An Embarrassment of Riches

No One Writes Like James Herriot - by Nicola

No one writes like James Herriot...
…except, of course, James Herriot himself, who passed away in 1995. If you're looking for more good animal stories, there are some recent ones out there that you may enjoy reading.

Nick Trout’s Tell Me Where it Hurts:  A Day of Humor, Healing and Hope in my Life as an Animal Surgeon will leave you alternately laughing and crying until you begin to wonder if you have lost your mind. (For more on this title see our previous review here.)  In a similar vein, you may want to try All My Patients Have Tales:  Favorite Stories from a Vet’s Practice, by Jeff Wells. Fresh out of veterinary school, Wells settled in South Dakota where he treated a variety of problems.  Several animals were not as cautious as they should have been around porcupines. The quills became embedded in their flesh and were difficult for Wells to remove, causing a great deal of anxiety for both him and his patients. Then he had a male cat with the classic symptoms of pregnancy!  If that didn’t make him question his career choice, the pet owners were always advising him on their animals treatment. They always thought they knew better.
 
If you like cats, try Dewey: The Small-town Library Cat who Touched the World, by Vicki Myron. It was 1988 and the coldest night of the year in Spencer, Iowa. Dewey was dropped into the book drop of the Spencer Public Library by some unknown miscreant. Iowa has cruel winters and Dewey developed frostbite while trapped in the book drop.  He was only four weeks old and his eyes hadn’t opened yet. Luckily, the next morning he was found by the author who was also the director of the library. Dewey recovered from his ordeal and charmed the patrons and staff of Spencer Public Library. He seemed to sense when one of the patrons needed special attention and went directly to that person to offer comfort. Not surprisingly, Dewey soon became the official mascot of the library.

If you have a soft spot for animals rescued from rather sad conditions, you may want to read Chosen by a Horse: A Memoir, by Susan Richards. Richards went to adopt a horse rescued from an owner who took very poor care of him. When she opened the door of her horse trailer at the adoption center, she was quite surprised to see one of the horses stride into the trailer before she had even had time to blink. That horse was the one who went home with her. Their relationship flourished and became mutually beneficial and nurturing.

Whether you like owls or not, you may enjoy Stacey O’Brien’s Wesley the Owl: The Remarkable Love Story of an Owl and his Girl. O’Brien was a student researcher at Caltech when an injured baby owl was brought in. The owl could not be rehabilitated and sent back into the wild again so O’Brien decided to adopt him. She provides insight into the human-animal bond and many interesting facts about owls.  However, if you think the book sounds dry, you may be pleasantly surprised to find yourself wanting to laugh out loud. As Wesley reached sexual maturity he was like a young human teenager who did not know how to handle the changes in his body. Stacey became the object of his affection in a new and different way. 

No one writes quite like James Herriot, but perhaps you'll find some good reading here.
 

Where the Grandmas Are - by Helen The colorful cover catches your eye -- a group of smiling grandmothers in vivid costume from many countries of the world have joined hands. The sparkling gold stars and slimness of the book are attractive. The story is simple - two grandmothers stand in the park all day long and soon have everyone in town talking. More grandmothers join. Why? Read this charming book by Sharon Mehdi to find out.

And the "story of the story" is equally enjoyable. The idea for The Great Silent Grandmother Gathering was born at a corner table in the café upstairs over Bloomsbury Books in Ashland, Oregon. "I remembered something a Native American elder said to me a very long time ago: Men have taken the world as far as they can. It's up to the women to lead us the rest of the way."

Originally intended as a birthday gift for a granddaughter, it was shared with a group of women in the café who then decided that they should have copies to take to a conference. The book grew into a booklet and was read in the Bloomsbury bookstore. Soon orders started coming in from all over the world. Now you can check out a copy here at the library.

Artichoke Hearts of Darkness - by Jen Joseph Conrad's "whited sepulchre" in Heart of Darkness may have been Brussels, but mine is a refrigerator. Every time I open it, I journey into a composting culinary darkness that makes me shiver. What evil lurks deep in the dark of forgotten Tupperware? And why don't I throw out the jar of drained artichoke hearts that are about to celebrate their second Christmas? And why do I never remember that ignored produce inevitably turns into a puddle of black goo at the bottom of the crisper drawer?

Before I had children and refrigerators I analyzed Joseph Conrad line by line. Lately I'm just lucky to read more than one page of anything without keeling over in a sleep-deprived heap moistened by my own drool.  

