Memphis Reads Archive

Fiction/Mainstream

Jesse Pool reviews A SPOT OF BOTHER by Mark Haddon (Doubleday, 2006)

Mark Haddon, author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, has given us a novel about a dysfunctional English family coping the best it can with several simultaneous life-changing events. I found the book alternately heart-wrenching and hysterical.

Meet George Hall. George is a recent retiree and is also the patriarch of the Hall family. He's always kept to himself and is looking forward to taking up drawing again after he finishes building a shed in his garden. That is, of course, until he has "a spot of bother." George discovers a lesion on his leg one day and decides that he is dying of cancer, despite what the doctor says about it being eczema.

Jean, George's wife, has been having an affair with David, one of George's former co-workers. She feels torn between her loyalty to George, the adventurous life she dreams of having with David, and what her friends and relatives will think if she's found out.

Katie, George and Jean's daughter, is in her early 30s. She has a toddler son named Jacob. She also has a nasty temper. She's about to marry Ray, who is a wonderful provider and father-figure for Jacob. Unfortunately, Katie's parents don't really like Ray and, more importantly, she's not convinced that she's in love with him, either.

Jamie, Katie's brother, is young, successful and gay. Jamie's not sure how his father George feels about that, but his mother tries to be painfully hip about it. Jamie doesn't want to take his boyfriend Tony to Katie's wedding because he's afraid his family will put him off, but he may have to bring him to the wedding in order to keep him.

The story moves along as relationships among the characters are tangled, tested, broken and mended at dizzying speed. All the way to the end of the book, I wondered if things would work out for the best or if it would all end in disaster. Both outcomes seemed likely, and in a way, both would have been satisfying. I was not disappointed.


Jesse Pool, Highland Branch Library

Labels: Mainstream Fiction, Reviews by Jesse Pool

Fiction/Suspense

Jane Carter reviews DEEP STORM by Lincoln Child (Doubleday, 2007)

Lincoln Child, best known for coauthoring thrillers with Douglas Preston, has written an "unputdownable" literate, science fiction/adventure thriller that is certain to be a best seller for weeks to come. Former Naval doctor Peter Crane is summoned to an oil platform in the North Atlantic to diagnose a strange medical condition which is spreading through the personnel working in an advanced science research facility, Deep Storm, built two miles beneath the ocean. He is sworn to secrecy and can reveal nothing concerning this top-secret research and excavation of an ancient site – you guessed it – Atlantis. Scientists and technicians are experiencing violent psychotic episodes, which have no explanation, and then there is a saboteur who threatens the safety of the project. This novel could be interpreted as a cautionary tale about artificial intelligence but I also found it to be a suspenseful, highly entertaining read. If you like a fast-paced plot, with lots of twists and turns and a terrifying climactic ending, this is definitely the book for you.


Jane Carter, Collection Development

Labels: Reviews by Jane Carter, Suspense

From the NewYorker.com:

Professional origami artist Robert J. "Lang grew up outside Atlanta. He was given an origami book when he was six by a teacher who had run out of ways to keep him entertained during math class. Lang took to origami immediately. He was fascinated by the infinite possibilities within the finite-seeming—the characters and the creatures that could almost magically come to life from an ordinary square of paper. He worked his way through the designs in one book and then another and another. He had many interests—stamps, coins, plants, bugs, mud—and he was, as his father, Jim Lang, says, 'a super-duper math whiz,' hooked on Martin Gardner’s recreational math column in Scientific American. But paper folding engaged him most. He started designing his own origami patterns when he was in his early teens. He diagrammed them in detail on letterhead from the Chrysler Corporation Airtemp Division, where his father was in sales."

Read the full article to learn more about Lang's careers as an artist and a physicist and about the origami "bug wars" of the 1990s.

Visit the website of Robert J. Lang Origami. Photograph of "Goliath Beetle, opus 487" reproduced with Mr. Lang's permission.

