Read the 2015 Oscar Nominees

Several of the films nominated for a 2015 Academy Award (or 12) found their origins in books. Books which you can check out from Carnegie-Stout Public Library!

Room by Emma Donoghue

A fast-paced and suspenseful novel told from the perspective of five-year-old Jack, who has lived his entire life in one small room with his mother, held captive by the whims of her kidnapper. Though this novel is somewhat disturbing, it might appeal to some older teens.

The Revenant by Michael Punke
A story of survival and vengeance in the Dakota wilderness of 1820. Andrew Henry's adventurous life prepared him well for the day he was abandoned to die by the men tasked to care for him after a vicious bear attack.

Brooklyn by Colm Toibin
Eilis Lacey left Ireland for a chance of a better life in America, but discovers much more when she meets the handsome Tony. A lyrical and richly detailed look at life in 1950s Brooklyn, and the growing pains of a young woman torn between home and new opportunity.

The Martian by Andy Weir
A suspenseful story of survival in extreme conditions that has appeal for readers who might normally avoid science fiction. No one expected astronaut Mark Watney to be abandoned on Mars, least of all Mark or he would've packed an MP3 player.
This title is also available as an eBook.

The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith
This romantic 1952 novel by Patricia Highsmith was originally published under a pseudonym due to the scandal and controversy of a story about two women falling in love. The 2015 film was released as Carol.

The Danish Girl by David Ebershoff
This thoughtful story of love and change is based on the lives of a historical couple, Einar and Greta Wegener, and the challenges they faced as Einar transitions to life as Lili.

The Big Short by Michael Lewis

(330.973 LEW) A thought-provoking, yet accessible look at the complicated economics and plain old greed that led to the housing market bubble and resulting recession. Author Michael Lewis is also responsible for two other notable movies based on nonfiction titles: Moneyball and The Blind Side.

One of the Best Books I Read in 2015: Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

I'm just now concluding my third -- yes, third -- consecutive listen to the audiobook Between the World and Me, written and read by Ta-Nehisi Coates. The book has been receiving a lot of sometimes-controversial buzz and some big awards ever since its publication in July of this year, and it is now popping up on all sorts of year-end "Best of" lists. I decided I better check it out, but I was wholly unprepared for its enormous impact on me.

The book is written in the form of a letter from the author to his 15-year-old son Samori, and its subject is living in a black body in a country built on slave labor and too often disposed toward the destruction of those bodies. Coates grew up in a gritty neighborhood of Baltimore, where the streets, his family, the police, and even the schools inculcated in him a pervasive sense of fear. A curious young man, he set out to "interrogate" his situation, turning to books, professors, poetry, and his own journalistic writing to make sense of the world. And what a stunning job he does of the making-sense.

Learning to write is learning to think, Coates contends, and his mastery of both is evident on every page. This book is so very intelligent -- and honest, sad, perceptive, poetic, profound, and radical. Its 176 pages are suffused with one thoughtful 40-year-old man's meticulously-examined life and hard-won wisdom. It is not a hopeful book, but it is not despairing either. What it is is truly counter-cultural and these days that's so rare.

~Ann, Adult Services 

One of the Best Books I Read in 2015: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven came out in 2014 and was on many a Best Book of the Year 2014 list. It sounded interesting, but I didn't read it until April of 2015. And oh, how angry I was at myself for not reading it sooner! This is one of my favorite books EVER.

The novel starts a few hours before a flu spreads across the globe, decimating the population and then moves back and forth between life before the outbreak and fifteen years into the future. Mandel uses her characters to discuss the importance of art and culture and to question the value of remembering the past. It's ambitious, amazing, and awe-inspiring.

~Aisha, Adult Services

One of the Best Books I Read in 2015: Lists of Note: An Eclectic Collection Deserving of a Wider Audience by Shaun Usher

Lists of Note: An Eclectic Collection Deserving of a Wider Audience by Shaun Usher is an enjoyable and engaging book of 125 lists (pros and cons, wish lists, to-do lists, and others) that starts off with what I think is one of the most famous lists in pop culture: a list of “Things to Do Today” by Johnny Cash which includes “not eat too much”, “go see Mama”, and of course, “kiss June” and “not kiss anyone else”. It’s filled with fun lists like “The Fifty Dwarves” which shows the names Disney writers considered for the Seven Dwarves before choosing Bashful, Doc, Dopey, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, and Sneezy. Some names that didn’t make it are Chesty, Flabby, Jaunty, and Sappy. It also includes serious lists like “How My Life Has Changed” by Hilary North, a woman who should have been on the 103rd floor of the south tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 except she stopped to vote and was late to work. It’s a moving list of things she will never be able to with her coworkers who perished on that day, including things like “I can no longer smile at Paul”, “I can no longer confide in Lisa”, and “I can no longer take my life for granted".