It's the busy mom's dilemma at the end of the chore-filled day: read or sleep. Anything that is going to keep me awake has to be worth the sacrifice of sacred slumber.

The Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux has been on my "to read" list since the movie came out over twenty years ago and now it's keeping me up at night. I'm only halfway through, but this story of a crazed and driven father dragging his family into the wilds of Honduras to save them from the evils of modern America is a fascinating adventure dense with palpable detail. While the father and the adolescent son Charlie take center stage, I find myself wondering more about Charlie's mother and the role she plays. If you liked The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (and I still think of those four girls traveling to the Congo with Betty Crocker cake mixes down their pants) then this is a book for you.  

Another fantastic trip into the heart of mothering darkness I've been enjoying is The Passion of the Hausfrau: motherhood, illuminated by Nicole Chaison. This is laugh-out-loud funny for moms. You WILL get weird looks if you read this on public transportation (especially if you are drinking a beverage that you could possibly end up snorting out your nose.) I don't know about you, but I find it difficult to resist a hero's journey in the form of head lice, home renovation, tantrums, and cat diarrhea. You will travel with the Hausfrau from "How it Came to Be that I Gave Birth in a Hospital Utility Closet" to "How it Came to Be that I Tried to Squeeze My Enormous Ass into Brazilian Surfing Shorts" to "How it Came to Be that I Was Bitch-Slapped by the Parenting Gods in the Seasonal Aisle of CVS." The book has illustrations on nearly every page, which helped to nurture my personal delusions that I am a fast and efficient reader. And it promises to be "the most fun you'll ever have with an illuminated manuscript." Who can resist?

And is it just me, or does anyone else find literary irony in spoiled sour cream?

The Butler Did It - by Steve I wasn't having a very good evening. I was tired from work, and dinner was mediocre. The entertainment I had lined up was an old black and white movie that I had checked out ages ago, but never managed to watch. Now it was on hold and I just HAD to watch it before it was overdue. I couldn't even remember why I had chosen it in the first place. I was actually kinda dreading the film.

My Man Godfrey starts out in Depression-era New York City with a group of Upper Crusters hectically racing around the city to track down items from a scavenger hunt. A pair of sisters, Cornelia and Irene, end up in the city dump. They whisk away a curious "tramp" to claim the top prize of the contest. Dressed in a tattered coat, Godfrey goes with the girls, but ends up schooling the top hat and tails crowd at their swanky hotel. A portly gentleman, Irene's father, likes what he hears and agrees to give Godfrey a job as the crazy family's butler. They could use a bit of common sense from a common man.

While the family constantly tries to wear him down, Godfrey takes no guff from anyone. Hilarious antics ensue. Will they just fire him and start over with someone new or will he become as zany as they are? You'll have to watch and see. By the end of the movie, my frown had turned upside down, and I knew I just had to find a butler of my very own.

Movie Night - by Felicia If you remember my last post of movie recommendations, you know that I like flicks that are little off-center. Well, this list isn’t as eccentric, but they are definitely films that I really enjoy and highly recommend.

So I’ll start with Atonement. I tried to read the book and just couldn’t get into it, but the movie had me riveted. Aside from the thoroughly compelling story, it is an absolutely beautiful piece of cinematography. Add to that an A-list cast, and you have a memorable film with a twist at the end that will astound you. The story centers on forbidden love, a heinous crime and a lie that becomes so big, it swallows everyone in its wake. I absolutely loved this film.

I also enjoy a film that includes some great professional dancing. Since I don’t dance myself, I like to live vicariously through characters in movies. If you haven’t seen Billy Elliot, you are in for a treat. The story is so well-written, and the main character will make us all want to dance. Again, the cast is just amazing, and you get to see some really fantastic footwork. The main character, Billy, wants to be a ballet dancer. But his family isn’t having any of that. Boys don’t do ballet. But, boy, does Billy prove them wrong. Go, Billy!

Have you ever heard of a movie called The Edge? Well, neither had I until a few years ago. This movie stars Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin. A friend of mine recommended it, and I finally watched it. Part thriller and part adventure, it puts a very interesting twist betrayal and friendship (with the help of a very relentless bear). This movie will keep your adrenalin pumping until the very end.

Dangerous Liaisons came out in 1988 and stars one of my favorite actresses, Glenn Close. Again, the cast really makes this film. The chemistry between Glenn Close and John Malkovich is palpable, and this film is so decadent and sumptuous, that I have watched it probably about 20 times over the years. It’s one of those movies that I see something new in each time I watch it. Another reason to watch — the cast also includes Michelle Pfeiffer, Uma Thurman and Keana Reeves.

