NEW BOOKS IN
THE DEERING PUBLIC LIBRARY
New
Children's Books
Children's
books are among the most popular of our books, judging by the numbers that are
checked out each month. It has been a while since we added any. Three of the
following books are suitable for younger kids while the fourth might be popular
with young teens. I love the artwork in all of them and their story lines are
engaging. We read the first three at Deering Library Story Hour two weeks ago and they got
'thumbs-up' reviews from the kids!
My teacher is a monster! No, I am not. by Peter
Brown, 2014
I want my hat
back by Peter Brown, 2011 (a Theodore Seuss
Geisel Honor award winner; the art is outstanding. I gave a copy of this to one
of my colleagues for Christmas who was in danger of losing HIS hat).
Rupert can
dance by Jules Feiffer, 2014 (Rupert, the cat,
teaches his human friend Mandy some complicated dance steps.)
D'Aulaire's book of Greek Myths by Ingri and Edgar
Parin D'Aulaires, 1962. This book has been around for a long time;
we now have a Delacorte Press edition that was issued in 2003. The title sums
well the contents of the book. The story of the Greek gods and demigods, their
coming and goings, thunderbolts, places where they hang out and/or do battle, passions and jealousies -- they are all here
in eminently readable form and accompanied by pretty good art work. If you or your kids are reading Percy Jackson
and the Olympians, this is a great companion -- or read it together, on its
own. The Greek myths have been around for a long time because they are engaging
stories.
New Adult Fiction
The
bone clocks by David Mitchell, 2014
The
bone clocks is by the author of Cloud
atlas and characters who appeared in that book reappear here. Reviews of this
new book are generally very good. Here is a summary from Goodreads:
"Following a scalding row with
her mother, fifteen-year-old Holly Sykes slams the door on her old life. But
Holly is no typical teenage runaway: a sensitive child once contacted by voices
she knew only as “the radio people,” Holly is a lightning rod for psychic
phenomena. Now, as she wanders deeper into the English countryside, visions and
coincidences reorder her reality until they assume the aura of a nightmare
brought to life.
For Holly has caught the attention of a cabal of dangerous mystics—and their enemies. But her lost weekend is merely the prelude to a shocking disappearance that leaves her family irrevocably scarred. This unsolved mystery will echo through every decade of Holly’s life, affecting all the people Holly loves—even the ones who are not yet born.
A Cambridge scholarship boy grooming himself for wealth and influence, a conflicted father who feels alive only while reporting from occupied Iraq, a middle-aged writer mourning his exile from the bestseller list—all have a part to play in this surreal, invisible war on the margins of our world. From the medieval Swiss Alps to the nineteenth-century Australian bush, from a hotel in Shanghai to a Manhattan townhouse in the near future, their stories come together in moments of everyday grace and extraordinary wonder."
For Holly has caught the attention of a cabal of dangerous mystics—and their enemies. But her lost weekend is merely the prelude to a shocking disappearance that leaves her family irrevocably scarred. This unsolved mystery will echo through every decade of Holly’s life, affecting all the people Holly loves—even the ones who are not yet born.
A Cambridge scholarship boy grooming himself for wealth and influence, a conflicted father who feels alive only while reporting from occupied Iraq, a middle-aged writer mourning his exile from the bestseller list—all have a part to play in this surreal, invisible war on the margins of our world. From the medieval Swiss Alps to the nineteenth-century Australian bush, from a hotel in Shanghai to a Manhattan townhouse in the near future, their stories come together in moments of everyday grace and extraordinary wonder."
Here is a typical 5-star review from
Goodreads:
5 stars - Utterly amazing.
"I am incredibly picky about which books will be shelved as a favorite, but one requirement is that I will likely reread it one day (rare for me). The minute I finished this book, I was ready to go back to the first page and enjoy it all over again. It's that good.
Essentially, this is another timeless tale of the perpetual battle between good and evil, except it's fantastical and has wonderful prose sprinkled throughout (have your highlighter ready). Mitchell weaves in actual global events from the last few decades, but for fun, also includes reincarnation, teleportation, psychic phenomena, diabolical mazes, and an age of endarkenment. Most reviews give away too much and the less you know, the more gloriously bizarre it will be. If anything about my short summary appeals to you, then add it to your TBR pile!"