Check Our Catalog for books by Robert J. Lang

Article found via Arts & Letters Daily

Felicia Pride, who blogs at AOL's More Than Words recently asked best-selling author Kimberla Lawson Roby about the appeal of her notorious character Rev. Curtis Black.

"Why are hundreds of thousands of readers so interested in the dirty dealings of this character – and of the public personas his acts are based upon?"

[Roby responds] "I think it's because they know him personally. Curtis Black is a fictitious character but he is very much alive and well throughout this entire country. I think my readers continue to want more of him because they want two things: For him to reap what he has sown and for him to hopefully one day find true redemption. My readers definitely love to hate him, but in the end, it's my belief that they want to see him finally do the right thing."

Rev. Curtis Black returns to library shelves in Roby's latest, LOVE & LIES (William Morrow, 2007).

Read the full blog post.

Check our catalog for LOVE & LIES.

Labels: African-American Fiction

Fiction/Mystery

Beth reviews PLUM LOVIN' by Janet Evanovich (St. Martin’s Press, 2007)

My friends and I play matchmaker a lot (not that it seems to work out too well) but this story left me laughing and sending portions of it to them by email. We could relate all too well to the adventures Stephanie gets in "helping" out the un-lucky in love.

Stephanie Plum is at it again in this "between-the-numbers" novel by Janet Evanovich. Diesel appears again at Stephanie’s doorstep--"nice-looking guy, with perfect white teeth and a smile that made a woman get all warm inside"--and he’s the last thing she needs with both bounty hunter Ranger and cop Joe Morelli out of town. But Diesel comes with a deal: "skip" (that’s bounty hunter speak for a person who didn’t make their court date as agreed when they were bonded out) Annie Hart is in hiding and he will tell Stephanie where she is . . . but only if Stephanie takes over Annie’s caseload as a "relationship coach." Stephanie agrees and ends up as matchmaker for a shy butcher, a desperate vet, a 30-something virgin and several others.

This short and sweet adventure is full of "Stephanie Plum" moments including LuLu and her grandma. It left me ready for upcoming Lean Mean Thirteen in the Stephanie Plum series.

Beth, Highland Branch Library

Labels: Mystery, Reviews by Beth

Labels: Memphis, Reviews by Heather Lawson

Fiction/Horror

Jesse Pool reviews CONSPIRACIES by F. Paul Wilson (Tom Doherty Associates, 1999)

Conspiracies is the third book in the Repairman Jack series by F. Paul Wilson. I chose to read it because it involves conspiracy theories and found that it worked fine as a stand alone book. That being said, I enjoyed it so much that I am eager to read the rest of the series.

Repairman Jack, a secretive private investigator, reluctantly takes on what should be a simple job looking for a missing person. Lew, a local businessman, wants Jack to track down his missing wife, Melanie. At first Jack refuses the job, but is hooked when Lew says a mysterious message he received from his wife Melanie said that only Repairman Jack could help her and Lew offers him a huge fee. The story gets weirder as Lew tells Jack that Melanie spoke to him through the television set and that she has gone missing just days before she was expected to reveal her Grand Unification Theory (GUT) to an organization of conspiracy theorists that Lew and Melanie belong to called the Society for the Exposure of Secret Organizations and Unacknowledged Phenomena, or SESOUP for short.

Initially, Jack reasons that one of the members of SESOUP may be responsible for her disappearance, but doesn’t know what to believe after meeting a diverse group of conspiracy buffs who believe in the New World Order, UFO’s, and Satanic ritual abuse cults. Jack’s cage gets rattled some more as he’s assaulted by a monkey and followed by a pair of Men in Black. Things get weirder and weirder as the hunt for Melanie continues. Jack receives some strange packages and people at the SESOUP convention begin having some serious nightmares that hint something larger is going on in the shadows.

Jesse Pool, Highland Branch Library

Labels: Horror, Reviews by Jesse Pool

Adult Enrichment Series


Thursday, March 8th
6:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.
$10 per person

Join author Charles J. Shields as he shares his thoughts on reclusive, southern writer Harper Lee based on his research for the book Mockingbird.

Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library
3030 Poplar Avenue, Memphis, TN 38111
(901) 415-2700


Books on sale for signing courtesy of Davis-Kidd Booksellers.



Read Kam McHugh's review of MOCKINGBIRD: A Portrait of Harper Lee by Charles J. Shields (Henry Holt, 2006).

Labels: Adult Enrichment Series, Programs

You may have noticed that from time to time Memphis Reads posts links to other blogs. Our goal is to connect readers to books. Just as you might identify a newpaper columnist or a librarian with similar tastes in books and then turn to him or her for recommendations, we hope to help you find bloggers on whom you can rely.

This weekend I devoured THE THIRTEENTH TALE by Diane Setterfield (Atria Books, 2006). It's the story of a renowned British author who, after years of concocting elaborate stories about her past, commissions an authorized biography. It's part ghost story, part gothic novel, part mystery.

I enjoyed it and couldn't wait to log onto to the internet to see what some of my favorite bloggers thought. In particular, I wanted the opinion from Book World. I was disappointed but intrigued that she did not care for the novel one bit.

Through Book World, I can vicariously share the reading obsessions of its blogger. She reads dozens if not hundreds of books a year, mostly British novels, and seems to be drawn to the works from or about the eighteenth century. Since my reading time is precious, I may never read most of the titles considered, but I do love learning about the latest biography of Samuel Johnson and the wonders contained in Virginia Woolf's diaries. Having recently undergone major surgery, the blogger shares how convalescence and pain medication have altered her reading. In general, she advocates careful, attentive reading.

Doris Dixon, Raleigh Library

Labels: Blogs

Follow these links to read excerpts of fiction and non-fiction books:

CNN
A good archive of excerpts, but the site is not currently being updating.


Denver Post
Excerpts of popular titles.

New York Times
Registration required to access older titles.

USA TODAY
Titles listed from A to Z.

Washington Post
Registration required to access older titles.

Labels: First Chapters, Resources

From WashingtonPost.com:

"Anne Frank's father tried to arrange U.S. visas for his family before they went into hiding, but his efforts were hampered when Allied and Axis countries tightened immigration policies, according to papers released Wednesday.

Otto Frank also sent desperate letters to friends and family in the U.S. pleading for help with immigration costs as the family tried to escape the Nazi-occupied Netherlands....

The letters, along with documents and records from various agencies that helped people immigrate from Europe, were released by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, a New York-based institution that focuses on the history and culture of Eastern European Jews. The group discovered the file among 100,000 other Holocaust-related documents about a year and a half ago."

Read Full Article

Learn More:
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
New York Times
NPR

Photo of Anne Frank copied from the website of Anne Frank Center USA.

Labels: News

Nonfiction/Memphis

G. Wayne Dowdy reviews HISTORIC PHOTOS OF MEMPHIS by Gina Cordell and Patrick O'Daniel (Turner Publishing Company, 2006)

Often when I purchase a volume of photographs, I feel that I have wasted my money on a book that took me all of two minutes to 'read.' Mind you I like looking at photographs, particularly historic ones, but most photographic books leave me a bit dissatisfied. Not so this book. It is not an exaggeration to say that Historic Photos of Memphis is so much more than a conventional book of old photographs. Cordell and O'Daniel have done a excellent job of choosing images that illustrate the growth and development of Memphis, Tennessee. Equally significant are the chapter introductions and detailed captions which provide a wealth of information on the history of the Bluff City. Taken together, the photos and text included in this volume are a major contribution to our understanding of urban history in the American South.

