The Bookshelf

Valentine’s Day is fast approaching, so what better time to escape into a romance novel? Here are a few new titles that will help you tap your inner Cupid:

A Matter of Class by Mary Balogh

He’s rich but doesn’t have a title; she’s the daughter of an earl but has been disgraced by scandal. Their parents can think of only one solution: send them down the altar. Marriages of convenience are a familiar plot device, but Balogh’s breezy Regency romance takes that time-worn trope and gives it a surprising twist. For more suggestions, take our BookMatch survey! For more suggestions, take our BookMatch survey! For more suggestions, take our BookMatch survey!

The Cinderella Deal by Jennifer Crusie

The tale of a couple who pretend they are engaged to further their careers, this newly reissued Cruisie opposites-attract novel is a perfect light read for a cold February afternoon. The plot is more straightforward than in the author’s later books, but still offers glimpses of her signature humor and quirky characters. For more suggestions, take our BookMatch survey! For more suggestions, take our BookMatch survey! For more suggestions, take our BookMatch survey!

Archangel’s Kiss by Nalini Singh

Singh is an up-and-coming star in the paranormal romance world. Archangel’s Kiss is the latest book in her Guild Hunter series (the first was Angels’ Blood), which features a world of full of archangels, vampires and mortals caught in between. Fans of Patricia Briggs and Kelley Armstrong should add Singh to their must-read list.For more suggestions, take our BookMatch survey! For more suggestions, take our BookMatch survey! For more suggestions, take our BookMatch survey!

Cold River by Carla Neggers

Reading Carla Neggers’ books is akin to watching an episode of your favorite TV crime drama —fast-paced, intense and with touches of gallows humor. Here, sparks fly in a small Vermont town when a café owner tries to help a man trying to solve his father’s murder. r more suggestions, take our BookMatch survey! For more suggestions, take our Bo

Among the Mad: A Maisie Dobbs Novel by Jacqueline Winspear

(audiobook)

Maisie is a psychologist and private detective in post WWI London. After witnessing the suicide of an injured war veteran, Maisie is asked to partner with Scotland Yard on an important and dangerous case. The Prime Minister received a letter demanding aid for the unemployed, especially war veterans – or there will be dire consequences. The author manages to be true to place, time, and social tone. And she also provides an intriguing look at the psychological and economic effects of war, as well as recovery from traumatic experiences.

The Defector by Daniel Silva

(audiobook)

This is an excellent thriller, with skillful character development and a multi-layered plot. It is the ninth book in the Gabriel Allon series, and it is best to have read Moscow Rules (number eight) before reading this. But the author provides the necessary background/character history just in case you are new or need some reminding. For those wondering, I do recommend reading this series in order, if you are thinking about trying these books for the first time. Gabriel Allon is definitely one of my favorite contemporary literary characters. He is a highly trained spy/assassin for Israel, and he is also a master art restorer of renaissance paintings. In this latest installment, Allon is called back into action when a Russian defector, who once saved Allon’s life, is kidnapped.

Inside a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know by Alexandra Horowitz

(audiobook)

I couldn’t get enough of this book. I highly recommended it, whether you have your own pup or not. The author is a cognitive scientist, but you don’t have to be knowledgeable of this field to enjoy the text and style. There are many interesting facts, and several new ideas are covered, as well as some old. I now have insightful ways of thinking about my own dogs. “Smell walks” here we go!

IraqiGirl: Diary of a Teenage Girl in Iraq

This collection of blogs written between 2005-2007 is interesting, informative and moving. From Mosul, Iraq, Hadiya (a pseudonym) writes about her daily life, family, hopes and the uncertainly of her future. She is living in the middle of the war, trying to have a “normal” life under extraordinary circumstances. Her posts are sometimes humorous, other times heartbreaking.

La’s Orchestra Saves the World by Alexander McCall Smith

(audiobook)

Another hit for the author of the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency series. This is a gentle and heartwarming story. I loved the characters (a divorcee in her 30s, various country folk, military personal, and a Polish refugee), the setting (Suffolk, England), and time period (mostly during WWII). La (Lavender) organizes an amateur orchestra to boost morale, and it becomes the highlight of many people’s lives. In the meantime, La expands her personal boundaries, allowing for the possibility of finding romantic love.

