Category Archives: General Fiction

Recipes for Life: A Sense of Wonderment

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Today we publish the first in a new series on A Reading Life titled Recipes for Life and written by Margo. Margo will be pairing books and recipes for your enjoyment.

As a young girl some of my early and fondest memories were visits to the Lake Hills Public Library. In the summer I could ride my bike on a shortcut trail that ran alongside the blueberry farm. I still remember that sense of wonderment walking into the library: the quiet hush, the faint leathery smell of books, the coolness on a hot summer day, the librarian seated in the center. I’d quietly make my way to familiar ground where new adventures awaited me.

Award winning books by authors such as Lois Lenski and Eleanor Estes, transported me across the country to remote places and new experiences. Those days are long gone, but have etched a love for the library in me.

palisadesparkMy most recent book trip took me to the East coast in Alan Brennert’s latest book Palisades Park. He is best known for Molokai, a popular book club read. Palisades Park is part saga, part history spanning 40 years.

The story begins in 1922, at Palisades Amusement Park in New Jersey, where you meet Eddie Stopka as a young boy. It’s an unbearable hot summer day and Eddie’s father has arranged for the family to go to the park. Everything, including the sights, sounds and smells packaged with thrilling rides, French fried potatoes, and the largest pool Eddie has ever seen, makes a memorable impression on Eddie that day.

As a young man, Eddie makes his way back to Palisades Park and a job where he will eventually meet his wife, Adele, and have two kids. When Eddie enlists in the service during WWII and leaves his wife with the responsibility of running their concession stand and raising their kids, the story takes a twist. Things are not the same when Eddie returns home.

Palisades Park is also the story of Eddie and Adele’s daughter Toni, who has grown up at the park and has dreams of becoming a high diver. At an early age she is captivated when she sees legendary high wire and high diver Arthur Holden perform at Palisades Park. Brennart’s research is extensive but also based on his recollections of Palisades Park, where he grew up within a few miles of the park. Palisades Park portrays an era gone by but not forgotten.

Whether it’s a trip to a theme park or just getting outdoors after a long Northwest winter and spring, summer is a time for new adventure.

Recipe for Adventure: Stop in the library or go online and download an e-book, get a comfortable chair and place it preferably outdoors. Pour yourself a refreshing glass of Tzao Passion fruit lemonade tea, sit down with that book you’ve been meaning to read and enjoy. Remember Summer Reading is for grown-ups too. This is the second year Everett Public Library has offered a summer reading program for adults. Stop in or visit our website @ www.epls.org and or click on Adult Summer Reading http://www.epls.org/asr/.

Passion fruit Lemonade Tea Recipe

3 bags passion fruit tea to two quarts water brewed or sun method
Mix equal parts to lemonade or to taste
Add ice

Margo

Spot-Lit for June 2013

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Spot-Lit

This month marks the one-year anniversary of Spot-Lit, so we thought we’d take a look back.

Spot-Lit’s objective is to help you easily discover worthwhile new fiction from both established and emerging authors, while giving the edge to deserving authors who might be overlooked. The main reason for this slant is because we know you can always click the On Order or Most Popular links in the catalog to easily find the most highly anticipated and in-demand titles. But we’re open to featuring any good book – and we did choose Gone Girl before it went on to dominate the bestseller lists for the past year.

We got some validation for our efforts from a recent round-up of The Year’s Best Crime Novels by Booklist magazine – almost half of their picks were also featured in Spot-Lit (see the titles we agreed on here). Of course, the advance reviews published by Booklist and other trade sources help us select materials for the library and aid us in making our Spot-Lit picks.

Additionally, we featured a number of titles as they came out that ended up winning some major awards. In addition to Hilary Mantel’s Bring Up the Bodies (Man Booker Prize), we highlighted these crime fiction award-winners:

We’re just sayin’ – you could do worse when looking for new book recommendations.

With the self-aggrandizement out of the way – on to this month’s selections! As always, simply click on the titles below to read more or to place holds.

