley Okines’ Life with Progeria

by Hayley and Kerry Okines

B OKINES, H.

I do not normally read books like this, but it caught my attention while I was searching the Good Reads website. I got it and finished it in about three days. It is such an inspiring story. Hayley has a disease called progeria which causes her body to age rapidly. It is told from her mother, Kerry’s and Hayley's points of views. You cheer for Hayley throughout the entire book.

This book will make you laugh and make you cry! – Jessica Adams

Biography

Paris in Love: A Memoir

by Eloisa James

B JAMES, E.

A few years ago romance author Eloisa James, aka English professor Mary Bly, took her whole family to Paris to live for a year following a fight against breast cancer. These brief vignettes are like a love letter to Paris and her family, as delicious as the Parisian chocolate she grows to love so much.

As her 10-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son adjust to a school where they (bilingual in English and Italian) need to speak French and Latin and have classes like architectural drawing, Ms. James writes, devours museums, explores French food and fashion, and takes the opportunity to dine out with her Italian husband Alessandro. Further adventures include the saga of the very overweight family pet who is spoiled by Alessandro’s mom, being served some very interesting dishes in restaurants, and a language barrier regarding what color Ms. James’ hair should be. Pick this book up – you’ll finish it in several hours and you’ll be glad you did. – Lisa L. Dendy

Rather Outspoken: My Life in the News

by Dan Rather

B RATHER, D.

A book really comes to life when you interact with the author and hear his passion for putting his words from pen to paper. Author Dan Rather delivers a detailed description of his journalism experiences as he shares personal details of opportunities and challenges. The reader will quickly flash back to the story in its aired format but, in the book, one receives a more frank account of each shared story. It's a great report of a variety of historical moments that encourages you to learn more about each event. – Tammy Baggett

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Biography

Red Brick, Black Mountain, White Clay: Reflections on Art, Family, and Survival

by Christopher Benfey

B BENFEY, C.

Benfey’s exquisite memoir Red Brick, Black Mountain, White Clay: Reflections on Art, Family, and Survival is a hauntingly reflective journey that merges erudite historical content like Piedmont North Carolina ecological history with more subtle topics such as family genealogy involving noted Jewish philologist Theodor Benfey (a distant relative) and Bauhaus-taught artist and Jewish refugee Annie Albers (the author’s aunt).

If you thought these strands of thought were dissimilar, Benfey further ties in Quakerism, Judaism, Piedmont pottery, white clay found in the mountains of North Carolina, the naturalist William Bartram, Karen Karnes the potter and the Black Mountain College artist/professor Josef Albers (the husband of Anni Albers) that evoke the graceful brush stroke of the Japanese calligrapher.

Each single chapter or point of perspective discussed in the book could be a larger book in and of itself. But the author is able to make each seemingly dissimilar thread a type of family quilt that weaves a multitude of questions: What is my primary purpose in life? Is curiosity a necessary component in the creative process? How does society or the individual view aging and the possibility of death as a result of aging? Red Brick, Black Mountain, White Clay has a type of literary synergy that works in the author’s deft hands because he is also able to tell a compelling story that brings out the rawness and emotionality of the people populating this saga.

This book is a must-read for the person interested in pottery, folklore, modern design, visual art, ecological history, religion, biography and, most of all, those determined to understand the role of creativity and art in their personal lives. – Carter Cue

Graphic Novels

graphic novels Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes

by Mary Talbot

306.874 TALBOT

This graphic novel traces the life of James Joyce’s daughter. She was an aspiring dancer, thwarted by family. Her mental health suffered and she was institutionalized for most of her life. You pick up highlights of her father’s career as her story is told. Mary Talbot was the daughter of the biographer and her memoir is less clear, as she didn’t lead a public life. For both, illustrations show current events in the world during their childhoods. It certainly seems to be a tale of extremely bad child raising techniques. – Carol Passmore

Incredible Change-Bots

by Jeffrey Brown

F BROWN, J.

Michael Bay’s shiny, serious, exploding Transformers movie trilogy may have satisfied others’ nostalgia for the robots in disguise, but I’ll pass them up any day for Jeffrey Brown’s hilarous Incredible Change-Bots. This is the epic story of the apparently good Awesomebots and the apparently evil Fantasticons, robots from the planet Electronocybercircuitron who have the improbable ability to transform into Earth vehicles, which become, er, convenient when their war comes to our planet! This homage/parody is perfect in every way, from the sound effects (“CHOO CHEE CHUK”) to the ridiculous robot names – Honky Tonk, Racey, Shootertron, Balls – to the unnecessarily melodramatic tone (“Godspeed you Racey…Godspeed”). It could only have come from someone with deep affection for and extensive knowledge of this ridiculous and hugely fun premise, and Brown’s sweetly naïve drawing style is especially perfect for it. I can’t recommend Incredible Change-Bots highly enough because I can’t breathe from laughing so hard. – Patrick Holt

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Graphic Novels

Omega: The Unknown

by Jonathan Lethem and Farel Dalrymple (with Paul Hornschmeier and Gary Panter)

F LETHEM, J.

When his parents are killed and revealed to be androids, it’s just the beginning of the weirdness that awkward teenager Alex must confront. A marketing-obsessed “superhero” named The Mink, a giant disembodied hand and a silent superhero with a mysterious connection to Alex are just a few of the characters waiting around the corner for him in this engagingly peculiar book. Novelist Jonathan Lethem (Gun With Occasional Music, The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick), no stranger to weirdness himself, writes engaging characters who are likeable even when their motivations aren’t clearly for the good, if they can be fully understood at all. He avoids the trap of many novelists working in comics – that of excessive dialogue and narration –but instead shares the narrative spotlight with Farel Dalrymple’s (Pop Gun War) expressive and textured drawing and Paul Hornschmeier’s (Life with Mr. Dangerous) subtle colors. A comic-within-a-comic drawn by Gary Panter (Jimbo’s Inferno) tops off the unexpectedly compelling layers of this strange and beautiful masterpiece. – Patrick Holt

Petrograd

by Philip Gelatt and Tyler Crook

F GELATT, P.

It’s been recently discovered that British hands fired the gun that killed Rasputin, the filthy mystic who infiltrated the inner circle of Russia’s Tsar Nicholas II in the early 1900s, apparently for reasons of international power struggles surrounding WWI. Petrograd examines a fictionalized account of the events leading up to his assassination and the unexpected fallout, focusing on the (fictional) British spy, named Cleary, who pulled the trigger.

Cleary, an Irishman with understandably mixed feelings about his employer, is as comfortable mixing with anarchists as with aristocrats, making him the perfect man to remove Rasputin, England’s primary competition for influence over the increasingly out-of-touch Russian royal family. Layers of history and intrigue, compelling characters and dialogue, a touch of the old Mad Monk’s myth and beautiful black and red ink work make this book a fascinating joy to read. – Patrick Holt

Graphic Novels

Scenes from an Impending Marriage

by Adrian Tomine

B TOMINE, A.

Adrian Tomine is best known for his brooding, slice-of-life fiction as published in the series Optic Nerve (we have several collections, including the excellent-but-depressing Shortcomings), but he took a break from brooding to put together this super-short memoir about the months leading up to his wedding. Choosing a DJ, choosing which guests don’t make the cut, finding the perfect antique-style letterpress printer for invitations, awkward cross-cultural considerations: it’s all here, and it’s all very, very funny. It’s a small book that you could probably read in 15 minutes, but rereading it will keep you laughing again and again. – Patrick Holt

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Young Adult Fiction

young adult fiction Ambitious

by Monica McKayhan

YAF MCKAYHAN, M.

Marisol Garcia and Drew Bishop are new students attending Premiere School of the Performing Arts. Marisol is a dancer and Drew is an actor.

Both characters reside in different neighborhoods and are torn between friends and families. Marisol and Drew are both faced with a lot of decisions. They must learn to embrace challenges and differences as they embark on a journey to accomplish their dreams. Marisol and Drew defy the odds by continuing to be ambitious. – Placedia Nance

Ashfall

by Mike Mullen

YAF MULLEN, M.

I think I’m beginning to enjoy dystopian literature. In this post-apocalyptic tale, a volcano erupts causing volcano ash to appear everywhere. Alex is home alone to enjoy his freedom while his parents visit his grandparents.

Once the volcano erupts, Alex’s survival skills are put to the test. The reader is taken on a journey with Alex. When food and water become scarce, people become desperate. During his traveling to search for his parents, he meets a young lady named Darla. Follow Alex and Darla in this wonderful tale of survival and romance as they search for Alex’s parents. Part two will be released soon. I can’t wait to see what adventures Alex and Darla will encounter. – Placedia Nance

Young Adult Fiction

Daughter of Smoke and Bone

by Lani Taylor

YAF TAYLOR, L.

If you’re looking for a powerful and tantalizing love story featuring passionate, charismatic characters – including a strong and resourceful female protagonist – look no further than Daughter of Smoke and Bone.

Blue-haired Karou has an uncertain past and an unusual family. Raised by demonic chimaera, she lives with and works for the tooth-collecting wishmonger Brimstone while still maintaining a human life as art student in modern-day Prague. But the precarious balance of her dual life is destroyed when the doors between the magical and mundane worlds are violently sealed. Karou’s quest for a way back to her chimaera family leads her not only to the beautiful, haunted angel Akiva, but also to the truth about her own history and identity.

Taylor's lush and lyrical style occasionally verges on florid, and a significant shift in the narrative halfway through the novel causes the story to lose some of its momentum, but neither of these issues are large enough to diminish the appeal of this gorgeously rendered fantasy. In a world flooded by mediocre supernatural romance, Daughter of Smoke and Bone is a fresh, fierce, and very welcome addition. – Rebecca Honeycutt

Everneath

by Brodi Ashton

YAF ASHTON, B.

