An Embarrassment of Riches

The Night Circus - a Delectable Treat - by Alison

The Night Circus arrives without warning. What was an empty field by day becomes transformed by night. A city of tents appears as if by magic, drawing people through the dusk to the soft-twinkling lights and the smell of warm caramel in the air. When the guests arrive, they hardly know where to go first. One tent contains a frozen world of ice and snow all in shades of white and silver, making the visitor feel as though he has been transported into his own personal snow globe. In another a mysterious woman reads the future in her cards. In another, guests climb to the top of the tent by way of  a maze of soft clouds and, reaching the top, gently float back down to the ground.

Le Cirque des Reves showcases the purely fantastical next to the usual entertainments one might expect - the contortionists, the jugglers and of course, the magicians. What the guests don't realize is that the night circus exists only incidentally as a place to while away an evening: the circus is really a giant game-board. At its center are two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who are destined to compete in a battle to out-magic one another, a battle that will lead to the death of one.

Though Erin Morgenstern's book is already in high demand, it is well worth the wait. The Night Circus is a delectable treat of a novel, a fantastical, almost architectural dessert that is almost too beautiful to eat, but you won't be able to resist.

Knit-Lit - Knitting, with Spice - by Laural There’s a fiction fad about knitting and relationships. My latest read was How to Knit a Love Song by Rachael Herron. I haven’t laughed out loud in a long time and this book remedied that problem. Herron has written some really funny dialog between the protagonist and the cowboys in this romance. Abigail, the main character is a young Californian fiber artist starting over on a ranch. She inherits a cottage from another fiber artist.

This book reminded me of the other 'knit-lit' title I loved, The Beach Street Knitting Society and Yarn Club by Gil McNeil. Both books have great characters, funny dialog and a moving plot. The Beach Street Knitting Society and Yarn Club is about Jo, a British widow who starts over in seaside town with her two small boys. Jo is taking over her grandmother’s knitting shop.

Knitting circles give people a chance to relax, create, and connect with other people. This positive community building gathering seems the perfect activity around which to build the plot of a novel. The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs, The Sweetgum Knit Lit Society by Beth Pattillo and The Knitting Circle by Ann Hood are also more great examples of this genre.

Perhaps you want to try your hand at knitting? When you're done reading and want to knit with others, check out the knitting circles that are hosted at some of our branches.

A Man for all Readers - by Rachael Recently Heidi wrote about The Tudors in this blog, reminding me of my own failed attempt to watch that program. Which is not to fault the program - it’s likely that I would have really enjoyed it - if I had not read Wolf Hall first.

Wolf Hall is about Henry’s advisor Thomas Cromwell, and over the course of reading I had grown to think of Thomas Cromwell as ‘Cromwell my Cromwell’.

Throughout the book Hilary Mantel creates a feeling that you are sitting on Cromwell’s shoulder, experiencing the world with him, from the blacksmith’s son to the Cardinal’s councilor to the King’s chief minister. Through humiliation, manipulation, and the plague.

And I adored Mantel’s Cromwell, this extremely intelligent, ruthlessly pragmatic man, who loves his family so deeply and understands that they are all just as human as he is. The writing in Wolf Hall is not complex, but the ideas are -- power, the Reformation, the inevitably democratizing effects of literacy.

It gave me a hunger for more on the Tudors. So I tried A Man for all Seasons, various BBC documentaries, and The Tudors. None satisfied.

I only want ‘my Cromwell’, not other representations. Or the facts.

Seeing through Someone Else's Eyes - by Alison

I'm not much into mysteries, especially when the puzzle is the main draw and the characters play second fiddle. But when the mystery is part of what makes a character tick, that's compelling reading. I'm reminded of one of the players in The Usual Suspects (name withheld to protect those of you who haven't seen this brilliant film - place a hold here!) and how the secret of his identity is revealed only in the final scenes.

Often when a story is narrated by a child, the tension comes from what is called the 'unreliable' or 'naive' narrator. The child gets to tell the story, but doesn't know everything or even understand all that he sees. The trick for the reader then becomes to read between the lines, and infer the part of the story the narrator can't tell you.

