New Items: Boys & Girls
June 16, 2009 · Leave a Comment
There were more than the usual number of new books this month, so selecting just a few books for this post was tough. Next time you come in to the library, make sure you take a look at the new books section, or check out the lists of new materials online!
Boys
Brothers by Yu Hua
From PW: “…two boys weather the changes of the Cultural Revolution, reform and globalization, and Yu’s unflinching narrative, by turns tragic and hilarious, shows ordinary lives being broken down and built up again.”
Lowboy by John Wray
From PW: “The story centers on Will Heller, a 16-year-old New Yorker who has stopped taking his antipsychotic medication and wandered away from the mental hospital into the subway tunnels believing that the world will end within a few hours and that only he can save it.”
Bruno, Chief of Police by Martin Walker
From PW: “Policing in Chief Bruno CourrEges’s sun-dappled patch of Perigord involves protecting local fromages from E.U. hygiene inspectors, orchestrating village parades and enjoying the obligatory leisurely lunch-that is, until the brutal murder of an elderly Algerian immigrant…”
Girls
Supergirls Speak Out by Liz Funk
From PW: “First-time author Funk defines the term “supergirl” as an over-achieving young woman with a compulsive need to be the best in all areas: school, extra-curricular activities, social networking and, of course, physical appearance.”
A Proper Education for Girls by Elaine di Rollo
From PW: “…set in 1850s England and colonial India, tells the story of twin sisters Alice and Lilian Talbot, who were born into an aristocratic but eccentric English family and raised by their widowed father among his collected curiosities and creepy acquaintances.”
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
From PW: “Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan is just home from college in 1962, and, anxious to become a writer, is advised to hone her chops by writing “about what disturbs you.” The budding social activist begins to collect the stories of the black women on whom the country club sets relies–and mistrusts–enlisting the help of Aibileen, a maid who’s raised 17 children, and Aibileen’s best friend Minny, who’s found herself unemployed more than a few times after mouthing off to her white employers.”
Boys & Girls
Mr. and Miss Anonymous by Fern Michaels
From PW: “Peter Kelly and Lily Madison regret choices they made in 1986 as impoverished college students when they first met outside a sperm bank and its adjacent fertility clinic. Years later, Pete’s a software mogul and Lily’s a successful clothing designer, and they happen across one another at an airport, where they see a news broadcast about a massacre at the California Academy of Higher Learning. Featured on the report is Josh, a survivor and dead ringer for Pete.”
Why Him? Why Her? by Helen Fisher
Helen Fisher, conducting research through Chemistry.com, and take into account philosophies from Jung, Keirsey and more, has written a book that aims to deconstruct who you like (or love), and why, based on your personality type.
-Dea
→ Leave a CommentCategories: Booklist · New Items
Tagged: A Proper Education for Girls, Brothers, Bruno Chief of Police, Lowboy, Mr. and Miss Anonymous, New Items, Supergirls Speak Out, The Help, Why Him? Why Her?
From Book to TV: Witches of Eastwick
May 21, 2009 · Leave a Comment
You may have heard that ABC is airing a new show in Fall called Eastwick, about 3 women in a small New England town who discover that they have strange new powers. There’s also a hot new addition to the local populace in the form of Paul Gross. But in case you didn’t know, or didn’t realize, this new show is based on the book The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike.
I haven’t read the book, or seen the 1987 movie that was also based on it. But I’m probably going to watch the show, if only because I love Paul Gross – even if he’s playing bad boy Darryl Can Horne, instead of a mountie… Let’s see how well this novel translates to the year 2009.
-Dea
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Tagged: Eastwick, Paul Gross, Witches of Eastwick
Zombies
May 14, 2009 · Leave a Comment
While I’m still waiting for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, I decided to make a list of some other recent books about the rapidly disintegrating undead…
Generation Dead by Dan Waters
The Down Home Zombie Blues by Linnea Sinclair
Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan
The Last Days by Scott Westerfeld
The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer
The Boy Who Couldn’t Die by William Sleator
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks
Death of a Darklord by Laurell K. Hamilton
Patient Zero by John Maberry
Zombie Blondes by Brian James
Monster Planet by David Wellington
Mind you, I generally prefer my zombies in video games like Oblivion or Resident Evil … or even Fall Out Boy Trail s0 that I can shoot at them, so for hardcore zombie fans, your mileage with these books may vary.