(Editor’s Note: every year at the Library staff are asked to submit a list of their favorite books, DVDs, and albums. These can be materials that came out before 2009, as long as they came to discover them in the past year. We’ve invited everyone to elaborate on their choices. Look for additional blog pieces in the weeks to come. -TG)

IraqiGirl: Diary of a Teenage Girl in Iraq

April 13th at 7:00pm

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The Grammys will be awarded on Sunday night, but if you’re like me, you strangely take as much pleasure in reading about music as you do listening to it. Here are a few novels that center on music and musicians:

High Fidelity by Nick Hornby

The standard by which all rock ‘n’ roll novels are judged, High Fidelity spawned an entire genre (“lad lit”) and inspired a Hollywood adaptation starring John Cusack. Still, nothing matches the original, a hilarious tale of a pop-music-obsessed London record store owner trying to get over a romantic breakup. For more suggestions, take our BookMatch survey!For more suggestions, take our BookMatch survey!

Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie

What’s legendary blues artist Robert Johnson doing at the Spokane Indian Reservation more than 50 years after his death? Why, passing his guitar to Coyote Springs lead singer Thomas-Builds-The-Fire, of course. What follows is a heady mix of music, magic and politics as award-winner Alexie looks at modern American Indian life.For more suggestions, take our BookMatch survey!For more suggestions, take !

The Wishbones by Tom Perrotta

Best-known for penning Election and Little Children, Perrotta’s most likeable novel might be The Wishbones, the story of a thirty-something bachelor/New Jersey wedding band musician who finally decides that there might be more to life than playing Springsteen cover tunes and living in his parent’s basement.For more suggestions, take our BookMatch survey!For more suggestions, take our BookMatch survey!

The Soloist by Mark Salzman

Music novels aren’t all about rock ‘n’ roll. Salzman focuses on the classical world with this absorbing drama featuring a former child cello prodigy who has lost his gift for music. Not to be confused with the movie starring Jamie Foxx, although both are about wayward musicians.For more suggestions, take our BookMatch survey!For more suggestions, take our BookMatch survey!

What are some of your favorite music-related books?

(Editor’s Note: every year at the Library staff are asked to submit a list of their favorite books, DVDs, and albums. These can be materials that came out before 2009, as long as they came to discover them in the past year. We’ve invited everyone to elaborate on their choices. Look for additional blog pieces in the weeks to come. -TG)

2009 was quite an interesting year for books. I don’t know if I’m getting more picky in my old age, but I felt like fewer titles absolutely blew me out of the water. Or maybe it was simply a matter of these five titles being head and shoulders beyond anything else I read this year.

We’ll start with Darwyn Cooke’s graphic novel adaptation of Richard Stark’s first Parker novel, The Hunter. (If you want to add even more modifiers, you could also mention that Stark is a pseudonym for Donald Westlake.) Cooke’s expressive watercolor-and-ink work – which calls to mind Mad Men-era poster design – is a perfect match for the character, one of the original (and best) hard-boiled noir antiheroes. If you’re a crime fan – regardless of whether you’ve read Parker before – this version breathes new life into a crime classic.

We move to far more real (and serious) crimes with Colorado reporter Dave Cullen’s exploration of the Columbine massacre. Refusing to look away from the tragedy, nor to accept the easy, more commonly accepted explanations, Cullen provides a thorough analysis of a tragic event fraught with complexity.

My next top pick changes course entirely. E. Lockhart’s young-adult novel The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks received a Printz honor from the American Library Association, and it’s a well-deserved accolade. Young Frankie’s adventures as she uses her brain, her cunning, and her razor-sharp wit to dismantle the boy’s club at her tony New England boarding school. Were you a fan of the TV show Veronica Mars? Old Ronnie would find a kindred spirit in Frankie Landau-Banks.

I greatly enjoyed every book on this list, but one in particular stands above the rest. Christopher McDougall’s Born to Run takes a look at the Tarahumara tribe living in Mexico’s Copper Canyon. Their ability to run great distances over some of the worst terrain serves as a jumping-off point for the historical, sociological, and evolutionary reasons for why we run. Part adventure story, part profile of some insane endurance athletes, the book will make you want to dig out your sneakers – assuming you can tear yourself away from the pages.

Finally, we have Tom Piazza’s novel City of Refuge, following two very different families struggling to put their lives together following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Piazza, a music writer from New Orleans, captures a mix of desperation and hope, enveloping the narrative with you-are-there immediacy.

What were your favorite books? Is there anything you’re looking forward to reading in 2010?

(Editor’s Note: every year at the Library staff are asked to submit a list of their favorite books, DVDs, and albums. These can be materials that came out before 2009, as long as they came to discover them in the past year. We’ve invited everyone to elaborate on their choices. Look for additional blog pieces in the weeks to come. -TG)

• Rebecca Cantrell’s A Trace of Smoke is an excellent first novel with a tremendous sense of place…pre-WWII Berlin. Strong writing and an engaging plot make this one a must!
• Beginner’s Greek by James Collins is a fun novel that unfolds slowly to reveal the richness of all the characters. Thoroughly enjoyable reading!
• Nothing too deep in Peter Mayle’s The Vintage Caper (audiobook)…just a lot of fun as the author (who also did A Year in Provence) does his take on a light mystery. A truly entertaining read set in France.
• Tom Schreck’s On the Ropes is a funny, dry new mystery…with a basset hound in one of the lead roles. Witty and droll, the writing is sharp and quick with an edge. Well done!
• Saving Paulo is a standalone thriller from David J. Walker, who has written the Mal Foley series of mysteries, among others. Here, he combines intense action with a tender, captivating story.

