A large bunch of books was added to the Deering Public Library in March.
TWO CURRENTLY POPULAR NOVELS.
Origin by Dan Brown, 2017
This is a page-turner, just like the preceding 4 Robert Langton (Tom Hanks) thrillers from Dan Brown and the formula is unchanged: an apocalyptic event, The Church and a bunch of clerics, a death or two, some symbols, Robert Langdon and a savvy young woman. Solve the riddle and prevent the apocalypse. In this case the Big Threat is to the existence of organized religion posed by the revelation of a discovery that will make Religion irrelevant. The revelation is initially thwarted and it is up tp Robert and his lady friend to get the message out. They are helped by a computer that seems to have all the characteristics of a human but is not encumbered by a body. uh huh. In this installment of the Robert Langton series Brown is preoccupied by the late 19th/early 20th Cenetury Spanish architect Gaudi. There are detailed descriptions of edifices built by Gaudi in Spain, where the action takes place. The action was (sort of ) intense and that kept me reading. Of course, the short chapters with lots of blank page at the end of each chapter, heightened the sense of action and the compulsion to keep reading just one more chapter. It's a biggish book, but because each chapter begins in a new page, there are not as many words as the heft of the book would suggest. I never thought to stop reading this book, but I could never buy into the proposition that any scientific discovery (I won't tell you what that discovery is) would make organized religion moot or would upset the millions of people to whom the Big Announcement is aimed. I also found the detailed descriptions of works by Gaudi to read more like entries in Wikipedia than interesting literature. I like good writing (just finished an older work by Richard Russo, Bridge of Sighs that was wonderful for observations and depictions of common folk in upper New York State and am currently reading on tape (with my elliptical trainer) Walter Mosley Easy Rawlins mystery. These books, vastly different from each other, are better literature than Origin).
Sing, Unburried, Sing, by Jesmyn Ward, 2017
Goodreads reviewrs generally awarded Sing, Unburried, Sing 5 stars.
Here is an excerpt from one of those reviews:
This is the tale of two Mississippi families, one black and one white, joined by bloodshed and bloodlines. Joined by love and hatred, by death and birth. But this is also a coming-of-age story of one teenaged boy, Jojo, whose life is forever changed. Jojo is the biracial son of the often high, often absent Leonie—who sees her murdered brother, Given, in drug-induced hallucinations—and Michael, whose hostile, racist family will never accept his black girlfriend and half-breed children. Jojo is caught between being a parent to his three-year-old sister, Kayla, and learning to be a man from his grandfather, Pop. But this place he is emotionally sandwiched between is a place he calls home, a place of comfort and togetherness, between Kayla and Pop—until Leonie comes back from a bender and piles them all in the car on the way to Parchman Penitentiary to retrieve Michael from the prison that has changed and ended so many lives connected to theirs. It is on this journey that Jojo sees the naked truth of racial hierarchies and the hatred the South is all too known for and discovers his gift of sight he never knew he had. And it is also on this journey that Jojo faces who his mother is, what she is capable of and what she will never be.
Another reviewer wrote:
"I washed my hands every day, Jojo. But that damn blood ain't never come out."Such a stunning book.
Sing, Unburied, Sing captivated me almost instantly. THIS is how character-driven family dramas should be, and there's nothing quite like a nice bit of dysfunctional family drama to keep me turning pages. But I don't want to diminish the strength of this novel. It is a character study of a contemporary African-American family in Mississippi, but it is also a darkly beautiful story about ghosts. In the literal and figurative sense.
FICTION FOR YOUNG GIRLS
These two books were found in the 'in box' of the library. Join Ann Brashares's beloved sisterhood once again in dazzling, fearless novels. Each summer in the series will forever change the lives of Lena, Carmen, Bee, and Tibby, here and now, past and future, together and apart.Girls in Pants. The third summer of the Sisterhood, by Ann Brashares, 2005
Forever in Blue. The fourth summer of the Sisterhood, by Ann Brashares, 2007
LARGE PRINT NOVELS
Centerpoint Large Print Publishers donated several large print novels to our library. Apart from Jose Saramago, Nobel Prize winning Portuguese author, I have not heard of the authors or their books. The largely seem to be romantic novels that might help you pass time while waiting for the water to boil, or for the doctor to see you. The reviews of all of these novels were generally positive. If reading is difficult because of the size of the font, these should make reading much easier and more pleasurable.The Clasp, by Sloane Crosley, 2015
Reviews were mixed. Some Goodreads reviewrs loved it and found the story amusing, others thought the story was trite and the term 'self absorbed thirty-somethings' was common.
Here's the description from Goodreads:
"Kezia, Nathaniel, and Victor are reunited for the extravagant wedding of a college friend. Now at the tail end of their twenties, they arrive completely absorbed in their own lives—Kezia the second-in-command to a madwoman jewelry designer in Manhattan; Nathaniel, the former literary cool kid, selling his wares in Hollywood; and the Eeyore-esque Victor, just fired from a middling search engine. They soon slip back into old roles: Victor loves Kezia. Kezia loves Nathaniel. Nathaniel loves Nathaniel.
