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Fabulous Fiction First #597
by muffy
If you are in the mood for a "funny, tender, and enchanting story about love, attraction, and friendship", then I suggest trying The Decent Proposal * - a high-concept rom-com set in LA.
First-time novelist Kemper Donovan "takes what might have been a derivative tale (think Indecent Proposal) and colors it with poignancy and self-discovery", where two strangers would split $1 million if they agree to spend 2 hours every week in each other's company for one year.
At 29, Richard Baumbach is delirious with the prospect of financial bail-out, being a struggling Hollywood film producer; while 33 year-old attorney Elizabeth Santiago is skeptical at best. Known as “La Máquina” (The Machine) around the office for her no-nonsense attitude and work ethics, she values above all else, her quiet, orderly life. Besides, she has nothing in common with this ridiculously handsome party-boy. Nevertheless, they agree to the proposal, settling on a movie and book discussion format for their weekly meetings.
As Richard and Elizabeth begin to look forward to their conversations, those closest to them have mixed feelings about this tentative relationship. Gorgeous Mike (Michaela) Kim, Richard ex-girlfriend/best buddy has unresolved feelings for Richard, and sees "dumpy" Elizabeth as a threat. Orpheus Washington, an elderly homeless man whom Elizabeth has befriended, fears the loss of her attention. Independently, they take it upon themselves to uncover the identity and motive of the mysterious benefactor.
"Peopled by appealing characters and filled with lush descriptions of the diverse L.A. landscape, Donovan’s winning first novel offers up a page-turning tale brimming with heart." Readers who delight in Donovan's LA setting might enjoy What I Did For Love by Susan Elizabeth Phillips; Maybe in Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid; and This One is Mine by Maria Semple.
* = starred review
Blog Post
Fabulous Fiction Firsts #581 “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” ~ Rumi
by muffy
A bestseller in its native Spain, love in lowercase by Francesc Miralles (translated by Julie Wark) is a delightful romantic comedy in the tradition of The Rosie Project and The Solitude of Prime Numbers, where a series of surprising events lends a solitary bachelor a second chance at love.
New Year Eve. 37 year-old Samuel, a linguistics lecturer could hardly wait to turn in after observing the Twelve Grapes ritual alone in his Barcelona apartment. Accustomed to a routine of lesson-planning, housework, books, foreign films, classical jazz, and the thrill of an occasional trip to the supermarket, he would hardly believe that all that will change on New Year’s Day when a cat decides to take up residence in his home, and forces him to interact with the messy outside world.
The cat, which he named Mishima first sends him upstairs to meet Titus, a frail book editor who, in turn sends him on an errand where he crosses paths with Gabriela, his lost childhood love. Along the way Samuel learns the importance of what he terms "love in lowercase", a phenomenon in which “some small act of kindness sets off a chain of events that comes around again in the form of multiplied love” and inspires him to seek out Gabriela.
Listen to the Publishers Weekly's radio podcast as Francesc Miralles discusses his novel, also available in Spanish in our World Language Collection.
Blog Post
Film Adaptation Alert: Me Before You
by Sara W
Jojo Moyes’ novel Me Before You might break your heart, sure, but it’s also going to make you laugh and remember to appreciate the loved ones in your life. The story starts with Will Traynor, a wealthy man with a big appetite for life, in the board room or on his global thrill-seeking expeditions, enduring an accident that leaves him a quadriplegic. Enter Louisa Clark, an ordinary, small-town girl, who lands a position as his caretaker and starts off just trying to get through each day without infuriating him. Eventually, a bond develops, and soon, they find great happiness in each other’s company.
This is a story about knowing your own mind and what it is to love with true unselfishness, and how difficult both of those things can be. It manages to be both meaningful and quirky without becoming too heavy-handed or too wacky. And yeah, you’re going to want to have some tissues handy at the end, but the range of emotions you’ll experience on the way are well worth the tears.
The book has now been adapted into a feature film, starring Game of Thrones’ Emilia Clark and Hunger Games’ Sam Claflin. The movie comes out June 3, and the official trailer has just been released.
