Westport Public Library BOOK blog

Local mystery writer Jessica Speart will be teaching a six session mystery writing course through Westport Continuing Education on Tuesday evenings beginning February 27.

The course description promises help with character development, building a sense of place, and bringing action scenes to life, as well as ideas on how to sell your manuscript.

Your book could be in excellent company on the Library's mystery shelves with a "Local Author" sticker proudly displayed on its spine!

Speart has given us ten terrific mysteries featuring Rachel Porter, a U.S. Fish & Wildlife agent whose work takes her to some remote (and dangerous) places. Perfect reading for the armchair traveler.

For more information or to register for the course, call (203) 341-1209 or go to the continuing education website.

I was impressed by the comment on 60 Minutes Sunday; "The geeks are ruling the universe," Kroft remarks. "Yes," Robert Stephens agrees. "But it's like the Greeks used to talk about the philosopher kings. Geeks have no interest in power. The only power we're interested in is low power consumption and longer battery life and low prices so we can stay up later at night. Geeks have no desire – geeks may inherit the earth, but they have no desire to rule it."
Stephens is the founder and chief inspector of "Geek Squad" founded 12 years ago.For more of "Get Me the Geeks."

A recent addition to the Library collection is Geek's Guide to Job Hunting: Don't Be a Dummy. Get Smart Fast by Linda J. Beam. Judging by the popularity of the techies I know, employment guidance may be superfluous. In She's Such a Geek!: Women Write about Science, Technology & Other Nerdy Stuff edited by Annalee Newitz & Charlie Anders, many stories of the joys and triumphs of geeky females affirm the changing attitudes of our culture.

Fiction writers have focused on computer enthusiasts and computer games in Talking to Addison by Jenny Colgan and the Teen novels, The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy & Goth Girl by Barry Lyga and Ultimate Game by Christian Lehmann.

For a less positive outlook on geeks and high technology, there is Cyberselfish: a Critical Romp Through the Terribly Libertarian Culture of High Tech by Paulina Borsook.

Want to learn more about geeks and the latest technology? Come to the Library Technology Talk on Monday February 5 at 7:30 pm.

The Academy Award nominees may make the headlines but what mystery readers really care about are mystery award nominees!

On January 19th, the Mystery Writers of America announced the contenders for this year’s Edgar awards.

The nominees in the Best Novel category are:
The Pale Blue Eye by Louis Bayard
The Janissary Tree by Jason Goodwin
Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris
The Dead Hour by Denise Mina
The Virgin of Small Plains by Nancy Pickard
The Liberation Movements by Olen Steinhauer

I am rooting for The Pale Blue Eye, which features Edgar Allan Poe in his West Point cadet days. Which is your favorite?

I am also rooting for The Beautiful Cigar Girl: Mary Rogers, Edgar Allan Poe and the Invention of Murder by Daniel Stashower in the Best Fact Crime category.

Wouldn’t it be amazing if the award named in his honor was bestowed upon two books in which he is featured?

If you are a fellow fan of Poe, I would also suggest The Poe Shadow by Matthew Pearl and The Tell-Tale Corpse by Harold Schechter, both of which were also published in 2006. The enigmatic Poe has been the subject of many titles of crime fiction over the years each of which brings yet another interpretation of his life and accomplishments.

Here's a sampling of new titles added to the Library collection this month:
On Meditation & Creativity: Catching the Big Fish by David Lynch. The film director and artist tells how Transcendental Meditation changed his life.
On Parenting: The Power of Play : How Spontaneous, Imaginative Activities Lead to Healthier Children by David Elkind.
On Arts Criticism: Twenty-eight Artists and Two Saints: Essays by Joan Acocella. You may have read some of them in The New Yorker or The New York Review of Books.
On Politics:What a Party: My Life Among Democrats, Presidents, Candidates, Donors, Activists and Other Wild Animals by Terry McAuliffe.
On History:The Lost World of John Smithson: Science, Revolution and the Birth of the Smithsonian by Heather Ewing.
On Movie Music: Hitchcock's Music by Jack Sullivan.Have you ever considered how music in the movies enhances the story?
On Economics:Capitalism 3.0: a Guide To Reclaiming the Commons by Peter Barnes.
Biography:Go Long!: My Journey Beyond the Fame and the Game by Jerry Rice. Did you see him on Dancing With the Stars?

