Another Place You've Never Been between Lake Michigan and Buffalo

Wed, 12/21/2016 - 2:30pm by endless

This debut novel by Rebecca Kauffman made the short list of publisher's weekly best first fiction. It's sparse and lovingly tragic aesthetic takes readers on repeated journeys from Michigan to Buffalo, complete with reckonings about snow chains. The chained up 4 wheel drive truck driven is driven by the novel's anti-hero, Tracy, a sharp witted Buffalo Bills "just shy of very pretty." We see Tracy from the perspective of her father's girlfriend, who resents her presence in their small trailer; from a childhood friend of her cousin, who envies and pities Tracy's lack of parental supervision; from one of the married men she sleeps with and ruins his marriage; and from her much younger boyfriend who likes that "she'd asked for so little, never expecting him to love her." Tracy is the kind of anti-hero you'd get by crossing The First Bad Man by Miranda July with Sister Carrie by Dreiser . She's in the realm of the heroines of shows like Crazy Ex Girlfriend, but with far less money and prospects. Tracy is fascinating, and you're on her side even though you don't much like her.

The novel, on the other hand, is blunt and chilling. The perfect episodic read for cold winter days in Michigan or Buffalo. There's a Native American mysticism and a lingering on Midwest landscapes that fall just shy of appropriation, tying together the episodes in Tracy's life into a unifying strand of places you've never been.

Fabulous Fiction Firsts #624 “I've always wanted to play a spy, because it is the ultimate acting exercise. You are never what you seem.” ~ Benedict Cumberbatch

Tue, 12/20/2016 - 9:06pm by muffy

Ascension, the first book in a new series by Gregory Dowling is set in 18th century Venice in the weeks leading up to the Feast of the Ascension.

Alvise Marango, having grown up in London, is back in Venice, the city of his birth, alone, barely making a living as a cicerone, if not for his command of the English language. Rescuing an unsuspecting Mr. Boscombe and his tutor Shackleford from some shady characters at the gondola landing, he is hired as guide as they continue their Grand Tour.

After a series of gruesome murders, with the latest being that of Shackleford, Mr. Boscombe is arrested, along with Marango as his accomplice. With a solid alibi and his intimate knowledge of Venetian history and politics, Marango impresses the authority enough to be recruited as a spy.

From the grandest palaces to its darkest alleys, he follows the trail of a missing book that might lead him to a secret society and its sinister plan to destroy the city on its most important and spectacular holiday. That is, if he manages to stay alive.

British author Gregory Dowling moved to Venice in 1981, where he teaches American Literature at Ca' Foscari University of Venice.

Readers partial to the setting and time period might also enjoy Beverle Graves Myers' Tito Amato series (many of them available for download), featuring an opera singer who is also a spy; and Jason Goodwin's The Bellini Card that takes Investigator Yashim of the Edgar Award-winning series to Venice.

Tis the Season for Comfort Food!

Tue, 12/20/2016 - 5:29pm by oliviabee

It's getting cold outside! It's the perfect time of year to indulge in some decadent and comforting recipes! Fortunately, the library offers many delicious cookbooks for all your favorite comfort food fixings. Here's some great ones to check out this winter:

Are you are a soup lover? If so, look no further than Cook's Illustrated all-time best soups. The chefs at America's Test Kitchen chose the best and most delectable recipes to include. The recipes cover a diverse spectrum of soup flavors for all taste buds and skill levels. In it's weeknight wonders section, it's got classics like hearty chicken noodle soup and turkey chili. It also consists of other eclectic soups like caldo verde soup, a Spanish soup with potatoes, sausage and kale which is easy enough to make on a weeknight but still allows you to try something different. If you're feeling worldly, check out the around the world section for Italian wedding soup. My favorite was the modern vegetable soup section which consists of elevated classic soup recipes like roasted red pepper soup with smoked paprika or Provencal vegetarian soup inspired from France. It's got something yummy for every soup lover.

