Memphis Reads Archive

Many families will end the Christmas holiday weekend with a trip to the movies, and some of the most successful films this year were based on best-selling novels. Movies adapted from book series did quite well (think Harry Potter and Twilight) and readers can look forward to more this month, like the upcoming release of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (based on Stieg Larsson's book), The Descendants, (based on a novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings), and more.
Memphis Reads wants to know:
What was your favorite book-to-movie of 2011?

Leave your response by clicking on the comments link below.

Need help remembering all the films from 2011? Browse this extensive list at Youth Services Corner for previous films based on books.

Labels: Memphis Reads Question

Author, columnist, and essayist Christopher Hitchens passed away Thursday, December 15. He was 62 years old. Hitchens published his best-selling memoir, Hitch-22 in 2010.

Click here to view the NYTimes.com obituary

Browse the library catalog for Christopher Hitchens

Labels: Author Obits

Fantasy novelist and children's fiction writer, Russell Hoban, passed away December 14, 2011. He was 86 years old.

From The Guardian:
"Hoban, born in Pennsylvania but a resident of London for more than 30 years, first made a name for himself with his children's books; his series about Frances the badger and his novel The Mouse and His Child are acclaimed as modern classics.

Riddley Walker, set in Kent 2,000 years after a nuclear holocaust and told in a distinctive version of English, was begun in 1974 and published in 1980 to huge praise." -Full article

More articles and tributes can be found on Hoban's Facebook page

Browse library catalog for books by Russell Hoban.

Labels: Author Obits

Fiction

Andrea reviews LEFT NEGLECTED by Lisa Genova (Gallery, 2011)

This is a most brilliant book about senior human resources analyst/wife/mother, Sarah Nickerson. A 37 year old with a Harvard Business School degree, Sarah feels she is at the top of her game as she is juggles a high-paying, stressful career, being a good wife of nine years to Bob, and a doting mother to seven-year-old Charlie, four-year-old Lucy, and nine-month-old Linus. (And, yes, she realizes, at the beginning of the novel, her children are named after characters in the Peanuts gang.)

At first I thought this book was going to read like Allison Pearson’s I Don’t Know How She Does It--the story of an overworked, overstressed mother who is a hedge-fund manager. I expected Genova’s Sarah to have an emotional breakdown, trying to decide if her career or children will be compromised. Needless to say, I was not expecting the wallop thrown at me.

Sarah tries to use her cell phone one day while driving in a rainstorm. Her car hydroplanes and is totaled. As a result of the car accident, Sarah is left brain-damaged. After being in coma for eight days, her symptoms begin surfacing. After going through batteries of tests, doctors and therapists concur that Sarah has Hemispatial Neglect, more commonly known as Left Neglect. This is a common occurrence when patients have trauma to the brain, and the most common symptom is mentally detaching from their body’s left side. Sarah logically knows she has a left side of her body and there is a left side of the room, but she cannot see or feel any of that.

With four months of therapy and rehabilitation behind her (because that is all the insurance would pay), Sarah is still using a cane and is only getting glimpses of the left side of her world. As driven as she is, she is determined to return to her previously “normal” life.

This is a well-written book that shows it just takes a few seconds for your world to change, but it can take a lifetime to get it back.

Andrea King, Poplar-White Station Library

Labels: Fiction, Mainstream Fiction, Reviews by Andrea King

December means the year-ending "Best of" lists are out. We've listed a few below.

NPR's Best Books 2011 features "Books that Stay with You" and "Revenge of the Kitchen Nerds."

The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2011 is designed as a gift guide for the best in this year's fiction, poetry, and nonfiction.

Publisher's Weekly chose The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides as the top book of 2011. Click here to view the rest.

Don't forget to search the library catalog for book availability.

What was your favorite book from 2011?

Labels: News and Notes

Fiction/Historical

Andrea reviews BAKER TOWERS by Jennifer Haigh (William Morrow, 2005)

Author’s note: “The mines were not named for Bakerton; Bakerton was named for the mines. This is an important distinction. It explains the order of things."

Set in the 1940’s coal mining region of Pennsylvania, this story centers on the Novak family. Polish father and husband, Stanley, dies from black lung (a condition developed from working in the mines), leaving behind his Italian wife, Rose, with five children to raise single-handedly. As much as the children know they have obligations to take care of Rose as well as each other, all of them are desperate to escape the claustrophobic small town of Bakerton.

Oldest son George joins the war overseas and Dorothy, the next oldest daughter, moves to New York to work in a typing pool and live in an all-girls’ boarding house. Middle son, Sandy, and middle daughter Joyce, are able to get out of the small town by traveling across the country and joining the Air Force, respectively. Lucy, the baby, seems most likely to be the one who will escape the confines of Bakerton as she studies to be a nurse after college. Never mind the dreams the adult children have for themselves and their growing families, obligations to Rose and Bakerton’s townspeople keep luring them back.

Told equally from the points of view of the five children, readers will feel like they are in the story with each of them. Haigh’s writing style romanticizes the 1940’s but also gives readers realistic imagery of the era. Readers will also appreciate the expanding Novak family’s closeness with each other and their fellow townspeople.

This is a well-written novel with beautiful, nostalgic scenery and solid characters. I highly recommend it.

Andrea King, Poplar-White Station Library

Labels: Coming of Age, Historical Fiction, Reviews by Andrea King

Fiction/Young Adult

Leanne reviews BEASTLY by Alex Flinn (HarperTeen, 2011)

Beastly is a young adult novel remake of Beauty and the Beast. The main character, Kyle, is an arrogant, physically attractive young man attending an upscale high school of privilege in New York City. He is extremely self-absorbed and self-serving. He lives with his TV newscaster father who indulges Kyle with money and things, but very little personal attention or time. Kyle successfully shapes and controls his world as he pleases, until...

Yep, there’s a witch in this story, too. Because of Kyle’s lack of caring compassion for others, and his hurtful actions and words, the witch puts a spell on him. Through this spell he is physically morphed into a big, hairy, hideous, frightening monster.

The remainder of the story chronicles Kyle’s scheming efforts to find someone to love and someone who will love him in return, in spite of his appearance. The only way the spell can be broken is by a kiss from his love.

This is a great modern fairy-tale read as Kyle’s attitudes, heart, and life are transformed in a most remarkable way.

Leanne Haggard, Bartlett Library

Labels: Fantasy, Fiction, Reviews by Leanne Haggard, Young Adult