Prefer Fiction? Alexander McCall Smith continues the Ladies #1 Detective Agency series with The Good Husband of Zebra Drive. Jodi Picoult wrote her latest, Nineteen Minutes about a high school shooting. In The Testament of Gideon Mack, James Robertson has his atheistic, Scottish minister meet up with the devil. And, did you read John Updike's New Yorker review of Jane Smiley's latest? Ten Days in the Hills about ten people for ten days is modeled on the Decameron and is "roughly half talk and half sex" according to Updike.

If you look in the Library catalog and do not find what you want, please let me know. We will try to get it for you. As soon as a title is on order, you may place a reserve.

Dead of winter, 1804. Konigsberg, East Prussia, already on edge awaiting invasion by Napoleon Bonaparte.

An aged, eccentric Immanuel Kant enlists the aid of a young rural magistrate to unmask a serial killer terrorizing the city.

Elements of the mystic and demonic combine in Michael Gregorio’s Critique of Criminal Reason as bodies continue to turn up, with no visible wounds. Is it the devil’s handiwork?

Kant has now joined the ranks of many other celebrity detectives. He finds himself in excellent and diverse company along with Jane Austen, Benjamin Franklin, King Edward VII and Groucho Marx!

That's what the literary magazine The Paris Review calls the collection of interviews with writers such as Truman Capote, Saul Bellow, Robert Stone & Elizabeth Bishop. If you savor essays and have a keen interest in authors and their writing, you will love The Paris Review: Interviews. If you prefer the computer to the book, the interviews are available online. Giving access to the "DNA" of literature was the dream of George Plimpton when he was the Paris Review editor; now anyone can download the secrets, stories, complaints and work habits of these writers from Dorothy Parker in 1956 to Joan Didion in 2006. Other compilations from The Paris Review are The Paris Review Book for Planes, Trains, Elevators and Waiting Rooms, The Paris Review Anthology, Playwrights at Work: Paris Review and The Paris Review Book of Heartbreak, Madness, Sex, Love, Betrayal, Outsiders, Intoxication, War, Whimsy, Horrors, God, Death, Dinner, Baseball, Travels, the Art of Writing, and Everything Else in the World since 1953. (Whew! Just a few search terms in that title!)

The Paris Review magazine is published quarterly; the nearest place to see a copy is the Fairfield University Library or Barnes & Noble.

The Paris Review anthologies and other Literature books - with Dewey 800 numbers- rest in the "upper stacks" here at the Library. That's on the third floor at the opposite end of the building from the Children's area. Besides Literature- including poetry, plays and criticism, there is a wonderful collection of Fine Arts books-with Dewey 700 numbers-including photography & handcrafts. Performing Arts & Sports books are there also. Take some time on your next Library visit to browse the Art & Literature books on the "upper level."

Can you guess which books were the longest running on the Publishers Weekly Bestsellers list for 2006?
The surprise breakout was John Grogan's Marley & Me with 50 weeks on the list! The subtitle tells it all: Life and love with the world's worst dog. It's a valentine to the spirited puppy who joined a newly-married young couple and inspired a very popular book.
Not so surprising are The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman with 42 weeks on the list and Freakonomics by Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner (41 weeks.) Levitt & Dubner continue to present economics-with-a-new-approach in magazine articles and on television. Dog fanciers had another book buying spree with Cesar's Way by Cesar Millan which stayed on the list for 25 weeks amid controversies over the author's dog training methods. Well-written popular history propelled Mayflower: a story of courage, community and war by Nathaniel Philbrick to 18 weeks of bestseller fame. I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron, with its look at women aging with grace and humor, was published in August and spent the rest of 2006 on the list. What's a bestseller list without a book on health? In 2006, it was YOU: the owner's manual by Michael Roizen & Mahmet Oz (16 weeks.)

