This September, our community will hit the road with a group of resilient and resourceful “houseless” Americans traveling from one temporary job to another to make ends meet. “Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century,” a work of immersive journalism by Jessica Bruder, beat out the novel “Sourdough” by Robin Sloan to be named this year’s One Read title.
Before the public vote, a panel of community members considered ten finalist books. This year’s titles sharply reflect current social consciousness and the political issues we are grappling with both locally and nationally.
One issue dominating news headlines is immigration. Lauren Markham’s “The Far Away Brothers: Two Young Migrants and the Making of an American Life” makes intimate and immediate the difficulties of undocumented minors in the Unites States by telling the story of twin brothers who left El Salvador to escape deadly gang violence. The novel “The House of Broken Angels” by Luis Alberto Urrea reflects the immigrant experience with a vibrant family drama. The extended family of patriarch Big Angel de la Cruz gathers in San Diego to mourn the passing of his mother and celebrate one last birthday before Big Angel succumbs to cancer. Sprawling and bittersweet, the story portrays the difficulties of living between cultures and explores a wide range of issues confronted by many American families, including PTSD, opioid addiction, mortality and the glorious mess love can leave in its wake. Continue reading “Literary Links: One Read Finalists 2019”
With the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission coming up in July, I thought I’d highlight some books about Apollo 11 released this month. Visit our catalog for a list of additional titles being released this month.
“One Giant Leap: The Impossible Mission That Flew Us to the Moon” by Charles Fishman
President John F. Kennedy astonished the world on May 25, 1961, when he announced to Congress that the United States should land a man on the Moon by 1970. No group was more surprised than the scientists and engineers at NASA, who suddenly had less than a decade to invent space travel. When Kennedy announced that goal, no one knew how to navigate to the Moon. No one knew how to build a rocket big enough to reach the Moon, or how to build a computer small enough (and powerful enough) to fly a spaceship there. Charles Fishman introduces readers to the men and women who had to solve 10,000 problems before astronauts could reach the Moon. From the research labs of MIT, where the eccentric and legendary pioneer Charles Draper created the tools to fly the Apollo spaceships, to the factories where dozens of women sewed spacesuits, parachutes and even computer hardware by hand, Fishman captures the exceptional feats of these ordinary Americans. “One Giant Leap” is the captivating story of men and women charged with changing the world as we knew it. Continue reading “Nonfiction Roundup: June 2019”
Why I Checked It Out: On a recent trip, I had the chance to drive through the Colorado mountains during the Winter. My experience went quite smoothly, but it was certainly easy to imagine the horror of being isolated in such a remote place during a blinding snowstorm. So when I came across “No Exit,” which has this very premise I had to check it out.
What It’s About: During an impromptu trip home to visit her dying mother, a young woman named Darby finds herself stranded at a remote highway rest stop during a blizzard in the Colorado mountains where she makes a horrific discovery — a young child is being held in a cage inside a van. She doesn’t know which of her fellow stranded travelers is the owner of the van, but she knows she must act. What follows are several tense hours as she attempts to save the child, even though she knows they are ultimately trapped with a very dangerous person.Continue reading “Staff Book Review: No Exit by Taylor Adams”
Posted on Wednesday, May 29, 2019 by Reading Addict
RCA Records [Public domain]There is a finite set of books that can fit this task because there are only so many awards given in a year. Hopefully this post will help to expand on some that you may have already seen. With so many people trying to expand their reading with audio books, I thought I would focus on the Audie Awards which are granted for outstanding audio books and spoken word entertainment by the Audio Publishers Association. Not all of these books won the 2018 Audie Award but if they didn’t then they also won another award within 2018.
Imagine you go to school one morning to go on a field trip. Suddenly, you and your classmates wake up on an island. Each of you has an ominous metal collar around your neck. You are told you have to fight each other until only one of you is left alive. If you all refuse to kill each other those collars will start exploding. Worst day of school ever?
That is the premise of “Battle Royal” by Koushun Takami. This violent, action-packed novel tinged with teen angst was a controversial and unexpected hit in Japan in 1999. It was even rejected in the final round of the 1997 Japan Horror Fiction Awards because of its controversial content. The book was later adapted into an equally controversial and commercially successful film in 2000. The controversy is understandable, as the subject matter can feel a bit exploitative. The story is a combination of fast-paced thriller and horror story, but there is a dystopian backdrop that also makes it a bit of an allegory, albeit one told with the subtlety of a hammer. Continue reading “Know Your Dystopias: Battle Royale”
Why should kids have all the fun? Summer Reading is for grown-ups, too! The Daniel Boone Regional Library is challenging adults to read three books, submit three book reviews and do seven fun, library-related activities. Complete the challenge, and beginning July 1, you’ll receive a prize. You’ll also be entered into a drawing for other fun rewards including a telescope or a book store gift card.
