The Bookshelf

While we all want to read what everyone else is reading and talking about, sometimes it can be just as fulfilling to read a book that doesn’t receive as much attention as one of these big blockbusters.

Here are some recommendations for some recent books that have you might have missed:

Our third and final contest of the summer centers on famous true crimes and criminals.  So, in order to win a $10 gift card to Boston Blackie’s, you need to correctly answer the following questions about real life mysteries.

You must be a Skokie Public Library card holder to enter and win. Just send an email with your name, library card number, and the correct answers to askrs@skokielibrary.info. The contest will end July 31 at 5 PM. The winner will be drawn at random from the correct entries. If no one answers all the questions correctly, the winner will be pulled from those entries with the most correct answers. The winner will be notified by email and the prize will be held at the Reader’s Services Desk. Good Luck!

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The Amazing Book Caper Summer Reading program continues at the library. This summer reading mystery theme also extends to our second Bookshelf Blog contest of the summer. Identify these mystery characters or mystery authors and win a gift certificate for free Panera Bread for a year.

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We’re unveiling a new occasional feature here on the Skokie Public Library blogs today called Community Voices. Every few weeks, we hope to highlight user experiences at the Library, here and all of the Library blogs. We’re extending the invitation to all readers of this site to send in their Library stories as well. Just send us an email if you’d like to get involved.

In this first installment, longtime patron Seth Arkin shares his thoughts on a few recent releases. You can read more of Seth’s reviews (on movies, theater, and more) over at his personal blog.

The Man From Beijing
by Henning Mankell
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Although Henning Mankell has been writing best-selling crime novels for nearly 15 years, I hadn’t heard of him until this past February, when Entertainment Weekly gave his new book–The Man From Beijing–a short but glowing review, in which the reviewer states, “This is hands down the best thriller I’ve read in five years.”

So I put it on reserve with the Skokie Public Library, and when my turn came, I was very excited to read it.

But as it turns out, it wasn’t even the best thriller I’ve read this month.

Despite the title, the book mostly takes place in Mankell’s native Sweden, where a brutal massacre has wiped out a small village.

Over the past year, I’ve read and enjoyed all three books in the Millennium series (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, etc.), by the late Stieg Larsson, another Swedish crime fiction writer whose works weave throughout his homeland. This was another reason I was optimistic about the new book by Mankell, who in the past has centered his novel around an inspector named Kurt Wallander, but wrote The Man From Beijing as a stand-alone novel.

But whereas Larsson’s books constantly made me want to read the next page, discover the conclusion and tackle another of his thrillers, 50 pages into The Man From Beijing, I realized I was reading only to reach the end, not because I was anxious to learn what would happen next. The small-village massacre becomes linked to happenings in the American West from over 130 years prior, leads to dozens of non-thrilling pages about modern China and is ultimately relegated to the background of a story that meanders a whole lot.

And while it seems that Mankell was aiming for a book with considerably more consequence than your average page-turner, it didn’t ever approach great literature or enlighten like a non-fiction take on some of the same matters might have. So basically I was left with a thriller that didn’t thrill.

Though Mankell appears to be a well-regarded author, the Amazon reader reviews more closely approximate my take on The Man From Beijing than Entertainment Weekly’s. Almost a third of the Amazon reviews give it 1 or 2 stars out of 5, so perhaps my @@1/2 is a bit generous if anything.

I’m sorry I wasted a full two weeks getting through it, especially because a few days in, the Skokie Public Library let me know that another thriller I had on reserve was ready for me. Fortunately, after finishing The Man From Beijing, I was able to read the book below in just 4 days, and liked it much better.

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Caught
by Harlan Coben
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I have now read all 17 of Coben’s books currently in print (his first two novels no longer are) and each has taken me about a week or less to finish.

While his books–split between his Myron Bolitar mysteries and stand-alone thrillers–are not works of high art, they are stay-up-all-night page turners, filled with more than a bit of humor and shrewd societal insight.