"I am incredibly picky about which books will be shelved as a favorite, but one requirement is that I will likely reread it one day (rare for me). The minute I finished this book, I was ready to go back to the first page and enjoy it all over again. It's that good.
Essentially, this is another timeless tale of the perpetual battle between good and evil, except it's fantastical and has wonderful prose sprinkled throughout (have your highlighter ready). Mitchell weaves in actual global events from the last few decades, but for fun, also includes reincarnation, teleportation, psychic phenomena, diabolical mazes, and an age of endarkenment. Most reviews give away too much and the less you know, the more gloriously bizarre it will be. If anything about my short summary appeals to you, then add it to your TBR pile!"
New Mystery
Novels
Two
mystery writers who are currently on the NY Times Bestseller's list intrigued
me.
Louise Penny's Chief Inspector Gamache of the Sûrité du Québec is
set in a small town in Québec that, at least physically if not culturally, is
reminiscent of Deering. Ms Penny has written 9 novels in this series. We added
the following three to the Deering collection. Patty, who along with her
mother, popped mystery novels like chocolates…. and rarely bought a new one,
rereading the murderous concoctions of the likes of Dorothy Sayers and Parker, and
Ngaio Marsh until the words were committed to memory, loved -- and often
chuckled while reading -- these well written Louise Penny books. We'll be getting the rest of Penny's oeuvre for
ourselves from Toadstool soon!
Still life, 2006
A fatal grace, 2007
The cruelest month, 2008
Here is a brief summary of these
three titles taken from Goodreads:
"Chief
Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec digs beneath the idyllic
surface of village life in Three Pines, finding long buried secrets—and facing
a few enemies of his own. With nine books in the series and more to come, this
boxed set of the first three books—Still Life, A Fatal Grace, and
The Cruelest Month—introduces not only the engaging series hero
Inspector Gamache, who commands his forces—and this series—with integrity and
quiet courage, but also the spectacular Louise Penny.
A #1 New York Times bestseller and multiple award winner, Louise Penny "writes with grace and intelligence" (New York Times Book Review) and "with her smart plot and fascinating, nuanced characters...proves that she is one of our finest writers (People). The acclaimed series is a sensation—there are nearly 850,000 print copies in the US and Canada alone, and it has been translated into 35 languages."
A #1 New York Times bestseller and multiple award winner, Louise Penny "writes with grace and intelligence" (New York Times Book Review) and "with her smart plot and fascinating, nuanced characters...proves that she is one of our finest writers (People). The acclaimed series is a sensation—there are nearly 850,000 print copies in the US and Canada alone, and it has been translated into 35 languages."
The
secret place by Tana French, 2014
Patty scooped up this book as soon
as she finished reading the Louise Penny books. She liked it, and it didn't
take her long to finish reading it.
Following is a summary of the book
from Goodreads:
"The photo on the card shows a
boy who was found murdered, a year ago, on the grounds of a girls’ boarding
school in the leafy suburbs of Dublin. The caption says, I KNOW WHO KILLED HIM.
Detective Stephen Moran has been waiting for his chance to get a foot in the door of Dublin’s Murder Squad—and one morning, sixteen-year-old Holly Mackey brings him this photo. The Secret Place, a board where the girls at St. Kilda’s School can pin up their secrets anonymously, is normally a mishmash of gossip and covert cruelty, but today someone has used it to reignite the stalled investigation into the murder of handsome, popular Chris Harper. Stephen joins forces with the abrasive Detective Antoinette Conway to find out who and why.
But everything they discover leads them back to Holly’s close-knit group of friends and their fierce enemies, a rival clique—and to the tangled web of relationships that bound all the girls to Chris Harper. Every step in their direction turns up the pressure. Antoinette Conway is already suspicious of Stephen’s links to the Mackey family. St. Kilda’s will go a long way to keep murder outside their walls. Holly’s father, Detective Frank Mackey, is circling, ready to pounce if any of the new evidence points toward his daughter. And the private underworld of teenage girls can be more mysterious and more dangerous than either of the detectives imagined.
