Category Archives: Book Discussions & Events

When Is an Umbrella Not an Umbrella?

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Bum-ber-shoot. Noun.
(1)    Another name for an umbrella.
(2)    An incredible music & arts festival held every Labor Day weekend at Seattle Center.

I have lived in Washington for nearly a decade. In that time, I have attended exactly one day of one Bumbershoot. It was back in 2009, but the memories still live in my soul. I had friends visiting from the Midwest. I left the tickets at home and had to ride the Monorail and two buses home & back, cringing the whole way. We saw Katy Perry, All-American Rejects, Iglu & Hartly, and the Old 97’s. We left when Sheryl Crow came on, partly because she’s from where we’re from and we were inundated with her music ever since she hit it big in 1993. But mostly we left because we were utterly exhausted and didn’t want to miss the late bus back to Snohomish County.

BumberGroup

The author and her fellow concertgoers.

The amount of crazy energy that charges everyone at a music festival is different, to me, than that of just a regular concert. It takes your breath away, keeps fatigue at bay, and gets you excited about almost anything. C’mon! We saw Katy Perry for crying out loud. If we could get excited about her, we knew no one that day could disappoint us.

When Bumbershoot recently announced this year’s music lineup, I knew it was time to hang up my Old Fart Cardigan and put on my Young Punk Tee. I know it’s impossible to see all the acts you want to see at a festival. I know that the comedy tickets (lineup will be announced later this summer) are nearly impossible to score. And I know that before the weekend is over I will be worn out and feeling older than my age suggests I should feel. But it’s so worth it to see, sometimes in very intimate venues, bands that I love and/or respect.

All American RejectsOld 97s

If you’d like to try some bands before the big day(s), here’s a set of tunes from Bumbershoot 2013 artists that you can listen to, for FREE, courtesy of your library.

Are you going? Who are you most excited to see? And the most important question: are we there yet?

Carol

The Best Movie Ever Made!

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Vote for it, watch it, discuss it at the Evergreen Branch Library on April 24th.Everett Public Library Best of the Best Film Series; Casablanca versus Citizen Kane versus King Kong

Fine film folks. There are a ton of best-movies-ever lists. Enough to drive you nuts, really. There are even lists of the best lists. This only so-so Wikipedia entry (with an astounding 250 references, at thee!) makes a dissection attempt, to discern the best lists to follow. And makes a mess of it…there’s just so much. And of course your library not only has the movies to watch, but also has a wealth of books to choose from, some are good, some fancy, some iron-clad, some fun (albeit fatalistic), some by critics you like, some maybe not. And we have books to help you learn film history, like this one, which…can you believe it? includes lists!

In a pilot program, we’re allowing you, our patrons, to choose the best American movie ever made, culled from a variety of lists. Check out the open poll. As of this writing, Casablanca is romancing the vote. But both BFI (the world’s most respected list) and AFI (the list we’re using for this series) consider the runner-up Citizen Kane more important–and at one time the most important film ever made. That pioneering special effects movie about the giant gorilla is sweating to keep up. Side-note, votes in-person favor the big lug. 

Vote today, either in person, at one of our locations, over the phone, or on line. Poll closes March 26th.

Then come to the branch at 9512 Evergreen Way on April 24th at 1:30 ready to defend your decision (or 6:30 just for the screening)  as we view and discuss the movie getting the most votes; the best possible movie for Everett. Who knows, we could certainly start our own list!

Alan

Everett Reads! 2013

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Everett Reads 2013a

It’s 2013, and it’s almost February. Time for Everett Reads!TM 2013!

Those of us with pets often wonder what it is our pet is thinking. What do they perceive about us? What do they perceive about the world? This year’s read is a playful exploration of that concept, yet it delves into almost every one of life’s dilemmas, frustrations, and celebrations.

This year the Everett Public Library brings Garth Stein and his two books The Art of Racing in the Rain and Racing in the Rain: My Life as a Dog (the latter his “tween” version of the book) to Everett. Following a month of engaging programs designed to enhance the experience of reading the book, Stein will appear in Everett on March 8th, 2013. At 2 p.m. he will meet exclusively with teens/tweens at the Main Library, 2702 Hoyt Ave. The all-ages marquee event is at 7 p.m. and for the first time it will be held at the Historic Everett Theatre, 2911 Colby Ave. Like all library events, these are free and open to the public – though you might want to arrive early to assure a seat at the Historic Everett Theatre.

Before Stein gets here, you’ll have a chance to meet Zep, one of Everett Police’s K-9s on Saturday, February 16th at 2 p.m. in the Main Library Auditorium. In addition, the library is hosting a dog adoption event with the Everett Animal Shelter, hosting a book discussion, film screenings, and other author events. Take a look at our flier to view all the great programs. And just in case you want to read more, we have a list of complimentary titles ready for you right in the library’s catalog.