The last season of the hit HBO series “Game of Thrones” (based on George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” book series) has been controversial at times, but I think we can all agree on one point – it’s over. But don’t despair – your library is here to fill the dragon-shaped hole in your life.
If you want to stay in the realm (heh) of acclaimed fantasy novels adapted for prestige television, read the Philip Pullman series “His Dark Materials.” There are no dragons, but there are polar bears and prophecies, and Lyra is one of the most memorable characters you’ll ever spend time with. The first season of the show will premiere on HBO later this year. Lin-Manuel Miranda is in it!
Maybe you want to start another fantasy series with superb world building and a villain you can love to hate. “The Kingkiller Chronicle,” by Patrick Rothfuss, is well-written and propulsive and you’ll want to pick up the second book as soon as you close the first. However, this series and “A Song of Ice and Fire” have something else in common – neither series has had a book published since 2011. “The Kingkiller Chronicle” is also being adapted into a movie. Lin-Manuel Miranda is writing it! Continue reading ““Game of Thrones” Is Dead. Long Live “Game of Thrones”!”
Posted on Wednesday, May 15, 2019 by Reading Addict
The Algonquin Round Table – Portrait of Art Samuels, Charlie MacArthur, Harpo Marx, Dorothy Parker and Alexander Woollcott, circa 1919“Excuse my dust” was Dorothy Parker’s self-chosen epitaph. “What fresh hell is this?” is how she is said to have answered the door/telephone. She had a way with words.
Dorothy Parker was born Dorothy Rothschild in 1893 but she was quick to point out it was not THOSE Rothschilds. Her mother died when she was five and she had a difficult relationship with her father before he also died, leaving her to fend for herself. One of her most famous quotes is “I’d like to have money. And I’d like to be a good writer. These two can come together, and I hope they will, but if that’s too adorable, I’d rather have money.” A lot of her writing can be read as fictionalized biography and you can hear the stress in her voice.
The majority of Parker’s writing, both poetry and short stories, is available in “The Portable Dorothy Parker” which turns 75 on May 15th. My personal copy is the Viking Portable Library edition printed in 1944 as part of a series of books written for WWII servicemen overseas. It includes an introduction by Somerset Maugham and is one of only three of the Viking series that has never been out of print. This is not the version available at the library but you can listen to the audio book with Hoopla, one of our digital downloading services. You can also read one of my favorite short stories, “The Waltz,” in “The 50 funniest American Writers.” Continue reading “Excuse My Dust — 75 Years of “The Portable Dorothy Parker””
“Foe” by Iain Reid is a book meant to be blazed through in a single sitting. It’s a short novel, it immediately introduces a big old mystery, and answers to the story’s questions seem to be just barely obscured, so that if, like the novel’s narrator, you drill a spy hole into your bathroom wall, maybe all will become clear. But it turns out it takes more than a creepy hole to answer your questions: just like in life, eventually a representative from a massive corporation will make things horrifyingly clear.
The story begins with a representative (Terrance) from a corporate/government entity showing up to inform our narrator he’s won a lottery and he might be going to space to work on a habitat for humanity. Terrance makes it cheerfully clear that there is no choice in the matter: if Junior wins the lottery, he’s going to be a space worker for a some years. Not to fear though, the corporation will benevolently provide a companion for his wife while he’s away. Junior doesn’t like the sound of that, and he’s not mollified when he finds out his replacement will basically be a 3D-printed replica of himself. Continue reading “The Gentleman Recommends: Iain Reid”
Before there was “tourism” and souvenir ashtrays became “kitsch,” the Lake of the Ozarks was a Shangri-La for middle-class Midwestern families on vacation. It was there that author Bill Geist spent summers in the Sixties during his school and college years working at Arrowhead Lodge. What may have seemed just a summer job became, upon reflection, a transformative era where a cast of eccentric, small-town characters and experiences shaped (some might suggest “slightly twisted”) Bill into the man he is today. In “Lake of the Ozarks,” Emmy Award-winning CBS Sunday Morning Correspondent Bill Geist reflects on his coming of age in the American Heartland and traces his evolution as a man and a writer. Continue reading “Nonfiction Roundup: May 2019”
Why should kids have all the fun? ![http://www.geocities.com/~jbenz/marxphot.html [Public domain]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Algonquin_Round_Table.gif)