One of the appeals of the book is that some of the lists are photocopies of the originals so you get to see the handwriting of people like Thelonious Monk, David Foster Wallace, and Thomas Edison. There's even a list, possibly a shopping list or recollection of past meals, by Michelangelo with illustrations of food. Even if some of the lists don't interest you, there are so many to choose from, you're sure to find one that makes you smile or inspires you to make one of your own. It's a fascinating look at something we all do and shows how a list can show a small part of your personality.

~Aisha, Adult Services

Staff Review: Circling the Sun by Paula McLain

Circling the Sun is an exhilarating novel -- author Paula McLain has done it again. Her second book, The Paris Wife, published in 2011, told the novelized story of Ernest Hemingway's ill-fated first marriage, to Hadley Richardson, a story that played out among the brilliant ex-pat community known as the Lost Generation in Paris in the 1920s. The Paris Wife quickly became a bestseller.

This time round, McLain tackles the life of aviator Beryl Markham, who told her story herself in her marvelous memoir West with the Night, a book that Hemingway, incidentally, referred to as "bloody wonderful." 

Beryl Markham was born in England in 1902 and moved to Kenya (then British East Africa) as a tiny girl. Her mother was unable to handle life in Africa and soon fled with Beryl's older brother, leaving Beryl in her father's care for good. This unusual and tragic abandonment had a silver lining: it seems to have liberated Beryl from most of the rigid restrictions and tiresome conventions placed upon girls in affluent British families. Instead Beryl literally ran wild, which makes for one invigorating story.

When small, Beryl played freely in the African wilderness with her close friend Kibii of the Kipsigis tribe and received almost no formal education. She hunted warthogs barefoot with a spear, attended tribal dances, and was mauled by a lion. Her father bred and trained horses at their farm in Kenya, and horses became Beryl's passion too. Before she was 20, she became the first licensed female racehorse trainer in Kenya, and at age 34 she became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic and the first person to do so nonstop east to west.

Have I mentioned yet that Beryl was also beautiful and loved to party? She hobnobbed with all the British colonials, including the uber-hedonistic Happy Valley set, whose drinking, drug use, and promiscuity have become the stuff of legend. Beryl herself married three times, disastrously, and had countless lovers throughout her life. The love of her life was Denys Finch Hatton, the aristocratic big-game hunter and not-so-secret paramour of the writer Isak Dineson (played by Meryl Streep to Robert Redford's Finch Hatton in the 1985 film Out of Africa).

This review cannot even begin to describe the adventurous, ambitious life of Beryl Markham. My only quibble with the novel is that it airbrushes some of Beryl's less admirable qualities. In real life she suffered for them though: she was often embroiled in scandal, she never received her due acclaim, and her final days saw her living in poverty. My caveat to readers is that references to safaris, lion hunting, ivory expeditions -- indeed to so many things decadent, exploitative, and colonial -- can be hard to take. But this was the (waning) age of imperialism and of the Great White Hunter (in the U.S. Teddy Roosevelt had recently been president) and it must have seemed at the time that Brittania still ruled and that Africa's wildlife was endless.

~Ann, Adult Services

Haunting Library Architecture

Andrew Carnegie is a very, very rarely seen ghost, what with his having over 2,500 libraries to haunt. So, his rotunda appearance is really quite exceptional.

• Dubuque's Haunted History by Richard A Barker
• Haunted Dubuque: chilling stories of the Key City's past and present by D.G. Roberts
• Spirits of Dubuque by Richard A. Barker
• The Iowa Road Guide to Haunted Locations by Chad Lewis & Terry Fisk
• Ghosts of the Mississippi River from Minneapolis to Dubuque by Bruce Carlson
• Ghosts of the Mississippi River from Dubuque to Keokuk by Bruce Carlson
• Andrew Carnegie by David Nasaw
• The Carnegie Libraries of Iowa by John M. Witt
• Free to All : Carnegie Libraries & American Culture, 1890-1920 by Abigail Ayres Van Slyck

Happy Halloween from Carnegie-Stout Public Library!