The Secret Place is a powerful, haunting exploration of friendship and loyalty, and a gripping addition to the Dublin Murder Squad series."
Detective Stephen Moran has been waiting for his chance to get a foot in the door of Dublin’s Murder Squad—and one morning, sixteen-year-old Holly Mackey brings him this photo. The Secret Place, a board where the girls at St. Kilda’s School can pin up their secrets anonymously, is normally a mishmash of gossip and covert cruelty, but today someone has used it to reignite the stalled investigation into the murder of handsome, popular Chris Harper. Stephen joins forces with the abrasive Detective Antoinette Conway to find out who and why.
But everything they discover leads them back to Holly’s close-knit group of friends and their fierce enemies, a rival clique—and to the tangled web of relationships that bound all the girls to Chris Harper. Every step in their direction turns up the pressure. Antoinette Conway is already suspicious of Stephen’s links to the Mackey family. St. Kilda’s will go a long way to keep murder outside their walls. Holly’s father, Detective Frank Mackey, is circling, ready to pounce if any of the new evidence points toward his daughter. And the private underworld of teenage girls can be more mysterious and more dangerous than either of the detectives imagined.
The Secret Place is a powerful, haunting exploration of friendship and loyalty, and a gripping addition to the Dublin Murder Squad series."
Not Exactly
Current But Noteworthy Books New To Deering Public Library
These books
were donated to the library by Deering residents. Some of these books are older
but were well received. If you have not read them, now is your chance.
The
Poe Shadow by Matthew Pearl, 2007
Following is a review of this book
from Goodreads:
"It takes place in mid 19th
century Baltimore at the time of Poe's death which the press has leaped upon as
an object lesson of the evils of drink. A young lawyer & admirer of Poe
becomes incensed at this slander & sets out to make the record straight,
but his obsession may cost him everything professionally, materially,
romantically, and perhaps even his sanity, if not his life. Baltimore is
vividly drawn as that bipolar city just below the Mason-Dixon line that
exhibits aspects of the antebellum South & Northern urban society only a
decade before the Civil War. The intrigue extends to Paris of Louis Bonaparte
and is filled with characters that range as widely as those two cities do
geographically & culturally.
Pearl capture the formality &
understatement of 19th century prose at times even showing echoes of Poe
himself. Often I felt there would be some loose thread that would remain
unexplained, but by the end, like a Dickens' novel, all the threads come
together in a more or less satisfactory way. The overriding question throughout
is how much is historical & how much is fiction. But the Historical Notes
after the novel concludes clears that up as well. As it turns out quite a bit
is true, but there are enough gaps in the record to give Pearl the room to imagine
quite a tale of nearly every intrigue imaginable."
The
Moor's last sigh by Salman Rushdie, 1996
Generally this book was well reviewed, as are most of Rushdie's books.
I don't know what's wrong with me but I find reading his books to be a
challenge. Apparently the end result is well wort the struggle. Here is a
typical review from Goodreads. Following is a summary of this from Goodreads,
"I admit that I had already given The Moor‘s Last Sigh by Salman
Rushdie a couple of unsuccessful tries before I finally challenged myself to
reading it in one go a couple of weeks ago. It seemed just the right time to
plunge into something by Rushdie after I unexpectedly met him at a conference
he was giving in Madrid as part of the World Book Day celebration.
And yes, it was a big challenge. If one can love and hate a book at the same time, admire and despise it, crave for more and wish to finish it immediately, then I experienced it as well while turning the pages of The Moor‘s Last Sigh. I couldn‘t but admire Rushdie‘s genius, his boundless imagination and his capacity to interweave the lives of the characters of the book and the historical facts into one single fabric full of new colors. And at the same time I hated the slowness of the plot, which became even slower mixed with my incapacity to read Rusdhie‘s ornate language faster.
I loved how the author‘s experienced hand mixed classes, religions, ethnic groups, politics, business, crime and art. And I pitied my lack of knowledge of the historical and political context, which made me miss a lot of allusions and connotations that would have made more sense for somebody living in India."