This book was wonderful!! It's so nice to read a YA novel that does not have vampires or werewolves! This is a modern day retelling of the Hades and Persephone myth. I read it one evening. I could not put it down. I cannot wait for the sequel Everbound to come out! – Jessica Adams

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Young Adult Fict ion

Everyday

by David Levithan

YAF LEVITHAN, D.

David Levithan’s latest is a thought-provoking novel for teenagers who are searching for an identity to call their own. A has been inhabiting a new body each day for 16 years. But what happens when A falls in love? Levithan uses the character of A as the ultimate empath, sketching out the lives of all kinds of different teens. Meanwhile, A tries to maintain some connection with one special girl. This one is totally fresh and unique for open minded readers who like to ponder the big questions. – Autumn Winters

The Fault in Our Stars

by John Green

YAF GREEN, J.

You may have already heard of The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. It’s a beautiful, heartbreaking and amazing teen novel about young people and cancer. I cannot recommend it more highly. Do you like to weep? Do you like to ponder the meaning of life while listening to Neutral Milk Hotel?

Do you want to read about young people with big problems who are more than just their problems? Then this one is for you. – Autumn Winters

Finding Your Faith

by Stephanie Moore

YAF MOORE, S.

Yasmin Peace has to learn to depend on her faith when tragedy occurs. Her oldest brother commits suicide, her father is incarcerated and her mother is struggling financially. Yasmin’s faith is continuously tested in this series.

Yasmin learns how to build her confidence and continually help her sibling stay out of trouble. Yasmin has a lot of wisdom and learns a lot of life lessons. She encourages herself, family and friends to lean on and trust in God. – Placedia Nance

Young Adult Fiction

A Great and Terrible Beauty

by Libba Bray

YAF BRAY, L.

I stayed up late one night finishing this book. I was completely obsessed, and the weather outside was perfect: harsh thunderstorms and lightning. This novel is a mix of teenage angst with horror set in Victorian England: my favorite elements. Gemma, the main character, has powers that she discovers after the shocking death of her mother. She is sent to a boarding school where young ladies are taught to be subservient wives. There she meets three friends and together they discover the dark secrets of the boarding school’s past. As they unravel these secrets, Gemma learns to use her powers, and discloses her abilities to her friends. It is a classic pull between power and wisdom, friendship and treachery, trust and deception, and I was never quite sure what the characters would choose, and how the narrative would unwind. This is the first book of the Gemma Doyle Trilogy by Libba Bray. Yes, I have checked out the second one and plan to start it tonight! – Archie Burke

Joseph

by Shelia P. Moses

YAF MOSES, S.

I love this book! Meet Joseph: his father is in the army fighting in Iraq. His mother is a college graduate but very dysfunctional or maybe it’s all the drugs. Who knows? The setting of the story takes place in Durham, NC. This book captured me from the first page. Sheila Moses illustrates a vivid picture told from an African American male perspective. Joseph’s mother is an outcast to him and his family. Joseph is left sorting through his feelings of trying to reason and understand his mother’s erratic and selfish behavior.

Joseph is torn. What happens when a caregiver or parent is not capable of taking care of their child? How does drug abuse and homelessness shape and model a child into an adult? This is an excellent novel for reluctant readers.

Don’t forget to check out part two entitled Joseph’s Grace. – Placedia Nance

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Young Adult Fiction

Matched

by Ally Condie

YAF CONDIE, A.

Matched is a novel about a futuristic, dystopian society where the path of your life is chosen for you. The Society decides everything: what job you will have, who you will marry and even when you will die. Any and all information about you is stored on a giant computer database, and this computer doesn't make mistakes. When Cassia Reyes attends her matching banquet, everything seems perfect. She has never questioned that The Society would choose her best match until, inexplicably, the wrong person flashes on her computer screen. One split second mistake begins to make her wonder. Does The Society truly know what's best for everyone, and do they really have HER best interests at heart?

Matched is the first book in this popular trilogy by Ally Condie. If you like dystopian novels like The Hunger Games or The Giver and are a fan of tangled love triangles, this book is for you. If you're still not convinced, check out the booktrailer at www.matched-book.com. – Heather Cunningham

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

by Jesse Andrews

YAF ANDREWS, J.

You probably haven’t heard of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews. It’s a hilarious, profane and amazing teen novel about young people and cancer. I cannot recommend it more highly. Do you like to laugh? Do you like to make your own YouTube tributes to Werner Herzog? Do you want to read about young people who behave and speak in a realistic fashion even though they are in a book that might give you some good ideas about how to live life? Then this one is for you. – Autumn Winters

Young Adult Fiction

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

by Ransom Riggs

YAF RIGGS, R.

Jacob has always had a special relationship with his grandfather. Upon his grandfather’s death, Jacob begins to review the strange photographs he left, and ponder the fantastical stories that he always assumed were fairy tales. When a mysterious letter leads Jacob to the Welsh island where his grandfather grew up, Jacob’s dad travels with him. But when Jacob finds the children from the photographs, still alive after so many years, he realizes his grandfather’s stories were real and that he is the only one who can help them. – Lisa L. Dendy

The Monstrumologist Curse of the Wendigo The Isle of Blood

by Rick Yancey

YAF YANCEY, R.

This trilogy of young adult horror novels make for literate and grotesque fun. The prose is crisp and the vocabulary extensive, but it is also strangely funny and accessible. Above all else, it is a read that varies between the moody and the grotesque, with each book being punctuated by single moments of incredibly vivid terror and violence. Recommended for older teens and adult horror fans, this is a series that not only intrigues and horrifies, but succeeds in making the reader care for monster hunter’s apprentice and narrator Will Henry and his scientific mentor, the hyperrational curmudgeon Dr. Pellinore Walthrop. Also fun is the author’s propensity for literary name dropping, as Yancey manages to incorporate such figures as Bram Stoker, Algernon Blackwood, and Arthur Conan Doyle as a part of his narrative.

For fans of: H.P. Lovecraft, Stephen King, Mary Shelley. – Matthew Z. Wood

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Young Adult Fiction

Not a Good Look

by Nikki Carter

YAF CARTER, N.

If you love drama then you will love this series. Sunday Tolliver is talented.

She sings, writes and is an honor roll student. Dreya, Sunday’s diva cousin, is offered a record deal. Sunday is offered a position to become her cousin’s “personal assistant.” Since Dreya is a drama queen, Sunday is hired to keep an eye on her cousin. Their family bond is tested when money, record deals, boys and popularity are involved. Read the series to learn how Sunday reacts to Dreya and all of her drama! – Placedia Nance

Plan B

by Charnan Simon

YAF SIMON, C.

I liked this novel because it explores the issue of teenage pregnancy. Lucy has her life all planned out. She has created her long term goals: graduate from high school, get a scholarship for college, become a Spanish teacher and get married. Things are going great until Lucy becomes pregnant.

Scared, disappointed and faced with fear, Lucy has to make some quick decisions that can quickly alter her future. All of a sudden her boyfriend, Luke, becomes too busy with his sports for Lucy. What option will Lucy select as her plan B? Get rid of her boyfriend, drop out of school or have the baby? Read the novel to find out. – Placedia Nance

Young Adult Fiction

Railsea

by China Mieville

YAF MIEVILLE, C.

Railsea catches your interest from the first page when you meet Sham ap Soorap, a young boy, lost and standing in a puddle of blood. The story only gets stranger and more tangled from there. We learn that Sham is a doctor's apprentice on a moletrain traveling across the vast railsea. In this dystopian future, the world has been divided into four layers: the toxic upsky filled with hungry alien flyers, the downsky where the air is clean to breathe, the subterrestrial filled with ancient salvage and giant carnivorous beasts, and the railsea extending in all directions across the earth.

Sham is a crewmember on the moletrain the Medes, and their one mission is to hunt the giant moldywarpes of the railsea (China Mieville includes pencil drawings of these beasts and many others throughout the book which will both fascinate and repulse you in turn.) As the journey begins, you learn that Sham is not satisfied with his lot and seeks something more to his existence. When he unearths a secret memory during one of their expeditions, his thirst for answers leads him on a dangerous adventure to the far edges of the railsea and the only world he knows.

Mieville's idea of a land completely covered by rails and inhabited by burrowing monsters is both crazy and believable. It is easy to become completely engrossed in the story when you're unable to predict what unusual scenario the author will think of next. I especially enjoyed the lingo of the crewmen and Mieville's knack for creating new words such as eruchthonous (this is a railsea term defined as that which digs up from underneath & emerges). If you have a wild imagination and an interest in expanding your vocabulary, you will love this book. Recommended for both teens and adults. – Heather Cunningham

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Juvenile Fiction

juvenile fiction Babymouse for President

by Jennifer L. Holm and Matthew Holm

JF HOLM, J.

In the 16th book in this graphic novel series, the cute and sassy Babymouse decides to run for student council president. She doesn't take it very seriously at first but, as the story progresses, she realizes that her voice and opinions really do matter. Of course things don't always go her way which as she likes to say is “typical,” but this just adds to her charm. A major obstacle she faces in the election is that she's up against some tough opponents: mean girl Felicia Furrypaws, the very tall Georgie Giraffe, the adorable Santiago Seal and (I found myself laughing out loud about this) even her locker! I especially appreciate its slogan, “Vote for Locker! I am made of metal!”

This series is great for those who love silly humor and can appreciate a flawed but spunky main character. Babymouse for President is an excellent choice to read and share in this election year. – Heather Cunnigham

Beswitched

by Kate Saunders

JF SAUNDERS, K.