Reading Suggestions for the Characters of "How to Get Away with Murder"

How to Get Away with Murder is hands down my favorite show on television right now. If you enjoy a twisted, character-driven mystery that plays with non-linear storytelling (flashbacks into the future), you should go watch the first season right now because I wouldn't want to spoil a minute. If you're up to date on the first episode of the second season, you're safe to read on with no spoilers.

When it comes to reading suggestions for the characters of HtGAwM, almost every character could benefit from browsing the books shelved under 646.77 (aka Dating & Relationships).

Professor Annalise Keating: I wouldn't dare to give Professor Keating any sort of advice on anything ever.

Wes: Cinnamon Roll Murder by Joanne Fluke. Enough said.

Rebecca: Stiff: the curious lives of human cadavers by Mary Roach. Too soon?

Nate: The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher by Kate Summerscale. The story of the Victorian detective who inspired Arthur Conan Doyle to write Sherlock Holmes, and the case that destroyed his career.

Laurel: The Secret History by Donna Tartt. Someone needs to read this book. Seriously guys, murder is never a good extra-curricular.

Connor: Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan. Connor deserves the escape of an upbeat, whimsical love story.

Asher: The Trophy Kids Grow Up by Ronald Alsop. Honestly? I picked this for the title. I don't think Asher is likely to read anything.

Michaela: I've Got Your Number by Sophie Kinsella. An upbeat, romantic tale about a lost wedding ring and an engagement to the wrong man that has absolutely no murders and a happy ending? Just what Michaela needs.

Bonnie: Confessions of a Sociopath by M.E. Thomas. An exploration of the traits used to identify psychopaths, including a helpful checklist.

Frank: The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson. In fact, maybe Frank and Bonnie should just start a book club. Seriously, those two scare me.

If you enjoyed reading this, you should check out Aisha's reading suggestions for the characters of Scandal.

~Sarah, Adult Services

Staff Review: Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

I love short stories. They are the perfect thing for a busy schedule. Short enough to read in a single sitting, but in the hands of a skilled writer still complex enough for character development and a satisfying plot arc. Jhumpa Lahiri is an incredibly skilled author of short stories, and she has the Pulitzer Prize to prove it.

The Interpreter of Maladies, her first collection of short stories, was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2000, and it is one of the five books I'd take with me to a desert island.

Lahiri writes characters that feel so real to me as a reader, it's almost as if they are people I met once at an airport or a party. These are characters who feel out of place in their own lives, in homes they do not recognize. Many are immigrants in a foreign land, perhaps returning home after years abroad, or maybe they never left but have watched the world around them change into something unfamiliar.

Lahiri's second collection, Unaccustomed Earth, while still powerful, is somewhat less of a personal favorite. There's a stronger focus on the ties and changing pressures of family relationships, and three of the stories revisit two characters at different points in their lives. While I love how she explores similar themes in her story collections, I prefer the focus of her standalone pieces over the linked stories or her longer novels where I sometimes become lost in the details of her beautiful descriptions.

~Sarah, Adult Services

Staff Review: A Trio of Recent(ish) Novels

I am woefully behind in my fiction reading, an unfortunate situation caused, in part, by a long detour into Nonfictionland. In an attempt to catch up, I just blew through a trio of novels I missed over the past two or three years.

My favorite was The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout (of Olive Kitteridge fame), which tells the story of three adult siblings from a Maine family racked by a tragic childhood event (one of the three accidentally killed their father in an incident relayed in the novel's first pages). Oldest son Jim Burgess is a hot-shot corporate lawyer heading for a fall, Bob Burgess works for Legal Aid and seems rather spineless, and Susan Burgess is a frumpy, jilted wife whose only son is in a world of legal trouble.

The author seeds a rich plot woven of dramatic family interactions with real-life, local-to-Maine hot topics, like the unlikely presence of a large Somali community within economically-depressed and homogeneous Lewiston, Maine (the old mill town upon which the novel’s fictional setting is based). The story moves at a fast clip and resolves so satisfactorily (a real accomplishment in a time of often-disappointing conclusions), with a big truth revealed, certain characters getting their comeuppance, and others finding redemption or peace.  