Emma Donoghue uses this technique to good effect in Room, the story of a boy and his mother who have lived all of his short life confined in an 11 by 11 foot room. The reason for their captivity is only slowly revealed as 5 year old Jack gains the intellectual capacity to start asking questions.

Peter Carey creates a sense of tension in His Illegal Self by telling the story through a narrator alternately known as 'the boy', Che and Jay. Jay lived a comfortable life with his grandmother in an apartment overlooking Central Park; When he is spirited away by a woman he supposes to be his mother, Che lives in a van, or a trailer, or anywhere else they can find to lay down, somewhere in Australia.

Nine-year-old Lawrence struggles to recount the story of his road trip from England to Rome with his mother and pesky little sister in Matthew Kneale's When We Were Romans. But why did they leave home so abruptly? And why does his mother believe they are being followed by Lawrence's father? The bewildered Lawrence tries to make sense of the strange adult behavior around him but prefers to read about science and history - the only bits of information that seem true to him.

A narrator can also be unreliable because of a mental illness or a disorder. In Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Christopher, an autistic 15-year-old, sets out to solve the mystery of the murder of a poodle who is found on a front lawn with a garden fork through it. Christopher admires Sherlock Holmes and sets out to prove his favorite detective's methods by using them in the investigation of the death. Christopher has amazing powers of focus, but can't see the social clues between people that might lead him to understand the incident.

In a recent Portland Literary Arts lecture, author Elizabeth Strout talked about how fiction provides one of the few ways to really understand what it's like to be someone else. Even when seeing through a character's eyes is like looking through a hole in a wall and trying to figure out what's on the other side, the mystery is worth exploring.

The Truth about True Grit - by Alison

I've been thinking lately about the nature of true grit. Like many others I made a point of seeing the movie, having been a huge fan of Charles Portis's original book. In the late 60s and early 70s, books about young women with gumption were sometimes hard to come by. Oh yes, there was Nancy Drew, but she so often relied on 'the boys' to help her out when the going got rough; There was also Pippi Longstocking, but she was for a younger readership.  I was glad to see that the Coen brothers were true to the original Mattie and her enterprising spirit. Truly, she was the hero of the story, and not Rooster Cogburn, as the 1969 John Wayne film version would have you believe.

Ree Dolly, the tenacious teenager from the movie Winter's Bone is cut from the same cloth as Mattie Ross, though the story is darker. The movie follows follows the mostly falling fortunes of 17 year old Ree as she discovers that her meth-cooking father is on the lam, having put the family house up for bond. If he doesn't show up in court, the family - 2 kids and a mentally absent mother - will lose everything. She sets out to find him among all the hard luck people living in her corner of the Ozarks and gains some unwanted attention from those who wish her father to stay hidden. The book is based on the novel by Daniel Woodrell, an author whose works have been called "country noir".

Another novel featuring a woman who finds herself in an untenable situation is the award-winning Outlander by Gil Adamson. In the winter of 1903, Mary has lost her baby son to sickness and is frequently beaten by her abusive husband. She takes desperate measures to escape her situation, killing her husband and fleeing west. She is pursued by the vengeful twin brothers of her husband, a pair of single-minded, 'Terminator' type characters who turn out to be excellent trackers. Along the way she falls into the company of a group of eccentrics in a hard-scrabble mining town at the bottom of a mountain. 

Though these stories aren't science fiction, all of them share an apocalyptic feel - an unforgiving landscape, a sense of lawlessness, and a determined underdog on a quest. And there are more of these than you might think: Molly Gloss's story of eastern Oregon, The Hearts of Horses, the somewhat obscure and spoofy Caprice by George Bowering, and Away by Amy Bloom. All of these stories feature strong female characters who move the action along. If that's your cup of tea, then happy reading and watching.