General Fiction / Literary Fiction 

TransAtlanticTransAtlantic  by Colum McCann
In a tale that spans 150 years, McCann beautifully weaves together multiple narratives that include the first nonstop transatlantic flight, Abolitionist Frederick Douglass, four generations of women from an Irish family, and more. From the National Book Award winner of Let the Great World Spin.

We Are All Completely Beside OurselvesWe Are All Completely Beside Ourselves  by Karen Joy Fowler
As Publishers Weekly notes: “It’s worth the trouble to avoid spoilers, including the ones on the back cover.” So we’ll only say that this story of a middle class American family has it all – plus a twist. It’s one you really don’t want to miss.

Last Summer of the CamperdownsThe Last Summer of the Camperdowns  by Elizabeth Kelly
A 12-year-old girl witnesses a violent crime but says nothing to her eccentric parents who are enmeshed in running a political campaign in Massachusetts in 1972. Tense, witty and mordantly funny.

First Novels

Good Kings Bad KingsGood Kings Bad Kings  by Susan Nussbaum
Nussbsaum’s debut takes us inside a privately run Chicago facility for learning-disabled students, where profit-driven decisions only add to the hardship of the students’ courageous, resilient, disadvantaged lives. Winner of the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction.

Lullaby of Polish GirlsThe Lullaby of Polish Girls  by Dagmara Dominczyk
When a young Polish-American girl returns to Poland to visit her grandmother, she makes strong friendships with two other girls. They stay in touch over the years though their lives have taken them in very different directions, and then a murder brings them back to the city where their friendship began.

Square of RevengeThe Square of Revenge  by Pieter Aspe
International bestselling author Aspe’s U.S. debut includes a mysterious crime at a jewelry store where gems are dissolved in acid rather than stolen, a series of notes whose Latin words take the shape of a square, and a kidnapper who demands a priceless collection of art as ransom.

Blood of HeavenThe Blood of Heaven  by Kent Wascom
Wascom’s red hot debut is set in the violent frontier of West Florida in the nation’s early years, where a young man falls in with renegade founding father Aaron Burr’s secessionist movement. If you liked Blood Meridian, you’ll want to get your hands on this.

Courting GretaCourting Greta  by Ramsey Hootman
An unlikely romance between a nerdy computer programmer, who leaves his well-paid job to teach high school computer classes, and a tough-talking high school gym coach.

Crime Fiction / Suspense

Crime of PrivilegeCrime of Privilege  by Walter Walker
When Assistant DA George Becket decides to take on a powerful family and reopens the investigation of a young woman’s murder, he has to confront his own hesitant complicity in an abuse case from many years before. Strong characterization, plotting and puzzle-solving.

Her Last BreathHer Last Breath  by Linda Castillo
A hit-and-run “accident” kills an Amish buggy driver along with two of his children. As ex-Amish congregant and current police chief Kate Burkholder sets out to investigate the death of her friend, human remains with a connection to her past are found in an abandoned grain elevator.

Last Kind WordThe Last Kind Word  by David Housewright
Millionaire and unlicensed investigator Rushmore McKenzie is in over his head when he agrees to help the ATF infiltrate a gun-running operation near the Canadian border.

 SF / Fantasy

Ocean at the End of the LanejpgThe Ocean at the End of the Lane  by Neil Gaiman
Speculative fiction master Gaiman’s first novel for adults since 2005’s Anansi Boys. The publisher calls it a “whimsical, imaginative, bittersweet, and at times, deeply scary modern fantasy about fear, love, magic, sacrifice, and the power of stories to reveal and to protect us from the darkness inside.”

Abaddon's GateAbaddon’s Gate  by James S.A. Corey
In this top-notch space opera, the alien artifact that has been troubling Earth and Mars inhabitants has now built a massive gate that reaches out of the solar system. A flotilla of ships, including Jim Holden’s Rocinante, head out to investigate, but Holden is implicated in the gate’s appearance and is targeted in an act of political revenge.

