Westport Public Library BOOK blog

1-If you see or hear about a new book and the Library does not have it, call (291 4840) or email and we will buy it and reserve it for you.
2-If you cannot find a book on the Library shelves, ask anyone at a service desk to help you find it.
3-If your book club needs multiple copies of a book, call (291 4821) or email and we will request copies for you.
4-If you are leading your book group discussion, call (291 4842) or email to request a discussion guide from the Library.
5-If you find a book that needs a new cover or replacement copy, take it to a service desk and we will fix it.
6-If you want to read about new books (and audio books, DVDs & music CDs) at the Library, go to "New Arrivals" on the Library website.
7-If you want email reminders when authors are speaking at the Library, fill out a postcard at one of the service desks.
8-If you are a Mystery Maven, get the latest info on everything mysterious on the Library website Mystery Pages.
9-If you can't wait to read the latest bestseller, browse the Express shelves at the Library. (No reserves, but you will find copies of popular titles; first come, first served.)
10- If you are trying to find the perfect book for someone on your holiday gift list,
take a look at these suggestions.

In Simon Beckett’s new suspense novel Written in Bone, forensic expert David Hunter travels to a remote Scottish island to investigate the death of a young woman by what appears to be spontaneous combustion.

Within days, two more people are dead by fire. Hunter’s job is to coax the dead into telling their stories. At first, terrorist activity is suggested, but the answer turns out to be much closer to home.

Publishers Weekly gave this book, the second Hunter outing after The Chemistry of Death (2006), a starred review, calling it an “exceptional” thriller.

Take a sneak preview and see what you think.

The “death by spontaneous combustion” thing rang a bell with me and then I remembered why. Ken Hodgson’s offbeat Season of the Burning Souls (2006) has a corpse in a small New Mexico town suspected to have been charred in the same manner. The unfortunate proximity of the small New Mexico town (in the 1940s) to Roswell and Los Alamos would obviously tend to lend support to even the most bizarre theories.

Hodgson’s forthcoming book The Man Who Killed Shakespeare – which had a starred review in Booklist – is set even further back in time in the 1930s in another small town, Shakespeare, New Mexico, where the Last Chance Mine has long stood abandoned. A con man comes to town who promises everyone that prosperity is just around the corner for Shakespeare, and shows them expertly faked geological reports to prove it. Not likely to end well for the desperately poor, Depression weary townsfolk, I imagine.

This week, I am quoting the critics; maybe, these short comments will spark your interest in the top ten you have not yet read. But first, mark your calendar for Thursday November 29th at noon. That's when Stewart O'Nan will be here at the Library to talk about his latest novel Last Night at the Lobster. At the center of the story is a restaurant manager facing his restaurant's closing and his messy love life. Connecticut author O'Nan has been called "the bard of the working class."

Here is this week's list:

1-Written by "the master of blue-collar life" Richard Russo, it's Bridge of Sighs.
2-Charcterized by "grisly crime scenes, it's Book of the Dead by Patricia Cornwell.
3-"What truly defines family and the lengths we will go to protect our children" is the underlying theme in Run by Ann Patchett.
4- Another "heart-tugging novel" The Choice is by Nicholas Sparks.
5-David Baldacci "reveals the anarchy that lurks under the slick facade of corrupted government" in Stone Cold.
6- "Football in Italy? Who knew?" John Grisham in Playing for Pizza.
7-Tom Perrotta casts a sharp eye on "the frustrations and perils of life in suburbia" in The Abstinence Teacher.
8-"Engaging, erudite, candid and accessible, often hard to put down" - that's Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin.
9-Oprah's latest pick is Pillars of the Earth, an "epic story of the building of a cathedral in 12th century England" by Ken Follett.
10-"When all is said and done, killing my mother came easily." So begins, The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold.

Barnes & Noble has added video interviews with some authors.
I have linked them, so you may see and hear their comments.

Crime Bake, held annually, is one of the smaller mystery conferences. Its programs are geared more towards writers than fans, but that didn’t stop this fan from having a good time.

Katzenbach shared a Constructing Character panel with Sarah Graves, author of the popular Home Repair is Homicide series, and award winner Julia Spencer-Fleming.

Guest of honor Lee Child was on an Action & Suspense panel and he explained that writing good suspense fiction is as simple as asking a question and then delaying the answer, much like in television drama, where the “question” is asked and then there is a commercial break and you have to stay tuned in to find out what the answer is.

Of course, in a book you have to sustain the suspense for several hundred pages …

Good news for Mr. Child’s fans. Jack Reacher returns in June, 2008 in his twelfth book, Nothing to Lose.

