Best in Books January 2010

Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman


Start the New Year with an award winning fantasy, Anansi Boys by Niel Gamman. Winner of numerous fantasy and young adult awards including:
2006 Alex Award
2006 Locus Awards for Fantasy
2006 Mythopoeic Award: Adult Literature
2006 YALSA Best books for Young Adults

Review
Fat Charlie's life is about to be spiced up-his estranged father dies in a karaoke bar, and the handsome brother he never knew he had shows up on his doorstep with a gleam in his eye. Next thing he knows, Fat Charlie is being investigated by the police, his fiancé’s falling in love with the wrong brother, and he finds out that his father was the god Anansi, Trickster and Spider, and that the beast gods of folklore are plotting their own revenge upon his family bloodline. A fun book with a little of everything-horror, mystery, magic, comedy, song, romance, ghosts, scary birds, ancient grudges, and trademark British wit-it shares ideas and characters with American Gods but conveys a more personal look at the dysfunctions unique to a family of deities (now this would be one reality show definitely to watch!). Another lovely story as only Gaiman can tell it; necessary and recommended. -Ann Kim, Library Journal Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Neil Gaiman's website

Classics Book Suggestion for January 2010

Silas Marner by George Eliot

Summary

The isolated, misanthropic, miserly weaver Silas Marner is one of George Eliot’s greatest creations, and his presence casts a strange, otherworldly glow over the moral dramas, both large and small, that take place in the pastoral landscape that surrounds him. When Marner is wrongly accused of a crime and expelled from his community, he vows to turn his back upon the world. He moves to the village of Raveloe, where he remains an outsider and an object of suspicion until an extraordinary sequence of events, including the theft of his gold and the appearance of a tiny, golden-haired child in his cottage, transforms his life. Part beautifully realized rural portraiture and part fairy tale, the story of Marner’s redemption and restoration to humanity has long been George Eliot’s most beloved and widely read work. - Rosemary Ashton

Full Text of Silas Marner
Discussion Questions
Biography of George Eliot

Popular Fiction & Bestsellers Suggestion for January 2010

Drood by Dan Simmons

Summary:

On June 9, 1865, while traveling by train to London with his secret mistress, 53-year-old Charles Dickens--at the height of his powers and popularity, the most famous and successful novelist in the world and perhaps in the history of the world--hurtled into a disaster that changed his life forever. Did Dickens begin living a dark double life after the accident? Were his nightly forays into the worst slums of London and his deepening obsession with corpses, crypts, murder, opium dens, the use of lime pits to dissolve bodies, and a hidden subterranean London mere research . . . or something more terrifying? Just as he did in The Terror, Dan Simmons draws impeccably from history to create a gloriously engaging and terrifying narrative. Based on the historical details of Charles Dickens's life and narrated by Wilkie Collins (Dickens's friend, frequent collaborator, and Salieri-style secret rival), DROOD explores the still-unsolved mysteries of the famous author's last years and may provide the key to Dickens's final, unfinished work: The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Chilling, haunting, and utterly original, DROOD is Dan Simmons at his powerful best.

Library Journal Review:

Titled in reference to Dickens's unfinished novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Simmons's latest (after The Terror) casts one grotesque-the drug-addled and paranoid Wilkie Collins, author of The Moonstone and The Woman in White-to write about another grotesque, Charles Dickens, who's bursting with energy and colossal egotism, already secure in his position as England's greatest living writer. Collins becomes convinced that they are both being pursued by a vampiric mass murderer named Drood. Drood's eyelids have been excised and his teeth filed to points. He has mastered the ancient Egyptian black arts, and he leads an army of undead followers who live in the sewers and caverns beneath London. But is Drood real, or is he a phantasm of Collins's opium-filled brain? This sprawling monster of a novel is Collins-like in its exotic extravagance, Dickensian in its sharply delineated characters, major and minor. Simmons has captured to a tee the high style of late Victorian melodrama: the story line is consistently engrossing and utterly unpredictable. This rip-roaring adventure is a true page-turner. Enthusiastically recommended for all popular collections. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 10/15/08.]-David Keymer, Modesto, CA Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.