This book mixes time travel, magic and growing up all in one story. Due to the machinations of three girls in 1935, Flora Fox, a modern-day teenager, is whisked through time back to their era in order to accomplish a task.

She has in fact switched lives with a girl of that time and with the same name who is coming to attend the school after living in British-ruled India.

Naturally the modern Flora is not pleased and makes no effort to get along with the girls or at the school until one of her roommates is caused trouble by a bully. She steps in for her with the teacher and soon becomes a heroine.

They located a diary made by the former headmistress of the school, who had once done a summoning similar to theirs to help one of her

Juvenile Fiction

pupils remain at school. After coping with a measles epidemic, doing a love spell for the parlor maid, and witnessing a fight between two girls, both Flora and her roommate Daphne receive a warning from the former head mistress’ portrait that they must be friends. However, that does not happen until there is an accident following a cross-country run and both Flora and Daphne must bring help. Interestingly enough, this leads to the fulfillment of the love spell and they learn that a strict teacher at the school is actually the adult version of the pupil who had first been assisted by magic! With the spell completed due to their actions, Flora returns to her own time and learns that “Daphne” from the school was actually a young version of her grandmother!

The author E. Nesbit was a groundbreaker in writing about modern day characters in a magical tale. Kate Saunders, with her combination of elements, proves herself to be another such as E. Nesbit in my opinion.

Scientific matters such as time travel are not often mixed with magic in books, but she does so very well, producing a flowing story that is a very good read. – Laurel Jones

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Juvenile Fiction

The Game

by Diana Wynne Jones

JF JONES, D.

This book takes characters out of mythology and places them in a modern setting without removing their otherworldliness. The main character is Hayley Foss, an orphan who lives with her grandparents and is homeschooled. Her grandfather has a special job which involves watching the whole world. By accident, he shows Hayley a reality known as the ‘mythosphere.’ When Hayley learns that she can call up characters from the mythosphere, she is banished to live with her aunts in Ireland.

She arrives in the middle of a family crisis: the drains are backed up in a rainstorm and the house is flooding! With Hayley’s help, the crisis is concluded and she learns of a mysterious game that all of the children in the family play involving the mythosphere. Invited to play, Hayley learns that she has even more aunts and cousins than she knew and that she is able to become a comet! [Hayley’s Comet] She also finds her father who had in fact, been sent off by her tyrannical Uncle Jolyon (Jupiter).

But when the uncle learns about the game, Hayley is forced to flee to Scotland with two of her cousins. On the way, she learns what had become of her mother, who is the only one able to rescue her father. After they retrieve her from her own mythosphere prison, Hayley is able to bring down her Uncle Jolyon and the rest of her family is then free to return to the mythosphere.

This is a funny and touching book combining Roman mythology and action/adventure. It can also serve as a learning tool to assist in teaching astronomy and mythology. – Laurel Jones

Juvenile Fiction

Here Lies the Librarian

by Richard Peck

JF PECK, R.

This is a wonderful and surprising book by the Newbery Award-winning author of A Year Down Yonder. Envisioning the book based on looking at the cover and matching the cover picture to the title definitely stimulates the imagination. The cover picture of a circa 1910 automobile makes one wonder what it has to do with the librarian.

The primary librarians in the book are not in the graveyard, but are four Library Science students from the big city (Indianapolis) who are dedicated to reviving the long-closed library in Hoosier Grove (derisively referred to as Rubesburg in the Indianapolis newspaper). But the main character of the story is Eleanor McGrath, who prefers to be called Peewee. Peewee is a 14-year- old tomboy obsessed with the new-fangled automobiles and with helping her older brother Jake to build his garage business. He then is building a car to compete in the inaugural ten-mile Stock Auto Race which is part of the Hendricks County Fair and has a winner-take-all prize of $50.

The interaction between these two sets of characters as well as with the townspeople makes for amusing reading. Librarians get a strong vote of confidence in the book including this endorsement, “But put two librarians’ heads together, and mountains move.” And, of course, there are villains – the Kirbys. The story is a rich portrayal of the early years of the automobile, how it affected middle America, and the Stutz Bearcat automobile and family in addition to how the library affects the town including a romance involving the librarians. The story ends with an update to the main character at the Indianapolis 500 in 1978. – Joyce Sykes

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Juvenile Fiction

The Last Guardian

by Eoin Colfer

JF COLFER, E.

I can't believe this wonderful series is over! This was such a good book!

Artemis is back to his normal self and has been given a clean bill of health after his Atlantis Complex incident. The nefarious Opal Koboi has devised a plan from prison to destroy the world and of course it is up to Artemis, Butler and Holly to stop her. Opal has her younger self kidnapped and murdered, thus causing most technology in the lower elements to explode and some technology above ground, too. (To hear the explanation on why and how this happens you have to read the book.) She then releases the Berserkers (ancient fairy heroes who sacrificed themselves during the war between the humans and fairies). Fowl Manor is captured by these fairy spirits who possess the bodies of Artemis' younger brothers Beckett and Myles, Juliette, ancient Chinese mummies and even the hunting hounds.

There are two magical gates located on the Fowl Manor property which she must unlock in order to destroy the world and she wants Artemis and Holly present when this happens. Artemis foils her plan using her clone "Nopal" but, in the end, still has to sacrifice himself in order to save both the human and fairy worlds. Butler and Holly are both distraught. Holly, Butler and Foaly will not let him go that easily. Foaly spends six months working on an Artemis clone. Will this bring Artemis back? You have to read to find out!! – Jessica Adams

Juvenile Fiction

The Midwife’s Apprentice

by Karen Cushman

JF CUSHMAN, K.

This Newbery Award-winning 1995 book is set in rural fourteenth century England and centers around a homeless, nameless girl who then acquires the names of Brat, Dung Beetle and then Alyce, and learns self-confidence and midwifery in the process. Jane the Midwife, also known as Jane Sharp because of her tongue, finds the girl in a barn and assigns her menial tasks in exchange for a place to stay and meager food.

Alyce is industrious in learning the midwife’s profession by observation, but fails in her first opportunity to help a birthing mother and has to be rescued by Midwife Jane. She is so embarrassed that she flees the village and ends up working in an inn, where she gradually regains her self-esteem and has another chance to help a mother giving birth. She thus finds herself recognizing her worth in her own world. As it states in the text, “From someone who had no place in the world, she had suddenly become someone with a surfeit of places.”

This is an inspiring story without being maudlin. It also includes an enlightening author’s note about the history of midwifery and its place in modern medicine. – Joyce Sykes

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Juvenile Fiction

The Mighty Miss Malone

by Christopher Paul Curtis

JF CURTIS, C.

“We are a family on a journey to a place called Wonderful.”

That’s the motto of the Malone family of Gary, Indiana. Twelve-year old Deza Malone is the smartest student in her class, told by her teachers that she’s destined for a special path in life. Her older brother, Jimmie, is no angel, but he can sing like one, and when he does, people stop to listen.

The Great Depression has hit Gary hard, and there are few jobs – especially for black men like Mr. Malone. After their father leaves Gary to find work, Deza, Jimmie and their mother set out in his wake, always holding out hope that they will catch up to him. “The pluck with which the endearing, sometime comical Deza faces the twists and turns of the family journey proves that she truly is the Mighty Miss Malone.” (Quoted from book jacket blurb.)

The author, Christopher Paul Curtis, won the 1963 Newbery Honor for his first novel The Watsons Go to Birmingham. When I saw this new title by Mr. Curtis, I read the book jacket blurb. This book became my airplane reading when flying to Dallas for the American Library Association’s Midwinter Conference in January. The novel was so intriguing that I stayed up all night reading it.

In Chapter 2, “The Pie Thief,” Jimmie borrows a pie from a lady’s windowsill. In Chapter 3, “The Pie Lady’s Revenge,” Jimmie and Deza knock on the pie lady’s door and agree to work off the cost of the pie. The pie lady is named Dr. Bracy.

My ALA roommates informed me that Christopher Paul Curtis often will include characters based on individuals whom he knows. In real life, Dr. Pauletta Bracy, professor at North Carolina Central University, is the pie lady. Dr. Bracy met Christopher Paul Curtis at a school media conference when he first wrote The Watsons Go to Birmingham and they became good colleagues and friends. – Rheda Epstein

Juvenile Fiction

Son of Neptune

by Rick Riordan

JF RIORDAN, R.

Oh, thank goodness Percy Jackson is back (even if his memory is gone, which the reader fully expects after reading The Lost Hero)!! Percy meets the Roman campers at Camp Jupiter. He learns quickly that things are different there. The campers are not separated by their godly parent like they are at Camp Half-Blood. The fauns are not helpful; they are beggars. And the “oracle” character is the diabolical Octavian who reads the entrails of stuffed animals. They also use imperial gold to destroy monsters. However, the monsters are not staying dead. Death has been captured and it is up to Percy, Hazel and Frank to rescue him. Hazel, the daughter of Pluto, is actually an escaped soul from the underworld trying to get a second chance. Frank, the son of Mars, is a Chinese-Canadian who is constantly unsure of himself. He is big and clumsy...but he has an amazing family gift. My one problem with this book was the ending...and it’s not so much of a problem as it is the simple fact that I did not want it to end. – Jessica Adams

What You Wish For: Stories and Poems for Dafur JSC WHAT

This collection of stories, written for middle schoolers, is all about wishes. In a short story collection you can just skip a story you don’t like, but I liked all of these. A few of the authors write mainly for adults but most are popular with middle and high school kids. Meg Cabot of The Princess Diaries, Ann Martin of The Babysitter’s Club series and R.L. Stine of the Goosebumps series are all in this book. Cynthia Voigt gives us a slightly gross version of the Cinderella story and Karen Hesse has an interesting take on “The Little Match Girl.” There is something here for everyone and profits from the sale of books go to provide books for school children in Dafur. – Carol Passmore

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Juvenile Nonfiction

juvenile nonfiction Fly High! The Story of Bessie Coleman

by Louise Borden

J B COLEMAN, B.