Whether you want to download the audio or text version or check out any of the 3 different editions (it’s available in paperback, large print, and audio cd), the library has a copy for you. What are you waiting for – go meet Enzo (and his owner).

Kate

Books You Have Always Meant to Read: Mrs. Dalloway

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Our Books You Have Always Meant to Read series is back in full swing here at the Library. If you aren’t familiar with it, the series offers you a chance to discover, or perhaps rediscover a classic work and discuss it with an intriguing speaker. Past works in the series have included The Secret Agent, The Scarlet Letter and David Copperfield.

This time around we are in for a treat when Kevin Craft from Everett Community College discusses Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf on Tuesday, October 23rd from 7-8:30 pm at the Main Library.

Mrs. Dalloway is, to put it mildly, an extraordinary novel that introduced many to a new way of reading and writing.  But don’t take our word for it. Here is E.M. Forster’s take:

It is easy to for a novelist to describe what a character thinks of [….] But to convey the actual process of thinking is a creative feat, and I know of no one except Virginia Woolf who has accomplished it. –The Early Novels of Virginia Woolf

Still not convinced? Then how about this from the novel itself:

Quiet descended on her, calm, content, as her needle, drawing the silk smoothly to its gentle pause, collected the green folds together and attached them, very lightly, to the belt. So on a summer’s day waves collect, overbalance, and fall; collect and fall; and the whole world seems to be saying “that is all” more and more ponderously, until even the heart in the body which lies in the sun on the beach says too, that is all.

The days of librarians dictating what you have to read are long gone, but seriously, you need to read this book. And to appreciate the book even more, come to the library for a lively discussion on Tuesday night.

On the Trail of the Ice Age Floods

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It isn’t hard to picture flooding on our side of the Cascades. Just wait until November if you have any doubts. But if you want evidence of flooding on a truly massive scale, you actually need to head east. While the landscape may seem dry as a bone, there are examples everywhere of the ancient floods that scoured the land.

In order to truly see the evidence, though, you need a trained expert. If you come to the library this Saturday, Sept. 29th, at 2 p.m. you will get to hear from the perfect guide. Geologist and author Bruce Bjornstad will be discussing his latest book: On the Trail of the Ice Age Floods: The Northern Reaches. 

Come learn how a landscape was transformed by ice age floods and learn how to spot the signs of this change carved into the rock. The Northern Reaches is actually the second volume in the series and focuses on sites in the upper Columbia basin and Idaho panhandle. In addition to learning about fascinating geology, this book is also a great guide to hikes east of the Cascades.

What Will Everett Read in February?

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Remember last February when Sherman Alexie came to town and we all read The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian? Well the Everett Reads! program is at it again. February 2013 may seem like it is far off, but we in the library world like to plan ahead and this year we need your help.

We have compiled a list of potential selections for Everett Reads! this February, but need your help in making the final decision. Why don’t you take a few moments and choose the title you would pick. You can choose at this link, or come into the library and fill out a paper form.

In order to help your decision, the contenders are listed below with a brief synopsis to refresh your memory taken from our catalog. Don’t take too long though; you only have until Sept. 30th to get your selection to us.

Believing the Lie by Elizabeth George

Lynley is sent undercover to investigate the death of Ian Creswell at the request of the man’s wealthy uncle. The death has been ruled an accidental drowning, and nothing on the surface indicates otherwise, but when Lynley enlists the help of his friends Simon and Deborah St. James, the trio’s digging finds that the clan is awash in secrets, lies and motives.     

Ed King by David Guterson

When a mild-mannered actuary sleeps with the sexy British au pair who’s taking care of his children in Seattle in 1962, he sets in motion a tragedy of epic proportions. Their orphaned child, adopted and adored, grow up to be Edward Aaron King, a billionaire Internet tycoon and international celebrity– who unknowingly hurtles through life toward a fate he may have no power to shape. 

In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson

The bestselling author of “Devil in the White City” turns his hand to a remarkable story set during Hitler’s rise to power. The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s Germany in a year that proved to be a turning point in history.  

Robopacalypse by Daniel H. Wilson

Two decades into the future humans are battling for their very survival when a powerful AI computer goes rogue, and all the machines on earth rebel against their human controllers.

The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

Nearing the end of his life, Enzo, a dog with a philosopher’s soul, tries to bring together the family, pulled apart by a three year custody battle between daughter Zoe’s maternal grandparents and her father Denny, a race car driver.

The Financial Lives of the Poets by Jess Walter

Matt Prior is losing his job, his wife, and his house, and he’s about to lose his mind–until he discovers a way that he might possibly be able to save it all. 

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells–taken without her knowledge–became one of the most important tools in medicine. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions.