It's a Dog's Life - by Nicola

How do you know you are reading a really enjoyable novel? I judge a book by how much sleep deprivation  I'm willing to deal with in order to finish. I just finished a read about a dog that I couldn’t put down. The dog is the narrator. After he dies, he is reincarnated, several times, actually. He's highly motivated and is eager to please his human family members. He continues to improve through each of his reincarnations and has memory of each of his past lives. In each reincarnation he tries to find his true calling in life, thus the title, A Dog’s Purpose, by W. Bruce Cameron.
He starts out as a sort of junkyard dog, and has a rather short hardscrabble life. His situation gets better in his next life and in each subsequent life his soul evolves into the dog he has always wanted to become.

For a bit of humor, you might try Whistlin’ Dixie in a Nor’easter, by Lisa Patton. The dog in this story is not a main character, but she plays an important role in the book. Her name is Princess Grace Kelly and she just seems to have a knack for “misbehaving” at just the right moment. Anyway, as the story goes, Leelee Satterfield’s husband decides that the whole family, including Princess Grace, should leave Leelee’s beloved Memphis and move to Vermont to run a bed and breakfast inn. Although Leelee is not happy about the move, she goes along with her husband’s plan. Soon, the story moves into the “fish out of water” category for Leelee. Vermont life is hard for a Southern girl like Leelee to get used to, but she perseveres and begins to deal with the new “pond” she is thrown into. Her transformation into a savvy businesswoman along the way and her acquisition of a tougher exterior are rewarding. All along the way, Princess Grace keeps Leelee company and helps her cope.

For a more serious story, try Cold Train Coming, by Larry Barkdull. The novel takes place during World War Two in Montana. It's a coming of age story about thirteen-year-old Ben, who is in love with an “older woman”. At the same time the novel is a heartwarming story of a dog who is very loyal to his owner even though the owner has passed away. The dog doesn't understand that the owner is not coming back. You see, the man’s casket was put on one of the trains to be buried elsewhere. The dog knows that the man went away on the train and expects the man to come back to town so that they can resume life as usual. He goes to the train station every day for six years with hope in his heart. People try to befriend the dog, but the dog wants nothing to do with them. Ben comes closest to forming a bond with the dog.

Enjoy these three dog stories for upcoming "three dog nights" this winter.

The Library is Your Oyster...er...Hedgehog - by guest blogger Bart King

Our guest blogger is Bart King, who writes humorous nonfiction for middle readers and immature adults. His greatest literary achievement is incorporating his name into the actual title of his new book: Bart’s King-Sized Book of Fun. He has over a half-million books in print, and his work has been translated into Chinese, Spanish, and Australian. Oh, and Bart prefers to be thought of as a “non-award winning author” despite some small evidence to the contrary. More about Bart at http://www.bartking.net.

So the Spanish word for “hedgehog” is erizo—

Oh, hello! I didn’t see you there. I was just working on a little project I have, namely learning Spanish. And maybe Urdu! After all, I can study 22 different languages through the Multnomah County Library website. If you’re not aware of this, the MCL has a subscription with a language education service called Mango. ¡Eso es fantastico! All you need is your library card; to take a look, just go to the MCL homepage, click on "Research" and then "Databases A-Z" and then "M" for Mango.

When I’m done with my Spanish homework, it’ll be time for me to run a number of subject searches in the MCL catalog. Today I’m doing research for a humorous book for kids about evil (seriously). And I want to know what learned minds in the fields of anthropology, history, psychology and literature have to say about evil. (I’d think, “It’s bad” would pretty much cover it, but I’d better double-check to be sure.)

As much as I respect the MCL’s holdings, my work won’t be done until I consult the InterLibrary Loan link to see what titles exist in THE REST OF THE WORLD. That’s right, with ILL, I can see (and check out) the holdings of libraries in other counties, states and countries!

You may have noticed that I haven’t tried your patience with a long list of the books I check out for pleasure reading. I think we can agree that people who do this sort of thing are insufferable show-offs. (That’s right Marc Acito, I’m talking about you!)

So let’s just say I check out a lot of books for personal reasons, and my motives for doing so are complex. For example, when the comics anthology Kramers Ergot 7 came out, it was priced beyond my shaky, arthritic grasp. So I checked it out from the library and found that my shaky, arthritic grasp was just strong enough to hang on to the volume while reading it. (And if you don’t find my motive particularly complex in the above example, let me assure you that being a cheapskate is a very nuanced state of affairs indeed.)