Blog Post
Fabulous Fiction Firsts #578
by muffy
The Longest Night * * by Andria Williams is inspired by a little-known historical fact - the nation’s only fatal nuclear accident, which occurred on January 3rd, 1961. Williams’ debut explores the lead-up to the tragedy through the eyes of a young army specialist and his wife.
Idaho Falls, 1959. Neither Paul Collier nor Nat(alie) fits in very well in their new home. Paul, the newest enlisted man at the experimental nuclear reactor, is dismayed at the problematic and dangerous condition of the reactor. When a clash with his buffoonish supervisor turns violent, he is deployed to Greenland for 6 months.
Left behind with two young children and pregnant with a third, Nat tries to make friends with the prim-and-proper army wives whose scintillating marital drama play out behind closed doors. But she finds her deepest friendship with a handsome young Mormon cowboy named Esrom, who proves to be both a help and a bright spot in her life, as well as a temptation and fuel for the rumor mill. Upon Paul's return, a nuclear event will force them to make decisions that will alter the course of their lives and others in the community.
"A smoldering, altogether impressive debut that probes the social and emotional strains on military families in a fresh and insightful way." May we also suggest: The Wives of Los Alamos by TaraShea Nesbit; You Know When the Men Are Gone by Siobhan Fallon; and Changing Light by Nora Gallagher.
* * = 2 starred reviews
Blog Post
The Reading List 2016
by muffy
At the ALA Midwinter in Boston, a committee of 8 librarians announced this past year's best of the best in genre fiction - the Reading List. The winner in each of the 8 categories are:
Adrenaline
Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter
Three sisters are driven apart in the aftermath of one’s disappearance. When a violent crime occurs new fears arise and relationships shift again. Long term effects of family grief are exploited by the compulsions of a psychopath. Brutal and disturbing, this is ultimately a story of love and empowerment.
Fantasy
Uprooted by Naomi Novik
In this enchanted old-world fable, villagers threatened by a blighted magical wood allow the resident wizard to take one daughter into servitude for ten years. When he chooses klutzy Agnieszka, she faces an unexpected future and confronts the dangers of a wider political world and the roots of magical corruption.
Historical Fiction
Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans
Raised by his eccentric ex-suffragette godmother to be a free-thinker, young Noel is thrown into chaos when the London Blitz forces him into the home of a scam artist loyal only to her layabout son. Thrust together, the two oddballs are forced to find a way through the wartime landscape.
Horror
The Fifth House of the Heart by Ben Tripp
Flamboyant antiques dealer Asmodeus “Sax” Saxon-Tang made his fortune by accidentally killing a vampire with a horde of treasure. To protect the only person he loves, his niece, he’s forced to return to old Europe to assemble an eccentric team of vampire hunters in this gory, witty caper.
Mystery
The Long and Faraway Gone by Lou Berney
Cold cases cast a twenty-five year shadow of grief and guilt on the lives of two survivors of traumatic teenage crimes. New leads and new cases bring them back to Oklahoma City as past and present intersect in this poignant and compelling story of lives forever changed by random violence.
Romance
Taking the Heat by Victoria Dahl
Sassy relationship advice columnist Veronica overcomes her commitment anxiety and gains confidence with the help of mountain-climbing librarian Gabe. Steamy romance evolves into a strong relationship as they scale a mountain of family conflicts and share secrets against a majestic Jackson Hole backdrop.
Science Fiction
Golden Son by Pierce Brown
Insurgent Darrow inveigled his way into high Gold society in 2014’s Red Rising. In this dramatic, high octane follow-up, conflicting loyalties and his own ambitions lure Darrow into an untenable web of deceptions. Bolstered by new alliances, Darrow battles to overthrow corrupt lunar leadership and bring freedom to Mars.
Women’s Fiction
Re Jane by Patricia Park
Anxious to escape the strict upbringing of her uncle’s Flushing grocery, Korean-American Jane accepts an au pair position in the pretentious household of two Brooklyn academics and their adopted Chinese daughter. Park has created a bright comic story of falling in love, finding strength, and living on one’s own terms.
Check out the complete list for a shortlist of honor titles in each category.