Did I forget to mention The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown? Only 21 weeks in 2006, but 141 weeks before 2006! Quite a run.

Karen E. Olson, travel editor for the New Haven Register, has penned two mysteries featuring Annie Seymour, crime reporter for the fictional New Haven Herald.

In Sacred Cows, Annie investigates when a Yale co-ed is found murdered.

In Secondhand Smoke, her recently published second outing, when a restaurant in her Wooster Square neighborhood burns down -- Annie lives “just around the corner from the great white clam pizza” -- the remains of an unidentified woman are found in the rubble.

There are many mysteries set in the Nutmeg State. Take a look at our Mysterious Connecticut listing and you are sure to find one that will interest you.

If you can think of any I may have missed please let me know. I will treat you to a cup of coffee at the Library café!

What is it with horror stories? I have never had any interest in them, with one exception. (Read on.) But authors of these scary tales have an ever-ready fan base it seems. Right now on the New york Times Bestseller list is Brother Odd, the latest in Dean Koontz' Odd Thomas series, Thomas Harris' Hannibal Rising, a prequel to the adult Hannibal's terroizing reign and Stephen King's Lisey's Story, in which the widow of a famous writer is "engulfed in shades of hell."

This week we ordered Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill. In this one, an evil and vindictive ghost uses bad magic to try to cause a suicide and to assault a rock star whose protectors are German Shepherd dogs. The review calls this "hair-raising fun." The author happens to be Stephen King's son.

About that exception: it's Floating Dragon by Peter Straub. When it was written, Straub lived on Beachside Avenue near Burying Hill Beach. Much of the action takes place in that area with some scenes in Mario's and some in the old Library (where Starbucks is.) There is Westport history mixed in and although I barely remember the storyline ( a cloud of evil floats over Westport- called Hampton, in the book), I still think of the haunting setting whenever I pass through certain areas of Greens Farms.

Some authors make it easy for their fans to read their series in order. Sue Grafton gives us her books in alphabetical order and Janet Evanovich gives us numerical order.

How do you find out about other series, though? It is always good to start with the first book in the series to avoid "spoilers" in subsequent titles. In the Brother Cadfael series, for instance, someone who is the Benedictine's best friend in later books is a major suspect in book one. That kind of ruined the first book for me when I finally got my hands on a copy after having already read book seven.

You can't always go by the publication dates in the Library catalog. If you did a "sort by year" on Martha Grimes, the oldest title listed would be The Old Fox Deceiv'd. The first book in the Richard Jury series is actually The Man with a Load of Mischief, but this has a later publication date than many of the other titles because we had to get a paperback replacement for the original.

What to do? I suggest you bookmark the fantastic fiction website.

Try finding Robert B. Parker by clicking on "P" in the "browse authors" box in the upper left hand corner and then select "Paul Park-Allison Pearson" from the "jump to" list. Find Parker's name and click. A list of his books will come up for you, all neatly broken out by his detectives Spenser, Stone and Randall in the order in which they were published.

Have fun!

If you know of any other good sites, please share them with us.

If your book club is still trying to decide what to read next, consider the Westport READS selection for 2007, The Soloist by Mark Salzman. This story about a former child prodigy combines classical music, a jury trial and Zen Buddhism into a moving and thought provoking novel. Cellist Renne Sundheimer’s life changes when he becomes a jurist on a murder trial at the same time he takes on a new pupil, a young boy whose talent reminds him of his own. After your group has discussed the book why not join us at the library for one of the many events planned? Explore Buddhism, get some insight on the jury system or just enjoy a classical cello concert with your club. If your group needs a discussion guide or multiple copies of The Soloist, let me know. Contact me for more information.

It should come as no surprise that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of legendary sleuth Sherlock Holmes, was something of an amateur detective himself.

The book Conan Doyle, Detective by Peter Costello explores the many actual investigations he involved himself with including Jack the Ripper, Dr. Crippen and, interestingly enough, the brief disappearance of Agatha Christie in 1916.

Doyle, an ardent spiritualist, employed a medium in his Christie investigation.

His own involvement in the supernatural stands in stark contrast to the harsh rational and scientific methods employed by his fictional detective.