The book starts out “a hundred years ago in Waxahachie, Texas, Bessie Coleman walked four miles to her one-room schoolhouse and four miles home.” This kind of determination is not something you would often see in a six or seven year old child these days. But Bessie Coleman loved numbers, books and learning.

When it was time to pick cotton in the town where she lived, Bessie would often check over the foreman’s tallies to make sure that the cotton picked by her family was weighed fair and square. Her mother, Susan Coleman was sure that Bessie would be somebody some day. In fact, at eighteen, Bessie took catch-up classes at the Colored Agricultural and Normal University in Oklahoma, but was only able to attend one term due to financial constraints.

In 1915 with the help of an older brother Walter, Bessie moved to Chicago and became a manicurist. She adjusted easily to city life. At the end of World War One, she learned about female pilots that had flown for France during the conflict. She decided she wanted to be a pilot too. But flying schools at the time in America were closed to a black woman. A friend named Robert Abbott, publisher of the black newspaper Chicago Defender promised to help her find a flying school in France if she could learn the language and save enough money. She eventually set sail for France in 1920 from New York to attend a flying school near the village of Rue. After receiving her international pilot’s license in 1921, Bessie returned to America. She was now front-page news for the black papers: the first [female] of their race to learn to fly. Her first air show was on Long Island, NY in 1922 and she traveled around to many states after that – Texas, Tennessee, New York, Illinois. Each time she told her fans “All of us are created equal.” “You can be somebody. You can fly high just like me.”

Juvenile Nonfiction

She bought a biplane of her own [in 1923] but it crashed in California and Bessie was out of commission for a year. But she continued flying after that in borrowed planes and worked to open a flying school. But on April 29, 1926, she and a mechanic named William Wills took an old plane for a test run before an air show in Jacksonville, Florida. She did not fasten her seat belt since she wanted a better view of the land below. But the plane went into a tailspin, and she fell from it.

This is one of the few books that lists a reason why Bessie Coleman flew her last flight as she did. It was an ironic end to her life, and similar to what happened to Dr. Charles Drew, the inventor of blood plasma for operations [died from blood loss in an accident] However, Bessie Coleman is still remembered for her achievements: A street near Chicago’s O’Hare airport and a Chicago library are named after her as well as a commemorative stamp in 1995. She is also honored by fellow pilots every spring by the dropping of wreaths on her grave. It is a well-written book, telling children about a pioneering woman just becoming more recently known, in an easy to follow format. – Laurel Jones

Zombies and Forces and Motion

by Mark Weakland

J NF 531.6 WEAKLAND, M.

I love zombies!! So as soon as this book came in, I grabbed it. This is a graphic novel that explains, through the use of zombies, Isaac Newton’s laws of motion. The illustrations are wonderful and the text is very easy for lower elementary students to understand. – Jessica Adams

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Juvenile Nonfiction

Zora!: The life of Zora Neale Hurston

by Judith Bloom Fradin and Dennis Brindell Fradin

JB HURSTON, Z.

When she was a little girl growing up in Eatonville, Florida, Zora Neale Hurston thought the moon followed her around. Judy and Dennis Fradin share this story in their excellent new children’s biography of Hurston to show us the roots of her extraordinary self-confidence. Although she was beset by constant money troubles, racism, sexism, classism and her own tendency to burn bridges, Zora Neale Hurston never gave up on herself. The Fradins do a wonderful job of presenting the complex life of a trailblazing writer in a manner that is appropriate and approachable for young readers. – Autumn Winters

Easy

Easy 365 Penguins

by Jean-Luc Fromental

E FROMENTAL, J.

On one New Year’s Day, one penguin is delivered by a mysterious sender.

And the deliveries continue to the end of the year, adding one penguin for each day…My kids love penguins, and they love the book! When it comes to children’s books, I believe whatever children love to read, the book is a big success. This book was sent from their grandmother in Japan years ago.

Of course, it was in Japanese. Then, we bought the English version soon after. This book is originally written in French, which is the author’s native language. And it is translated into many languages. We were very happy to find that out. And now that my kids are older, one is being a typical teenager for sure. But we are still reading it, constantly, together before they go to bed. They still seem to enjoy it very much. To be honest with you, I, as a parent, was not really fond of the story itself. At first, just the idea of having more penguins every day, made me go crazy! (Having three children was already enough for me.) But I have to admit that I have been enjoying the colors and the graphics. The illustrations are bold and simple.

The book consistently uses the colors black, orange and blue throughout. It is very fun to look at it. This could be a strong math exercise for children.

My kids just keep counting the penguins on every page or calculating them.

And the ending is very educational about global warming. It would lead us to be more aware of the environmental issues on the Earth, which is very important for us all. – Hitoko Burke

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Easy

Bronto Eats Meat

by Peter Maloney

E MALONEY, P.

This is a picture book adults and kids will enjoy. Brontosauruses don’t eat meat as they are not carnivores, but young Bronto accidentally swallows Billy, who was hiding from his sister in the treetop. Bronto gets a stomach ache and a trip to the doctor on the special dinosaur ambulance. Bill is rescued – you will like the three possible means of rescue - and Bronto’s stomach feels better. Neither Billy’s mom nor his teacher believes his story, nor does the sister who caused the problem. She thinks the tale is ‘preposterasaurus.” – Carol Passmore

A Gold Star for Zog

by Julia Donaldson

E DONALDSON, J.

This is a story about a little dragon named Zog, who wants to be the best student in his dragon school. His first test is learning to fly. Zog ends up flying into a tree, falling and hurting his head. He meets a nice little girl who puts a band-aid on his head and he feels better. He flies away. A year goes by and Zog must learn to roar like a proper dragon. He roars and roars until his throat starts hurting. Along comes the same little girl, just a year older, and she gives him a peppermint stick. He feels much better and he flies off. Another year goes by and Zog must learn to breathe fire. He tries and tries accidentally catching his wing on fire, and he falls from the sky.

Along comes the girl, who bandages his wing and he feels better. Another year passes and the dragons must pass one final test. They must capture a princess! Zog tries and tries, but he cannot capture a princess. Along comes the girl again and guess what?! She is a princess!! Her name is Princess Pearl and she allows Zog to capture her. Zog takes her back to the class and he gets his gold star. However, this is not the end. Pearl stays with the dragons for a year healing all of their scrapes and burns. A prince comes by looking for a princess to save, but Zog doesn't want to let her go. It looks like a fight is about to break out...when Pearl stands between the prince and Zog and says that she doesn't want to be a princess anymore. She wants to be a doctor. Both the prince and Zog think that being a doctor sounds like a good idea and they all fly off to help others. – Jessica Adams

Easy

Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs

by Mo Willems

E WILLEMS, M.

Leave it to Mo Willems to start a retelling of a classic story “Once upon a time, there were three Dinosaurs: Papa Dinosaur, Mama Dinosaur and some other Dinosaur who happened to be visiting from Norway.” This hilarious book describes the activities the three dinosaurs do while preparing to leave their home, in hopes that a delicious little girl will stop by. They plan to catch her and eat her, after she eats three bowls of chocolate pudding that has been cooked “at varying temperatures” for no particular reason at all. The Norwegian dinosaur is quite possibly the funniest character in the book. For example, he “made a loud noise that sounded like a big, evil laugh but was probably just a polite Norwegian expression.” And like all of Mo’s books, the illustrations tell the story just as much as the words do. This is a must read book for all Mo Willems fans! – Jessica Adams

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Easy

Helga’s Dowry: A Troll Love Story

by Tomie DePaola

E DEPAOLA, T.

Although the book is a fairy tale, it is a very modern one. The troll heroine, although constrained by law to marry, has no intention of letting her lack of a dowry – which is a part of the law – to constrain her. She disguises herself as a human woman, and goes out into the Land of People to earn one in order to marry her sweetheart Lars. She begins by making a bargain with a farmwife: if she can wash a mountain of dirty clothes by sundown, she would receive all the cows in the pasture. To the farmwife’s surprise- with the help of magical troll ingredients-she accomplishes the task.

But since she also needs gold and land as part of her dowry, she makes two more trips. On her second trip, she poses as a seller of anti-aging cream, easily earning four chests of gold, and then makes a deal with a rich man to clear his land of trees within a week. But this time she runs into difficulty: her rival for Lars shows up in the form of a tree and tries to spoil the deal.

Helga changes herself into a boulder to stop her, and as they fight, the trees are cleared without either of them noticing! So now Helga has her dowry, but changes her mind about marrying Lars as she wants to be loved for herself. She then receives a proposal from a troll man who had been watching her efforts to better herself and fallen in love with her. She accepts and in a Cinderella-like surprise ending, he turns out to be the Troll King!

This book has long been a particular favorite of mine. The author, Tomie DePaola has always had a reputation for storytelling as well as artistry. He lives up to it in this story which, while faithful to old accounts of faerie lore (for instance, all of the trolls have cow’s tails), contains a strong and brainy heroine as well as a classic romantic ending. – Laurel Jones

Easy

How Do Dinosaurs Go to School?

by Jane Yolen

E YOLEN, J.

Jane Yolen has been successful again. Dinosaurs, children, books and mischief is the perfect combination for belly aching laughter. The book begins with dinosaurs being on less than perfect behavior in a school setting, but ends with how children should really behave in school. It teaches good manners on sharing, keeping things in order and how to interact with others at school.

The dinosaurs take up the full page and the illustrator captures intricate details of favorite historical friends of children of all ages. – Tammy Baggett

I’d Really Like to Eat a Child

by Sylviane Donnio

E DONNIO, S.