G. Wayne Dowdy, History Department

Labels: Memphis

Joseph Wambaugh, HOLLYWOOD STATION: A Novel (Little, Brown and Co., 2006)

Writer Joseph Wambaugh is a former officer with the LAPD. He last wrote about the department in 1983. Since then, there have been many changes, not all of them in the wake of the Rodney King incident. Fellow novelist James Ellroy convinced Wambaugh "that someone had to write a novel about the current LAPD, and that [Wambaugh] . . . was the one who could do it justice, who could understand how so many things have changed but how some things never do."

Metacritic.com has links to 10 glowing reviews of Wambaugh's latest, Hollywood Station.

From NPR:

"The increasing popularity of downloadable audio books is already shaking up the publishing world. Ana Maria Allessi, publisher of HarperMedia, says that in the past, all books came out first in hardcover — but that's changing.

'We're pursuing a number of authors where we are going to work with them on what we are calling 'born digital' products, where we will say it will start its life as a digital download audio book, and may then go to e-book and with that success, we may then go to paper,' Allessi said.

As audio-book sales increase, so do the number of digital books loaned by public libraries."

Learn more about the Library's collection of E-Audio books.

Labels: E-Audio Books, News

Labels: Reviews by Heather Lawson, Westerns

Fiction/Romance

Doris Dixon reviews CRAZY FOR YOU by Jennifer Crusie (St. Martin's Press, 1999)

There is something exhilarating about reading a writer at the top of his or her game. I’ve read novels that Jennifer Crusie published before and after 1999’s Crazy For You. This is my favorite. She knew what her readers wanted and gave it to them. According the dust jacket, Crusie analyzed the structure of women’s fiction for her Ph.D. dissertation in literature. This information makes me wonder about the years of study and practice that shaped Crazy for You, a tight, funny, satisfying romance. Here's a quick summary:

Quinn Mackenzie is sick of her life. Sick of teaching art to high schoolers. Sick of her boring, worrisome live-in boyfriend, Bill. He never listens. Things begin to change for the better when Quinn adopts an abandoned dog. Bill calmly orders her to get rid of it. She refuses and he takes the dog to the pound behind her back. After reclaiming her dog and dumping Bill, Quinn makes other changes. She pursues bad boy mechanic Nick, who was once married to her wild sister Zoe. Quinn longs to be wild, too. Nick is just the spark she needs, but Bill refuses to accept that his relationship with Quinn is over.


Doris Dixon, Raleigh Branch Library

Labels: Contemporary Romance, Reviews by Doris Dixon, Romance

From Mystery Writers of America:

"Mystery Writers of America is proud to announce on the 198th anniversary of the birth of Edgar Allan Poe, its Nominees for the 2007 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, honoring the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction, television and film published or produced in 2006. The Edgar Awards will be presented to the winners at our 61st Gala Banquet, April 26, 2007 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, New York City."


Via Turning The Page, (Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County)

Labels: Awards

The Memphis Public Library & Information Center sponsors book clubs at many branches and at the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library. Here's a list of the titles that will be discussed this month. For a book club's contact information, click the link for that branch or call (901) 415-2700.

Book Lover's Book Club

East Shelby
Tuesday, February 20, 1:00 p.m.
Book selection: The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards[Memphis Reads review]

Central Readers' Club

Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library
Monday, February 19, 7:00 p.m.
Book selection: Memoirs of A Geisha by Arthur Golden [Memphis Reads review]

Cordova Book Club

Cordova
Tuesday, February 20, 12:00 p.m.
Book selection: The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory [description]

Hollywood Page Turners

Hollywood
Saturday, February 10, 11:30 a.m.
Book selection: The Best-Kept Secret by Kimberla Lawson Roby [description]

North Renaissance Men's Book Club

North
Saturday, February 17, 2:00 p.m.
Book Selection: Sons of Mississippi by Paul Hendrickson [description]
Learn more about this book club

North Women's Book Club

North
Saturday, February 24, 2:00 p.m.
Book Selection: Fifth Born by Zelda Lockhart [description]

Second Saturdays Book Club

Highland
Saturday, February 10, 1:30 p.m.
Book Selection: The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood [description]
Learn more about this book club