-Dea
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New Items This Month: Everything Old is New Again
May 7, 2009 · 1 Comment
There are a lot of exciting new items this month, but when I was going through them, I started to notice a trend. A feeling of nostalgia, reinvention, adaptation – updates, if you will, of materials, information and people. Nothing makes me happier then when something I know gets a new coat of polish…
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith
“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.” Or, more likely, it’s a universal truth that to make something fresh and cool these days, it doesn’t hurt to add some zombies. Not that I think P&P needed the help, but that doesn’t mean I’m not looking forward to reading it. So, whoever took out our copy, pls bring it back soon. Thx.
Nevermore by Dan Whitehead
This book has collected Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous short stories and transformed them into a graphic novel anthology. You can re-experience classic horror tales like The Raven or The Tell-Tale Heart with fresh, modern settings and sensibilities and edgy illustrations.
BoAThis eponymously titled CD introduces popular Korean singer BoA to a U.S. audience, with new, all English, tracks. Her sound has been reinvented a little, sped up and synthesized into dance music, even though her Korean and Japanese albums have been mostly pop. Still, BoA’s main strength as an artist is her voice, and it definitely shines through.
Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher
Actress and novelist Carrie Fisher shows us a new side of herself in this memoir. To most people, Carrie Fisher begins and ends with Princess Leia, and her famous bun hairdo, but in this book, Carrie Fisher gives us the woman behind the image, with a series of hilarious and sometimes painful (and painfully honest) anecdotes about her life .
Family Ties is on DVD and at our library (or it would be if it wasn’t checked out). When I was growing up, if I missed an episode of Family Ties, I had to wait what was sometimes months for a rerun. But now it’s all in one place, and I’m guessing digitally remastered, etc. How cool is that?
Shambling Towards Hiroshima by James Morrow
While the first book on my list adds zombies to regency romance, this little novel combines WWII with… Godzilla, apparently. The Navy has created a breed of giant, mutant, fire-breathing iguanas. But whether or not they’ll use them on the small island nation of Japan is up to a B-movie actor. If he and his rubber suit can demonstrate the potential threat and get the Japanese to surrender, there will be peace. If not? Iguana mayhem. (Note: I wouldn’t expect a lot of political or cultural sensitivity from this book, btw.)
Jesus, Interrupted by Bart D. Ehrman
In this book, Bart Ehrman takes a good hard look at the New Testament. He isn’t reinterpretting the text either. Rather, he’s reinventing what we’re expecting from the text. Stripping apart historical influences and philosophies, Ehrman attempts to clear a path to the truth.
Want more? Check out the complete list of new items for May on our website.
-Dea
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Tagged: BoA, Carrie Fisher, Edgar Allan Poe, Family Ties, Jesus Interrupted, New Items, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Shambling Towards Hiroshima, Wishful Drinking
Non-Fiction for Fiction Readers
April 21, 2009 · 1 Comment
I’m not a huge non-fiction fan, but occasionally, when I’ve tired of my escapist fun, I veer into unknown waters. Below is my list of non-fiction books that were entertaining, edifying, and read like fiction:
Longitude, by Dava Sobel
I never thought about how sailors found their way before longitude and latitude: really, they couldn’t tell east from west. This is the story of John Harrison, a clockmaker who figured it all out.
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary, by Simon Winchester
If you’ve seen the OED, you know what an amazing accomplishment it is, and what an incredible amount of work went into it. Simon Winchester draws you into the story and keeps you there.
Assassination Vacation, by Sarah Vowell
Sara Vowell, who also contributes to the This American Life radio show, is a historian who makes history fun. I love all of her books, but this one, about vacationing at all the places where presidents were killed, is my favorite.
Free For All: Oddballs, Geeks and Gangstas in the Public Library, by Don Borchert
The life and times of just your average local public library.
Girl Named Zippy, by Haven Kimmel
A sweet and quirky tale of a girl named Zippy growing up in a small American town.
Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations, by Georgina Howell
Gertrude Bell, diplomat, mapmaker, adventurer, spy (and more), was an amazing woman you don’t hear enough about.
Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen, by Julie Powell
(soon to be a movie with Meryl Streep and Amy Adams)
This was funny, and a bit disgusting, and I can’t resist anyone who loves Buffy the Vampire Slayer
as much as I do.
The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea, by Sebastian Junger
It’s true that I’m partial, as I went to Gloucester High School and know one of the fishermen who died, but this is a gripping tale and he even makes the science part interesting.
Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City’s Most Unwanted Inhabitants, by Robert Sullivan
Seriously, you don’t mess with rats.
Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, by Mary Roach
The author also wrote a book, even more well-received, called Boink, about just what you think it’s about.
Whatever You Do Don’t Run: True Tales of Botswana Safari Guide, by Peter Allison
Hilarious, with good pictures, and if I didn’t already want to go to Botswana after reading The Number One Ladies Detective Agency, I do now!
-Ardis
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Tagged: nonfiction, rats, reader's advisory
Review: The Victoria Vanishes
April 7, 2009 · 1 Comment
The Victoria Vanishes: A Peculiar Crimes Unit Mystery by Christopher Fowler
I picked up The Victoria Vanishes, I’ll admit, because of the cover, which had a crow, a bowler hat, a bottle of poison, and a syringe, and the word “peculiar.” I’m not a regular mystery reader, but the peculiar investigations of Arthur Bryant and John May were madcap, macabre and quite hilarious, and I felt as though I already knew them even though I had not read any of their earlier investigations.
A serial killer is targeting middle-aged women who he injects with a poison, but his attack and their deaths remain hidden in the crowd of the pubs. The Peculiar Crimes Unit gets the case after Bryant realizes that he observed one of the victims enter the Victoria Cross, a pub that hasn’t existed for almost a century. Bryant is losing his memory and May is considering retirement in the wake of his failing health, and someone has misplaced the ashes of the co-worker they’ve gathered to honor as the book opens.
The Peculiar Crimes Unit is the sort of place I’d want to work if I were in British Law Enforcement and didn’t really care about having a life or advancing my career. Bryant and May seem like fascinating if sometimes undependable and workaholic bosses, and the crimes the Unit ends up solving would likely never be solved by normal means. Still, it’s a department that exists on the very edges of the law, and it seems like some bad things historically happen to their coroners.
Be warned: The Victoria Vanishes is apparently the last of the series, so, while it’s very readable even if you haven’t read the others in the series first, there is only one direction to go in after Victoria Vanishes, and that’s backwards. If that means I get to spend more time with Bryant and May, then I’m happy to start over at the beginning.
-Andrea
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Tagged: Peculiar Crimes Unit, Victoria Vanishes
Twilight: The Movie
April 6, 2009 · Leave a Comment
I finally watched Twilight this past weekend, and I considered writing a review, since it has been one of the most talked about book-into-movie productions lately. I realized, though, that my review would have been made up of ways in which the movie fixed several of the problems of the book, most notably the pacing and the introduction of the conflict that wasn’t the romantic one. I tend to be of the opinion that books are better than the movie that is made of them. Most of the time, it’s not a matter of quality as much as it is a matter of form: you can do things in a book that you can’t do in a movie.
In the case of Twilight, I think the movie benefited from knowing the end of the story – they snuck in James and the bad guy vampires earlier, in a way that Stephanie Meyer somehow failed to do in her revisions, so they didn’t come as so much of a surprise three quarters of the way through the book. I found Bella more likeable in the movie than I did in the book. (Don’t hate me, crazy devoted fans, although, really, what are you doing reading this blog? Did you miss our ongoing joke about the horror that is Breaking Dawn?) I think the distance from Bella’s narration – and her inner thoughts and personal observations – helped me to appreciate Bella more as a lead character without getting annoyed with her the way I did in the book (and in New Moon and Eclipse ….)
The biggest triumph of the movie as a successful re-telling of the book was that there was no major plot element left out for the sake of brevity (I’m looking at you, here, Prisoner of Azkaban) and I could without reservation recommend that a fan of the movie just go ahead and jump into reading New Moon if they wanted more of the series. They’re already planning to turn that one into a movie, as well.