And yes, it was a big challenge. If one can love and hate a book at the same time, admire and despise it, crave for more and wish to finish it immediately, then I experienced it as well while turning the pages of The Moor‘s Last Sigh. I couldn‘t but admire Rushdie‘s genius, his boundless imagination and his capacity to interweave the lives of the characters of the book and the historical facts into one single fabric full of new colors. And at the same time I hated the slowness of the plot, which became even slower mixed with my incapacity to read Rusdhie‘s ornate language faster.
I loved how the author‘s experienced hand mixed classes, religions, ethnic groups, politics, business, crime and art. And I pitied my lack of knowledge of the historical and political context, which made me miss a lot of allusions and connotations that would have made more sense for somebody living in India."
Command
and Control: Nuclear weapons, the Damascus incident, and the illusion of safety by Eric
Schlosser, 2013
The following summary is from Goodreads:
"Famed investigative journalist Eric Schlosser digs deep to
uncover secrets about the management of America’s nuclear arsenal. A
ground-breaking account of accidents, near-misses, extraordinary heroism, and
technological breakthroughs, Command and Control explores the dilemma
that has existed since the dawn of the nuclear age: how do you deploy
weapons of mass destruction without being destroyed by them? That
question has never been resolved--and Schlosser reveals how the combination of
human fallibility and technological complexity still poses a grave risk to
mankind.
Written with the vibrancy of a first-rate thriller, Command and Control interweaves the minute-by-minute story of an accident at a nuclear missile silo in rural Arkansas with a historical narrative that spans more than fifty years. It depicts the urgent effort by American scientists, policymakers, and military officers to ensure that nuclear weapons can’t be stolen, sabotaged, used without permission, or detonated inadvertently. Schlosser also looks at the Cold War from a new perspective, offering history from the ground up, telling the stories of bomber pilots, missile commanders, maintenance crews, and other ordinary servicemen who risked their lives to avert a nuclear holocaust. At the heart of the book lies the struggle, amid the rolling hills and small farms of Damascus, Arkansas, to prevent the explosion of a ballistic missile carrying the most powerful nuclear warhead ever built by the United States.
Drawing on recently declassified documents and interviews with men who designed and routinely handled nuclear weapons, Command and Control takes readers into a terrifying but fascinating world that, until now, has been largely hidden from view. Through the details of a single accident, Schlosser illustrates how an unlikely event can become unavoidable, how small risks can have terrible consequences, and how the most brilliant minds in the nation can only provide us with an illusion of control. Audacious, gripping, and unforgettable, Command and Control is a tour de force of investigative journalism, an eye-opening look at the dangers of America’s nuclear age."
Written with the vibrancy of a first-rate thriller, Command and Control interweaves the minute-by-minute story of an accident at a nuclear missile silo in rural Arkansas with a historical narrative that spans more than fifty years. It depicts the urgent effort by American scientists, policymakers, and military officers to ensure that nuclear weapons can’t be stolen, sabotaged, used without permission, or detonated inadvertently. Schlosser also looks at the Cold War from a new perspective, offering history from the ground up, telling the stories of bomber pilots, missile commanders, maintenance crews, and other ordinary servicemen who risked their lives to avert a nuclear holocaust. At the heart of the book lies the struggle, amid the rolling hills and small farms of Damascus, Arkansas, to prevent the explosion of a ballistic missile carrying the most powerful nuclear warhead ever built by the United States.
Drawing on recently declassified documents and interviews with men who designed and routinely handled nuclear weapons, Command and Control takes readers into a terrifying but fascinating world that, until now, has been largely hidden from view. Through the details of a single accident, Schlosser illustrates how an unlikely event can become unavoidable, how small risks can have terrible consequences, and how the most brilliant minds in the nation can only provide us with an illusion of control. Audacious, gripping, and unforgettable, Command and Control is a tour de force of investigative journalism, an eye-opening look at the dangers of America’s nuclear age."
The
hiding place by Trezza Azzopardi, 2000
Following is a 4-star review of this dark novel from Goodreads:
This is an amazingly powerful novel about a struggling working class
family in Cardiff, Wales. It begins in the early 60's and travels to the end of
the nineties using the various horrifying revelations in the memory of Dolores,
the youngest sibling in a family of six daughters, to move the tale forward.