Blog Post
NPR's Best Books of 2015
by eapearce
NPR recently released its Best Books of 2015 list, an in depth yearly endeavor where critics and NPR staff choose their favorite books of the year and compile them into a genre-spanning list of several hundred titles. I love that, along with the expected books on the list that are getting accolades from numerous publications and organizations, NPR’s list always contains more obscure titles that many readers likely missed over the course of the year.
You can view all of the titles from the list that we have available in our catalog here.
So what’s on this list of nearly 300 books? Here’s a preview:
In Speak, by Louisa Hall, a young Puritan woman travels to America with her unwanted husband, while in other time and place Alan Turing writes letters to his best friend’s mother and a Jewish refugee tries to reconnect with his distant wife. Elsewhere in time and space, a lonely young girl speaks with an intelligent software program and a formerly celebrated Silicon Valley entrepreneur is imprisoned for making illegal lifelike dolls. How does Hall tie all these characters together? As they all try somehow to communicate across gaps, Hall connects their stories, creating an amazing book that is a blend of historical fiction, science fiction and fantasy.
V is for Vegetables offers more than 140 simple recipes for cooking vegetables in unique and unexpected ways at home. Author and chef Michael Anthony has cleverly divided the chapters of the book by vegetable, so if you ever find yourself staring at kohlrabi or tomatillos in the grocery store, curious about how one cooks such things, this is the book for you! And even expert cooks will be refreshed by Anthony’s new ideas for ways to use common vegetables like broccoli, tomatoes, carrots and squash.
The Battle of Versailles tells of a little-known event that took place at the Palace of Versailles: as a fundraiser for the restoration of the palace, the world’s elite gathered in the grand theater there for a “fashion competition” of sorts: five American designers (including Oscar de la Renta and Anne Klein) faced off against five French designers considered to be the best designers in the world—Yves Saint Laurent, Hubert de Givenchy and others. The American clothes were expected to be a laughingstock but instead, the garments and the energy of the models who wore them wowed the crowd. By the end of the evening, American fashion in the world had transformed from a footnote to an enormous influence, not only on style itself but also on the way race, gender, sexuality and economics were treated in fashion in the years to come.
Blog Post
Lila: Raw and Beautiful
by mansii
After repeated suggestions to read Gilead, Marilynne Robinson's Pulitzer prize winning novel, I gave in and picked up the book's prequel, Lila, a 2014 National Book Award Finalist itself, as a starting point. I picked it up and, in a sense, I don’t think I will ever put it down. It did what an excellent book should do: it twisted my heart and in so doing challenged my way of thinking, and my compassion.
"Lila" follows the inward and outward journey of a wandering street girl to whom hardship is just a way of life. She has endured childhood abuse, the shame of a whore house, and the hunger pains and hardness of a life on the run. This background has become more than an experience but an identity. Though Lila's particular tragedies are hers alone, her questions and struggles strike a universal cord and make her achingly relatable. Which of us has not felt alone in a room of friends, or tried to earn the gifts of love and acceptance even when freely given? Which of us do not doubt our place in the world, or try to self-purge shame and fear? When Lila unexpectedly finds herself in the kind, small town of Gilead with the new comforts of a house, family, and community, she now wrestles with receiving this grace of the present. It seems unfitting to the tainted Lila she sees herself to be.
Lila slowly transforms as she works through an unlikely romance with an aging pastor who does not view her colored by her past, and offers her Hosea-like love. Far from stereotypical, rather than sermonizing the reader and wrapping up answers to age-old questions with a bow, this pastor is raw and human with his own pains and his own searchings. Together with us this pair considers troublesome questions that remain unsatisfied with trite answers. Questions such as what do we make of a world of suffering? What would it look like to be made new? How do we love flawed people who can display towards us both good and evil? And how do we live in light of loss? Together they learn to receive grace for themselves, and allow grace to transform their scars into compassion for others.
Marilynne Robinson has given us a book that is raw, humble, honest, and beautiful. Through her I am learning compassion for those I relate to least. Her wisdom challenges me to resist simplifying knotted questions, and in the not knowings to live in light of the gifts of grace.