My second favorite was Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver, a novel that tackles climate change in a compelling but not story-clobbering way. Set in present-day Appalachia, Kingsolver’s novel serves up a strong female lead in the person of Dellarobia Turnbow, who finds herself trapped in a way-too-small life with a sweet but slow hulk of a husband. 

Monarch butterflies by the millions suddenly appear in her small mountain town, a cohort of scientists moves in, and over the course of events Dellarobbia blossoms into the sort of capable and confident woman who’s bound to land a bigger life.

The third novel on my catch-up fast-track was the fine debut novel The Wild Child by Eowyn Ivey, a book that has garnered glowing reviews and that I figured would pull me into different territory with its quasi-fantastical elements. Set in the homesteaders’ Alaska of the early twentieth century, the novel’s main characters are an older couple, left bereft by the stillbirth of their only child, who leave Pennsylvania to set up in the rugged outback of Alaska, where they encounter (or do they conjure?) a young child named Faina who seems to live, and even thrlve, all alone in the frigid, wolf-haunted wilderness. 

The author’s depiction of Alaska’s pristine landscape bowled me over (wolves, wolverines, bears, moose, icy waters, looming peaks, killing cold), but I was less compelled by the elusive Faina (I admit I am fantasy-resistant), whose pale presence nevertheless constitutes the novel's central question: is she real flesh-and-blood or the fairy-tale snow child of the book's title?     

~Ann, Adult Services

Books and Movies: The Martian by Andy Weir

Think of some synonyms for "intense" and any one of them will perfectly describe The Martian by Andy Weir. Agonizing. Fierce. Excruciating. Harrowing. (I could go on, but I won't.)

Astronaut Mark Watney is stuck on Mars. (What?) He was with his crew when a dust storm hit, separating them, and the rest of the crew evacuated and headed back to Earth, believing he's dead. (No!) But he's not. He's alive. On Mars. By himself. Watney wakes up, realizes he's all alone, and instead of bursting into tears like I would, he gets to work, attempting to contact NASA and grow food (on Mars!), all while keeping a video log. His crew finds out that he's alive and are torn as to whether or not to go back for him because while they feel guilty about leaving him, going back for him could mean their deaths if they run out of supplies. (Because there are no grocery stores on Mars.)

The Martian has been made into a movie starring Matt Damon as Watney. It also stars Jessica Chastain, Jeff Daniels, Chiwetel Ejiofor (starring in his second book-to-film of the year, the first being Z is for Zachariah) and Kristen Wiig. Check out the trailer and read the book if you haven't already. The movie comes out on October 2.

I Read Banned Books: Fun Home by Alison Bechdel

This year for Banned Books Week I read Fun Home: a family tragicomic by Alison Bechdel, a graphic novel which has lingered on my TBR (to be read) list for almost a decade. A combination of recent controversy, an award winning Broadway adaptation, and some friendly encouragement finally tipped the scales.

Fun Home was first published in 2006, and was almost immediately challenged in a Missouri public library. Due to the images depicting sexual acts, specifically sexual acts featuring LGTBQ participants, there have been several other challenges over the years. You can read more about its controversial history in this article from the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

Fun Home is a memoir about Bechdel's relationship with her father, his death, and her journey to understanding her own sexuality. It is not an easy read. This book is dense with complicated emotions, not uncommon when considering how our relationships with family change as we grow older. However the added tragedy of her father's sudden death (or possible suicide) hard on the heels of Bechdel coming out as a lesbian and the revelation that her father had spent his life in the closet, creates a sort of drama that colors every other aspect of their relationship. She examines her memories for hints and signs overlooked, unable to continue their conversation directly.

In the most recent controversy, students at Duke University objected to Fun Home's selection as a title all incoming first-year students were encouraged to read. As far as I know, no one has called for Fun Home's removal from the library shelves or syllabi at Duke. However, it's interesting how several of the students who refused to read this book said that they would've read it in print, but the graphic novel format made the content too objectionable. It's not uncommon for a challenge to a graphic novel to be based in part on the fact that the objectionable material has been illustrated, rather than simply described in words.

There are three graphic novels on the American Library Association's list of Top 10 Most Frequently Challenged Books for 2014:

• Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi: a memoir about growing up in Iran
• Saga by Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples: a sort of science-fiction romance (read my review)
• Drama by Raina Telgemeier: a story about a first love and a middle school play (read Andrew's review)

Like those Duke students, I avoided reading Fun Home -- not for some moral reasons, but simply because I knew this wasn't a fun book and I prefer happy endings in my books. However, it is important to push myself outside of my comfort zone sometimes because each time I have, I've discovered something wonderful. That said, I'm glad I waited until I was ready to read this book, and I'd reached a point in my life where I had the perspective to really appreciate Bechdel's memoir. Nine years ago I might have fixated on the tragedy and missed the quieter advice that it is damaging to force yourself to live within the confines of expectations, even your own.