*                    *                   *                    *

Good writing remains good writing long after a book is first published, so if nothing in this month’s post exactly suits your mood, why not browse the Spot-Lit archive? There must be something there you’ll like.

Spot-Lit for May 2013

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So, you’ve probably heard that Dan Brown, John Sandford, John Le Carré, Isabel Allende, and Kite Runner author Khaled Hosseini all have new books out or due out this month. Below are some more titles getting a lot of advance review buzz and/or publisher support. Click on the titles to read more or to place holds.

General Fiction / Literary Fiction 

Dual InheritanceA Dual Inheritance  by Joanna Hershon
A friendship formed at Harvard in 1962 then abruptly broken off is the focus of this love-triangle novel which spans the past fifty years. Hershon’s novel is being compared to Freedom, Rules of Civility, and The Marriage Plot.

FoolsFools  by Joan Silber
Occurring in many locations around the globe, and spanning the 1920s to Occupy Wall Street, these interlinked stories look at the ways people dupe one another – subtly or otherwise – and are likewise duped.

First Novels

ConstellationA Constellation of Vital Phenomena  by Anthony Marra
After her father is abducted, an eight-year-old girl and her neighbor, Akhmed, take refuge in a bombed out hospital in Chechnya where Sonja, the sole remaining doctor, treats the wounded and mourns her missing sister. In writing that is detailed and eloquent, Akhmed and Sonja explore their pasts and the events that have bound them together.

Red SparrowsRed Sparrow  by Jason Matthews
Pitting Putin’s SVR against the CIA, this exceptional spy thriller includes a host of villains, hit-men, and politicos while employing such spy-trade techniques as counterintelligence, surveillance, “sexpionage,” cyber-warfare and covert communications. Ex-CIA man Matthews knows his stuff.

Under Tower PeakUnder Tower Peak  by Bart Paul
Iraq-war vet Tommy Smith and his wilderness guide partner find themselves in the thick of things when they discover the wreckage of a missing billionaire’s airplane high in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Thugs and family members all seek their self-interest and Tommy has to dust off the sniper skills he thought he’d retired for good. 

Crime Fiction

End of the WorldThe End of the World in Breslau  by Marek Krajewski
Hard-drinking Eberhard Mock investigates the grisly murders of two seemingly unrelated victims in the Polish town of Breslau in 1927. Evidence deliberately left at both crime scenes points to a single suspect. Suspicion falls on Mock’s wife when she begins to display unusual behavior.

RedeemerThe Redeemer  by Jo Nesbø
Renegade detective Harry Hole has little to go on in solving the contract killing of a musician. Flawed, frail human nature is revealed in the characters of The Redeemer – along with their ambiguous quests for redemption. This is masterfully plotted crime writing that explores the darkest corners of the human psyche.

SF / Fantasy / Horror

Human DivisionThe Human Division  by John Scalzi
A bold, hard-SF novel in which earthlings find their own Colonial Union has deceived them and conscripted humans in a generations-long fight with aliens. Things get interesting when the aliens appeal to the betrayed humans to join them in the fight against the CU…  Bradbury and Heinlein fans will want to grab this.

nos4a2NOS4A2  by Joe Hill
Charles Talent Manx has a thing for abducting children. Victoria McQueen is the only victim to ever escape his grasp. That was long ago, but he hasn’t forgotten her. And now he has her son.

Red MoonRed Moon  by Benjamin Percy
This supernatural thriller featuring werewolves (lycans) in a story with strong social and geopolitical undercurrents should attract more than just horror fans. Percy’s book is drawing comparisons to Justin Cronin’s The Passage and Max Brooks’s World War Z.

Heartwood 3:3 – Apophenia in Blue

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speedboat  Bluets  Game of Boxes

apophenia - the perception of connections, patterns or meaningfulness in unrelated things.

