Leap Year and Bachelors

2012-02-27T12:08:00.000-05:00

Men beware! February 29th, according to folk custom, is the day that women can propose to men. I've tried to research this tradition, only to be met with no real facts or documentation. Some sources say that it comes from the 5th century in Ireland. St. Bridget asked St. Patrick for a day that languishing women could ask their men to marry. After bartering, they agreed to once every four years. In the United States, it can be called Sadie Hawkins Day after the Li'l Abner comic strip. The women of Dogpatch in the comic strip could marry any bachelor they could chase and capture. This evolved into Sadie Hawkins Day dances, where women could invite the man of their choice.

Where am I going with this? Proposals. Marriage. Bachelors. Books. In books, who would I try to capture if I was running in the Sadie Hawkins day race?

I asked my library friends who they thought of when I said those words. The overwhelming immediate response was Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice. Mr. Darcy is a wealthy landowner who comes off as a snob, but has a heart of gold given the opportunity. The second response was Captain Wentworth from Persuasion. Wentworth is a loving, faithful man who believes that nothing should stop true love. I should mention that most of my friends are Austen mad like I am.

Other interesting characters such as James Bond, Rhett Butler, Dexter Morgan, Hamish Macbeth, Dirk Pitt, and Stone Barrington made the list. I should point out that these characters aren't necessarily bachelors for life - they have had on-off again relationships or were married at some point.
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The Garner Files

2012-02-24T10:42:00.001-05:00

The Garner Files by James Garner and Jon Winokur

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I never read celebrity biographies, but I couldn’t resist The Garner Files. I remember watching The Rockford Files Friday nights when Iwas a kid, and to this day whenever I stumble across a rerun on some classic TVstation Jim, Rocky and Beth feel like old family friends (I was never crazyabout Angel). So it was a pleasant surprise to learn that James Garner hadpublished a memoir. And it was better still to discover that The Garner Files is a wonderful read: witty,engaging, self-effacing, and arm-around-your-shoulder intimate.

What are the odds?

2012-02-20T17:33:00.003-05:00

The Odds by Stewart O'Nan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Some kind of kismet got a copy of Stewart O’Nan’s The Odds: A Love Story into my hands rightbefore Valentine’s Day last week. TheOdds, you see, has been praised as “a Valentine to marriage as it isactually lived in troubled times.” It tells the tale of Art and Marion Fowler, an unemployed 50-something couple on the brink of bankruptcyand divorce who travel to Niagara Falls on Valentine’s weekend 2010 to spend asecond honeymoon in the bridal suite of the swankiest casino on the Canadianside of the Falls. Oh, and they’ve got a duffel bag full of cash with them,what’s left of their life savings, to wager on the high-stakes roulette wheel.Art is a laid-off insurance actuary, a man whose entire professional life wasdevoted to assessing and minimizing risk, and he’s got a plan to beat thewheel. One night’s gamble will determinethe fate of the Fowlers’ about-to-be foreclosed home, their teetering marriage,the rest of their lives.

What's Love Got To Do With It?

2012-02-16T07:29:00.001-05:00

So the romance novels you started reading for Valentine's Day didn't live up to the hype? You need something with a little more intrigue, a bit of excitement, maybe some international espionage? We've got just the thing. These stories do have love, but they serve it up with a twist.

The Company We Keep by Robert and Dayna Baer tells the true-life story of two spies in love. Of course, when they meet they're both married and can't tell each other their real names. (You can't be too careful when you're spying on potential terrorists in the Middle East.) But they don't let that stop them from finding happiness.

This book spends much more time on international politics and the ins and outs of spying than it does on two CIA agents sending love letters. In fact, there's not a single love letter in the book. (Probably best not to leave a trail of evidence.) Due to the strain a career as a CIA operative can put on a family back home, however, the two previously married spies end up single. As they navigate hostile territory together they find that knowing someone's real name isn't always necessary when it comes to love.

If you'd rather have a murder mystery than a spy story, keep reading.

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Love in the Library

2012-02-13T09:26:00.002-05:00

Whether you spend the day dressed in pink and handing out cards or attending an anti-Valentines Day party, February 14 is a day when you're likely to be thinking about love. For those of you who'd like to spend the day with with a feisty heroine and a dashing leading man, Gwinnett County Public Library has more than 10,000 books that fall under the category of "Love Stories." Click here to see the full list, or click below to discover what else the library has to offer in the way of the literature of love.

Romance - good reads for Valentine's Day

2012-02-11T15:54:00.001-05:00

I don't read MUCH romance, but I do have some favorite authors in that genre.

The first is Nora Roberts. Yes, I read Nora Roberts. Stop sniggering, my librarian friends. We are all entitled to our guilty pleasures. I particularly like her trilogies. My favorite is her Irish trilogy (Jewels of the Sun, Tears of the Moon, and Heart of the Sea), followed by her Irish Sisters trilogy (Born in Shame, Born in Ice, Born in Fire). These are older titles, but I have them all in paperback, and read them when I want to visit my Irish book friends. These books have characters with strong women that are on the path to find themselves and along the way fall in love. Of course. It is a romance, after all.