~Sarah, Adult Services

Books and Movies: Black Mass by Dick Lehr and Gerard O'Neill

Black Mass: Whitey Bulger, the FBI, and a Devil's Deal by Dick Lehr and Gerard O'Neill is the story of John Connolly and James "Whitey" Bulger. The pair knew each other when they were children and grew up to take different paths (Connolly becoming an FBI agent and Bulger becoming a career criminal) until they met again when Bulger became an FBI informant. While working together to dismantle the Italian mafia in Boston, their plans lead to multiple murders, drug dealing, and racketeering and they both, eventually, (Bulger was able to evade capture for 16 years) end up in prison.

The intriguing, crime-filled lives of Whitey Bulger and John Connolly are perfect for a movie so of course, one was made. Black Mass opens in theaters tomorrow, September 18, and has a great cast, including Johnny Depp as Bulger, Joel Edgerton as Connolly and, Benedict Cumberbatch as Bulger's brother Bill. Dakota Johnson, Kevin Bacon, and Adam Scott also star.

Staff Review: H Is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald

H Is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald is one intense book: grief-intensive, nature-intensive, language-intensive, and raptor-intensive, just for starters. Its genesis was the unexpected death of the author's father, a vibrant newspaper photographer with whom MacDonald shared a close and sympathetic relationship all her life. Indeed he sounds like an exceptional dad. MacDonald learned to love nature right by his side and accompanied him on expeditions, such as his personal project to photograph every bridge over the River Thames. Receiving news one day of his sudden death by heart attack, MacDonald is devastated. She doesn't recover for months.

For at that point in her life, she feels she has nothing: no partner, no kids, no permanent job, no house.  She's winding up a fellowship and will soon be jobless and homeless (in the less urgent sense of the latter term). MacDonald is no ordinary woman though: she is a writer, poet, naturalist, historian, research scholar, and falconer, falconry having been a mad passion since childhood.

In an attempt to deal with her overwhelming grief, MacDonald acquires a hawk -- and not just any hawk, but a goshawk, notoriously the most difficult and murderous of raptors -- and raises Mabel the Hawk to be her wild companion. Her narrative of their time together is interspersed with memories of her father and with a biographical sketch of the writer T. H. White, a tortured man, avid falconer, and author of The Once and Future King, a series of books about King Arthur. H Is for Hawk moves back and forth between MacDonald's life and White's, the two linked by their love of hawks and their hope for healing through their birds. The extensive White passages may wear on some readers.

The story of MacDonald's training of Mabel is compelling; the author becomes almost feral herself in her attempt to drown her grief in the hawk's wildness. MacDonald's writing is dazzling: unbelievable, really, the freshest, most original I've encountered in ages. Reading the book you feel the author has never met a cliché, never witnessed anything through any eyes but her own.

H Is for Hawk won the Costa Book Award for 2014 (formerly known as the Whitbread Prize, with a £30,000 purse) and the Samuel Johnson Prize (worth  £20,000) for nonfiction. The awards are well-deserved but the author's intensity began to wear on me just a bit by the end, as did the murderous intent of Mabel, whose blood-lust the author often seemed to share.

For MacDonald's a rare poet-scholar, one who doesn't have a problem snaking her hands down the rabbit hole Mabel's legs have penetrated, grabbing the frantic rabbit ensnared by sharp talons, and snapping its neck. It's a merciful act, but I found myself appalled that MacDonald could do it. Her intensity has created a rare book though, even if by its final pages I was ready to head my own less-intense way.

~Ann, Adult Services

Staff Review: The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman

Ouch! This book hurts. It’s also dazzlingly beautiful, but the more you succumb to the beauty of the prose and of the remote island setting where the story unfolds, the more the plot rips your heart out. At least this was my experience.

But let me back up. The Light Between Oceans is a 2012 debut novel by Australian author M. L. Stedman. Many people read it; most loved it (approximately 156,000 reviews on GoodReads at last count). Then, DreamWorks acquired the film rights and a movie was made, starring Michael Fassbender and Rachel Weisz among others. The movie’s set for release in 2016. I don’t know if I’ll be able to handle the story again.