Little Achilles, the crocodile, has decided that he is tired of eating bananas.

He wants to eat a child. His parents bring all kinds of yummy food like sausages and even a chocolate cake. None of these things are what he wants to eat. He wanders off into the jungle, looking for a child to eat. On the riverbank he sees a girl. And he thinks he is finally going to be able to eat a child. He sneaks up to her and roars, but the little girl just thinks that he is a cute baby crocodile and picks Achilles up and tickles his belly. Then she throws him back into the river. He goes backs to his parents begging for bananas to help him grow bigger...big enough to eat a child. – Jessica Adams

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Easy

Little Oh

by Laura Krauss Melmed

E MELMED, L.

The story begins as a story itself. A mother and son are making origami animals, and the boy asks for the story of Little Oh. It begins with a woman potter who liked to make origami in her spare time. One day she made an origami girl in a pink kimono and put it beside her bed. When she woke up the origami girl had come to life! When the woman exclaims “Oh!” in surprise, the origami girl takes that to be her name, and becomes Little Oh. They soon become mother and daughter in truth.

One day the woman has to go to the market. Little Oh begs to come along and the mother writes their address on the back of her dress. But when they reach the market, Little Oh is knocked from her mother’s basket into a teacup by a dog! She manages to escape but is then swept over a waterfall!

Washed ashore on a piece of the cup, Little Oh befriends a crane. It offers her a ride home, but Little Oh accidentally goes to the wrong house, and encounters a man and boy. She watches them for awhile then realizes she could have them take her home. She folds herself into a heart and is found by the boy. But when the man returns the origami child, a real girl appears as soon as he passes the heart to the mother! She identifies herself as “Little Oh.” (Eventually the man and woman fall in love, marry and Little Oh and the boy become brother and sister.)

While reminiscent of the Grimm fairy tale Thumbelina (tiny heroine, riding on the back of a bird) the origami figures and the boy’s method of study gives the story a uniquely Asian twist. It is a well-told and smoothly flowing multicultural story. – Laurel Jones

Easy

The Lonely Book

by Kate Bernheimer

E BERNHEIMER, K.

The subject “Lonely Book” started out as a very popular new book in the library about a girl in a forest. After some time it moved into the regular children’s book category, then gradually degraded in both condition and popularity to the point where it was rarely taken out and was very lonely in spite of the fact that Alice loved the book very much and took it to school for show and tell. The book suffered to the point of being in bad condition and missing the last page.

It was eventually put in the book sale (what a horror!) and was still neglected until Alice found it as the book sale was ending. Since she was so excited to find it, a volunteer gave it to her for free. Not surprisingly, Alice created a “happily ever after” ending for the missing last page. – Joyce Sykes

The Obstinate Pen

by Frank W. Domer

E DORMER, F.

My five year old grandson loved this book, as did his dad and as did I also.

The pen in question does not write what the writer intends but whatever it feels like. Various owners have major difficulties with this, until the pen lands with Mrs. Pigeon-Smythe, who gets her friends to try the pen and the pen happily insults a duke, three duchesses and the maid. My grandson obviously would like to call someone “banana head” or a “yam headed organ grinder” but he knows better. We adults may not readily confess to the same desire, but this is a picture book you will enjoy reading to the small people in your life. – Carol Passmore

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Easy

Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes

by Eric Litwin

E LITWIN, E.

Pete the Cat loves his white shoes! He loves them so much, he sings about them. But what happens when he walks through mud? Does Pete get upset?

No! Pete the cat loves his brown shoes! He walks around singing how he loves his brown shoes! What happens when Pete walks through blueberries?

Does he get upset? No! Pete loves his blue shoes! He sings about them. This goes through various foods and colors until Pete walks through a puddle and washes his shoes off...and he loves his white, wet shoes. – Jessica Adams

Room on the Broom

by Julia Donaldson

E DONALDSON, J.

This story begins as a witch and her cat happily fly through the sky on her broomstick. The wind comes along and blows away her hat and several other vital pieces of necessary witch equipment. In her efforts to retrieve these precious items, the witch comes across a dog, a bird and a frog, all of whom prove themselves most helpful in locating the lost items. In exchange for their help, each animal requests a ride on the witch’s broom, which she gladly provides. With all her witchy-pooh goods retrieved, it seems as though once again, it is going to be a happily-ever-after ending; that is until a fire-breathing dragon blasts them off their broom.

Things are looking pretty bad for the poor old witch, as the dragon exclaims “you’ll be a good supper for me!” However just when all seems lost the befriended animals once again prove their worth as they come up with a clever plan to free the witch and to scare the fire-breathing dragon away. I could tell you the ending, but a dragon just got my tongue! Now, it is up to you to read this book and to discover this clever scheme to free us all. Visit your local library today and check this book out, it is a knee-slapper. I’ll see you in the stacks! – Anna Cromwell

Easy

The Story of Chopsticks

by Ying Chang Compestine

E COMPESTINE, Y.

This book begins with a family in China who had three sons. At that time everyone ate their food with their hands. But this was a problem for the youngest boy. If he picked up his food right away, he got his fingers burned. But if he waits too long, most of the food is taken by his older brothers. Then one day he gets an idea. While everyone is washing up for dinner, he picks two twigs out of the kindling for the stove, and used them to spear some food for himself. When the rest of the family comes in they are surprised, but catch on right away and get their own sticks. The middle boy gets the idea to call the sticks “kuai zi” or ‘quick sticks’ in his brother’s honor.

Then the family receives an invitation to a wedding banquet. Everyone brought something special, but the three boys also brought their “quick sticks” and while the rest of the children were getting ready to eat, they brought out their sticks and helped themselves to the food. The children soon caught on and began searching for sticks of their own.

When the adults come in, they are not pleased at first; but then the children urge them to try the food, which they can do with the sticks. But when the village wise man starts asking questions, the family has to explain about their new “quick sticks.” After a meeting with those who hold high positions in the village for their opinions, the wise man agrees to bring the “quick sticks” before the emperor. Thus their use became widespread ever since.

While the story is a fable, it is probably rooted in fact in some way. It is also rather refreshing to see stories with children who are known for intelligence and inventiveness, as is shown in this story. It may also be read with the companion stories: The Story of Noodles and The Story of Paper, which are presented in a similar vein. – Laurel Jones

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Easy

Stuck in the Mud

by Jane Clarke

E CLARKE, J.

Mama hen is in a tizzy because one of her chicks is missing. She soon finds him stuck in the mud and does her best to get him. As fate would have it, she soon finds that she too is stuck in the muck and mire. Not to worry, because as with all farms there are lots of animals ready and willing to help.

Mama soon finds out, however, that there is such a thing as too much help and a few minutes of well intended assistance soon leads to mama hen, a cat, a dog, a sheep, a horse and even the farmer being stuck in the mud. All seems hopeless. What can they do?

Leave it to a smart-aleck little chick to have all the answers, as he precociously exclaims “you pushed and you pulled again and again, but I’m not stuck now and I wasn’t stuck then!” Then with a skip and a hop and hop and very small plop, little chick frees himself and scampers off to play with his friends. The others are left with exaggerated expressions that will leave you laughing out loud. Don’t you be a stick-in-the-mud; visit your local library today and check this book out. The rhyming text, colorful paintings and the delightful storyline will leave you wanting more. – Anna Cromwell

Easy

Ten Big Toes and a Prince's Nose

by Nancy Gow

E GOW, N.

This story chronicles the woes of a fair young princess whose huge feet always send her suitors running as soon as they see them. No matter how hard her mother tries, she can’t seem to secure a prince for her daughter because of those darn feet! Meanwhile in another part of the kingdom, a kind young prince is having a similar problem, but not because of his feet, but because of his enormous nose. As soon as the girls see his nose they run away laughing. One day, high on a snowy mountain they happen upon each other and because her feet are covered with skiing boots and his nose is wrapped with a scarf they both have a chance to get to know each other without the hindrance of their unusual appearance.

The kind prince and caring princess soon fall in love, but fear that the spell will be broken once their afflictions are revealed. Shyly they each reveal their cursed appendages and yet neither runs away. The strength of their love leaves them beautiful in the eyes of each other. I loved this book. It encourages us to look beyond the outer appearance and to see the value and beauty of people from within. The illustrations are beautiful and the rhyming text is well written. It is definitely one of the best books I have read all year. – Anna Cromwell

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Easy

Toads on Toast

By Linda Bailey

E BAILEY, L.

I love, love, love this book!! It starts off with a lazy fox, who is tired of eating the same old thing....big, fat toads! So he goes to a bookstore to buy a cookbook.

He finds a great recipe that calls for toadlets. It was hard work catching all those baby toads, but he did. Just as he dumps them out of a sack...the Mama Toad comes in. "Stop!" she screams. But the fox is determined to cook something.

Mama Toads suggests "Toads on Toast." It's an old secret family recipe. It calls for butter, bread, salt, pepper and an egg. The fox starts following her instructions and realizes that he is not using the toads at all. Mama Toad promises that it’s better that way. And sure enough, Fox loves it. He eats the "Toads on Toast" and then he makes another and another and another. The years pass and the fox teaches his children Mama Toad's recipe. And it became a family favorite and the book comes with a recipe that you can follow, so it can become a favorite of yours too. – Jessica Adams

Easy

Toads on Toast

by Linda Bailey

E BAILEY, L.