As regular readers of Heartwood know (that’s right, all five of you), I am frequently stunned that whatever I happen to be reading seems to connect in surprising ways with other things I’ve read or recently lived through. I find this one of reading’s greatest pleasures.

A couple of years ago I was reading a book that briefly discussed Renata Adler’s Speedboat in glowing terms, especially appreciative of: its collage structure; its quick changes in subject; the aphorisms and miniature stories; the interweaving of ideas, emotions and experiences; and its thematic recurrences or reiterations. This made me think of another book I’d recently read and loved called Bluets, by Maggie Nelson – though clearly nothing in the above description would make one think that Speedboat would have anything to say about the color blue.

Anyway, when my interlibrary loan request for Speedboat came in (it’s recently been reprinted and is now in the EPL collection), I was pleased to find it did indeed share something of the structure and qualities I’d seen in Nelson’s book. Nevertheless, I was completely unprepared for this passage late in Speedboat, which looks like it could be an emblematic entry from Bluets:

We spoke of the quality of the blue in the stained-glass windows of Chartres, which modern science had not been able to reproduce, as though the medieval craftsman who had produced it were a colleague. He had, we knew, billed his diocese for the purchase of sapphires ground up to create that color. Modern science had, at least, established that sapphires played no part in its composition at all. It was our first, most scholarly appreciation of the padded expense account.

Adler’s Speedboat crosses continents in passages that relate the life and observations of a woman who works as a reporter. Nelson’s Bluets takes an obsessive interest in the color blue, which she pursues through philosophy, art, personal experience, and other channels of research. Nelson breaks up these passages with others in which the narrator grieves a broken relationship and assists a friend who has become quadriplegic. Here’s a sample entry from Bluets that also touches on stained glass:

For Plato, color was as dangerous a narcotic as poetry. He wanted both out of the republic. He called painters “mixers and grinders of multi-colored drugs,” and color itself a form of pharmakon. The religious zealots of the Reformation felt similarly: they smashed the stained-glass windows of churches, thinking them idolatrous, degenerate. For distinct reasons, which had to do with the fight to keep the cheap, slave-labor crop of indigo out of a Western market long dominated by woad, the blue-dye-producing plant native to Europe, indigo blue was called “the devil’s dye.” And before blue became a “holy” color – which had to do with the advent of ultramarine in the twelfth century, and its subsequent use in stained glass and religious paintings – it often symbolized the Antichrist.

OK, now for round three. Last week I was reading Catherine Barnett’s smart and sensual collection of poems, The Game of Boxes, and came upon “Which System Is Most Miraculous?” It opens with the poet discussing the subject of the poem’s title, presumably with her partner who has since left her. Some of the miraculous systems they identify are language, vision, conception, and birth. Among the things she doesn’t name, but suggests, are time, love, and – if I can read into it a bit – the significations we attach to important life events, such as in the giving of wedding gifts. But as our lives progress and/or change direction, these systems can also change, break down, become ambivalent, deteriorate – which leads her to question whether she should outgrow her attachments. When faced with it, however, it’s not so easy. She informs us that “A blue glass broke but I can’t throw it away. / There’s room for it on the shelf. / Or there’s no room.” Even though the glass has been destroyed, she notes the absurdity of feeling unable to part with it.

The poem ends in lines that are as awestruck by this particular blue as Maggie Nelson is by the various blues throughout Bluets. Where the interpersonal bond has proven fragile, and where even the power of language has its limits, the immediacy and intangibility of this blue stays vibrant, persists, almost succeeds in holding together what’s been broken:

Words still fortify me but the blue is better,
brighter, almost as bright as when it was first
removed from its tissue and passed
from hand to hand.

*          *          *

I love that Barnett’s poem and the passage in Adler cited above happen to unite with Nelson’s Bluets in these unique, though somehow stylistically similar and excellent books. Yet, astonished and pleased as I am by this, another of Adler’s observations causes me, at least momentarily, to check my enthusiasm:

when invention failed them, they used the fail-safe method for undergraduate work at any solid institution: take two utterly unrelated things or matters and show that they are, if not in fact identical, actually related in the most profound and subtle sense.