Who's That Knockin' on My Door?; or amusement while waiting for Trick or Treaters - by Alison

Some Halloween thoughts for things that we lend 
while waiting for all of those young costumed friends.
What's not to like in weird combinations
Of regency style and zombie nations?

While waiting for ghosties and ghoulies arrival
Peruse our advice about zombie survival

Or perhaps a movie one can easily pause
About barbarous creatures with blood on their claws
But just remember as you open the door
You can't rescind invites to guests you abhor.

   Ding dong! You gonna get that?....

My Brother Sam is SO Dead - by Ruth

Sometimes there are classics to be read over and over, and sometimes there are older books from which we just need to move on. Now, I'm not saying that Johnny Tremain is a bad book or that, to quote my favorite teen literature blog, Reading Rants, "My Brother Sam is SO Dead", but there are newer books that are just as, if not more, engaging, well-written and informative about a bygone era. I've been reading about the Revolutionary War lately and have found some quite good, newish fiction for teens on the topic.

The thing I love about historical fiction is that authors can take some pretty bare facts and weave a story that helps us imagine what it might have been like to live in a time long past. Something *is* known about Deborah Sampson because she wrote an autobiographical piece entitled "The Female Review" and went around the nation in her later years dressed as a soldier telling audiences about her time in disguise. In Soldier's Secret, Sheila Solomon Klass takes the bones of Deborah's existence and brings her to life, imagining the creation and maintenance of her alter ego, Robert Shurtliff, as she lived among and fought with the men in the Continental Army.

Nathan Hale spoke one of the most famous lines in Revolutionary War history, but other than that, I knew virtually nothing about him. In Spy!, Anna Myers tells Hale's story from both Hale's point of view and that of Jonah, a fictional student of Nathan's, bringing the people of war-time Connecticut to life and telling us more about the young man who said "I only regret that I have but one life to give my country." Check out these other recent young adult novels for more perspectives on the Revolutionary War: Chains: Seeds of America by Laurie Halse Anderson and The Pox Party by M.T. Anderson.  For an entertaining and helpful list of more historical fiction for teens, see Reading Rants' list, Historical Fiction for Hipsters: Stories from the past that won’t make you snore!

What We're Reading Now

Wife murdered,
Complex spiderweb plot;
Husband speaks not.

Helen is reading Old City Hall, by Robert Rotenberg. Helen is a library assistant at the Central Library.

2 Zine or not 2 Zine - by Laural

To Zine or not to Zine? That is the question. I first wrote for a zine in high school back in the 80’s about a band called Squad 51. After college I made chap books or zines with my poetry in them. In grad school I started a zine with three other grad students.  And last year when I thought long and hard about making holiday presents for my family I asked myself what can I make? The answer was a zine. I made a family cooking zine as a surprise.  It documents our family’s favorite recipes. This year the family is helping me make a second issue. When I need supplies or images for a zine I turn to clip art - royalty free images. The library has a great collection of clip art books. But let me share a secret: the motherlode, the most outstanding supply of clip art is from the zine called Craphound: A Picture Book for Discussion & Activity by Sean Tejaratchi. The first Craphound came out in October 1994.  My husband collected every single one. We realized how important they were to us as when we decided we couldn't part with them when we were downsizing. Luckily, older issues of Craphound are being reprinted by Chloe Eudaly of Reading Frenzy, one of Portland's first zine stores.

And here's another secret: join us for "Historic Zinesters Talking" Featuring Sean Tejaratchi and Chloe Eudaly, this Saturday, October 24, 2–3:30 p.m. at the Central Library in the U.S. Bank room.   I wouldn’t miss this event for the world! Hope to see you there.

Better Living Through Chemistry - by Ruby I'm too cheap to get cable. My teeth start to clench at the prospect of seeing yet another set of wire ganglia wending their way through my home. As a result, I've come to depend on the kindness of my public library to fill in any TV culture deficits by borrowing from our collection's wide range of cable shows transferred to DVD. So far I've sat open-mouthed during Deadwood, sobbed uncontrollably through 5 seasons of The Wire, sweated with the outlaw unit on The Shield, and looked askance at every single episode of Rome and The Tudors. Recently I heard about another series just released on DVD called Breaking Bad - a term that refers to something going south.  Brutal, gory and heartbreaking, it's a darkly complicated tragi-comedy with tremendous performances by Malcolm's dad, Bryan Cranston and his meth lab partner, Jesse Pinkman. The series Creators definitely watched Weeds and read their James Thurber. Walter Mitty crosses way over the line - this time for real. Cranston's character is an internationally known chemist with a first-rate mind who finds himself teaching high school chemistry with a second job in a car wash.  Fate provides a chance to break out and get some serious cash. Why did I like season one so much?  Because somehow, regardless of all the blood, sweat and distillation paraphernalia, the story becomes highly plausible. But, see for yourself. 