What’s worse than a greedy old fox? I’ll tell you what’s worse: “a greedy old fox with a new set of cookbooks!” Fox is tired of the same old bland, tough and unappetizing meals. His heart is set on something new, something scrumptious and oh so tender! What he needs are some new recipes and after thumbing through his newly acquired cookbooks, his fingers lead him to the chapter for toad recipes. Just the thought of those tender morsels sets his mouth to watering. After some trouble, fox soon has a sack full of little toads, just right for cooking. All seems lost until mama frog finds her babies missing and comes to the rescue. She knows she can’t out-muscle old fox; however, she is certain she can outwit him, because while foxes are long on brawn, they are short on brains.

Mama convinces fox to try one of her favorite recipes called Toad-In-A Hole. She sends fox scurrying around the kitchen gathering ingredients here and there.With just a few instructions from mama, Fox soon has the house smelling good, with a meal fit for a king or, more appropriately stated, fit for a greedy old fox. He eats his fill, but then realizes that his house is still full of frogs, all of who appear to be enjoying a helping of Toad-In-A Hole too.

Much too late, fox realizes he’s been duped. Mama’s recipe included many wonderful things, but her tender young toad-lings weren't one of them.

In the end fox is too stuffed to care, and they all enjoy a second helping of Toad-In-A Hole.

This is an extremely funny book, with illustrations that rival the text. The author includes a wonderful activity to support the story. It is the actual recipe for Toad-In-A-Hole; it is very simple and sounds pretty tasty. I can’t wait to try it out. Check this book out today and meet me in the kitchen.

– Anna Cromwell

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Easy

Watch Your Tongue, Cecily Beasley

by Lane Fredrickson

E FREDRICKSON, L.

Cecily Beasley isn’t known for her politeness. Fact is, she won't say thanks, she won’t say please, she slurps and worst of all she is constantly sticking her tongue out at people, and that’s where the trouble began. One day when Cecily stuck her tongue out, not only did it get stuck but a bird came along and built a nest on it. If that wasn’t bad enough, the bird laid eggs and the eggs hatched! Now Cecily Beasley has to walk around with a mama bird, a nest and several rude baby birds, sitting on her tongue. It just so happens that these rude little birds like to stick out their tongues too, right at Cecily.

Mama takes her to the doctor, yet the doctor insists that she leave the nest alone and wait patiently for the birds to fly away. During that time she watches the antics of the rude little birds and soon sees herself in their atrocious behavior. Just as the doctor had said, one day the birds flew off, the nest fell away and her tongue rolled back into her mouth. Although she still looks the same, Cecily Beasley is a brand new person; she’s polite and thoughtful and sets to work making amends for her previous behavior. As for her tongue, well it is rarely seen any more. Cecily keeps it in her mouth, safe from harm, right where it belongs. – Anna Cromwell

You Are My I Love You

by Maryann Cusimano

E CUSIMANO, M.

This is a wonderful book that warms your heart with each turn of the page.

A perfect way to tell that special child or children in your life how special they really are. The illustrations provide a great backdrop for conversation about everyday activities that are shared between you and your little ones.

This book makes a great gift and sends a message of love. It's a great way to say I love you to children and the young at heart. – Tammy Baggett

DVDs

dvds The Adjustment Bureau DVD FEATURE ADJU

Matt Damon and Emily Blunt thrill us in this stylish and stylized romance/ thriller with equal parts of action and relationships. This is actually based on a short story by science fiction author Philip K. Dick. A powerful group of people who make all of the plans for the future (aptly named the Adjustment Bureau) try to take Damon away from the only woman he’s ever loved. Is this fate or not?

Although I like psychological thrillers and chick flicks, this doesn’t fit neatly into either category, but satisfied my hunger for both. There’s enough suspense and action in the New York City streets chase scenes that I recommend it for both sexes. This is one of my favorite DVDs of 2011 for sheer entertainment pleasure… – Susan Wright

The Adventures of Tintin DVD J FEATURE ADVE

The Adventures of Tintin is Steven Spielberg’s animated adaptation of Herge’s comic book creation. These are tremendously popular all over the world, and Spielberg does them justice, producing a fast-paced thrill ride that never lets up. Tintin, voiced by Jamie Bell, is an engaging character, and the animation is amazing. Hopefully there will be more of these. – Chuck Ebert

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DVDs

The Artist DVD FEATURE ARTI

When I was in film school, a professor once told us that silent films were the true manifestation of the cinematic art. What makes a film different from a play? It’s the editing and the ability to emphasize images by getting closeups. He also claimed that when sound came in, they were only just starting to perfect this silent art and that the arrival of the new technology stifled true cinema. Indeed there is a school of experimental filmmakers led by Stan Brakhage that uses no sound whatsoever, not even music. It’s all pure image and editing.

Of course there is a world of difference between a Stan Brakhage short and The Artist, which is at its heart an old fashioned melodrama right out of 1920s Hollywood. It is a black and white silent film set in the period of the transitional sound. George Valentin, played by Jean Dujardin, would have agreed with my old professor about the technology of sound degrading cinema. He is an entertainer of the old school (Valentin not my old professor) who can float through a tap routine with a serene smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye. He looks good in a tux and a pencil thin mustache and he knows it.

By chance he meets a talented young starlet named Peppy Miller, played

by Berenice Bejo, who’s also quite a hoofer. She’s dazzled by him and he’s attracted to her, as much by her talent as her long legs. He provides her with her first break.

When studio head Al Zimmer, played by John Goodman, shows George a screen test using the new recording technology, George refuses to be a part of it, preferring instead to write, produce and direct his own film. Peppy, despite her infatuation with George, is not averse to the new technology, and as her star rises, his falls.

It is amazing that this film got made. Making a black and white silent film, shot with 4:3 aspect ratio, just like an old movie, seems like asking modern movie audiences to stay away. You add in the simple, almost naïve story, and you wonder how this got past the first story conference.

What makes it work is the charisma of the two stars. Jean Dujardin plays George as an irrepressible ham, but one you can’t help but love. The secret is that he is so secure in his talent that he’s not threatened by his fellow cast

DVDs

members and he treats the crew with respect and affection. Plus, just one of Dujardin’s expressions says more than pages of dialog.

Likewise Berenice Bejo captures both Penny’s ambition and her humanity.

Despite her gratefulness to George and her crush on him, she takes advantage of the breaks he refuses, and enjoys stardom almost as much as he does. But you can see how the downward turn in his fortunes distresses her.

In the end when she has an opportunity to help him she does.

John Goodman finds very little new in the character of the cigar chomping, bottom line obsessed stereotype of the studio chief, but he plays it to the hilt. Special mention needs to go to Uggie, the Jack Russell Terrier who plays The Dog. He’s smart, funny and loyal. What a good boy!

The Artist is not high cinematic art. I think my old film professor was a little dogmatic. There are silent films that achieved greatness, but there are more that are merely good, mediocre or bad, just like talkies and everything else for that matter. Sound did not kill cinema artistically. I guess The Artist would have to be considered an art film in this day and age, and that is going to limit its appeal, which is a shame because it is a thoroughly enjoyable movie. – Chuck Ebert

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DVDs

The Avengers DVD FEATURE AVEN

Joss Whedon, who directed and wrote the screenplay for The Avengers, understands that even in big special effects and action movies you must have compelling characters. Therefore his emphasis in the movie is on the team building aspect of the story. The plot is pretty much a standard McGuffin chase, which results in Loki leading an alien army to attack New York City.

The last half hour is exciting, epic in scale and pretty to look at, but the meat of the film is the extensive build up to the final movement.

Thor, played by Chris Hemsworth, Iron Man played by Robert Downey Jr., and Captain America, played by Chris Evans, build on the characters they played in their own movies. Each has a chance to display their heroism and to confess their vulnerabilities. Sometimes those latter moments are a bit contrived, but that’s not really a big flaw or at least not one that bothered me. Hawkeye, played by Jeremy Renner and Black Widow, played by Scarlett Johansson, have their moments too.

The key element is that they finally got the Hulk right. The Hulk is mindless indestructible rage that can’t be controlled. You can only point him at the bad guys and hope for the best. And Bruce Banner, played by Mark Ruffalo, is starting to realize that and to learn to do it. Also, Ruffalo plays Banner as thoughtful and a little subdued but not dour like Edward Norton and Eric Bana did. I hope they try to make another Hulk movie with Ruffalo.

Add in Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, Tom Hiddleston as Loki and Clark Gregg as Agent Phil Colson, and that’s a pretty impressive cast, one that holds its own with the special effects and other technical elements. All those egos subjugating themselves to make an ensemble performance must have mirrored the process of the Avengers forging a team. And the result lives up to every inch of its considerable hype. As I type this I want to see it again. – Chuck Ebert

DVDs

HappyThankYouMorePlease DVD FEATURE HAPP

A witty, engaging comedy that will leave you smiling. Lead actor, Josh Radnor, wrote and directed this “coming of age” story about friends in their twenties coping with the angst of finding love, happiness and themselves. At the heart of the story is Sam (Radnor) who befriends a seemingly homeless youth. Sam’s friends find this appalling and can’t understand why Sam would do such a thing. They warn Sam that this will lead to chaos. Yet, they too are dealing with chaos in their own lives…with no more luck than Sam. Great writing and great music. Plus, the meaning of the title will be revealed! This is Radnor’s debut as writer and director. It will leave you wanting “more please!” – Alice Sharpe

HappyThankYouMorePlease DVD FEATURE HAPP

Let me recommend a movie that hasn’t been heavily advertised. Most likely you haven’t heard of this mouthful-of-a-title. Winner of the Sundance 2010 Audience Award, and with a great young cast, this film is all about living life in the moment. On the subway, 20-something Sam Wexler finds a young boy without any family. Sam tries to drop Rasheen off with Social Services, but Rasheen refuses to stay. Soon one night at Sam’s place turns into Rasheen spending all of his time with Sam and his circle of compassionate friends, one of whom grew up saying “HappyThankYouMorePlease” whenever she and her mother felt blessed by any of life’s pleasant surprises.