Spot-Lit for April 2013

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General Fiction / Literary Fiction   

click to enlargeThe Flamethrowers  by Rachel Kushner
An aspiring artist with a passion for Italian racing motorcycles heads to 1970s New York. The romance she falls into while there propels her to Rome, where she gets mixed up in Italy’s radical late ’70s politics. Advance reviews have been hugely enthusiastic.

click to enlargeLife After Life  by Kate Atkinson
Ursula Todd lives and dies many times, always reborn back into the same family, where she sometimes corrects her past mistakes, and where she finds herself in a position to truly change the world. From the author of Behind the Scenes at the Museum and Started Early, Took My Dog.

click to enlarge Woke Up Lonely  by Fiona Maazel
Thurlow Dan is separated from his wife and daughter, and he runs Helix, a loneliness-battling cult complete with communes and speed dating. As it’s grown, Helix has attracted the attention of governments from around the world – which leads to botched reconnaissance and hostage-taking, and involves his ex-wife. A crazy quilt, funny look at mass culture and loneliness.

First Novels

SnapperSnapper  by Brian Kimberling
An eccentric cast of characters swirls through this finely written tale about a young, barely-scraping-by bird researcher living in Indiana, his love for a mysterious woman, and the twisty, risky road to full adulthood. Humorous and thoughtful reading.

Movement of StarsThe Movement of Stars  by Amy Brill
Hannah Price lives within the restraining principles of her 1840s Nantucket Quaker community, but her nights are given to rooftop star-gazing in hopes of discovering a comet and attaining scientific recognition. Based by the work of America’s first female astronomer, Maria Mitchell.

Amity and SorrowAmity and Sorrow  by Peggy Riley
A mother flees from the compound of a polygamist cult with her daughters Amity and Sorrow, who have never seen the outside world.

Crime Fiction / Suspense

SubmergenceSubmergence  by J.M. Ledgard
Readers open to non-linear, beautiful, and thought-provoking storytelling should take a look at this novel that explores the tensions between Islamic fundamentalism and Western views, while also exploring marine biology and other subjects. A visceral, rewarding and unusual “spy thriller” set in Somalia and France.

Tuesdays GoneTuesday’s Gone  by Nicci French
A social worker finds her client serving tea to a dead man. Frieda Klein is called in to investigate, but fears whoever killed this man may be targeting her next.

SF / Fantasy / Horror

River of Stars

River of Stars  by Guy Gavriel Kay
Another epic, historical fantasy from the acclaimed Kay (Under Heaven), this one set in China’s Song dynasty.

Spot-Lit for March 2013

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How exciting for short fiction fans to see George Saunders’ story collection, Tenth of December, rise on national best-seller lists and amass 15 holds on our 5 local copies (we spot-lit it in January). Those of you who enjoyed these stories might want to go on to The Fun Parts, Sam Lipsyte’s new story collection due out this month.

Below are ten forthcoming, full-length novels for you to enjoy. Click the titles to read more and place holds. For all new fiction on order, click here.

General Fiction / Literary Fiction   

ozekiA Tale for the Time Being  by Ruth Ozeki
This beguiling story links a suicidal Tokyo teen, a centenarian Buddhist nun and a Vancouver novelist. A poignant, emotional reckoning of meaning, life and time.

HarufBenediction  by Kent Haruf
Strained and estranged family relationships along with end-of-life realities are at the center of this humane novel by the acclaimed author of Eventide and Plainsong.

GassMiddle C  by William Gass
Joseph Skizzen emigrates from Austria during World War II and grows up in Ohio where he ultimately becomes a piano teacher. It’s impossible to summarize this wide-ranging and language-rich story in a sentence or two, but adventurous readers should be pleased.

First Novels

BallantyneThe Guilty One  by Lisa Ballantyne
Defense attorney Daniel Hunter confronts his own troubled childhood and difficult past while representing an 11-year-old boy accused of killing a younger boy. A legal thriller charged with psychological insight.

