GREAT LINES:
Any way you look at it, she’s dead, and you’re standing here a rich man on this glorious Southern California day. What I’m sayin’ is, buddy, as far as my client – and so far as I’m concerned – you’re already guilty.
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A wealthy woman hangs from a ceiling fixture, eyes wide, staring, dead. Her husband stands on the rug below while police detectives snap photographs and paramedics carry in a ladder. The suicide’s brother rushes into the room, shouting, “You! You did this to her!” Writer and artist David Lapham says he wrote his first graphic novel as an homage to classic film noir where “passions burn, shadows fall just right, and women are beautiful (and usually deadly).” And, I might add, even if the suspect isn’t guilty of the crime, he (or she) is no innocent. An old flame, blackmail, drugs, at least one murder with a big kitchen knife, and a reversal of fortune or two, Lapham made a page-turner of a noir.
Check the BPL catalog for this title: Murder Me Dead
OPENING LINE:
It wasn’t a very likely place for disappearances, at least at first glance.
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The year is 1945, World War II has ended. Claire Beauchamp and her husband are on holiday in Scotland. Having served as a combat nurse in the British army, she needs the rest. But then one day when she touches one of the standing stones in an ancient stone circle she is transported back in time to the year 1743, just before the Jacobite Rebellion. There she encounters an English officer who looks like her husband but does not act like him. And then she meets Jaimie Fraser who will change her entire life. With one action scene after another, this book is hard to put down! It made me glad that this is just the first book in a great series!
Check the BPL catalog for this title: Outlander
OPENING LINE:
Our story opens where countless stories have ended in the last twenty-six years: with an idiot — in this case, my brother, Shaun — deciding it would be a good idea to go out and poke a zombie with a stick to see what happens.
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Many stories of zombies give a glossed over explanation involving a disease run amok, but few tales of the living dead bother to think through the epidemiology of how a zombie plague might behave, and what it would be like for the survivors of that plague. In Feed, author Mira Grant has thought about it a great deal, and the life for brother and sister Shaun and Georgia is one where every place you go, every thing you do, is about just staying alive and proving that you haven’t been infected. When a medical cure turns into a medical nightmare where the dead rise again, the survivors are still trying to go on with a semblance of civilizaition, including electing an American president. Shaun and Georgia are bloggers who are picked to follow the campaign of a promising candidate, hoping it will be their ticket to success and ratings. They just have to stay alive in a world still riddled with pockets of zombies, where everyone left on the planet harbors the infection and could turn into a zombie themselves. Not only is this a remarkable look at a post-apocalyptic world, it is a page turner that will have you racing to the end as you are rooting for characters that are funny and loyal and true.
Check the BPL catalog for this title: Feed
GREAT LINE:
But now she seemed to him like a wilted flower, the beauty that had moved him to take her was gone.
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Anna Karenina has been regarded as the greatest novel by the greatest novelist of all time, filled with wonderfully thought-out characters. As the story opens Russia had ended serfdom (which was agricultural slavery) just a few years before — in fact just a year before Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. The story centers around a group of people in the very highest Russian society, where idle young men killed time with drinking, sports, and adultery; where the energies of more ambitious men were consumed in pointless bureaucratic intrigues; and where women went on endless rounds of parties requiring endless changes of clothes. Tolstoy is brilliant in his portrayal of flawed human beings trapped in a world of rigidity and fear, ultimately based on slavery. And yet, for me, there is something missing as he seeks to portray the inner thoughts of people trying to escape the prison of high society. None of it seems remotely convincing. So there is another way to read this work. Tolstoy himself was born into the aristocracy and grew up on a farm with 300 serfs. There he fathered at least one illegitimate child. Without intending it, Tolstoy reveals so much of the arrogance of someone surrounded by slaves and brought up to believe that he alone had all the answers. It is the tragedy of Russia.
Check the BPL catalog for this title: Anna Karenina
GREAT LINES:
Yet though the bridge might last still for many years, the rust would eat deeper and deeper. The earthquake would shake the foundations, and then on some stormy day a span would go down. Like the man, so the creation of man would not last forever.
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A young man, Ish, is a graduate student at Berkeley who goes on a camping trip. On this outing he is bitten by a rattlesnake and forced to doctor the wound himself. When he recovers he walks down the mountain and finds that the people of the world have been wiped out by disease. He adopts a dog and takes up residence in his parents’ empty house. On outings he does encounter some survivors but they seem to either be living in the past or have mental problems. In his solitude he drives to New York City and back. Again the people he meets are not those with whom he wants to share his life. Then one evening he sees fireplace smoke coming from West Berkeley. What happens when Ish discovers other people he can form a tribe with gives this early post-apocalyptic story its most human elements. And as an added bonus the descriptions of the landscapes are truly amazing. I cannot get them out of my head!
Check the BPL catalog for this title: Earth Abides
GREAT LINES:
DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT SHE LOVES YOU?… ARE YOU WAITING FOR HER TO CHANGE?… DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT I LOVE HER?… IF YOU TAKE HER, WILL SHE BE HAPPY?
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Every reader has a book up their sleeve that’s their go-to recommendation when someone asks them, “What should I read?” As She Climbed Across the Table is that book for me. It’s the story of a physicist whose extraordinary discovery gives rise to the most bizarre love triangle in literary history.