The second is Kristan Higgins. I picked up Catch of the Day at a book sale, and immediately fell in love with her writing style and characters. They are lovable and real. In fact, I had to stop reading them one after the other because I was gorging myself on romance, which can mess with your head a little bit. You might start expecting your honey to act like a romance character or something. Imagine!

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A Grown Up Kind of Pretty

2012-02-09T08:08:00.000-05:00

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Ginny Slocumb knows this year is going to be eventful. Every fifteen years, something big happens in Ginny's life. At 15, she became pregnant, at 30, her daughter does the same. At 45, her granddaughter is turning 15 and Ginny is on guard.

Liza, Ginny's daughter, after a long road to overcome her addictions, has suffered a stroke. While removing the willow in the backyard to make way for a pool to help with Liza's recovery, tiny human bones are found. The question begins: who do the bones belong to and why are they in the yard?

The journey to answer these questions delves deep into the relationships of these women. Relationships to themselves, to each other, and to others. Along the way, the Slocumb's reveal themselves to be strong women in a small southern town that forgets nothing. This tale highlights who they have become while connecting their pasts to the present. While I had trouble reading Backyard Saints, published in 2010, this new book kept my attention all the way through, and by the end, I was reading faster and faster to get to the conclusion.

I recommend Jackson's books for readers who like stories set in the South with complex characters and complicated family history. If you enjoy her books, you may also enjoy Sarah Addison Allen.

View her titles in the catalog here.

View all my reviews

2012 Townsend Prize nominees

2012-02-06T15:25:00.000-05:00

The GeorgiaCenter for the Book recently announced the 2012 Townsend Prize for fictionnominees. Named for Jim Townsend, founding editor of Atlanta magazine, the Townsend Prize is awarded biennially to theGeorgia writer judged to have produced the best work of fiction or shortstories in the previous two years. It will be presented April 26 at the AtlantaBotanical Gardens.

Most of the nominatedbooks are part of GCPL’s collection and may be found at your local branch. Here are the 2012 Townsend Award nominees:

Perfect Peace, Daniel Black

Reign of Madness, Lynn Cullen

Ghost on Black Mountain, Ann Hite

Backseat Saints, Joshilyn Jackson

Remain in Light, Collin Kelley

The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers,Thomas Mullen

A Marriage of Convenience, AndrewPlattner

My Bright Midnight, Josh Russell

A Curable Romantic, Joseph Skibell

The Stranger You Seek, Amanda KyleWilliams

Short Reads for a Short Month

2012-02-04T11:34:00.001-05:00

February is the shortest month, so maybe it’s a good time for a few short stories? 420 Characters is a collection of VERY short stories. Each contains 420 characters or less because they were born as a posts on “a famous social networking site.” This collection features stories that are gritty, poignant, dark, and whimsical by turns. Don’t like one of them? You can move on to the next in less than a minute!

I Could Love You

2012-02-03T16:01:00.000-05:00

Nicholson, the author, is an Academy Award-nominated screenwriter. He wrote the screenplays for the Shadowlands and Gladiator, which have wildly varying subjects.

This book centers on relationships - between married couples, young singles, and artists and their relationship to their work. I read it in a day (yes, I had the day off) but I found it fascinating.

The book ponders relationship questions such as fidelity, trust, love, lost love, and hope. A friendly warning: this is not a "feel good" book. If you are blissfully in the stages of first love, this may not be for you. Too much reality.

It is a sequel to "The Secret Intensity of Everyday Life". If you haven't read the first one, don't worry. While it may be useful, it's not necessary to understand the relationships.

View it in the library catalog here.

Read this if you enjoy Joanna Trollope, Nick Hornby, or Jonathan Tropper.

Black History Month Reading Relay

2012-02-01T12:52:00.000-05:00

Each Saturday during the month of February members from two organizations, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority and Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, as well as some of the youth they mentor, will be reading books at various branches to honor the many contributions and achievements of African Americans, past and present, while promoting literacy in our community.

All ages are welcome.
On Saturday, February 4, from 1:00-2:00 pm, the Suwanee, Duluth, and Peachtree Corners branches will host readings.

On Saturday, February 11, from 1:00-2:00 pm, the Mountain Park, Norcross, and Elizabeth H. Williams (Snellville) branches will host readings.

On Saturday, February 18, from 1:00-2:00 pm, the Centerville, Grayson, and Lawrenceville branches will host readings.

On Saturday, February 25, from 1:00-2:00 pm, the Buford, Hamilton Mill, and Lilburn branches will host readings.

For directions to any of our branches please click here and then click the branch you'd like to visit.

Fairy tales with a facelift

2012-01-26T09:17:00.000-05:00

Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is a maze of a story. It starts as a competition between an author who's a serial killer (the women in his stories never make it out alive) and a woman who challenges him to change his ways through a variety of competing tales. This woman is not his wife, but his wife also becomes ensnared in the stories as each character tries to challenge their ideas of love and relationships and individual humanity.