HigginsWolfhound Century  by Peter Higgins
An alternate history set in Stalinist Russia that stirs together revolutionaries, cabaret girls, terrorism, the secret police and elements of the paranormal.

Masterman

Rage Against the Dying  by Becky Masterman
Brigid Quinn has just retired – or so she thought – from a career as a sex-crimes undercover agent when there’s a new lead in the Route 66 serial killer case – the only one she’d left unsolved.

click to enlargeThe Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat  by Edward Moore
Three women and four decades of their close-knit lives – school, marriages, parenthood, and more – all watched over by Big Earl and served with his copious plates of fried chicken. Fans of The Help and Waiting to Exhale should enjoy.

CargillDreams and Shadows  by C. Robert Cargill
Welcome to the Limestone Kingdom, a land not easily left behind. This dark literary fantasy in the mold of Neil Gaiman and Lev Grossman offers an intricate plot and exceptionally well-developed characters.

Crime Fiction /Suspense

ThomasDeath on a Pale Horse  by Donald Thomas
As regular readers of areadinglife know, many authors have picked up where Arthur Conan Doyle left off. Donald Thomas offers a worthy addition that has Sherlock Holmes and Watson tracking down an international conspiracy of criminals who have designs on bringing down Britain.

GriffithsA Dying Fall  by Elly Griffiths
The recent discovery of King Richard III’s skeleton should give a boost to Griffiths’ fifth forensic mystery, in which King Arthur’s remain have been discovered, a fellow archaeologist is murdered, and a right-wing group is terrorizing a local campus.

Spot-Lit for February 2013

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spot-lit

February brings books by popular authors ranging from Dave Barry to Danielle Steel, and from literary limelighters such as Ismail Kadare and Jamaica Kincaid (her first novel in 10 years). Find these and more in our complete list of items on order here. Below you’ll find a hand-picked mix of books we think you’ll especially want to know about – click on the links to read more about them or place them on hold.

General Fiction / Literary Fiction 

Vampires in the Lemon GroveVampires in the Lemon Grove  by Karen Russell
Following Russell’s popular and acclaimed novel Swamplandia comes this collection of eight stories, described as strange, stunning, luscious, arresting, unique, mind-blowing, and tender.

Here I Go AgainHere I Go Again  by Jen Lancaster
Lissy Ryder no longer rules the halls of her high school – in fact it’s 20 years later, and she’s just lost her job, husband and condo in this whimsical novel of stock-taking and starting over.

Love Song of Jonny ValentineThe Love Song of Jonny Valentine  by Teddy Wayne
Jonny Valentine is a preadolescent pop star in this sharp, witty and humane satire that looks at our obsession with celebrity worship, fame and star-making’s devastating effects on childhood innocence.

RevengeRevenge: Eleven Dark Tales  by Yoko Ogawa
Previous Shirley Jackson Award-winner Ogawa is in fine form in these eleven interconnected stories. As the publisher puts it, “Revenge is a master class in the macabre that will haunt you to the last page.”

TirzaTirza  by Arnon Grunberg
An inept, middle-aged man has already lost his wife, his job, a fortune (to a hedge fund that tanked in the wake of 9/11), and spurred his eldest daughter to flee. Now his youngest daughter, Tirza, wants to travel in Africa with her boyfriend – who looks just like Mohammed Atta. The publisher calls this “a heartrending and masterful story of a man seeking redemption.”

First Fiction

GhostmanGhostman  by Roger Hobbs
When a big-time casino robbery goes awry, the perps call in a mysterious fixer known only as Jack to help salvage the situation – while staying one step ahead of the FBI. This white-knuckle thriller introduces a strong new talent.

Three Graves FullThree Graves Full  by Jamie Mason
Under trying circumstances, everyman Jason Getty commits a murder and buries the body in his backyard – but his life gets complicated when a landscaper discovers two more bodies buried on his property. An assured and entertaining debut.