Physicist Alice Coombs and her colleagues have just created… nothing. Literally. Their experiments have resulted in an actual hole in the Universe, a void where nothing exists. Naturally they name it Lack. At first, nobody knows what to do with Lack and the experiment is about to be shut down until, in a fit of desperation, Alice empties her pockets and throws the contents through Lack. Just about everything passes safely through and falls to the other side… except Alice’s keys. It seems that Lack has tastes! And if it has taste then perhaps it also has consciousness! As researchers from all over campus and from every discipline descend on Lack to try to make sense of it, Alice becomes increasingly obsessed, much to the chagrin of her boyfriend Philip. Philip, a professor who studies other professors, has just realized how much he loves Alice. As she starts going to greater and greater lengths to win Lack’s favor, Philip realizes he has a rival for Alice’s love… a rival who isn’t there at all.
This is a remarkable book that blends rich comedy, academic politics, and out-there meditations on the implications of quantum physics. It all sounds very postmodern, but author Jonathan Lethem writes in a sharp, wry voice that keeps everything light and engaging. Besides, the main focus here isn’t the science but rather the simple love story between Alice and Philip. The general chaos swirling around is just a backdrop to the very real emotions on display, and anyone who has ever come to the realization that the person they love might be moving on to someone (or something) else will be able to identify with Philip as he strives to regain his sense of the world. Author Jonathan Lethem is known for his quirky characters and this book is full of them. The messes that they make in both science and in love will fascinate adventurous readers.
Check the BPL catalog for this title: As She Climbed Across the Table
OPENING LINES:
The silence is shattered by the barking of a dog. The mother looks up from the sink and stares out of the window.
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This book, translated from the orginial Norwegian by Charlotte Barslund, fits into the category of “Scandinavian Mysteries.” It takes place in the small town of Elvestad in a rural area of Norway similar to the one where the author lives. Gunder Jomann is a bachelor and successful farm equipment salesman who becomes fascinated with the people and the country of India. When he takes a vacation to India he meets the woman of his dreams and marries her. On his return to Norway he gives her money and a ticket and she is to follow him. But on the day she is supposed to arrive Gunder is unable to get to the airport. When there is a report of a murdered foreign woman he wonders if this could be his new wife? Inspector Sejer steps in to investigate and does so in an understanding tolerant way. He is persistent and forthright asking questions from the villagers point of view and contemplating their answers to try and understand their thinking and motives. The ending is hard to predict but this book is as much about how Sejer solves the crime as it is about the solution. I am not usually a mystery lover but am embracing the idea of reading other books in this series.
Check the BPL catalog for this title: The Indian Bride
OPENING LINES:
Wolverine River, Alaska, 1920
Mabel had known there would be silence. That was the point, after all.
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Magical realism meets absolute reality in this quiet, lyrical tale of a lonely homesteading couple in Alaska, circa 1920. Mabel and Jack have come to Alaska to leave behind the grief of a miscarriage, their one chance at children that went wrong. One night, they build a child out of snow, adding scarf and mittens. The next day, they see a young girl, wearing those garments, darting behind trees, accompanied by a fox. Gradually they befriend Faina, who bit by bit reveals enough facts about her life so that they are reassured she is in fact human. The reader, however, is never quite sure about Faina, who seems unearthly despite a corporeal presence. Ivey captures the deep silence of forests in snow, the startling power of Alaska’s frenetic growing season, the subtle changes in relationships over long years and heavy losses and the beauty of accepting those we love instead of trying to change them. Mabel is an artist, and Ivey must be, too, for her descriptions revel in color and texture. Fairytale-based but firmly rooted in the beautiful, harsh Alaska environment, Ivey will appeal to readers of Angela Carter, Neil Gaiman and Donna Jo Napoli. This is an excellent title to offer to older teens.
Check the BPL catalog for this title: The Snow Child
OPENING LINES:
Death Smiled at her, and kissed her gently on the cheek. He had nice eyes.
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Where can you be sure to find the strongest, most independent heroines? ROMANCE FICTION! It’s not just lovey-dovey these days. Not only can you find historical and sexy from mild to hot, but add paranormal, fantasy, science fiction, and crime to the mix, too. A great place to start reading romance is J.D. Robb’s “In Death” series set 50 years in the future. The series features New York Police Detective Eve Dallas: sleek, thoughtful, dedicated, and able to throw a right hook with the best of them. First try “Origin in Death”, immensely imaginative with wonderful quirky characters, some wild action and very clever twists. And amidst the legalized sexual companions, android servants, futurist technology and steamy nights you just might find an ethical and feminist message. Romance…who knew?
Check the BPL catalog for this title: Origin in Death
GREAT LINES:
She should have done science, not spent all her time with her head in novels. Novels gave you a completely false idea about life, they told lies and they implied there were endings when in reality there were no endings, everything just went on and on and on.”.
Jackson Brodie, a tender-hearted, run-down Cambridge private detective, investigates three separate cold cases: a missing child, a slain teen, and an axe murder. The detective story framework allows the author to playfully scatter clues while giving us vivid psychological portraits of the families affected by the crimes, all the while turning our assumptions on their heads. Atkinson’s humor and style make this a new take on an old genre.
Check the BPL catalog for this title: Case Histories