If you're looking for some southern comfort, Melba Wilson's cookbook Melba's American Cookbook is an excellent choice. One of Melba's most acclaimed dishes is her fried chicken and she has a whole section in her book to suit your fried chicken fancy. However, her breakfast and brunch section is the most impressive. It's filled with many comforting recipes! She includes quick and easy dishes such bacon and cheese (asiago) scones. One of my favorite recipes is her eggnog waffles. It's perfect for holiday time if you're feeling festive! She makes her eggnog from scratch and tops it with homemade strawberry butter.

I'd recommend 101 one-dish dinners : hearty recipes for the dutch oven, skillet, and casserole pan to anyone! If you're not up on what's trendy in the home cook world, it's all about one dish dinners. All you need is a dutch oven, casserole dish, sheet pan or skillet. This makes dinner quick and easy with minimal clean up! The recipes in this book don't skimp on the savory comfort foods from skillet chicken pot pie to lemon cream chicken with artichokes and potatoes.

Enjoy!

A Holiday Romance from Jill Shalvis

Tue, 12/20/2016 - 4:41pm by CeliaM

Looking for something heartwarming and delightful to read this holiday season? Look no further than The Trouble with Mistletoe by Jill Shalvis.

Back cover:
Willa Davis is wrangling puppies when Keane Winters stalks into her pet shop with frustration in his chocolate-brown eyes and a pink bedazzled cat carrier in his hand. He needs a kitty sitter, stat. But the last thing Willa needs is to rescue a guy who doesn't even remember her. Saddled with his great-aunt Feline from Hell, Keane is desperate to leave her in someone else capable hands. But in spite of the fact that he sure he never seen the drop-dead-gorgeous pet shop owner before, she seems to be mad at him. Willa can deny that Keane changed since high school: he less arrogant, for one thing--but can she trust him not to break her heart again? It time to throw a coin in the fountain, make a Christmas wish--and let the mistletoe do its work.

I'm a huge sucker for holiday romances but they do tend to follow a couple of familiar tropes:
- Hero returns home after ten years to discover heroine has a child who is, suspiciously, ten years old.
- Everyone learns the true meaning of Christmas through a big holiday festival.
- Hero and heroine are stuck in a snow storm and are forced to shelter in a conveniently located abandoned cabin.

This book too has some of those classic elements - the heroine is obsessed with Christmas decorations and wears lots of sweaters and aprons with holiday themed puns embroidered on them. But it also has adorable animal antics, a cast of witty, meddlesome secondary characters, and some refreshing, unpredictable plot twists. Bonus: if, like me, Carl the doberman becomes your favorite character, he is featured in the novella sequel, One Snowy Night.

Quirky new picture book: Pug Man's 3 Wishes

Thu, 12/15/2016 - 6:21pm by eapearce

The delightful new picture book Pug Man’s 3 Wishes, by Sebastian Meschenmoser, is described as a “misanthropic gem of a story” by Publishers Weekly and “the antidote to every cute fairy book.” The quirky story features Pug Man, a bipedal pug dog who is having a very bad day. He slept late, there’s nothing to eat for breakfast, and a morning rain has made his newspaper soggy. He’s feeling very sorry for himself when a brightly colored fairy appears out of nowhere and grants him three wishes. Children (and adults, for that matter) might think that they know what he’ll wish for, but everyone—including the fairy!—is in for a surprise. Readers will be touched by Pug Man’s modest wishes, and tickled by his obstreperous third wish in particular.

German author Meschenmoser adds to the book by depicting Pug Man’s bleak life in all black and white until the fairy appears, bringing bursts of color and fantastical beings with her. The unusual story is not for everyone, but certainly will appeal to those tired of fairies coming along to save the day… and to anyone who’s felt a little cranky when they wake up in the morning.

Fabulous Fiction Firsts #623

Wed, 12/14/2016 - 7:35pm by muffy

In the same vein as fictional biographies such as Mrs. Poe by Lynn Cullen; The Paris Wife by Paula McLain; and Mrs. Engels by Gavin McCrea - in which intelligent women whose own aspirations and contribution were marginalized in favor of their spouses. Marie Benedict's debut gives us the story of Mileva Maric, a brilliant physicist and an extraordinarily gifted mathematician.