Middle Men

Middle Men  by Jim Gavin
One sad sack after another realizes he won’t reach his ideals in this searing, hilarious, and poignant collection of stories set in our current era of diminished expectations.

Bear Is BrokenBear Is Broken  by Lachlan Smith
Leo Maxwell is in for some shocking surprises about his family when he tries to figure out who killed his criminal defense attorney brother – a man as reviled by street thugs as by those working in the police department.

Crime Fiction /Suspense

Burning AirThe Burning Air  by Erin Kelly
The MacBrides live a life of upper-class privilege, but upon the death of Lydia, the family matriarch, they discover they have an unknown enemy who claims Lydia was a murderer, and he is intent on taking the family down.

Bad BloodBad Blood  by Dana Stabenow
Stabenow’s mysteries featuring Alaskan sleuth Kate Shugak are popular here in Everett, and her new one about two clans of rival Native Alaskans finds her risking more than ever.

Horror

Last DaysLast Days  by Adam Nevill
A pair of documentary filmmakers find more than they were looking for as they re-examine the 1970s mass suicide by members of the Temple of the Last Days cult. This paranormal thriller may well keep you awake at night.

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

Falling Apart & Running Away: A Look at Three New Novels

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These three novels sparkle with the energy of their characters’ struggles, and stand out as some of the best psychological fiction of 2012. They deal with the themes of running away and falling apart, as the characters dare to explore and experience their own frailties, faults and fears. They are also great stories for readers to escape into. As I read them, I was totally captivated by their exotic locations and emotional intensity.

Flight BehaviorFlight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver begins with a young rural woman’s frustration as she struggles to accept the dull confines of her marriage. Dellarobia’s emotions sing out to us with the rich music of her Appalachian dialect. She is like an exotic bird caged by the limits of her traditional Tennessee town. Emotionally starved, she considers an affair, and she suffers from impulses to run away from her family. Alone on a mountainside, she looks down and sees a “valley of fire,”  an event that seems biblical but is actually a frightening sign of nature’s own upheaval caused by climate change: a mass of millions of monarch butterflies, covering the forest in fiery orange as they seek refuge from the weather.

As the town is torn apart by people’s responses to this “miracle,” Dellarobia’s own life rips open as she savors new ideas and experiences. Biologists, journalists, tour guides, and church groups descend on the family’s farmland, and in the midst of this chaos she discovers a way to put back the pieces of her own life and to move forward with strength.

Forgiven

The Forgiven by Lawrence Osborne transports us to an exotic setting in the desert mountains of Morocco which the author Lawrence Osborne knows well, being a nomadic journalist and world traveler. A middle-aged British couple, stagnating in their marriage and careers, are driving a rental car through rural Morocco with little idea of the culture and the desolation that they are passing through. After sniping at each other in a cafe, the husband David orders a bottle of wine and finishes it, and his wife Jo wearily resigns herself to his alcoholic indiscretions.

Back in the car, they head for a hedonistic party given by Richard and Dally, a gay celebrity couple. On the rural road in the gathering darkness, two young men spring out, holding out fossils to sell to the passing tourists…and David’s careless swerve leaves one man dead. The couple arrives with the young man’s body in the back of the car, and find themselves in the midst of an international crowd of revelers. They are invited to enjoy the decadent food, plentiful drugs, and an orgy that horrifies the Moroccan Muslim servants. Soon David and Jo are caught up in a web of judgment and anger, as they must deal with their responsibility under Islamic law and tradition for the consequences of their own behavior. The dead man’s family journey there from their remote village, demanding retribution. As these two vastly different cultures struggle to comprehend each other, people seem to forget their basic humanity.