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Rubber ducks and chameleon squid: A look at our oceans

2012-01-22T10:38:00.000-05:00

Moby-Duck: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea by Donovan Hohn
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

During a winter storm in the Pacific Ocean thousands of toy ducks fell off a ship transporting them to the United States from a factory in Asia. What happened next? It turns out the answer to that question is a little bit complicated.

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Did you hear the one about the politician?

2012-01-16T20:47:00.000-05:00

Deadly Campaign by Alan Orloff
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Just can't get enough politics in the news these days? If so, you're in luck, because this mystery begins at a speech by an up-and-coming congressman. While the crowd is applauding the candidate masked thugs break into the room and begin roughing people up. Fortunately no one gets seriously hurt, but plenty of folks are rattled, and the budding politician's uncle asks his friend Channing Hayes to find out why they were attacked.

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Best Books of 2011

2012-01-06T13:08:00.001-05:00

Here are links to the Best Books of 2011 from various sources (in no particular order). Search the library catalog for titles here.

Atlanta Journal Constitution Best Books of the South

Publishers Weekly

NPR

Library Journal

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San Francisco Sleuthing

2011-11-14T07:00:00.000-05:00

Camouflage by Bill Pronzini
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Looking for a hard-boiled group of private investigators who won't rest until they find the rotten egg at the heart of the puzzle? Take a trip to San Francisco and discover what all that fog can really cover up. From abusive step-mothers to cases of stolen identity, the Bay area offers plenty of twists for a Noir-tinged mystery novel.
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Country Music Crime Spree

2011-11-09T17:30:00.000-05:00

In honor of tonight's broadcast of the 45th annual Country Music Awards, I thought I'd offer up some recent mysteries having to do with Nashville's most famous industry. These are all published within 2011 and can all be read with a twang, if you prefer.

First up, we've got a title that hearkens back to country songs of the past. I can't Make You Love Me, But I Can Make You Leave by Dixie Cash is part of the Domestic Equalizers series.
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Irish Noir

2011-11-09T14:20:00.004-05:00

Priest by Ken Bruen

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ex-cop Jack Taylor is back on the streets of Galway after a stint in the asylum where he landed after a young girl he was minding fell out of a window to her death. As he wanders around the city he runs into old acquaintances and new friends, trying to piece his life back together while looking into the murder of a priest whose head was found sitting in a confessional.
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Complicated Families - Just in Time for the Holidays

2011-11-03T14:14:00.011-04:00

The holidays.

Family get-togethers. Arguments over how to best cook the turkey, or ham, or roast beast. Trying to find the perfect present for people who have everything. Sibling rivalry. In-law squabbling.

The thought of these things makes me want to hide under the covers and order Chinese food.

If you think your family is complicated, try these reads. While they are not happy go lucky, they might make you feel better about your own situation.

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Pendergast Strikes Again

2011-10-31T12:32:00.003-04:00

Cold Vengeance by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The novels co-written by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child are my guilty pleasure books in the mystery and suspense section of the library. And the ones featuring Special Agent Pendergast are the best of the best, in my opinion. He's mysterious. He's cultured. He's connected. He's droll. And he kicks butt. What's not to like?
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More Books for Cold October Nights

2011-10-24T12:34:00.000-04:00

Blood Oath by Christopher Farnsworth

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Want a vampire who doesn't attend high school in Forks, Washington? Or become romantically entangled with Southern women? Or give interviews in New Orleans? Want a vampire who's mainly a killing machine? May I introduce you to Nathanial Cade, the President's vampire?
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Time to Turn the Heat On!

2011-10-21T12:03:00.031-04:00

I love fall. The air is crisp, you can actually stay outside for five minutes without sweating, and I get to put on sweatpants.

While I try to stay outside as much as possible, I do sneak in some time for reading. I don't think about the holiday shopping I'm neglecting, or even worry about how my DVR is piling up.

Here is a recent read you might enjoy.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dreadfully Ever After by Steve Hockensmith. This is the third in a series. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is the first, Dawn of the Dreadfuls is the prequel.
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Shakespeare!

2011-10-18T13:32:00.005-04:00

Was Shakespeare really Shakespeare? You probably heard about the controversy in high school English class and promptly forgot all about it. There’s a movie coming out next Friday, however, that will serve to remind you. It imagines that someone other than Shakespeare was the bard behind the verse, and it looks pretty good. No, really! Watch the trailer. See? Exciting.

If you’d like to beef up your Shakespeare cred before seeing the movie, never fear. We’ve got plenty of biographies of the bard.
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A Bad Day For Sorry

2011-10-13T15:50:00.003-04:00

A Bad Day for Sorry by Sophie Littlefield

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Stella Hardesty is an unlikely heroine. She’s 50 years old, she runs a sewing shop, and she drinks whiskey almost every night. True, she’s in the best shape of her life because of all the running and weight lifting, but by no means does she have super powers. What she does have is a righteous anger at men who abuse their wives, and she uses that anger to fuel her side business: serving as an enforcer for the women who need her help.
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Further Reading