His latest hardcover, Caught, is no exception. While probably not his best book, not quite meriting the 5 stars that 96 of 151 reviewers on Amazon have bestowed and without nearly the complexity of The Man From Beijing, it is a whiz-bang thriller that is extremely enjoyable to read.

Far more so than the Mankell book.

Although I had pegged some of the surprises in Caught before I got to them, I won’t reveal much here. But it starts with a man getting caught, as part of a TV show sting, in the home of a teenage girl he had contacted over the internet. Not all is as it seems and the newswoman from the show becomes the central character in a proverbial roller coaster ride across all 388 fast-moving pages.

Although Caught is a stand-alone novel, not a caper involving the Myron Bolitar character, Coben does utilize characters from past books, which adds to the fun for those of us who know his North Jersey oeuvre.

But even as your first foray into Coben, you should find Caught quite satisfying, although you also wouldn’t go wrong starting with his earlier stand-alones like Tell No One and Gone For Good.

Along with Lee Child, whose works all revolve around a character named Jack Reacher, Coben is my favorite thriller writer, and I’ve yet to be disappointed.

If you likewise love a good page-turner, perhaps it’s about time you ‘Caught’ on.

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Don’t forget, you can drop us a line if you’d like to contribute to the Library blog space.

The Amazing Book Caper Summer Reading program continues at the library.  This summer reading mystery theme also extends to our first Bookshelf Blog contest of the summer.  So, in order to win a $10 gift card to Boston Blackie’s, you need to correctly match the fictional detective with the city that most of their adventures take place.

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On the wait list for The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest?  Well, Stieg Larsson is not the only Scandinavian author who writes fast paced, gripping mysteries.  Try one of these new mysteries set in Denmark, Iceland, Norway, or Sweden and maybe that wait list won’t seem so long after all.

For even more suggestions, consult our Scandinavian Sleuths reading list. 

The Amazing Book Caper continues at the library, so sign up now at the Readers Services Desk for your summer reading excitement.  If you are unsure of what book to read this summer, why not go along with this summer’s theme and try a classic mystery? One of my favorite classic mystery writers is someone, while extremely popular in her time, does not receive much recognition now.

Mary Roberts Rinehart published her first book, The Circular Staircase, in 1907 and was an instant success.  She pioneered the “had she but known” style of writing and the clichéd saying the “Butler did it” derives from her story The Door in which (spoiler alert) the butler is the culprit.   SPL owns many of her books and I highly recommend The Album and The Frightened Wife, and other murder stories. Once you exhaust all her fiction, make sure that you read the biography that Charlotte MacLeod (another wonderful, if sadly overlooked, mystery writer) wrote on Mary Roberts Rinehart’s very interesting life.

Our Summer Reading program, The Amazing Book Caper, starts today!  Adults and Teens can sign up at the Readers Services Desk and only have to read 5 books from June 1st to July 31st to qualify for a t-shirt (while supplies last) and to  be entered into the drawing for the grand prizes.

Adults and Teens will also have a chance to enter every book they read into our weekly prize drawings. Each week there will be a different wonderful prize, so make sure to stop by the Readers Services Desk to enter.

Besides the exciting grand and weekly prizes, readers of this blog will also have a chance to enter contests for even more prizes. We will have 3 contests from June to July, so check this blog often for the opportunity to enter and win. One winner per contest.

Have a great summer and happy reading!

No time to read a long book review?  Then, you are in luck, One Minute Reviews tell you all you need to know about a book in just one minute. Take a look!

Nancy Drew, the girl detective who has served as inspiration for countless generations of girls, turned 80 at the end of last week.   As someone who has a collection of vintage Nancy Drew books and has read all the books in the series, I can’t tell you how excited I am to see one of the my favorite characters celebrated.  The publisher is issuing an 80th anniversary edition of The Secret of the Old Clock – complete with bonus materials.  Be sure to visit the Nancy Drew page from Penguin publishers- it has a complete lists of her books, wallpaper for your computer, trivia, and much more!