True Life Comic Book Heroes - by Alison Comic books are full of charismatic leaders locked in desperate struggles, but a vast majority of these are fictional. It's perspective-changing when comics are used to tell stories of real people. One such book is Louis Riel: A Comic Strip Biography, by Chester Brown. Riel is a character of mythic proportions in Canadian history. He butted heads with the newly established government of Canada, starting in 1869 when he led the Red River Rebellion. Riel was a leader who believed he was divinely chosen to protect and defend the rights of the Metis - descendants of First Nations people and Europeans who suffered persecution from the wider culture. Brown tells the story of Riel's fights and flights back and forth across the Canadian border, from Manitoba, to Montana and then to Saskatchewan, where he was eventually arrested for treason and hanged. The minimalist color scheme and Brown's crisp drawings create a suspenseful story that could otherwise come across as a dry recitation of historical fact. If you never thought you'd read a comic book, but are a history buff, give this a try. Find out more about the intriguing Louis Riel here.

Scabby Doom - by Jen One of the features of the library catalog I love most is when it tries to re-spell whatever it is I've just typed. The greatest potential substitution I've had yet came recently when I tried to type "Scooby Doo" without a hyphen.  

"Did you mean Scabby Doom?"

Ah, Scabby Doom.  

Scabby Doom can be leaving your freshly packed lunch on the table near the door. Again.  

Scabby Doom can be waiting for a bus in a cold rain with no hot coffee because you forgot to set it the night before.  

But real Scabby Doom, I've decided, is that adrift-on-an-iceberg feeling I get when I don't have a promising stack of books waiting to be opened. It's that "nothing good to read" feeling, something so ridiculous to contemplate in my line of work that when it happens I feel I must be in an alternate universe. Water water everywhere, Nor any drop to drink.

I was recently treading water in this book-less sea looking for something to occupy my commute when a hold I had forgotten about crashed ashore. Children of the Sea by Daisuke Igarashi is exactly the kind of imaginative and atmospheric manga I look for and rarely find. The story and pictures combine a detailed realism with an element of fantasy that is compelling. Ruka is a troubled girl from a broken home stuck hanging around the aquarium where her father works. Umi and Sora are strange siblings raised by dugongs with an otherworldly affinity for the ocean. The drawings of the sea and its creatures are striking; whale sharks and beached oarfishes are particularly memorable.  

Japanese culture meets an urban legend from Fisherman's Wharf?

Feral and occasionally luminescent manatee children?

A mystery of disappearing fish involving the world's aquariums?

Scabby Doom be gone!  

(Now if only I could get rid of Scooby-Doo, too. These are the animated perils of living with children who have not been raised by manatees.)

Has the library catalog given you any fantastic or semi-hilarious substitutions? Post a comment!

Mysterious Characters - by Felicia

I love a good mystery. You know, one that draws you in from page one and keeps you guessing until the end. I have a few authors that I follow faithfully. These are a few of my favorites:

Michael Connelly’s Hieronymus “Harry” Bosch character really interests me. (He is named after the 15th century Dutch artist). He first appears in The Black Echo and he’s still going strong 15 novels later. I like Harry because he’s very human. It doesn’t hurt that he also works as a detective in modern-day Los Angeles, so we can picture many of the places in the novels. He’s what we all know about cops – hard-nosed, arrogant, gritty. But he also loves jazz, believes in doing what’s right and fights to bring criminals to justice. The series takes us through complex, cases and introduces us to Harry’s fellow policeman, some savory FBI agents and shows us the side of police work that will make us wonder about the motives behind their actions. These novels will make you angry at Harry sometimes. At other times, you will want to buy him a drink.