Poverty, immorality, superstition, mental illness and illiteracy set the stage for abuse, neglect, dysfunction and deprivation that defies the imagination. Each successive memory is progressively worse than the one preceding it.
This book will have a profound effect on the reader. This is not a book one will easily forget as it exposes the wounded family with all of its fatal flaws; the children and the parents are all scarred by something. There is physical abuse, human trafficking in which a child is bartered into slavery, another sent to foster care, another beaten brutally, another permanently injured in tragic circumstances, all tortured by each other in one way or another, as well as by society. Even those that escape the environment bear the marks and damage of memories they try to suppress.
The depths to which some will sink in order to survive, for purely selfish reasons, will astound the reader. The inability of others to live and/or fulfill their natural family obligations, as they are thwarted by life's haphazard circumstances, will pain the reader. They cannot find a way out of their circumstances so their dreams and/enormous obligations remain unfulfilled. Their stories will keep one turning pages.
Ignorance and superstition stifled and destroyed many lives. This book opens a window onto their suffering. If you read it, you will not be sorry, although you will surely be extremely saddened to learn of the hopelessness that existed for these characters at so many stages of their lives.
The one part of the book that disturbed me deeply, was that the kindest, often unjustly, suffered the most, while the guilty often escaped punishment, although their actions caused monumental suffering for others. Perhaps that is true to life, unfortunately; the guilty often do get away unscathed leaving a trail of misery in their wake.
Poverty, immorality, superstition, mental illness and illiteracy set the stage for abuse, neglect, dysfunction and deprivation that defies the imagination. Each successive memory is progressively worse than the one preceding it.
This book will have a profound effect on the reader. This is not a book one will easily forget as it exposes the wounded family with all of its fatal flaws; the children and the parents are all scarred by something. There is physical abuse, human trafficking in which a child is bartered into slavery, another sent to foster care, another beaten brutally, another permanently injured in tragic circumstances, all tortured by each other in one way or another, as well as by society. Even those that escape the environment bear the marks and damage of memories they try to suppress.
The depths to which some will sink in order to survive, for purely selfish reasons, will astound the reader. The inability of others to live and/or fulfill their natural family obligations, as they are thwarted by life's haphazard circumstances, will pain the reader. They cannot find a way out of their circumstances so their dreams and/enormous obligations remain unfulfilled. Their stories will keep one turning pages.
Ignorance and superstition stifled and destroyed many lives. This book opens a window onto their suffering. If you read it, you will not be sorry, although you will surely be extremely saddened to learn of the hopelessness that existed for these characters at so many stages of their lives.
The one part of the book that disturbed me deeply, was that the kindest, often unjustly, suffered the most, while the guilty often escaped punishment, although their actions caused monumental suffering for others. Perhaps that is true to life, unfortunately; the guilty often do get away unscathed leaving a trail of misery in their wake.
Wolf
Hall by Hilary Mantel, 2009
From Goodreads:
"Tudor England. Henry VIII is on the throne, but has no heir.
Cardinal Wolsey is charged with securing his divorce. Into this atmosphere of
distrust comes Thomas Cromwell - a man as ruthlessly ambitious in his wider
politics as he is for himself. His reforming agenda is carried out in the grip
of a self-interested parliament and a king who fluctuates between romantic
passions and murderous rages."
I love historical fiction and the story of
Henry VIII and his schism from the Church of Rome, for whatever reasons, is
fascinating. This story of Henry's break from the Pope and from his good friend
Thomas More (who may have been canonized, but is still responsible for a lot of
charred Protestants) is told through the perspective of Thomas Cromwell, an
interesting approach. The author's style drove me crazy. So many times it was
nearly impossible to know which 'he' in the room the 'he said' referred to.
This book is not for daydreaming reader. Wolf Hall was followed by 'Bringing up the bones,' which
continues with Thomas Cromwell and describes Henry's disenchantment and
detachment from Anne Bolyn. I am glad to have read both books despite that the
author's grammatical experimentation was a failure.
