wednesday february 28
I recommended Eric Dezenhall to a fan of Carl Hiaasen and Donald Westlake a few weeks ago. If you like the Florida school of over-the-top satiric suspense, move up the coastline a little to meet New Jersey crisis management consultant (a.k.a. spin doctor) Jonah Eastman.
Eastman was introduced in Money Wanders. A Washington political pollster whose career was in trouble, Jonah found a new client at the funeral of his grandfather, a New Jersey mobster. Another mob boss was having image problems—Mario Vanni wanted to get a legitimate gambling license and leave a clean business to his grandkids. But how to rehabilitate the public image of the state’s biggest gangster? A little polling revealed the answer—make him look tough on drugs and neighborhood crime.
Dezenhall gleefully satirized pollsters, p.r. flacks, and public enemies in that humorous crime novel, the first in a series. Now there’s a new Jonah Eastman adventure, Spinning Dixie.
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tuesday february 27
I first discovered Susan Elizabeth Phillips when I read her book It Had To Be You back in 1996. I loved her wit and humor and her easy storytelling style. Still do. She's one of a few authors that I'll automatically read without having to know what the book's about.
When her newest book, Natural Born Charmer, was published this month I happily snapped it up and read it in one weekend. It's the story of Chicago Stars quarterback Dean Robillard and vagabond Blue Bailey. When Dean picks Blue up after he spots her walking down the highway in a beaver suit (trust me there's a good reason for that!) their adventure is only begining. Throw in Dean and Blue's mommy issues, Dean's younger sister and one cranky old woman who owns the town and what you have is ultimately a story of what it means to be a family and accepting the one that you have.
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Cincinnati's citywide reading program, On the Same Page, is in full swing. Family and friends, neighbors, and co-workers are reading The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan. For teens, The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan is this year's action-packed selection.
You can participate any number of ways. Pick up a copy of the book at any Library location or contact a branch to get multiple copies for a book club or class. Host your own discussion or attend a Library book discussion group. Post your comments about the book on the On the Same Page web site.
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saturday february 24
Yesterday, my son was rejected by CCM as a piano performance major. Fortunately, he got over it in a few minutes because he liked Bowling Green (where he was accepted) better anyway.
I mention this because if you're planning to push your child into something, piano is better than figure skating, especially pairs figure skating. Pianos are expensive, but they're cheaper than ice time, skating coaches, skates (you'll have to have more than one pair, because your feet will keep growing as you get older, although maybe less than most people's if you're a girl and aren't allowed to weigh more than 100 pounds). Plus even if you're playing a piano duet, there's practically no chance that your partner's skate blade will pierce your skull. Jon Jackson's 2005 On Edge: Backroom Dealing, Cocktail Scheming, Triple Axels, and How Top Skaters Get Screwed; and Joy Goodwin's 2004 The Second Mark: Courage, Corrpution, and the Battle for Olympic Gold make this pretty clear.
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friday february 23
The Horror Writers Association has announced that Thomas Harris will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Bram Stoker Awards Banquet at the end of March during the annual HWA Conference that will be held in conjunction with the 2007 World Horror Convention in Toronto.
Harris hasn't written a lot of books, but his fiction is very finely crafted and creepy. He is, of course, recognized for his perfectly written saga of Hannibal Lecter, the compelling psychopath from Red Dragon, Silence of the Lambs, and Hannibal.
The latest and final installment, Hannibal Rising, is actually the first installment, starting with Hannibal as a young boy in Eastern Europe during World War II. It offers the reasons for Hannibal becoming the way he is.
Harris wrote the screenplay for the movie at the same time as the novel. Hannibal Rising is available in audio as well as print, and as a digital audio book for download from the Ohio eBook Project.
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thursday february 22
Little Children, which is based on
Tom Perrrotta’s novel by the same name, has been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture. This pleases me enormously—although I haven’t seen the movie yet, I thought Perrotta’s novel was terrific. (I wasn’t alone either. The Main Library’s Fiction Department picked
Little Children as one of
their favorite novels of 2004, describing it as “a smart, funny novel about marriage, domestic life, and unfulfilled dreams in suburbia.”)
I’ve been a fan of
Perrotta’s work for a long time. Since 1997, to be specific, when
The Wishbones, his first novel was published.
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wednesday february 21
I was perusing the BBC's website today (I love having a foreign perspective on world news), when I stumbled upon the story of French chef Anne-Sophie Pic. Just who is Anne-Sophie Pic? She's the first woman to receive a three star rating from France's prestigious Michelin restaurant guide in more than fifty years, and is the fourth woman chef to receive the award since it's inception in 1926. And if that weren't enough, she comes from a family of three star Michelin chefs (her grandfather Andre won in 1934, and her father Jacques won in 1973).
While I personally can never be compared with a three star winning chef, I do like to cook (is it wrong that I have a dream kitchen, but couldn't tell you what the rest of my dream home looks like?). I love to make (and eat) Rachael Ray's Italian Meatball soup. I love making comfort food like macaroni and cheese, grilled cheese and BLT sandwiches, soups, and casseroles. One of my favorite gifts from my grandmother is the recipe book she made for all of her children and their spouses filled with all of our family recipes (hands off the buckeye recipe and the German doughnut recipe).
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