If I check out a library book that I find I really love, I buy it. For example, on my nightstand are two books I checked out from the Hollywood branch and then quickly returned to the library and went out and bought:

• Nick Hornby, Fever Pitch. This is Hornby’s memoir of growing up as a soccer fan in England during the 1980s.
• David Mitchell, Black Swan Green. This is Mitchell’s thinly veiled memoir of growing up and listening to embarrassing music in England during the 1980s. (Spandau Ballet, anyone?)
  

As you can see, my reading tastes are far-reaching as long as the author provides the essential elements of good literature: Style, a rewarding subtext, and a plot about growing up in England in the 1980s.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really must wrap up my Spanish studies. (What’s the right word for a baby hedgehog? I’m guessing hedgehogito, but I’d better check that…)

Locked Up - by Jen Oh, my.

It's been too long since I've felt like locking my kids in a closet so I could finish a book. I do the next best legal thing, which is give myself an extended bathroom break. That door is so rarely locked that it brings momentary stunned silence to the yelling and swirling vortex of boy energy I seldom escape.

"Mama?"
"Mama!"
"Mommy! I can't find my spelling words and I hurt my knee!"
"What are you doing in there?"
"What's for dinner? I hate Brussels sprouts, so I hope it's not those Brussels sprouts on the counter!"
"Mama! Hold you and READ THIS BOOK!"
"Mama?"
"Mommy? Why aren't you answering me?"

The noise swirls from tentative to insistent and back to tentative as small fists tap an impatient rhythm on the door and smaller fingers poke beneath it like the legs of exploratory spiders. The spiders push Maisy Cleans Up, a book I have read 437 times in the last week, under the bathroom door. I know it's 437 times because I have been carving decorative marks into my own arm at each reading like a prison tattoo. I ignore the cheerful white mouse and her vacuum cleaner and her cupcakes and her crocodile friend Charley. (Why do they mop and vacuum the floor BEFORE eating cupcakes? And why doesn't Charley just eat Maisy and put me out of my misery?)

The New York Times has already told you to read this book that is inspiring me to neglect my children, so you probably don't need me telling you as well. But I'll tell you anyway because I can't stop myself and really it's no use trying.

Read The Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore. Yes, you may wait a long time for a library copy. But you will wait longer for another book that will knock your fictional character-driven socks off. I want to weep when I read a novel this compelling, this rich. It gives you that elusive combination of both story and story-telling when so often these days you get one or the other and maybe not so much of either most of the time.

It gives you a gift. So open it. And ignore the fat little finger worms wiggling under the door for a few minutes. It won't be hard.

Plumbing the Depths of a Good Story - by Ruth Sometimes once is not enough for me - seeing the movie Amadeus over and over again, eating corn on the cob four days in a row when it's in season, visiting Britain multiple times, walking along Nye Beach, and hiking in the Columbia Gorge.  For some authors, writing a story just once is not enough.  In recent years, a number of books for teens and kids have come out that are based on books written for adults.  This week I read a fantastic book for older kids and teens called Chasing Lincoln's Killer by James Swanson which is based on his Edgar Award winning book Manhunt: The Twelve Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer. Swanson first describes the days leading up to the assassination, the prior plot to kidnap Lincoln, and the final plan to kill three of the most important political players of the day:  President Abraham Lincoln, Vice-President Andrew Johnson, and Secretary of State William H. Seward.  He then takes the reader through the assassination and assassination attempts, the various get-aways, the eventual discovery of the culprits and their fates.  He gives just the right amount of detail about the major figures in the story, keeps the action moving, and provides well-placed illustrations including photos of the people involved, newspaper clippings and a map detailing the route of the assassins. 194 pages was probably enough for me, but if you want the full scoop, you can read all 448 pages of Manhunt.

Several other non-fiction adult books and their younger companions to check out are:
Nathaniel Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex and Revenge of the Whale: The True Story of the Whaleship Essex
Mark Kurlansky's Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World and The Cod's Tale
Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal and Chew on This: Everything You Don't Want to Know About Fast Food

Truth Through Fiction and The Known World - by Felicia I could never understand how free blacks could own other blacks. How could they justify this? The Known World, by Edward P. Jones, sheds some light on the topic, while making the devastation and tragedy of slavery in our country all too real. The main characters in this novel, both black and white, help us to understand the impact of this institution and how it affects us to this day.