In 1896, before she was The Other Einstein, Mileva Maric´ was the only woman studying physics at Zurich Polytechnic and easily fell under the spell of a charismatic fellow student. Their courtship was kept secret not only due to the disapproval of the social-climbing Einsteins, but also for disappointing her father who held great hopes for her. An unplanned pregnancy, and failed qualifying exams sent Mileva home alone without any support from Albert.

When they eventually married, it was anything but the promises of being treated as an equal in both love and science. As a devoted mother of 2 boys, she was increasingly treated like a servant. The self-centered, womanizing Albert has no compunctions about deleting her name from papers they assiduously work on together, as a matter of fact, it has been hotly debated for over a century that Mileva might be the mastermind behind his 1905 groundbreaking ideas about relativity.

Benedict draws on many sources, especially letters from Albert, Mileva, and her friend Helene Kaufler, many of them now available at Princeton University's The Digital Einstein Papers Website. "Benedict insightfully portrays Mileva, Albert, and other European intellectuals of the time and dramatizes the difficulties a woman faced when attempting to enter that world. She also vividly captures the atmosphere, the cafes, the boardinghouse, and the customs of Mileva’s world, making for an engaging and thought-provoking fictional telling of the poignant story of an overshadowed woman scientist." (Booklist)

Open Enrollment in the Marketplace!

Tue, 12/13/2016 - 8:46am by Beth Manuel

Open Enrollment has a shorter period this year, from November 1, 2017 - December 15, 2017 That's THIS Friday.

How can I apply?

-Online at healthcare.gov.

-In person at the Washtenaw Health Plan office. The Washtenaw Health Plan (WHP) will be assisting county residents apply on the Marketplace. Please call 734-544-3030 for an appointment.

-By mail. Downloadable paper applications will be available at healthcare.gov .

Call (734)544-3030. Hours are Monday – Friday 9am -4pm.The office is located at 555 Towner Blvd., Ypsilanti, MI, 48198.

For a list of other agencies that may be able to assist with the process, check here.

Fabulous Fiction Firsts #622 “You're my star, a stargazer too, and I wish that I were Heaven, with a billion eyes to look at you!” ~ Plato

Thu, 12/08/2016 - 10:13pm by muffy

Former research physicist Helen Sedgwick's The Comet Seekers * will transport readers to the magical world she creates as her protagonists grapple with the big issues of love, family, freedom, and loneliness. See a recent New York Times review.

Róisín, an Irish scientist and François, a French chef, meet at a research base in the frigid wilds of Antarctica in 2017, there to observe a comet. More than their expressed purpose, they both suffered devastating loss and share an indelible bond that stretches back centuries.

"Sedgwick tackles a centuries-spanning interconnected narrative by placing each chapter within the context of a comet’s appearance in the sky. The sections...that explore Róisín and Liam’s star-crossed romance are the standouts, both quietly moving and delicately portrayed. Uniquely structured and stylistically fascinating, the multilayered story comes full circle in a denouement that is both heartbreaking and satisfying." (Publishers Weekly)

Reminiscent of the works of Amy Bloom and Elizabeth Strout (Booklist) for their intimate stories of family drama; its setting and story line will appeal to fans of Midge Raymond's My Last Continent.

In The Blind Astronomer's Daughter * by John Pipkin, Caroline Ainsworth, accidental stargazer, is grief-stricken when her astronomer father Arthur, throws himself from his rooftop observatory. Having gone blind from decades of staring at the sun and driven mad by unremitting jealousy of William Herschel's discovery of Uranus, Arthur has chosen death.

Unable to remain in Ireland, Caroline heads to London, and reluctantly resumes her father's work, aided only by Arthur's cryptic atlas that might hold the secret to finding a new world at the edge of the sky; while leaving behind Finnegan O'Siodha, an extraordinary telescope-maker and the love of her life.