Unfortunately, Twilight: The Movie didn’t address any of my concerns about the weird power dynamic between our leads, or the creepy messages about the dangers of female sexuality, but I’m not sure there was any way to tell the story of Edward and Bella without the creepy.
Featured in this post:
-Andrea
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Tagged: books into movies, Breaking Dawn, Eclipse, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, New Moon, Twilight
New Books About Things That are Old
March 17, 2009 · Leave a Comment
Andrea has been running herself ragged trying to keep her display of historical novels full this month. Because here at Watertown, we definitely have a passion for history. And I’m guessing the history fans could do with a new book or two about their favorite old topics, so I’m posting a few historically themed selections from this month’s new item list.
Nothing to Fear by Adam Cohen
A fascinating, in depth, account of the first days of FDR’s presidency, when he set in motion the changes that would birth a new America.
The High City by Cecilia Holland
What is now Istanbul was once Constantinople, and Cecilia Holland tells a tale of this great city, one of it’s most feared emporers, his wife, and the young son of an Irish slave.
Mistress of the Monarchy by Alison Weir
Alison Weir presents an engrossing biography of Katherine Swynford, a royal mistress who was to become one of the most crucial figures in the history of the British royal dynasties.
Twenty Four Eyes – Japanese DVD
A moving, historical chronicle of a teacher in rural Japan, spanning decades of history from 1928 through World War 2, and more.
The Devil’s Paintbox by Victoria McKernan
Orphans Aidan and Maddy brave the perilous Oregon Trail in 1865, for the promise of a better life in the Washington Territory.
The Women by T.C. Boyle
T.C. Boyle creates a fictional account of brilliant architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, from the point of view of the women in his life.
→ Leave a CommentCategories: Booklist · New Items · Uncategorized
Review: Demon’s Lexicon
March 4, 2009 · 3 Comments
Demon’s Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan, Not Yet Published.
There are perks to being a librarian, not the least of which is getting a crack at advanced reader copies of upcoming books. And as soon as I saw a copy of this book, I thought, “Ooh, Tom Welling!” shortly followed by, “I should read this.”
But despite my first impression, this book turned out to be less Smallville and more Supernatural. For one thing, it’s about two brothers who fight demons and are perhaps unhealthily obsessed with keeping each other alive. For another thing — nevermind, that’s a spoiler.
Actually this review is going to be really hard to write without spoilers, and it’s one of those rare books where I actually think the reader shouldn’t be spoiled. I devotedly read the last chapters of books, but I didn’t in this one (except to take a quick peek to check that my favorite character was still alive to be quippy at the end), and I was glad I didn’t. So sorry if I sound unnecessarily cryptic, but it’s for your own good.
→ 3 CommentsCategories: Book reviews
Tagged: Demon's Lexicon, quippy heroes, Sarah Rees Brennan, urban fantasy
Graphic Mysteries
February 19, 2009 · 1 Comment
I started reading Watchmen by Alan Moore this weekend after being convinced by several people that my graphic novel reading was sorely lacking without this classic. (There’s also a movie coming out, and there’s nothing that makes me feel like a shamed librarian more than seeing a movie without having first read – or at least glanced at – the book.) Watchmen is a little like a murder mystery in graphic novel form, and if you would like to read more mystery-graphic novel hybrids, Dea and I recommend these:
kidnappings, and parents. Strange and quirky and wonderful.Runaways: Escape to New York by Brian K. Vaughan – The Runaways help hide an old friend who has been framed for murder. (Or start at the beginning of the series to find out who the Runaways are and how they found out about their powers.) Marvel 1602 by Neil Gaiman – Neil Gaiman reimagines the Marvel Universe as it would have been in the Elizabethan era, and builds an intricate mystery plot with spies, magicians, witches, and winged assassins. Case Closed by Gosho Aoyama – A confrontation with a powerful criminal organization leaves teen detective Kudo in the body of a first grader, but his search for a cure (or his new pint-sized body) doesn’t stop Kudo from solving any of the many myseries that he finds along the way.
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Tagged: Case Closed, Death Note, graphic novel mysteries, Marvel 1602, the Professors Daughter, The Runaways