Henry is a slave until the age of 14. Although he witnesses the atrocities of slavery, he is never a recipient of his master's abuses. A few years after his parents purchase his freedom, Henry purchases his own slave, and is reluctant to tell his parents he has done so. The scene that ensues is heartbreaking. His parents' question is a simple one: How could he become a slave owner when he himself has witnessed its evilness? His decision creates a schism between him and his parents that is never repaired.

Both black and white slave owners believe that they are doing the slaves a favor. Of course, the slaves are better off than they would be in Africa, where they were just savages. The way that the black slave owners view the slaves is particularly disturbing. They seem to feel no kinship with any of them, even those who were former slaves themselves. And if they must beat or maim their slaves, it's because they deserve it. How else to keep them from doing wrong?

One of the least surprising parts of the novel occurs when some free blacks are sold back into slavery. While a common practice, the affects of this practice are hard to read. In this one instant, the story changes from tragedy to horror.

Jones' story, though fiction, is all too real in its portrayal of the relationships among whites, free blacks and slaves and really helps us understand how the history of slavery still affects our morals and beliefs.

More Good Reading - by guest blogger Felicia

Our guest blogger is Felicia, the government documents librarian at the Central library. In her spare time, she likes to read, work in the yard with her husband and chase geese in the park with her black lab Floyd.

I am a voracious reader, so I always have to have a book in hand. I read almost entirely fiction, but I will read nonfiction that catches my eye. As another poster mentioned, it’s hard to get your hands on the latest books through the library because the hold list can be very long. So I picked two books that I really enjoyed that are older and should be available at the library.

Plainsong by Kent Haruf takes place in a small town. The characters are rich, and the stories intertwined in a way that will make you feel like you grew up with them. My favorite character is Victoria, a pregnant teenager who is thrown out by her mother and goes to live with two elderly brothers. Their relationship by itself is well-worth reading this book. The brothers have never married, so at times it’s poignantly funny how they deal with Victoria and her pregnancy. You also get a chance to meet Tom, a high school teacher whose home life is painful for both him and his sons because of his wife, who will not get out of bed. I don’t remember the word “depressed” ever being used in the book, but it’s obvious she is suffering. Then there’s Maggie, a fellow teacher who struggles with her feelings for Tom.

The writing is just magical and the rural town could be any place in the country. What makes this story stand is that the author actually makes you feel what the characters are going through without being melodramatic and syrupy. I found this book hard to put down. Being from a small town, I could picture the farm where the brothers lived and the small town at the center of the story. It’s a very satisfying read.

Another book that I recently discovered is a fictionalized account of the life of Mary Todd Lincoln. Mary, by Janis Cooke Newman, takes a woman who has been vilified by history and makes her simply human. I’ll admit that I didn’t know much about Mary Todd until I read this book. Though fiction, it bases a lot of the story in fact. Yes, Mary Todd was materialistic, but the book does point to the often overlooked fact that she lost two sons when they were children and a third son he was an adult. This could have caused her infamous spending sprees on everything from ball gowns to expensive artwork and dishes for the White House. The book also delves into her obsession with séances, explaining that she was desperate to contact her loved ones.

Mary Todd was an intelligent, opinionated woman who lived during a time when these qualities weren’t considered attractive in women. And let’s not forget that she encouraged her husband to enter politics and was his steadfast ally when he sought the presidency. Although history smiles much more favorably on President Lincoln, his wife played a crucial part in history. She was pivotal in his run for the White House. This book is enlightening because it gives us another way of thinking about Mary Todd.

Escape the Tyranny of the New - by Alison

I'm as anxious as the next person to lay my hands on the latest, hottest title from the New York Times Best Seller List. But with a queue of close to 400 holds on Malcolm Gladwell's latest, The Outliers, over 300 people waiting for the Austen/ Grahame-Smith mash-up Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (now with ultraviolent zombie mayhem!) and over 170 people anxious to read the highly acclaimed 2666 by Robert Bolaño, are we forced to go bookless?