If you have already enjoyed "Lila" as I have, you may also enjoy these finds:
Someone (2013) by Alice McDermott
The Thing About December by Donal Ryan
Benediction by Kent Haruf
I Curse the River of Time by Per Petterson
Blog Post
It Ended Badly: a fun winter read
by eapearce
New to the AADL collection is It Ended Badly, a fun book by Jennifer Wright detailing thirteen of the worst breakups in history. The book spans centuries: from medieval Rome to the Debbie Reynolds-Eddie Fisher-Elizabeth Taylor saga of 1950s-60s Hollywood, the breakups in the book are carefully chosen for their drama, their absurdity, and, of course, for the heartbreak they caused. This book is no downer though, despite its technically sad subject matter. Wright describes the characters vividly and throws in amusing anecdotes to keep the overall tone light. “If he was unhappy,” she writes about Timothy Dexter, who told everyone his wife was a ghost while she was still alive, “it seems it would have been easier to divorce than to pretend your wife does not exist, especially when she was still living in your home and throwing things at you.”
The introduction suggests that this book is intended for those who have just undergone a rough breakup (“If you are lying in bed right now, a pint of ice cream in one hand, a bottle of Scotch in the other, and this book clenched between your teeth, with tears streaming down your face over how much you loved, loved, loved your ex, let me commend you on how well you are coping. You could be doing so much worse.”), but I think it’s a fascinating read for anyone. Readers will learn a great deal about the individuals that Wright focuses on in the book, and about the time periods that they lived in, AND feel entirely equipped to answer trivia questions with obscure historical romance themes/have something at least moderately interesting to talk about with anyone at upcoming holiday parties. It Ended Badly is a great book to burrow under a blanket with on a chilly December evening, accompanied by a warm winter beverage.
Blog Post
Fabulous Fiction Firsts #555 - “All cannot be lost when there is still so much being found” ~ Lemony Snicket
by muffy
The Book of Lost and Found by Lucy Foley. Art student Kate Darling does not know much about her mother, June. As an orphan, she was adopted by the childless heiress Evelyn Darling who nurtured and coached her to become a world renowned ballerina. A year after June's untimely death in a plane crash, Evelyn (Evie) unburdened herself of a guilty secret to Kate and bequest her with an exquisite drawing of a young woman who looked very much like a young June. This sent a grief-stricken Kate on a quest for the true identity of the woman in the portrait and her connection to her mother.
Her search takes Kate from London to Corsica, to Paris, and eventually to New York, revealing a love story that began in the wild 1920s and was disrupted by war, derailed by circumstances.
"Foley deftly handles narratives by multiple voices that move seamlessly back and forth from the 1920s to 1986, with a vivid section set in Nazi-occupied France, as (the star-crossed lovers) are separated by happenstance, war, and deceptions as painful as they are well meant. A lovely and moving debut."
Inspired by true events, The Girl Who Wrote in Silk, Kelli Estes' "brilliant and atmospheric" debut serves as a poignant tale of two women determined to do the right thing, and the power of our own stories.
While exploring her beloved aunt's Orcas Island estate, Inara Erickson comes across an elaborately stitched piece of fabric hidden in the house. Working with Daniel Chin, a local professor of Asian studies, Inara learns the story of the sleeve's creator, Mei Lein, a survivor of the Chinese Exclusion Act, in the late 1800s to rid Seattle of its Chinese community.
Through the stories Mei Lein tells in silk, Inara uncovers a tragic truth and the connection to her own ancestor, one who would soon be commemorated in a city park, forcing her to make an impossible choice.
"Carefully crafted and perfectly paced, the novel takes readers on a deeply satisfying, memorable journey. Part mystery and part romance, the novel is also a fascinating look at an often forgotten period of Pacific Northwest history and a moving reminder of the stories we all share."
Blog Post
NPR Books' Summer Of Love
by eapearce
The hottest month of the summer is almost upon us and in honor of their Summer of Love theme this year, NPR Books has just released a list of 100 swoon-worthy romances to keep you occupied during August and beyond. Readers and authors alike voted on their favorite romance novels, and then the votes were tallied and divided into categories to produce the final list, which you can check out here!
I love the diversity of the list: it includes historical, paranormal and LBGT romances, classics such as Pride and Prejudice, and entire series. There's even a YA category! Even readers who don't consider themselves readers of romance novels will be able to find something that catches their eye. Look for any of the books that interest you from the list in our catalog!