I enjoyed hearing Connecticut author Justin Scott talk about how he came up with the idea for his next Ben Abbott mystery, Mausoleum. He happened across a website selling mausoleums for half a million dollars and was wickedly delighted to realize that people can take the same crassness they have in life (as evidenced in his last book McMansion) right along with them into the afterlife.

I also sat in on a talk on blogging – always eager for a chance to show mine off – which was given by Sarah Weinmann, who pioneered the form with her mystery blog, Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind.

Confessions has all of the latest news (she posts nearly every day) about authors, the publishing world, and all manner of things of interest to the mystery reading and writing community.

The next conference coming up is Malice Domestic – one of the larger ones – which will be held April 25-27 in Arlington, Virginia.

Peter Lovesey, one of my all-time favorites, will be a guest of honor along with Lindsey Davis and Charlaine Harris. It should be fan-tastic!

Okay, rock fans, here’s a travel guide and trivia book just for you – unless you already know how Elvis got his first guitar and where Keith Richards threw a television set out of a hotel window. How about the secret rehearsal location for David Bowie ’s Diamond Dogs tour?

Chris Epting’s Led Zeppelin Crashed Here is a fun journey through America’s rich rock 'n' roll culture. It includes nearly 600 locations, including birthplaces, burial places, concert locales and trashed hotel rooms, neatly compiled and paired with historical tidbits, photographs, and backstage lore.

Connecticut has a scant three mentions: as the state where Jim Morrison got maced by a police officer (in a New Haven Arena shower stall), as the burial place of Gene Pitney (no mention of the fact that he was born here, too) and as the home of The Mystic Disc, which made the list of the 30 greatest North American music stores.

However, if you are going to California (with an aching in your heart) there are pages and pages of possible pilgrimages. There really is a MacArthur Park (on Wilshire Boulevard near Alvarado) and you can check out any time you like – but you can never leave – the Beverly Hills Hotel, which provided the cover art for The Eagles Hotel California album.

Answers: Gladys bought it for Elvis for his 11th birthday from the Tupelo Hardware Store; Hyatt West Hollywood; Capitol Theatre in Port Chester.

Certain authors inevitably make an appearance on the Library Top Ten list. Patricia Cornwell, David Baldacci & John Grisham are examples from this week’s list of titles with the most reserves.

1-Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo
2-Run by Ann Patchett
3- Book of the Dead by Patricia Cornwell
4-Away: a novel by Amy Bloom tied with
The Choice by Nicholas Sparks
5-Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin tied with
Stone Cold by David Baldacci
6- Playing for Pizza by John Grisham tied with
Almost Moon by Alice Sebold
7-Loving Frank by Nancy Horan tied with
One Drop: My Father’s Hidden Life by Bliss Broyard
8-Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta
9- Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
10- World Without End by Ken Follett

New to the list this week is Abstinence Teacher, a candid look at culture wars in the suburbs by Tom Perrotta the author of Little Children. Also new is World Without End, the Middle Ages melodrama which is Ken Follett’s massive follow-up to Pillars of the Earth (the latest Oprah pick.)

Save the date: Monday November 19th at 7:30 pm
Bliss Broyard will speak at the Library on One Drop: My Father's Hidden Life- A Story of Race and Family Secrets. (#7 on the top ten list)

Is your book club in a reading rut? I often get asked for reading suggestions and recently several book clubs asked me for some help. Although there are lots of great books out there to choose from, both these groups were tired of reading what they called intense, depressing stories. While often these serious literary fiction books can be very rewarding to read, after reading a few of these in a row these clubs were looking for something a little more positive, a little more up-lifting. They still want to read serious literature, just something more affirmative. So here are a few suggestions to think about.

Wallace Stegner is one of the great American writers of the 20th century. His Pulitzer Prize winning epic novel, Angle of Repose, covers the story of four generations of an American family. This is a classic story about love, memory, history and the parallels between the past and the present. Another suggestion is his Crossing to Safety, the story of a lifelong friendship between two couples.

Back When We Were Grownups by Anne Tyler is the story of Rebecca Davitch, a party giver with a large, quirky extended family who goes through a midlife awakening, rather than a crisis. This is a book filled with humor and optimism, about Rebecca’s finding her true self.

Although it has an unusual title, The Master Butcher’s Singing Club has been a favorite of book clubs since it was published in 2003. Louise Erdrich has written a story of a World War I veteran who sets off for America where he builds a business, a home for his family and starts a singing club in his new community. A family chronicle filled with great characters, this is a story of the American dream and the problems and disappointments that can sometimes get in its way.