The main characters are Tom Sherbourn, a stalwart and upstanding but emotionally ravaged young World War I vet, and his free-spirited, newlywed wife, Isabel, who set up house (or lighthouse, to be precise) on isolated Janus Rock off the west coast of Australia, where Tom has signed on as light-keeper.

The book’s opening chapters are idyllic. Janus is the perfect place for these starry-eyed lovers to hole up and for Tom to heal. They both love the sea, the solitude, the silence. Some of the novel’s most gorgeous passages capture the fluctuating water, altering sky, and shifting light. But Isabel yearns for a baby. Over several years she suffers two miscarriages and an agonizing stillbirth.

Then one day a small boat washes up on the island’s remote side, carrying a dead body and a tiny living infant. Tom’s position requires that he record and report every happening on Janus Rock, but, very reluctantly, he allows Isabel to persuade him that the infant is now likely an orphan and might just be a gift bestowed by the universe after all the heartbreak they’ve suffered in their attempts to make a child. So, Tom buries the dead man and sets the boat adrift while Isabel begins caring for the infant, who instantly wins their hearts and completes their family.

The chapters that follow continue the idyll: Tom, Isabel, and Baby Lucy compose a near-perfect happy family who thrive in their exquisite life on Janus Rock. Only Tom suffers pangs of conscience -- over what he has allowed to take place, what he has omitted from his reports, an omission that could end his light-keeping career and lead to formal charges. And indeed Tom’s misgivings bear fruit. The idyll ends and the pain begins.

The moral of the story (and this is quite courageous on the author’s part) seems to be that we inhabit a moral universe, the truth will out, and wrong acts will have their full repercussions. Stedman unfolds the rippling consequences of the Sherbourns’ wrong act in a slow and meticulous way that is absolutely wrenching for the reader, who watches in horror as the family on Janus Rock is slowly ripped asunder. Sure, justice is ultimately served – and I’m 100% for justice – but in this instance I’m afraid I was rooting for the wrong: for Tom, Isabel, and stolen Baby Lucy in their island paradise rimmed by dolphins and whales.

~Ann, Adult Services

Staff Review: Homespun Mom Comes Unraveled by Shannon Hayes

If you're looking for a quick, uplifting read with a little more substance than your usual summer flicks, I have a recommendation for you! Homespun Mom Comes Unraveled is a heartwarming and thought-provoking collection of essays from self-proclaimed radical homemaker Shannon Hayes. I was particularly enthused to read this new publication of hers after finishing Radical Homemakers, Hayes' thesis in which she explores the lives of communities and individuals living and thriving on extremely low incomes. Hayes and her family follow this lifestyle as well: they grow and produce as much of their own food as they can, they give homemade gifts, use home remedies for most of their healthcare, and play their own music for entertainment.

Hayes shies away from nothing in Homespun Mom, covering topics ranging from neighborhood drama, to trying to make a living at farmers market every Saturday, to sex education for her home-schooled daughters. While these subjects may seem mundane or irrelevant in our fast-paced world, Hayes' humor and poignancy leave readers with no doubt that the struggles she faces every day are ones we can all relate to. Her family's dedication to living simply is a breath of fresh air in our culture so overwhelmed with flashy technologies that seem to change every time we blink.

Their lives are not, however, boring in the least. The stories Hayes tells are of a raucous, joyful, and complex young family who work hard to juggle the projects they've taken on, and whose lives are filled with love, meaning and adventure. Their everyday routines may indeed be radical to many readers, but Hayes has me convinced that a home made in this way is the most vibrant and fulfilling home possible.

~Rachel, Circulation

Staff Review: Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter

After hearing so many glowing reviews of the 2012 novel Beautiful Ruins from library patrons and friends and reading rave reviews in the media ("a literary miracle,” says NPR; a “masterpiece,” says Salon, “superb,” “brilliant,” “near-perfect,” “genius,” and so on), I decided I’d better check it out for myself.

And while I didn’t completely incandesce as I read the book, I’m really glad I read or, rather, listened to it. The audio version is so well-done; it was Audible.com’s Best Audiobook of 2012. Performed by Edoardo Ballerini, whose Italian and English are flawless, the audiobook navigates its way through all sorts of accents and a multiplicity of characters of all ages in such a fluid way it’s transporting.

