friday january 30
Although winter presents plenty of challenges, it brings pleasures as well; a cozy spot by the fireplace and a savory bowl of soup, for instance, if you are lucky enough to have them. To enhance your enjoyment of the season, here is a smattering of titles from The Library's collection that evoke some of the best that winter has to offer.
Where do such creatures as ladybugs and turtles go in winter? Winter World: The Ingenuity of Animal Survival by Bernd Heinrich explains it all.
Winter: A Spiritual Biography of the Season is an anthology of essays and poems dedicated to the harshness and the beauty of the natural world.
Designer Charlotte Moss offers ideas for creating seasonal warmth indoors in her decorating book, Winter House.
Winter House is also the title of a mystery by Carol O'Connell, featuring detective Kathleen Mallory, the wealthy and enigmatic Winter family, and an ice pick.
And finally, for those who would rather stay home and watch other people defy gravity via skis and snowboards there is Warren Miller's Cold Fusion: The Power of Snow on DVD.
wednesday january 28
Karen Maitland takes a familiar literary form–the tale of a group pilgrimage in medieval England—and gives it spooky little twist in her entertaining historical novel, Company of Liars.
A camelot (peddler of holy relics) reluctantly ends up shepherding a group of strangers toward the shrine of St. John Shorne as they all flee the terrible illness seeping inland from England’s port towns. It’s a difficult journey, as months of rain reduce the countryside to starvation and angry locals seek scapegoats for the coming of the plague.
Besides the camelot, we have a courtly musician and his passionate young apprentice; a fairground trickster with a wagon full of wonders; a storyteller with a swan’s wing in place of one arm; a young painter and his pregnant wife; and a ghostly, eerie girl who reads runes and predicts an evil fate for all of them.
Each of the characters has a secret, and the events of the journey expose each one in turn as misfortune and death snap at their heels like the wolves they hear in the night.
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friday january 23
Now in her late 20's, Isabel "Izzy" Spellman joined her family's private investigation firm when she was 12 years old. Her tendency toward subterfuge comes to her genetically: Mom and Dad are PI's, Uncle Ray as well, brother David is an annoyingly perfect attorney, and, not to be outdone, little sister Rae started in the family business at the age of six. As a group, they are smart, sneaky, cynical, above the law, and very very funny. Author Lisa Lutz has invented a family that puts the fun back in dysfunctional.
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wednesday january 21
Spot is a yellow puppy with a brown spot on each side of his body and a brown tip on his tail. He is equal parts helpful and mischevious, and just happens to star in his own series of books, DVD’s, CD’s, and other merchandise.
There are various kinds of Spot books available, all by Eric Hill- from lift-the-flap books to read-along audio CD with book bundle, to touch and feel books. There are also a heathy dose of good old-fashioned picture books available. We’ve developed quite a crush on the lift-the-falp board book editions at my house, but all the Spot books are great choices for little ones.
Below is a sampling of what the library has to offer in the way of all things Spot, or click here for a complete listing.
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Okay, this one’s not new, but it’s very seasonal. You’ll feel positively cozy during our current heat wave reading the bitter winter scenes in Claire Davis’s 2000 debut novel, Winter Range.
Sheriff Ike Parsons is an outsider in his small Montana town. He married a local girl, Pattiann, the daughter of one of the cattle ranching families, and has patiently tried to make a place for himself among the locals. They like him and tolerate him, and he likes and admires them, but he knows he still isn't one of them.
Now an unusually long, harsh winter is dragging toward spring. Chas Stubblefield, the son of one of the county's sternest ranchers, has given up the fight. He is letting his cattle slowly starve to death in a desperate, angry, shamed gesture toward the bankers and feed mill owners who have finally cut off his credit.
Ike can't let the situation continue.
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wednesday january 14
It’s 1929, and in the North Carolina mountains, George Pemberton brings his new bride, Serena, to his timber camp. A bold and unconventional woman, the daughter of a timber baron, Serena seems a good match for the hard young man who has worked beside his logging crews as well as run them.
And she quickly proves her toughness. Fifteen-year-old Rachel Harmon, pregnant with Pemberton’s bastard, approaches him at the rail head with her father. A knife fight between the two men ends in Abe Harmon’s death, and Serena coolly faces down the sheriff and dresses her husband’s wound.
That’s the first scene in Ron Rash’s novel Serena, a shockingly good historical novel. Read this for its gorgeous North Carolina mountain, Depression-era setting; read it for its chillingly vivid character study of the ambitious young couple; read it for the suspense (what will happen to Rachel and her baby?); read it for the grand end-of-days story as a magnificent American forest is laid waste and the livelihood of the mountain men goes with it. Definitely, read it.
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What should I read next? That’s often the dilemma we face after we finish a book. Well, fear no more, because on January 1st, the library kicked off our new year-long Featured Book of the Month program, designed to introduce readers to books they might otherwise have overlooked.
Our January selection is The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, humorist and travel writer Bill Bryson’s hilarious and delightful memoir about growing up in Des Moines, Iowa, in the 1950s.
The Thunderbolt Kid was born when six-year-old Bryson found a scratchy green jersey with a golden thunderbolt across the chest in the basement of his parents’ house. The sweater bestowed extraordinary super powers: the ability to zap teachers and babysitters and deflect unwanted kisses from old people.
Bryson fondly recalls his boyhood, his zany family, and his beloved hometown, while at the same time shedding light on all aspects of life in America during the 1950s. And, whether you grew up in that decade or not, we think you’ll be happy with our choice.
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