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 LINE:
On a fine June weekend in 2007, in the verdant reaches of Northern New Hampshire, I decided to change the world.
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Are you a word nerd? Have you ever driven across the country with someone you love? Both?!? Then The Great Typo Hunt should be on your reading list. The premise is simple. Deck conceived a mission to save the world one grammatical correction at a time. He recruited Herson and a couple sidekicks and they set out on an epic road trip. Their plan was to circle the United States locating typos on signs and when possible correcting them. They philosophize about grammar’s importance in communication and wax eloquent about the elixir of correction that is a mainstay of their typo correction kit. But as seriously as they take their quest, they are also really funny and we are in on all the jokes. The result is a really funny travel book about grammar. It is Strunk & White meets National Lampoon’s vacation and I found it a pure pleasure.
Check the BPL catalog for this title: The Great Typo Hunt
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
GREAT LINE:
As I was going to prostrate myself to his hoof, he did me the honor to raise it gently, even if detractors are pleased to think it improbable.
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Gulliver’s Travel is really four independent stories. The first, his voyage to Lilliput, which has been endlessly retold, is the simplest. The second, to a land of giants, and the third, a country ruled by academics, rise in subtlety and complexity. But the fourth part, where wise horses rule and men and women live as wild beasts, takes social and political satire to a whole new level, at once funny, cruel, and wise. Definitely not for children. it stands alone as one of the greatest works of literature ever written. You will never see life quite the same way again.
Check the BPL catalog for this title: Gulliver’s Travels
GREAT LINES:
On the third night, she told him that once after a lecture they’d attended, she let him speak to the chairman of his department without telling him that he had a dab of pâté on his chin. She’d been irritated with him for some reason, and so she’d let him go on and on, about securing his fellowship for the following semester, without putting a finger to her own chin as a signal.
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This is a beautiful collection of short stories by Jhumpa Lahiri about the lives of immigrants and first generation Americans. The plot-lines play second fiddle to the character developments, which are exquisite. Lahiri is genius at showcasing universally felt emotions – her prose is restrained yet carries tremendous weight in its simplicity. Even though her characters are mostly of Indian descent, any person who has ever felt like a foreigner or out-of-place will be able to relate. The stories can be at times sad or heavy, but Lahiri’s insights into what it is to be human make it worth it. It is ultimately a celebration of the fullness of life. If you are looking for a deep, emotional read, this is the book for you!
Check the BPL catalog for this title: The Interpreter of Maladies
GREAT LINE:
Knowin’ myself, I could always find something to get shook up over and write about.
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Before I encountered Harvey Pekar’s “American Splendor,” the comics I read featured colorful fantasy with slam-bang action and the obligatory battle against world-endangering aliens. Harvey Pekar wasn’t into that. In Pekar’s comics, as collaborator R. Crumb writes in a preface, “Hardly anything actually happens. Mostly it’s just people talking, or Harvey by himself, panel after panel, haranguing the hapless reader.” The people in the stories are office workers or people Pekar meets on the street or friends down on their luck. The title of one of the pieces is “Standing Behind Old Jewish Ladies in Supermarket Lines.” Ye gods, I remember thinking, why would anybody want to read that sort of stuff! Escape from a boring life, not to get mired in one, that’s the thing, yet here Harvey Pekar was plodding through an ordinary life without benefit of cape, x-ray vision, or pointy ears. His problems had less to do with space aliens than with alienation right here on Earth. “My name has been a matter of some concern to me over the years,” Pekar says in the first story. He talks about how kids twisted it to tease, how he figured the name must be unusual, yet when he got his first telephone there were two other Harvey Pekars in the book, and finally, he asks, as though the name itself were as much a mask as any Batman wears, Does a name hide as much as it reveals? “Who is Harvey Pekar?” When R. Crumb illustrates his own writing he tends to the fantastical with bird-headed girls or melting heads, but the work he does for Pekar presents the world as a bit shabby, the people rumpled and pudgy, the only thing hiding in the shadows is tomorrow or maybe yesterday. Am I making Pekar sound like a downer? Well. He is. Sorta. But Harvey Pekar is also an optimist. He’s an optimist in the way somebody must be who every day gives life a good eye, and tries to figure out what exactly can be done with it. He always figures out something. When alien invaders and flashy costumes pall, Pekar’s practical dao is one true way through the city’s littered canyons.
Check the BPL catalog for this title: American Splendor Presents Bob & Harv’s Comics
OPENING LINE:
The first time I saw the empty store on Blossom Street I thought of my father.
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Lydia Hoffman is a cancer survivor and the owner of the yarn shop on Blossom Street. She starts a class teaching how to make a baby blanket which three other women join. Jacqueline is recently divorced and she really dislikes her pregnant daughter-in-law. But she is hopeful that will change when she knits a baby blanket for her. Carol and her husband have been trying to get pregnant for a long time, and she thinks perhaps knitting a baby blanket will help. Alex is a younger woman who has been ordered by the court to do community service and she decides to join the class to knit a baby blanket and donate it to a worthy cause. This is the story of four individual women and their troubles. But even more, it is the story of how they come together to help each other with friendship and community as the result.
Check the BPL catalog for this title: The Shop on Blossom Street