HTYMP is such a refreshing departure from the typical bachelor forced to raise a child comedies that Hollywood tends to give us every year or two. I hate the title, but loved the movie!

P.S. How I Met Your Mother sitcom fans might want to see this movie as it’s written and directed by, as well as starring, Josh Radnor. – Susan Wright

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The Iron Lady DVD FEATURE IRON

Meryl Streep can transform herself into a character, whether fictional or factual, like almost no other actor. Here, wearing pearls and power suits, she becomes Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher from pre-marriage to post-Commons. Much of the movie focuses on Thatcher looking back on her remarkable relationship with her dead (as of 2003) husband, Sir Denis Thatcher, who haunts her day and night, and with whom she shares all of her feelings and loneliness. If you enjoyed 2006’s The Queen starring Helen Mirren, you will most likely want to check out this biographical film, too.

In my opinion, it’s an equally fine performance and a powerful portrayal of a powerful woman who never compromised. – Susan Wright

Limitless DVD FEATURE LIMI

What if a pill could make you rich and powerful? People magazine’s 2011 “Sexiest Man Alive,” Bradley Cooper, stars in Limitless along with Robert DeNiro and Abbie Cornish. While suffering from writer’s block, Cooper’s character Eddie is offered a top-secret pill that has the potential to be his ticket to success, big money and brain power beyond limits, hopefully without side effects. Eddie’s dreams become nightmares in this addictive thriller. – Susan Wright

Making Handbags DVD 646.48 MAKI

Normally I do not check out DVD instruction tapes on sewing, because I have been sewing and teaching sewing for many years, but I must say that Making Handbags is actually quite good. The directions are given in a very basic format. The construction techniques for the handbags are also simple and produce beautiful sewing works of art. I highly recommend this DVD to anyone interested in learning basic sewing and handbag construction. No telling what you might create! – Sandra L. Smith

DVDs

Moonrise Kingdom DVD FEATURE MOON

This is a bit of postmodern snark from Wes Anderson. In the past, Anderson has made darkly comic films showing the least flattering side of human nature. His characters tend to be self-absorbed and ultimately ineffectual, which makes it hard to really root for them. His plots are convoluted and often don’t build to a climax.

So who else would you want directing Moonrise Kingdom, a tender story about first love?

At first thought just about anybody: Tarantino, Michael Bay, David Cronenberg, Uwe Boll for crying out loud. Watching zombies eat their brains sounds better than watching these characters work through their ennui, especially if you don’t like them. The film does have a good cast, however and that saves it.

Sam, played by Jared Gilman in his first role, falls for Suzy, played by Kara Hayward likewise in her first role. The setting is a small island off the New England coast in 1965. Both of these kids are damaged. Sam is smart but socially awkward. Other kids, even the ones in his scout troop, don’t like him. He’s an orphan and has been moved in and out of foster homes because nobody can seem to get to him. Suzy is a depressive who thirty years later would have been a goth. She mopes around her parents’ brightly colored house all day and is prone to violent outbursts. The young couple decides to run away, which upsets the small community.

The two newcomers do a pretty good job playing youngsters who are almost completely detached from their emotions. They are two kids desperately trying to connect. They were lucky to get such roles for leads on their first time out. Awkward line readings and controlled emotionally neutral expressions are what the characters call for. Yet under his façade you can see Sam’s puzzlement at other people’s reaction to him and Suzy’s longing to escape the mundane reality of her home life through the juvenile fantasy books she steals from the library. But I didn’t quite feel sympathy for them; there was too much awkwardness in the way.

The professionals all turn in the mannered and quirky performances typical of a Wes Anderson film. Ed Norton

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plays Scout Master Ward, a man who runs his scout camp like a military base, giving inspections and handing out demerits. Yet Norton effectively conveys that this is not just a power trip for the character. He genuinely cares for the boys, especially Sam. Likewise Bruce Willis plays the island’s policeman as a man who enjoys the prestige his position gives him but is also painfully aware of his shortcomings. Willis does a good job at showing his dismay when Sam’s foster father tells him over the phone that Sam won’t be welcome back home. Like Norton, Willis shows a compassionate side rarely seen in a Wes Anderson film.

Anderson’s directing style is unique. Obviously he gets the eccentric performances out of his actors that he wants. He favors long flat establishing shots that really call attention to themselves. But also the script, which he had a hand in writing with Roman Coppola, is a large part of his vision for the project. It is a story told in a style of heightened realism. Things happen that aren’t realistic and people make choices that real people would not make. But that’s OK. The result is enjoyable if not the immersive emotion journey that movie fans are used to.

Most of all it is all Wes Anderson. If anybody else had made this story, it would have been unbearably corny. Only Anderson’s hip indifference saved it from this fate. And at the same time he made a compelling film. – Chuck Ebert

DVDs

Pariah DVD FEATURE PARI

Dee Rees wrote and directed this film, but Spike Lee produced it, signifying something good was coming. At its core Pariah takes a typical “coming of age/coming out” story and sprinkles in a little middle class AfricanAmerican urban angst to keep it interesting. Alike is the teenager who knows herself better than her parents know themselves. She doesn’t try to impress them with her choice of clothes or friends, much to the amusement of her father and disappointment of her mother. Alike is smart, creative and independent….and she knows it. She also knows she likes girls and that it might be a problem for some. The movie takes a lot of turns as it zigzags its way through the storyline: Will little sister be supportive? Is the steady best friend secretly in love with Alike? Is the new best friend “the one”? Does Dad already know? Does he care? How much? Is Mom willfully obstinate or proverbially blind?

While delivering on its promise to make you believe you are living Alike’s story, I could not help but become riveted by Kim Wayans portrayal of the mother. Anyone who saw her debut and characterizations on In Living Color would be hard-pressed to believe this is the same woman. She is incredibly unlikable and breathtakingly rigid. Her capacity for compassion and acceptance extends only to influences that may change her socioeconomic status and the image she has created for the community.

This leaves you with a new set of questions demanding answers: What happened to make her this way? If little sister gets pregnant will she treat her the same way? Does she even love her husband? Does she even like Alike? Does she love herself? The late great Whitney Houston melodiously proclaimed that “learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all.” Alike passes this life lesson with flying colors. What about Mom? How old should you be to stop caring what your parents think? Never? How about when they cling to their antiquated belief systems even when it causes their flesh and blood pain? – Cleo Bizzell

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DVDs

Tinker Tailor Solider Spy DVD FEATURE TINK

There is a highly placed Soviet mole in British intelligence during the height of the Cold War. George Smiley, played by Gary Oldman, is brought back from forced retirement to find out who it is. That is the very simplified set up to Tomas Alfredson’s film version of John Le Carre’s novel, which was loosely based on the case of the Cambridge Five, a ring of moles that included the infamous Kim Philby. It’s interesting to note that LeCarre, whose real name is David Cornwell, was outed as an agent to the Soviets in 1964 by Philby, cutting short his intelligence career.

LeCarre’s world is one of dark subtlety. There are only shades of grey, and if anyone still has any idealism left, he hides it carefully. It is a world not far removed from the fight against Nazism when the USSR and the West were allies. Some of the veterans of that fight had loyalties to the old allies that they never revealed nor forsook.

Every element of this film contributes to the theme of moral ambiguity.

The cinematography is dark and grainy, using a lot of natural lighting. The performances are studies in subtlety, especially Gary Oldman’s. These are upper and middle class Englishmen of the World War II generation, who value restraint and civilized behavior even in the face of black treason. And yet they are good enough actors to convey their deeply suppressed emotions on their carefully blank faces. Standing out are Mark Strong as the put-upon Jim Prideaux, and Colin Firth as Bill Haydon, the womanizing agent in a trusted position in the service.

Even the script avoids outright conflict, preferring to dwell on the process of catching the mole, and the complicated set up of the scheme. The climax, where the mole is arrested, is entirely off screen. One minute, Smiley is at the safe house, fingering his revolver and waiting for the turned spy, and the next minute, the mole is in jail waiting to be exchanged. I actually found this to be a little disconcerting but I have to admire the nerve it took to do it.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a little too bloodless to be a complete triumph, but it is still one of the year’s better movies. – Chuck Ebert

DVDs

War Horse DVD FEATURE WARH

War Horse is an epic weepie from Steven Spielberg that follows the adventures of a horse from its birth in Devon, England to its trials as a cavalry horse in World War I, when the machine gun put an end to cavalry charges. Along the way the horse wins the hearts of the various Germans, Englishmen and Frenchmen he encounters. Nobody does this sort of thing better than Spielberg, and yes it is terribly manipulative, but it is also a beautiful film and well worth seeing if you are in the mood for it. – Chuck Ebert

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Books on CD

books on CD Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

by Malcolm Gladwell

BK CD 153.44 GLADWELL

This was a fascinating book to listen to on CD. Malcolm Gladwell explores the benefits and hazards of making judgments based on tiny snippets of information.

All of us have the capability, and we often subconsciously make decisions using the briefest of impressions. Gladwell shows how this “thin-slicing” can lead to amazing insights like art experts knowing intuitively that a work was a fraud, despite sophisticated tests failing to discover the counterfeit. It can also have tragic results like the killing of an innocent in the Amadou Diallo shooting. One of my favorite sections of the book focuses on a relationship researcher who can watch a couple for as little as a few seconds and then determine with amazing accuracy whether they will still be married five years later. This book gave me new insight into how each of us processes information and how we can become better at harnessing our own rapid cognition. – Gina Rozier

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

by Aimee Bender

BK DISC F BENDER, A.

Beginning with a home-made cake baked by her mother, eating it takes on a heaviness for 9-year-old Rose Edelstein as she experiences her mother’s loneliness and cravings blended in with the chocolate and lemon flavors.