Hmmmm, how to summarize the plot? Jess Walter worked on this book for years and years and completed other novels during its construction. His architectural diligence shows: Beautiful Ruins is a marvel of literary engineering, with a whole lot of story threads running through multiple locations over 50 years, intersecting and interweaving and resolving in such a way that not a thread is dropped. When you reach the final page, the tapestry is complete.

In a nutshell though, the book opens in 1962 on a part of the Italian coast known as the Cinque Terre (click and prepare to gasp). A lovely young actress named Dee Moray disembarks from a boat and enters the life of young innkeeper Pasquale Tursi. Dee has been performing in the scandal-plagued, filming-fiasco Cleopatra, which stars that boozily-tumultuous couple Liz Taylor and Richard Burton.

She has also been ill-treated in a shocking way by the film’s fictional producer, Michael Deane, a hilarious Hollywood grotesque whose decades of facelifts and skin-plumps leave him, at age 72, with “the face of a 9-year-old Filipino girl.” (The book is laugh-out-loud funny in parts.) Pregnant by way of an on-set affair with an actor, Dee has been hoodwinked by a corrupt movie-set doctor. Told she has cancer, she's sent away from the set to have her "growth" removed. The moment she arrives at his inn (the inn's less-than-optimal location within this coastal paradise wins it the name Hotel Adequate View), Pasquale is smitten.

From there we spin from the Cinque Terre to Hollywood, Seattle, London, Edinburgh, Idaho, and Rome -- as well as back and forth through five decades -- to trace the furiously-flawed lives of a host of intersecting characters, one of whom is the future son of our lovely actress. (The father’s name I will not reveal.)

My only minor quibble with the book (and this does not seem to have been an issue for many others) is that I did not equally enjoy all parts of it. Some story-lines are funnier and more absorbing than others, but Beautiful Ruins is gorgeously-written and shines the funniest -- and most unflattering -- light on Hollywood and the twisted minds within its glittering hills who make its crassest films (and its increasingly unsavory reality shows – more of the Duggar family or Honey Boo Boo, anyone?).  The novel is also tender and poignant, intelligent and imaginative, and, best of all, strikingly original. I’ve never read anything quite like it.

~Ann, Adult Services

The Fangirl's Guide to the Galaxy: A Handbook for Girl Geeks by Sam Maggs

The Fangirl's Guide to the Galaxy: A Handbook for Girl Geeks by Sam Maggs has everything you need to start being a girl geek (or boy geek) or enhance your already established geekdom. (It even has a litany!)

It discusses:

• fandoms like Harry Potter, Supernatural, Doctor Who, Sherlock, Whedonites, the Unsullied (fans of Game of Thrones who've only seen the TV show) and Bookwalkers (people who've read the books before watching the TV show),
• defining characteristics of being part of a fandom including key accessories, how to become one, and the unending debates fandoms have (Is DC better than Marvel? Kirk or Picard? Who is Jon Snow's mother?), and
• where to find like-minded people (like our Graphic Content book club that meets every other month to discuss graphic novels).

There's a chapter on conventions that includes a how-to guide so you stay hydrated, get that photo with your favorite celebrity, and rock a costume like no one else.
It also has interviews with women working on some of your favorite TV shows and writing your favorite books. Jill Pantozzi, editor in chief of The Mary Sue; Jane Espenson, writer and producer of shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Battlestar Galactica, and Once Upon a Time; Laura Vandervoort, star of Bitten and Smallville; Beth Revis, author of the Across the Universe trilogy and others answer questions on the positive influence of geekdom in their lives and advice for geek girls.

The book also recommends media where you can find kick-ass female characters.

Comics

Batwoman: Elegy written by Greg Rucka, artwork by J.H. Williams III, colors by Dave Stewart

Ms. Marvel written by G. Willow Wilson, illustrated by Adrian Alphona and Jacob Wyatt (Check out Sarah's review of Ms. Marvel here.)

Rat Queens by Kurtis J. Wiebe

Television and Movies

Firefly

Haywire

Sanctuary






Books

Huntress by Malinda Ho

The Immortals Quartet by Tamora Pierce









Anime

Attack on Titan

Slayers









When you're done reading The Fangirl's Guide to the Galaxy: A Handbook for Girl Geeks, check out some other related books.

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd edited by Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci

You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost): A Memoir by Felicia Day (star of The Guild)