The WestportReads selection for March 2008 is The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. What could be more positive and up-lifting than this classic tale about the power of friendship and self-reliance? Make sure your book club reserves copies now. Look for more information soon on all the exciting programs we have planned for this event.

All of these books are part of our Speaking of Books collection, so if your group is interested in reserving multiple copies, please let me know and I’ll set them aside for you.
And of course, don’t forget the discussion guide.

I found James Crumley that way. Someone told me that reading his books was like reading Steinbeck. I tried them and I was smitten.

So, the best possible recommendation you can make for books that tend to be a bit on the dark side is to promise me that it will read like Crumley.

A recent review for Craig Macdonald’s Head Games did just that.

Here’s the backstory:

In 1916 Woodrow Wilson dispatched Black Jack Pershing and an army of 10,000 into Mexico to find and bring back Pancho Villa — dead or alive.

Villa evaded capture, living in comfort and peace until his assassination in 1923. A short time later, someone dug up his body and stole his head.

Although an American soldier-of-fortune was arrested for the crime, it was commonly held that he was put up to it by Prescott Bush, grandfather of President George W. Bush. The skull was purportedly placed in the Skull and Bones Society’s infamous trophy cabinet at Yale.

According to the publisher’s website: “The legends linking the missing heads of Geronimo and Pancho Villa became a touchy issue during George H.W. Bush’s presidential race against Michael Dukakis. Currently, there is a growing movement in Mexico to push for George W. Bush to press Yale and his old fraternity to return Pancho Villa’s skull to the Mexican government.”

Truth is definitely at least as strange as fiction, if not stranger.

The book, which opens in 1957, is narrated by one Hector Lassiter, a larger-than-life crime writer who knew Hammett and Chandler, and the cast of characters includes Orson Welles, Marlene Dietrich, Jack Webb and a young Yale frat boy and gone-missing Texas National Guardsman named “George W.”

BookPage says that this book has it all: “humor, a delightfully dark tone, a world-weary and larger-than-life protagonist and a wildly inventive storyline.”

You be the decider.

CSI: The Experience -- based on the hit CBS television franchise CSI -- the newest exhibit at Boston's Museum of Science, puts you in charge of solving the crime. With clipboard in hand, you scrutinize the crime scene, taking note of evidence including placement of objects, possible DNA sources, and even blood-spatter patterns.

You participate in hands-on laboratory activities using actual forensic techniques: DNA processing, projectile analysis, fingerprinting, entomology, and even the dissection of the contents of a victim's stomach.

The pièce de résistance is your visit to Grissom's office -- the workspace of CSI's quirky hero -- to review your case and form a hypothesis on what really happened back at the scene of the crime.

CSI: The Experience will be in Boston until January 1. Check the Museum's website for times and ticket availability.

In addition, the Museum is offering free crime prevention presentations on November 19 and January 7.

The security staff from the museum will work with certified R.A.D. Self Defense Instructors to offer tips to attendees on how to prevent crime based on risk awareness, risk reduction, risk recognition, and risk avoidance.

A chance to be elbow to elbow with the professionals!

Have a good time.

The Library has a selection of CSI-related books, novelizations, and DVD sets from its many television seasons, as well as items related to two other TV mystery favorites: Monk and Murder She Wrote.

Do you ever wonder what your reading "to-do" list would be, if you were surrounded by books everyday? Like a kid hoarding treats in a candy store, I cannot stop adding to my piles of books waiting to be read. At our staff meetings each month, we share our opinions about our reading joys and disappointments.
Here are some from the October meeting:
THUMBS UP
Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson- fascinating- and a refresher course in physics
Defying Dementia: Understanding and Preventing Alzheimer's and Related Disorders by Robert Levine -good advice; do you exercise enough??
Leave the Building Quickly:True Stories by Cynthia Kaplan- clever humorous essays on contemporary life
Service Included: Four Star Secrets of an Eavesdropping Waiter by Phoebe Damrosch- an eye opener for restaurant goers
Tin Roof Blowdown by James Lee Burke - Dave Robicheaux crime thriller with Katrina as backdrop
Unhooked: how young women pursue sex, delay love and lose at both by Laura Sessions Stepp-the hard lessons of high school & college age dating
Category 7 by Bill Evans- rogue weather science creates the strongest storm in history
Island of the Lost: Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World by Joan Druett- 1864 Aukland Island saga of two shipwrecks & their survivors

MIXED REVIEWS
Snow by Orhan Pamuk - multi-layered tale of yearning of body and soul set in a remote Turkish town
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini -love & friendship in hard times
Away: a novel by Amy Bloom- love and desire propel a journey of discovery
Virgin of Small Plains by Nancy Pickard- a legend, mystery& guilt with dark secrets slowly revealed.