No!

Here's one trick for finding a good book that isn't also in high demand. Take a look at what was hot, say, a couple of decades ago. July 7th, 1991 saw Amy Tan's The Kitchen God's Wife on the New York Times Best Seller list. Publishers Weekly said, "it is a triumph, a solid indication of a mature talent for magically involving storytelling, beguiling use of language and deeply textured and nuanced character development." In 1955, MacKinlay Kantor's Andersonville was top of the pops, and was called "the greatest of our Civil War novels."  For more acclaimed but long forgotten bestsellers, you can peruse this list from Cader Books.

There are plenty of other sources for good reads. Though you may have already resigned yourself to waiting a while for the newest Pulitzer prize winner Olive Kitteridge, in the meantime take a look at Abe Books' "Most Forgotten Pulitzers" where you'll notice Advise and Consent by Allen Drury, a book that tackled the topic of Communism and generated so much interest that it stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for close to two years.

Alternatively, on our Readers page, you'll find a list of award winning fiction. And here's a handy link to Multnomah County Library staff picks, going back to 2005, where you'll find our favorite fiction and non-fiction.

Drawn To It - by Steve

I used to be a voracious reader. My time spent riding the bus everywhere usually involved a thick novel balanced carefully on my lap. However, with summer creeping slowly closer, I have been riding my bike more and my reading time has been trimmed considerably. I find myself turning to graphic novels more often to get a great story, but in a condensed version.

I discovered FreakAngels by accident. Warren Ellis is truly an icon when it comes to graphic novels. I read his first full-length novel, Crooked Little Vein, a while back, thoroughly enjoying every word. When I saw that he was working on a new online webcomic, I had to check it out.  Each Friday, I get a little delivery of genius to my RSS reader.  FreakAngels is an excellent post-apocalyptic tale of survival. The twelve main characters, each with their own special ability, were the cause of something cataclysmic for which they're now trying to repay humanity. Murder, mayhem, and community gardening: a match made in heaven. Lucky for me, the second volume was recently added to our collection.

Speaking of murder, Whiteout takes place in Antarctica where the U.S. Marshall stationed there to keep the peace has to solve a gruesome murder. Then another. Then the killer comes after her. Will she survive the incoming storm while running for her life? Yes, because there’s a volume two. Greg Rucka’s storytelling is dark, and Steve Leiber’s illustrations match the writing perfectly.

I recently finished the first volume of Bayou by Jeremy Love. Another book that started as a webcomic, this lilting story from the Antebellum South follows a special girl trying to clear her father’s name. He’s been lynched for abducting a white girl, but she saw what really happened, and knows that it was actually a monster.  She travels to a bizarre land where she befriends a hulking giant.  Unfortunately, the story ends as they start their quest together, but I managed to track down the whole story on the site where the comic first started.

Everything Old is New Again, and Vice Versa - by Ruth The other week a colleague alerted me to a nifty website from Penguin Books (UK) entitled Red Recommendations  that matches contemporary books to classics. So you enjoyed Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible? Check out Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. Adore the rich atmosphere, characters and descriptions in Fingersmith by Sarah Waters? You should finally get around to reading Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. You read Chocolat and it's sequel by Joanne Harris and don't know where to turn next? Why not try Old Goriot by Honore de Balzac? So I was amazed when I picked up The House at Riverton (previously reviewed by Helen here), a new book by Kate Morton, and read the first two lines: "Last November I had a nightmare. It was 1924 and I was at Riverton again." Was this to be Rebecca all over again? And if so, how fabulous would that be! I finished it last night and it was great - family secrets, an interesting time and place in history (early 1900s England), characters I didn't particularly like, but was fascinated by, and some really decent writing. A perfect summer read (even though summer feels like it will never come to Portland). If you're on the waiting list for Riverton, go pick up Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier. And if you've read and loved them both, try these other great titles: The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield, The Dark Lantern by Gerri Brightwell, Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear, and The Crimson Portrait by Jody Shields.