The Language of Baklava by Diana Abu-Jaber

Here is a vibrant, humorous memoir of growing up with a gregarious Jordanian father who loved to cook. Diana Abu-Jaber weaves the story of her life in upstate New York and in Jordan around vividly remembered meals: everything from Lake Ontario shish kabob cookouts with her Arab-American cousins to goat stew feasts under a Bedouin tent in the desert.

West of Here by Jonathan Evison

Since the dawn of recorded history, the Klallam Indians have thrived upon the bounty of the Elwha River. In 1889, on the eve of Washington’s statehood, the Olympic Peninsula remains America’s last frontier. But not for long. As northwestern expansion reaches its feverish crescendo, the clock is ticking…     

Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple

When her notorious, hilarious, volatile, talented, troubled, and agoraphobic mother goes missing, teenage Bee begins a trip that takes her to the ends of the earth to find her.

Writing for Dollars

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Grab a pencil

Bylines

So you really want to write

Geez, it’s not easy to write a good blog post heading.  It must be even more difficult to come up with one for a magazine article, let alone the whole article.

Luckily, help is on the way. If you really want to add Freelance magazine writer to your resume, you’ll want to be here this Saturday (September 15th)  at the Main Library at 2PM for just such a program. William Cook, who has written for a variety of well-known magazines, will let you in on a few secrets of magazine article writing.  He also promises to show how to avoid being branded a hack writer.

Who knows, maybe he could even help me with crafting some decent headings.

But wait, there’s more.  Before, or after (but please not during) Mr. Cook’s program, head to the 800’s (808.02 to be more precise). That’s where you’ll find books like Magazine Writing: A Step-By-Step Guide for Success, and  Writing for Magazines: How to Get Your Work Published in Local Newspapers and Magazines, and Teach Yourself Writing for Magazines.

Then, when you’ve had your first magazine article published, tell us. We’d like to be in on the beginning of your writing career.

Joan

Beautiful Ruins

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I couldn’t get enough of Jess Walter’s Beautiful Ruins. I’ve slept maybe four hours in the last two days reading it. I would rather read it than eat a Snickers.

YES.  That’s how good it is.

The story is told in many different parts, but not so many that you get confused as to who’s telling the story. There’s a romance and a tragedy in Italy during 1962 when a Hollywood starlet named Dee Moray decides to stay at a remote (very remote) village on the coast of Italy. 

She takes refuge in a hotel called The Hotel Adequate (literal translations abound in this novel). Pasquale, the 22-year-old owner of the hotel, immediately falls in love with her and wants to care for her as she begins to show signs of an illness that led her to his secluded hotel in the first place.

Fast forward 50 years to Claire, assistant to a scumbag Hollywood movie producer named Michael Deane who had some big success 40 years ago and a recent smattering of popular reality shows. Claire doesn’t know if she wants to stay in her job or go follow her dream job: working in a Hollywood movie archive. 

On Pitch Friday, when every lunatic with a movie idea comes in to pitch a script, she meets a fairly talented screenwriter who wants to make a movie about the Donner Party (oh, you had me at cannibal). She finds the idea ridiculous while her boss is salivating over it. 

Claire and Michael barely notice the old gentleman who has made his way in alongside the screenwriter into the pitch. The old man wants to meet Michael Deane because Deane’s the one who dumped the starlet at Pasquale’s hotel in 1962 when she was so ill. When Deane finally realizes who the old man is talking about he goes into shock. He hasn’t seen or thought of Dee in 50 years but Pasquale hasn’t forgotten the man who abandoned the sick woman on the island and took off. The screenwriter, scumbag producer, his assistant and the sweet old Italian man with the iffy English skills embark on a journey to find Dee Moray. But what is Deane’s angle? Does he want to make money by turning Dee’s life into a reality show? 

Throughout the book there are glimpses into each character. This is where Jess Walter works some major mojo. These characters are so fleshed out you expect to bump into them while buying milk and cat food at the corner convenience store. It’s a rare and gifted writer who can make characters so alive that you find yourself thinking “I wonder if screenwriter Shane ever wrote another script?” I fell asleep for an hour this morning and actually dreamt that Pasquale and Dee Moray ended up together and had a bunch of children and lived happily ever after.

If you like a deep and well-crafted novel about people you would love to know in real life (except for that poop–on- the-bottom-of-the-world’s-shoe movie producer) read this book. And keep your fingers crossed that as you’re reaching for that last bottle of $4 wine on a dusty shelf of a corner store, you’ll meet a sweet Italian man who will tell you a mind-blowing story.

By the way, Jess Walter will be here at the Everett Public Library Sunday, August 12th at 2 pm to talk about his novels and whatever else he wants to talk about because he’s a great writer and could spend the hour reading the phone book and I’d be on the edge of my seat listening. I’m going to go, maybe have him sign the back of my Kindle Fire. I just hope I don’t go up to him, throw up on his shoes and say “Do you know who you are?”