In the midst of all this semi-merriment, Victor passes out in the mother of the groom’s bedroom. He wakes to her jovially slapping him across the face. Instead of a scolding, she offers Victor a story she’s never even told her son, about a valuable necklace that disappeared during the Nazi occupation of France.
And so a madcap adventure is set into motion, one that leads Victor, Kezia, and Nathaniel from Miami to New York and L.A. to Paris and across France, until they converge at the estate of Guy de Maupassant, author of the classic short story The Necklace.
Heartfelt, suspenseful, and told with Sloane Crosley’s inimitable spark and wit, The Clasp is a story of friends struggling to fit together now that their lives haven’t gone as planned, of how to separate the real from the fake. Such a task might be possible when it comes to precious stones, but is far more difficult to pull off with humans."
The Mistletoe Promise, by Richard Paul Evans, 2014
One Goodreads reviewer summed up the book like this:
"This is another wonderful Christmas story told in a way only Richard Paul Evans could do. It is a quick read and I did not want to put it down. Without giving anything away it's about two people that meet during the Christmas holidays and decide to sign a contract pretending to be a couple to help each other get through the holidays. "
What I Love About You (Military Men # 3), by Rachel Gibson, 2014
This is a romance that includes a sexy ex Navy Seal and a divorced, former cheerleader mom who comes with a 5-yr-old cute ad a pin daughter, a puppy and steamy romance. Be warned.
Some reviewers really liked it.
The Rebellion of Miss Lucy Ann Lobdell, by William Klaber, 2013.
This book is based on a true story. Goodreads reviewers ranged from liking it to really liking it.
Here is the description from Goodreads:
"One day in 1855 Lucy Lobdell cut her hair, changed clothes, and went off to live her life as a man. By the time it was over, she was notorious. The New York Times thought her worthy of a lengthy obituary that began “Death of a Modern Diana . . . Dressed in Man’s Clothing She Wins a Girl’s Love.” The obit detailed what the Times knew of Lucy’s life, from her backwoods upbringing to the dance school she ran disguised as a man, “where she won the love of a young lady scholar.” But that was just the start of the trouble; the Times did not know about Lucy’s arrest and trial for the crime of wearing men’s clothes or her jailbreak engineered by her wife, Marie Perry, to whom she had been married by an unsuspecting judge.
Lucy lived at a time when women did not commonly travel unescorted, carry a rifle, sit down in bars, or have romantic liaisons with other women. Lucy did these things in a personal quest—to work and be paid, to wear what she wanted, and to love whomever she cared to. But to gain those freedoms she had to endure public scorn and wrestle with a sexual identity whose vocabulary had yet to be invented. Lucy promised to write a book about it all, and over the decades, people have searched for that account. Author William Klaber searched also until he decided that the finding would have to be by way of echoes and dreams. This book is Lucy’s story, told in her words as heard and recorded by an upstream neighbor.
It has been named a Stonewall Book Award-Barbara Gittings Literature Award Honor Book for 2014."
Skylight, by Jose Saramago, 2014
Pilar del Rio, president of José Saramago Foundation writes in the novel's introduction that in 1953 31-year old José Saramago sent a bundle of typewritten papers to a publishing house for their consideration. The manuscript was ignored, not returned and lost to time for 36 years. Meanwhile Saramago would go on to world recognition and would become a 1998 Nobel Prize recipient in literature.
When the lost novel was discovered in 1989 the publishing house respectfully asked if they could publish it and Saramago said no, not in his lifetime and collected what would have been his first novel. The initial rejection had been so painful that Saramago, while writing poems, journals and essays, would not write another novel for 30 years. Upon his death in 2010, the wheels were set in motion to publish Skylight, "the book lost and found in time".
The English version of Skylight, translated by Margaret Jull Costa, tells the daily-life stories of ordinary families who live in a fading apartment building in the Lisbon of the early 1950s, men and women who are struggling to make ends meet. José Saramago would become a master of character portrayal; Skylight gives the reader an introduction into the development of stories and characters to come.
An Island Christmas, by Nancy Thayer, 2014
From Goodreads:
In this enchanting holiday novel from New York Times bestselling author Nancy Thayer, family and friends gather on Nantucket for a gorgeous winter wedding with plenty of merry surprises in store.
As Christmas draws near, Felicia returns to her family’s home on the island to marry her adventurous, rugged boyfriend, Archie. Every detail is picture-perfect for a dream wedding: the snow-dusted streets, twinkling lights in the windows, a gorgeous red and white satin dress. Except a lavish ceremony is not Felicia’s dream at all; it’s what her mother, Jilly, wants. Jilly’s also worried that her daughter’s life with daredevil Archie will be all hiking and skydiving. Wondering if their handsome neighbor Steven Hardy might be a more suitable son-in-law, Jilly embarks on a secret matchmaking campaign for Felicia and the dashing stockbroker.
As the big day approaches and Jilly’s older daughter, Lauren, appears with rambunctious kids in tow, tensions in the household are high. With the family careening toward a Yuletide wedding disaster, an unexpected twist in Nancy Thayer’s heartwarming tale reminds everyone about the true meaning of the season.