Walter Mosley introduces us to Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins in Devil in a Blue Dress (I also highly recommend the movie with Denzel Washington), who lives in Southern California in the 1940s. An ex-Army man, Easy sees the injustices of being a black man during this time. By taking an assignment from a white man to find a woman, Easy’s career as a detective is launched. His sidekick, Mouse, is a small man with a taste for violence and death. But we like him. His hilarious commentaries and loyal demeanor endear him to us in a strange way. Every book in this series takes you through a story layered in seduction, murder, suspense and humor. I love this series.

Patricia Cornwell writes a wonderful series with Kay Scarpetta. Post-Mortem, the first in the series, introduces us to Kay, the chief medical examiner in Richmond, Virginia. I really enjoy this character because she is strong, yet very sensitive. Each book takes us through a case from a forensic perspective, while also drawing in the other characters. We get to meet Detective Marino, who struggles with his feelings for Kay; Lucy, Kay’s brilliant niece, whose character goes through some traumatic and devastating events as the series progresses; and Benton, an FBI profiler and Kay’s love interest. A few books in the series will disappoint, but overall it is well-done.

James Patterson brings Alex Cross to life in Along Came a Spider. His novels tend to be fast-paced and simply written. They’re not what you would call meaty. Although at times I find it a bit hard to believe some of the dialogue, the story lines are compelling. Alex is a Washington, DC, homicide detective and forensic psychologist. Each novel presents a new case that he must solve, and the series gets most interesting when his family becomes involved – his grandmother and two children. The criminals always seem to be larger than life, but Patterson always manages to make you feel like they could actually be walking amongst us.

What We're Reading Now

Angela is reading 2666 by Roberto Bolaño. It's the story of four strangers who come together in a small town haunted by the disappearance and murder of many of its young women.

Angela is a supervisor at the Central library.

Double Pleasure - by Helen I seem to be at a crossroads in my life now and two books that I read recently have sparked me to do some deep examining. The first is a mystery by James Sallis called Salt River. His main character, John Turner is an ex-policeman, ex-con, war veteran and former therapist who wonders, "how much a man can lose and how much music he can make with what he has left."   

One of the characters talking about the troubles of a young man says that the boy had a hard life, "Not making apologies, and I know he brought a lot of it on himself. But there wasn't much that was easy for him, such that you had to wonder what kept him going." Turner then muses, "I had been wondering that, ever since I could remember, about all of us."

One thing that keeps me going is the pleasure I find in good writing, like this sentence spoken by Doc Oldham in Salt River, "Got more wrong with me than a hospital full of leftovers. Asthma, diabetes, heart trouble. Enough metal in me to sink a good-size fishing boat."

Part of the great pleasure of the second book, The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry, was listening to Wanda McCaddon read it on CD as I read it.  I sometimes read ahead of the recording; sometimes listened to fresh parts that I hadn't read, told in the narrator's rich Irish accent. What a nice way to enhance the reading!

The story reveals two very different versions of an Irish girl's life. Roseanne McNulty, once the most beautiful girl in all of Sligo, is incarcerated in the Roscommon Mental hospital. Now 100-years old, she is writing her life story and hides it beneath the floorboards in her bedroom. Meanwhile the hospital is preparing to close and her caregiver, Dr. Grene is evaluating the patients to decide which ones can be returned to society.  He begins to visit Roseanne and to listen to her story. He also discovers a document written by a local priest whose story of Roseanne is very different from her own tale. As they come to know each other, they uncover long buried secrets about themselves.

Roseanne says, "My father's curious happiness was most clearly evident in the retelling of this story. It was as if such an event were a reward to him for being alive, a little gift of narrative that pleased him so much it conferred on himself, in dreams and waking, a sense of privilege, as if such little scraps of stories and events composed for him a ragged gospel." 

I think that this is also true of Roseanne and the telling of her own story and how she coped with the events of her life. Along with her story, we are given glimpses of life in a small community in Ireland from the early part of the 20th century to the present time.

Roseanne and Dr. Grene come to respect each other. He says, "There has never been a person in an old people's home that hasn't looked around dubiously at the other inhabitants. They are the old ones, they are the club that no one wants to join. But we are never old to ourselves. That is because at close of day the ship we sail in is the soul, not the body."
   
Dr. Grene is also grieving the recent death of his wife."Too much thinking on death. Yet it is the music of our time. As the millennium passed fools like myself thought we were about to taste a century of peace." Roseanne observes him with compassionate eyes, "he was looking into that strange place, the middle distance, the most mysterious, human, and rich of all distances. And from his eyes came slowly tears, immaculate human tears, before the world touches them."

How can you go wrong with such lovely language!