I tend to get nervous when meeting famous people.

Jennifer

Knitting the Summer Olympics

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Click on photo to enlarge

The 2012 Summer Olympics begin this Friday, July 27th, with the opening ceremony celebration featuring a parade of all the competing nations and the entrance of the Olympic flame, which ignites the cauldron and signals the start of the Games.

Here at the library, in anticipation of the Olympic Games, library staff members and a patron have been knitting Olympic athletes. The dolls are knit from patterns in the book Knitting for Gold by Sue McBride. Stop by the Childrens Room display case to see if your favorite sport is represented in yarn. You’ll find beach volleyball, gymnastics, tennis, swimming, soccer, karate and much more.

If you wish you were in London for the Games but just can’t make it, you can knit your favorite London landmarks with the book Stitch London: 20 Kooky Ways to Knit the City and More by Lauren O’Farrell. You can make your own Big Ben, Tower Bridge or Parliament Telephone Box.

While you’re here be sure to check out other items about the Games:

Great Moments in the Summer Olympics by Matt Christopher and Stephanie Peters.

Swifter, Higher, Stronger : a Photographic History of the Summer Olympics by Sue Macy.

Discover the Summer Olympics with Cecile and Pepo (DVD).

Dream Team : How Michael, Magic, Larry, Charles, and the Greatest Team of all time Conquered the World and Changed the Game of Basketball Forever by Jack McCallum.

The Book of Olympic Lists by David Wallechinsky.

Will it be the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat for team USA? We’ll all be watching.

Kim

Adult Summer Reading Reviews

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We are only a few weeks into the Adult Summer Reading Challenge and have all ready received many great book reviews. It was hard to choose, but here are five thoughtful reviews for you to ponder. Many thanks to the writers and stay tuned for more published reviews as the summer progresses.

Bootlegger’s Daughter by Margaret Maron   (Reviewed by Glendha L.)

Deborah Knott has decided to run for district judge in Colleton County, NC and is smack-dab in the middle of the good-ole boys’ network. In the midst of her campaign, she is persuaded to investigate an 18-year-old murder that puts her in the big middle of old secrets. This, in turn, causes someone to use smear tactics to defeat her election to the bench. And this only serves to make her more determined to find out “who dunnit”! This mystery is so well written and so seamlessly smooth, it was almost impossible to put it down long enough to fill my coffee cup. Hurray for Margaret Maron– keep those mysteries comin’ girlfriend!

Insurgent by Veronica Roth   (Reviewed by Sarah L.)

Insurgent is Roth’s second book in the Divergent series, which follows the actions of Beatrice Prior (Tris) in a futuristic Chicago. The society is divided into 5 sections (factions) – Erudite, Amity, Abnegation, Dauntless, and Candor, and also contains the factionless; those who do not fit within a faction, or who left their faction. Tris and her friends must find out why Erudite has begun to destroy the members of the other factions, mainly Abnegation, without becoming victims themselves. Although the overall plot was a bit predictable, the ending was not what I expected it to be. I also enjoyed Tris as a strong main character, who shows her age of 16 as she learns more about herself and others throughout the book. It was refreshing to find characters who focused on helping others before themselves, rather than acting in a self-serving manner.

The Murder of Jim Fisk for the Love of Josie Mansfield by H.W. Brands   (Reviewed by Curt E.)

Jim Fisk’s life and death in the aftermath of the Civil War in New York is the subject of this short history monograph. Written for a popular audience rather than historians, the study tells the story of Fisk’s stock manipulations and business dealings in concert with Jay Gould and Boss Tweed. It shows how their actions and Fisk’s relationship with a young woman in her early twenties, Josie Mansfield, lead to his murder by Ned Stokes, the third in the love triangle.

The Murder of King Tut by James Patterson   (Reviewed by Jolyn Y.)

This book is about the search and eventual finding of King Tut’s tomb and the cause of his death. I have always been interested in Egyptology and in particular King Tut’s mystery. This book proffers a plausible explanation, based on current scientific research, as to the life and death of King Tut. It is very well written and leads to a very possible conclusion that involves a conspiracy of murder. A very interesting read, full of facts woven into an intriguing story.

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon   (Reviewed by Sue T.)

The central plot is about a young boy who comes across a book that enthralls him and follows his efforts to uncover the mystery of its author and why someone else is trying to obtain the book in order to burn it.  This book has a little bit of it all – mystery, thriller, romance, history, and humor. It is well-written and the author is a captivating storyteller.  However, about half way through, all the complicated and detailed back stories start to weigh it down and take away from the story. In addition, after a masterful buildup throughout the book with lots of plot twists and turns, everything is explained in a long letter at the end, which is somewhat of a letdown. Still, overall, the book is an enjoyable read.