Too bright to hearIn Too Bright To Hear Too Loud To See by Juliann Garey, we are invited into the mind-storm of Greyson, a Hollywood studio executive who is barely keeping himself together under the pressure of his job. He is no longer thrilled by celebrity angst and by sharing lines of cocaine at Beverly Hills parties. And it’s becoming harder and harder to hide the storms of his manic depression from his co-workers, his worried wife, and their little daughter. This is a compassionate and vivid portrayal of mental illness, and the author is skilled at portraying Grey’s gradual mental disintegration.

Grey is furious with himself for failing his wife and daughter, and he arranges for them to be financially secure before he decides to flee. The novel follows ten years in Grey’s life as he travels the world and let’s himself “fall apart.” With blinding light and terrifying darkness, his travels lead him through Italy, Israel, Chile, Thailand and Uganda. He tries to find relief by taking risks, and he seeks out danger, edgy sex, and exotic destinations. But even his money cannot protect him from feeling vulnerable and being victimized. The storyline jumps between Grey’s travels and his experiences years later in a psychiatric hospital. He is truly a man who excels at running away, a man who can easily be swept away by the hurricane of his chaotic mind. But when his daughter seeks him out on a journey of her own, Grey begins to take small steps into the unfamiliar realm of the heart.

Esta

Winter of Our Discontent

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With the holidays behind us we now face, let’s be honest, a month or two that can sometimes seem a little bleak. Sure you might get a glimpse of the sun now and again but the cold temperatures will remind you that spring is a ways off. When it comes to selecting what to read this time of year the healthy thing to do, most would say, is to distract yourself with light, humorous or optimistic fiction and be sure in the knowledge that the season will change.

Sadly, I just can’t take that advice. Perhaps it is a case of misery loving company but I always end up selecting titles that are more reflective of the short days and cold nights. If you are of my disposition, or just feel the tug of something dark at your sleeve now and again, you may want to sample a few of these titles. They are a bit strange, disturbing and at times a tad depressing but for your convenience I will list them from least to most despair inducing. If you have to bail early I totally understand.

downtherabbitholeTochtli, the young boy at the center of Down the Rabbit Hole by Juan Pablo Villalobos, has his heart set on one thing: A Liberian pygmy hippopotamus. It might seem an impossible choice but Tochtil’s father is a powerful, and paranoid, drug kingpin who denies his son nothing while keeping him, and a few retainers, isolated in a mansion in the desert. More absurdities abound (including a hat collection, samurais and a fascination with the French Revolution) but what humor there is, is definitely dark. This slim novel is told entirely from the boy’s unique perspective and skillfully reflects the isolated nature of his existence while blending the real with the seemingly fantastic.

The characters in the short story collection Stay Awake by Dan Chaon also inhabit a space somewhere between the real and, for lack of a better word, something else.stayawake What that “something else” actually is, is left tantalizingly unclear. But you definitely get the feeling it isn’t good. ‘The Bees’ tells the story of a boy’s inexplicable nightmares that trigger his father’s sense of guilt about the family he abandoned. ‘Patrick Lane, Flabbergasted’ is the tale of a directionless 20 something who is living in his dead parents’ house with a growing sense of dread. ‘I Wake Up’ follows a foster child who suddenly starts getting calls in the middle of the night from his long lost sister who wants to talk about a past he can’t remember. Chaon’s characters are sympathetically drawn and artfully reflect the confusion and pain of a personal loss that can lead toward an altered view of reality.

yourhouseisonfireThis last book is not for the faint of heart. But with the title of Your House is on Fire, Your Children All Gone that isn’t too surprising. The author, Stefan Kiesbye, has created a seemingly innocuous rural town in Germany, Hemmersmoor , that outsiders see as a bit backward but typical of its type. As the novel opens, several of the children who grew up there have come back later in life for a funeral. Their recollections, some repressed others freely remembered, of what occurred in their childhood are then shown in a series of interconnected stories. The town their tales reveal is a darkly fantastical place full of cruelty, vice, vindictiveness and horror. The best way to think of this chilling book is as a cross between Shirley Jackson and the Brothers Grimm.

You made it. Well done. Apologies if I bummed you out, but hey, it is January after all.

Richard