What were your favorite titles for the year? Let us know in the comments.

Our annual staff picks have just been posted; it’s always fun to see what’s on everyone’s best-of list and get more ideas for my endless to-read pile.

My own staff picks for the year are all books that were uniquely entertaining and kept me hooked until the final page:

• Some might be tempted to call Sarah Dunn’s Secrets to Happiness fluff, but this funny, flinty story of a recently single New Yorker trying to find meaning in her life is intelligent, surprising and wonderfully observed.

• Jasper Fforde’s Shades of Grey is a wickedly clever satire set in a dystopian future where human social classes are classified by color perception. It’s aptly been described as Monty Python meets George Orwell, and if that sounds like your sort of thing, you’ll love it.

• Readers of both literary fiction and suspense might enjoy Gillian Flynn’s Dark Places, a tale of a bitter young woman investigating the long-ago murder of her mother and sisters. Her testimony helped convict her brother for the crime, but now she’s not so sure that she can trust her memories. The murky subject matter is leavened by engaging characters, delicious suspense and quite a bit of dark humor.

• Chuck Klosterman makes an appearance on my staff picks for the second consecutive year. In 2008 I raved about the novel Downtown Owl. In 2009 it’s Eating the Dinosaur, his engaging essay collection that covers everything from ABBA to the Unabomber to football’s 3-4 defense–its quirky connections between disparate subjects is kind of like a Freakonomics for Gen-X pop culture and sports geeks.

• Finally, there’s Steig Larsson’s Swedish thriller The Girl Who Played With Fire, the sequel to his international blockbuster The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Beware that the first 150 pages are quite slow. But just when you think you can’t take it anymore, a double murder occurs and the plot starts moving like a runaway freight train … the final three-fourths is completely un-put-downable. I’m eagerly awating the final installment in Larsson’s trilogy, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, which is released in the U.S. in the spring.

Read any of these yourself? What did you think? And what were your favorite books read in the past year?

I recently produced a screencast (a video of what is on a computer screen) about the back end of BookMatch.  I thought it would be fun to post it here so all of  you that have received a BookMatch could see how the magic happens.  And those of you that have not filled out a survey yet will learn how much effort we put in to finding you excellent books. Why not fill out a survey today?

What is BookMatch? It is a service we offer to Skokie card holders designed to help them discover new and exciting books.

A friend of mine turned 40 this year, a milestone I’ve already passed. He’s definitely feeling his age, but he doesn’t have to feel alone since he can read humor books for every stage on the journey from middle to old age. Looking to cheer up someone who’s celebrating a decade birthday? Recommend one of these books!

30s

The Day I Turned Uncool: Confessions of a Reluctant Grown-Up by Dan Zevin

40s

Dave Barry turns 40 by Dave Barry

How Not to Act Old: 185 Ways to Pass for Phat, Sick, Hot, Dope, Awesome, or at Least Not Totally Lame by Pamela Redmond Satran

Race You to the Fountain of Youth: I’m Not Dead Yet (But Parts of Me Are Going Fast): Laughing Your Way through Midlife by Martha Bolton and Brad Dickson

50s

The Big Five-Oh!: Facing, Fearing, and Fighting Fifty by Bill Geist

Dave Barry Turns 50 by Dave Barry

I Still Have It– I Just Can’t Remember Where I Put It: Confessions of a Fiftysomething by Rita Rudner

Today I Am a Ma’am: And Other Musings on Life, Beauty, and Growing Older by Valerie Harper

60s and Beyond

I Feel Bad about My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman by Nora Ephron

Tales of Graceful Aging from the Planet Denial by Nicole Hollander

Thanksgiving week usually marks the time when “Best Books of the Year” lists begin trickling in from seemingly every media outlet under the sun. It’s all too much for normal humans to keep track of, but fortunately the brain behind the blog Largehearted Boy isn’t a mere mortal. Although the blog primarily focuses on music, it aggregates links to online “best books” lists on a single page that’s regularly updated. It’s a great resource for anyone who’s looking for a bookish holiday gift, wishing to catch up on titles missed throughout the year, or simply interested in reading about critically acclaimed fiction and nonfiction.