There are a number of novels that feature Doyle as a character, the most recent of which is David Pirie’s The Dark Water, an eerie mystery set in a small seaside town rumored to be haunted by a legendary witch.

About 25 years ago, I was enthralled by the graceful writing and fascinating facts of Blue Highways: a journey into America by William Least Heat Moon. I still think of his description of the fishing expedition which caught the fish that ended up in fast food fish sandwiches. I haven't eaten one of those sandwiches since! The native American author, an English professor, traveled around America on the "blue highways" or the secondary roads on the maps he used. In each cranny of America, he introduced the reader to another way of American life. Another book published at the same time was Jupiter's Travels by Ted Simon. With a less leisurely tone, Simon told of his circumnavigation of the world by motorcycle! The trip took him four years to complete. Now, Edward Bishop has written Riding with Rilke: reflections on motorcycles and books. A Canadian English professor, Bishop rode his motorcycle from Alberta to Austin, Texas while on sabbatical. In this account, his love of archival research is equal only to his love of biking. Our Library cataloger told me that if she were still teaching cataloging, this book would be the final exam. (We decided to put it with the travel books.) On the distaff side, there is Lois on the Loose: One Woman, One Motorcycle, 20,000 Miles Across the Americas, an adventure in which Lois Pryce reports on her version of Jupiter's Travels. Beginning and ending with her desk job at BBC, the trip is a "biker sitcom" of nine months of "big bugs, bad food and lots of dirt." For an exquisite trip into the diaries of five centuries of travelers, enjoy Journeys and Journals: five centuries of Travel Writing with text by Farid Abdelouahab. From the conquest of North Carolina to modern Women of Southern India, journal drawings and some photos will enhance your armchair traveling.

Here 's a look back at the books & the times.

1976: The United States Bicentennial Year.
Remember all the Westport fire hydrants painted up in colonial costume??
Saul Bellow won both the Nobel prize for Literature & the Pulitzer for Humboldt's Gift.The year started with Agatha Christie at #1 on the New York Times Bestseller list for Curtain.

1977: President Jimmy Carter was sworn in.
Oliver's Story by Erich Segal & Your Erroneous Zones by Wayne Dyer topped the bestseller lists. Wallace Stegner's Spectator Bird was the National Book Award winner.

1981: Sandra Day O'Connor became the first female Supreme Court judge.
The Man Booker Prize went to Salmon Rushdie for Midnight's Children. James Michener captured the #1 NYT slot with Covenant.

1991: The Gulf War, Rodney King, first World Wide Web online, "grunge" music.
The Pulitzer was awarded to John Updike who wrote about Rabbit At Rest. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis caused controversy.

1996: Dolly the cloned sheep entered the world. Unabomber Kaczynski was arrested.The Daily Show premiered. Term two for President Bill Clinton.
Richard Ford captured the Pulitzer with Independence Day. The poetry of Wislawa Szymborska was praised by the Nobel committee for "skepticism about the future of humanity and the joy of creativity."

2000: No survival kits were employed in the arrival of the millenium!
Putin became President of Russia; George W Bush finally became President of the US.
In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick won the Pulitzer. Young and older enjoyed The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling.

Share your book aisle memories.

Michael Dibdin's Aurelio Zen has returned in Back to Bologna, his 10th mystery.

The ever-cynical, brooding detective investigates the murder of a millionaire entrepreneur who is found in his car impaled on a parmesan cheese knife.

Dibdin's talent for black comedy manifests itself once again in his choice of secondary characters, including wild soccer fans, the star (“Lo Chef”) of a TV food show, and an egomaniacal semiotics professor.

In a recent interview Dibdin informs us that his next Zen mystery will be set in Iceland although that is, perhaps, just some more of his offbeat humor! Or will we maybe get to see Aurelio Zen join forces with Erlandur Sveinsson in a snowy setting?

Many have compared Donna Leon’s character Guido Brunetti to Aurelio Zen. There are many Italian detectives, in both historical and contemporary settings, to be found on our continually growing Mysteries around the World list.