Soon Rose discovers that she has a strong sensitivity for any food preparer’s feelings, including the taste of sadness in bakery pies, rage in spaghetti, guilt in tomato sauce and grief in a lamb shank.

Therefore Rose turns to junk food vending machines; these packaged treats are immune from feelings since their ingredients are factory assembled and processed by machinery. But eventually Rose can’t even eat a cookie without information overload on fruits or vegetables without knowing that they were picked by thirsty farm workers. Rose continues to search for the “why” of this talent (or curse) of feeling the emotions that people don’t even realize they’re feeling throughout this tale. Along the way, she is introduced to multiple family secrets of her brother Joe, mother and father.

Books on CD

Listening to the author read her novel was an experience touched by many emotions. A sad, lyrical and quite unusual coming of age story with heavy doses of magic realism… – Susan Wright

Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration

by Isabel Wilkerson

BK DISC 304.809 WILKERSON

This story captures the story of blacks who fled from the South in hopes of a better life in cities in the North and West. While her research included gathering information from thousands of people, the author focuses on sharing this historical account in the eyes of three characters in search of the best opportunities possible. This story of immigration is not known by most and the author is able to capture the many facets of the immigration and how it changed the tapestry of America. The three characters Robert Foster, Ida Mae Gladney and George Starling show just how much the act of immigration brought Southern culture and southern food, among other things, to Northern and Western cities. This is a must read! – Tammy Baggett

Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration

by Isabel Wilkerson

BK DISC 304.809 WILKERSON

The author has written a powerful and detailed history of the “Great Migration” of the millions of African-Americans that left the South and went North and West. The migration began between World War I and ended in the early 1970s.

Wilkerson, who interviewed over a thousand people, shares the experiences of dozens who left the South because of racism and oppression. She selected three of these individuals whose stories she gives more detail and attention. Ida Mae Gladney and her family leave a life of sharecropping in Mississippi for Chicago.

Robert Foster moves from Louisiana to Los Angeles to become a surgeon. And George Starling escapes a near lynching in Florida to move to Harlem. Listening to these stories, you feel their sorrow as they struggle under the weight of Jim Crow laws. The hopes and determination that inspired these three and the millions of others to leave for a better life and overcome discrimination is remarkable. It was great to have this time in our history explained in such an engrossing and informative way. – Deborah Greer

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Ebooks

Ebooks Boomerang Bride

by Fiona Lowe

Boomerang Bride is a sweet, funny romance about Matilda Geoffrey, an Australian woman who believes in giving up everything for love.

Unfortunately, she’s left stranded on the side of the road in a small Wisconsin town in a wedding dress after she’s been scammed by her husband-to-be. Marc Olsen isn’t interested in anything or anyone that could be considered an “attachment,” when he’s stuck with the stranded Australian. Lowe’s book has everything. There’s a little humor, a touchy subplot about Marc’s sister, small town antics and a happily-ever-after. The only thing it doesn’t have is a binding. Sadly for non-ebook readers, this RITA-award-winning novel is only available in e-format (though it will soon be released in paperback). – Jennifer Lohmann

Ebooks

Unraveled

by Courtney Milan

Ebooks have changed the publishing landscape and Unraveled is a prime example. Courtney Milan has many fine romances published by HQN (Proof by Seduction was fabulous!). Then she decided to self-publish her books starting with a short-story, Unlocked. Unraveled is my favorite of all her books (so far).

Smite Turner’s terrible childhood has wreaked havoc on his adult relationships, but he refuses to see himself as a victim or broken. His childhood has made him an advocate for justice, which was worth the price.

His biggest problem with women – they always want to fix him. Until, that is, he meets Miranda Darling. Miranda is an actress down on her luck who has no interest in fixing Smite. She thinks he’s fine just the way he is.

Miranda’s problem is that she might have crossed over to the wrong side of the law a couple times while trying to survive. She should run far away from Smite, but she can’t help but snuggle closer.

I love historical romances, but there are many tropes about them that bug me. Every time Milan flirted with one of those tropes, she managed to sneak Smite and Miranda out from cliché-land and into a whole new world of historical romance. Touching, funny and just far-fetched enough to make your heart swell with joy, Unraveled is one of the best romances I’ve read this year. Sadly, it’s also only available in e-format. – Jennifer Lohmann

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Index of Contributors Joanne Abel Marketing and Development.......................................................... 13, 23, 32, 34, 35, 37, 38, 41, 47 Jessica Adams Children’s Services, Main Library....................................... 41, 50, 57, 68, 71, 73, 76, 77, 79, 82, 86 Tammy Baggett Director..................................................................................................................... 51, 79, 88, 101 Lynne Barnette Manager, Southwest Regional Library...................................................................................... 22, 24 Cleo Bizzell Adult Services, Main Library.......................................................................................................... 97 Archie Burke Adult Services, East Regional Library....................................................................................... 40, 59 Hitoko Burke Marketing and Development.......................................................................................................... 75 Matthew Clobridge Marketing and Development.......................................................................................................... 30 Anna Cromwell Children Services, Main Library..............................................................................82, 84, 85, 87, 88 Carter Cue Adult Services, Stanford L. Warren Library.........................................................21, 39, 42, 46, 48 52 Heather Cunningham Children’s Services, Stanford L. Warren Library..................................................................60, 63, 64 Lisa Dendy Technical Services......................................................................9, 14, 16, 17, 20, 22, 25, 31, 51, 61 Mark Donnelly Adult Services, North Regional Library........................................................................................... 10 Charles Ebert Technical Services...........................................................................................89, 90, 92, 95, 98, 99 Rheda Epstein Technical Services......................................................................................................................... 70 Lakesia Farmer Administration........................................................................................................................... 8, 18 Shelley Geyer Adult Services, North Regional Library........................................................................................... 29 Dionne Greenlee Marketing and Development.......................................................................................................... 20 Deborah Greer Technical Services....................................................................................................................... 101 Donna Hausmann Technical Services..................................................................................................................... 9, 40

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Terry Hill Deputy Director.............................................................................................................................. 44 Patrick Holt Adult Services, Main Library..............................................................................................53, 54, 55 Rebecca Honeycutt Adult Services, North Regional Library........................................................................................... 57 Laurel Jones Children’s Services, Main Library.....................................................................64, 66, 72, 78, 80, 83 Janet Levy Youth Services............................................................................................................................... 43 Jennifer Lohmann Adult Services, Southwest Regional Library............................................27, 28, 33, 36, 45, 102, 103 Placedia Nance Adult Services, Main Library............................................................................28, 47, 56, 58, 59, 62 Bill Nesmith Volunteer, Main Library.................................................................................................................. 34 Carol Passmore Manager, East Regional Library.................................................................. 35, 36, 37, 53, 71, 76, 81 Anita Robinson Administration............................................................................................................................... 48 Gina Rozier Marketing and Development................................................................................12, 15, 26, 27, 100 Jan Seabock Technical Services................................................................................................................... 13, 24 Alice Sharpe Marketing and Development....................................................................................................33, 93 Sandra Smith Circulation, Main Library................................................................................................................ 94 Joyce Sykes Board of Trustees............................................................................................................... 67, 69, 81 Jill Wagy Technology Management.............................................................................................15, 44, 45, 50 Autumn Winters Adult Services, Southwest Regional Library........................................................................ 58, 60, 74 Matthew Wood Technology Management............................................................................................................... 61 Susan Wright Manager, North Regional Library....................................................... 11, 17, 22, 25, 89, 93, 94, 100

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Membership Application Join the Friends of the Durham Library or renew your membership today!

NAME: _______________________________________________ ADDRESS: _____________________________________________ CITY, STATE, ZIP: ________________________________________ PHONE: ______________________________________________ EMAIL: _______________________________________________

Membership Type (check one)  Family — $25  Individual — $15  Youth (up to age 18) — $5  Senior (age 65 & up) — $10  Sustaining — $50  Patron — $100  Life — $300  Additional gift of $______

Financial information about this organization and a copy of its license are available from the State Solicitation Licensing Branch at 1-888-830-4989. The license is not an endorsement by the State.

Memberships expire in one year (except Life memberships).

Make checks payable and mail to: Friends of the Durham Library, Inc. PO Box 3809 Durham, NC 27702 Questions? Call (919) 560-0190 or email Dionne R. Greenlee, the Friends Staff Liaison at dgreenlee@dconc.gov

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Friends of the Durham Library 2013 Book Sales

SPRING BOOK SALE Friday, April 12, 4 p.m. - 7 p.m.

Friends members only – join at the door!

Saturday, April 13, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.

Everyone welcome.

Sunday, April 14, 2 p.m. - 5 p.m.

Everyone welcome. $7 Bag Sale.

FALL BOOK SALE Friday, October 4, 4 p.m. - 7 p.m.

Friends members only – join at the door!

Saturday, October 5, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.

Everyone welcome.

Sunday, October 6, 2 p.m. - 5 p.m.

Everyone welcome. $7 Bag Sale.

LOCATION Main Library, 300 N. Roxboro St., Durham, NC 27701 MINI-BOOKSALES YEAR-ROUND AT SEVEN LOCATIONS: • American Tobacco Campus Strickland Building, 334 Blackwell St., 27701 • East Regional, 211 Lick Creek Ln., 27703 • Main Library, 300 N. Roxboro St., 27701 • North Regional, 221 Milton Rd., 27712 • South Regional, 4505 S. Alston Ave., 27713 • Southwest Regional, 3605 Shannon Rd., 27707 • Stanford L. Warren Branch, 1201 Fayetteville St., 27707

P.O. Box 3809 Durham, NC 27702 durhamcountylibrary.org