"This lyrical, philosophical book both frustrates and delights. Its focus on discovery is similar to that in Michael Byers’ Percival’s Planet, and Pipkin’s poetic language will remind readers of Dava Sobel’s essay collection, The Planets (2005). Herschel’s story is also fictionalized in Carrie Brown’s The Stargazer’s Sister (2016). (Booklist)

* = starred review

Best Books of 2016

Wed, 12/07/2016 - 8:58am by muffy

Let's start with probably the most anticipated - New York Time's 100 Notable Books of 2016 and the just released The 10 Best Books of 2016.

Well-chosen are The Washington Post's list of this year's best of the best, and I am astounded how similar the 2 lists are.

NPR’s Book Concierge Guide To 2016’s Great Reads lists over 300 titles that the NPR staff and critics loved this year, many of them award-winners.

Speaking of winners, look no further than the ">2016 Goodreads Choice Awards in 20 categories. I should mention that they are the only major book awards decided by readers.

For the fiction reader among us, check out The Huffington Post's the 18 Best Fiction Books of the year; and the Library Journal's best in Genre Fiction (in categories of African American Fiction, Christian Fiction, Historical Fiction, Mystery, Romance, SF/Fantasy, Thrillers, and Women's FIction), as well as Graphic Novels.

Publishers' Weekly Best Books 0f 2016 is notable for a list of the Best Children's and YA Books 2016.

Among specific subject lists, check out The Smithsonian's picks for The Best Books About Science of 2016.

Happy Reading.

Must-reads for Stephen King fans or newcomers

Thu, 12/01/2016 - 6:27pm by eapearce

End of Watch, Stephen King’s spectacular conclusion to the mystery trilogy that began with the Edgar Award Winning Mr. Mercedes, was released earlier this year, shooting to the top of the New York Times Bestseller List. King has revealed that he’s hard at work on his next book, titled Sleeping Beauties, which will be released sometime in 2017, but for King fans who don’t want to wait that long, it’s time to take a trip down memory lane and revisit some of his best earlier works.

Stephen King is one of the most versatile and prolific authors alive today. Although he is best known for his horror writing—stories like Carrie, Christine, Cujo, The Shining and It—are familiar to almost everyone, even if they haven’t read the books, he’s also written general fiction, science fiction and mysteries, including some under pen names. If you’re a long-time King fan looking to reread, or a first timer delving into the often twisted world of King’s work, the following titles will have you turning pages faster than you ever thought you could!:

The idea for 11/22/63 first came to King in the 1970s, but the book wasn’t published until 2011. It tells the riveting story of Jake Epping, a Maine schoolteacher who discovers a “time bubble” that transports him back to 1958. Convinced by his friend that he must attempt to stop the JFK assassination and thus alter the history of the world for the better, Jake embarks on a five-year quest to do just that. But, time is obdurate—as King emphasizes frequently in the book—and stopping the assassination is no easy feat. Part time travel adventure, part love story, part historical fiction, part thriller, 11/22/63 is the ultimate definition of a page turner.

Needful Things, one of King’s slightly lesser-known books, is set in Castle Rock, Maine, where several of his stories take place (The poor residents of Castle Rock have been through a lot). A new shop opens up in town, selling a wide variety of curiosities. In fact, anyone can go into the store and find whatever it is that their heart desires most. But buyer beware—although nothing in the store costs money, there’s a high price to pay for “purchasing” your deepest wants.

The Stand is one of King’s most epic works—the full version clocks in at 1153 pages. The riveting story opens with a patient who escapes from a biological testing facility unknowingly carrying a strain of super-flu that ultimately wipes out 99% of the world’s population in just a few weeks. The few that remain are terrified and in need of someone to lead them. The two leaders that do emerge are polar opposites: one an elderly woman who urges the survivors to create a peaceful community in the American West and the other the mysterious “Dark Man” who has evil intentions and delights in chaos. As both leaders begin to gather power, everyone left on earth will have to choose who follow—and that decision in turn will determine the fate of all of humanity. Although reading The Stand is no easy feat, if for nothing else than the sheer length of it, as the New York Times Book Review says, it has everything: “Adventure. Romance. Prophecy. Allegory. Satire. Fantasy. Realism. Apocalypse. Great!”