Beth's pic for December 2009

Geography of Love; a Memoir by Glenda Burgess


This memoir reads like a classic romance novel. I could hardly believe that it was a true story. Have a box of tissues with you as you read it. It is what I would want to have written about me once I am gone. -- Beth

Summary of this book: This poignant exploration of the depths of the human heart and the ability to love and to trust no matter the obstacles is a reminder that "real" life is always richer--and often stranger--than fiction. [from the MCLD catalog]


Book Reviews:

Library Journal Review

First-time writer Burgess skillfully writes of how she discovered a powerful new love and broke away from her irascible, stubbornly reclusive mother. With Ken, 13 years her senior and no stranger to life's cruelties, she built a fairy-tale family life only to lose him and her mother to cancer just weeks apart. Burgess's scientifically themed prose is luminous and encompasses a strong spiritual dimension. This sweeping love story will particularly interest those who have endured similar tragedies.--EB Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly Review

Novelist Burgess's memoir of her idyllic 15-year marriage cut short by the death of her husband from cancer proves startling, memorable and deeply moving. Burgess (Loose Threads) moves backward in time before arriving at husband Ken's shattering diagnosis of lung cancer in November 2002. In the late 1980s, at age 31, she quit her job in government and moved from Washington, D.C., to Spokane, not far from her mother's eastern Washington farm. Burgess was determined to change her life and within a year had embarked on a fairy tale romance with an executive at the company she worked for, Ken Grunzweig, a twice-widowed (one of his wives was shockingly murdered) jet-setter 19 years older with a teenage daughter. Two children, a busy, prosperous life and several moves followed, until the family relocated back to Spokane before illness struck Ken. With gentle, deliberate strokes, Burgess portrays her love for her devoted, athletic husband and the seven months of surgery, radiation and chemotherapy that led to his crushing physical debilitation. Her narrative grows increasingly engrossing, yet difficult to read, as Ken, the fighter, is forced to constantly face death. Burgess's journey possesses bravery and open-eyed clarity. (Aug.) Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.

Go to the author’s website:

http://www.glendaburgessbooks.com/

Nonfiction Book Suggestion for December 2009

Go Green, Live Rich by David Bach

Summary

Let David Bach show you a whole new way to prosper—by going green. Internationally renowned financial expert and bestselling author David Bach has always urged readers to put their financial lives in line with their values. But what if your values are a cleaner and greener earth? Most people think that “going green” is an expensive choice they can’t afford. Bach is here to say that you can have both: a life in line with your green values and a million dollars in the bank. Go Green, Live Rich outlines fifty ways to make your life, your home, your shopping, and your finances greener—and get rich trying. From driving the right car to making your home energy smart, Bach offers ways to improve the environment while you spend less, save more, earn more, and pay fewer taxes. Best of all, he shows you exactly how to take advantage of the "green wave" in personal finance without the difficult work of evaluating individual stocks. What's more, he will get you thinking about a green business of your own so you can help the world along as it is changing for the better. David Bach is on a mission to teach the world that you can live a great life by living a green life. With Go Green, Live Rich, you can live in line with your eco-values on the road to financial freedom.

Review from Publisher's Weekly

Bach (The Automatic Millionaire; Start Late, Finish Rich) offers a multitude of suggestions for conserving the planet-and your money-in this attractive and accessible guide. A few of Bach's tips require making a serious commitment (growing your own vegetables, using recyclable energy, trading in your car for a fuel-efficient model); others such as unplugging unused appliances, switching to compact fluorescent bulbs and eating less meat are simple-if familiar-ways to go green. Bach also advocates making environmental consciousness a family value (spending more family time in nature, taking volunteer vacations), greening holidays by using recycled wrapping paper, sending e-cards and "tree-cycling." Bach clarifies how the most conservative changes in lifestyle can yield radical results: "If every U.S. computer and monitor were turned off at night, the nation could shut eight large power stations and avoid emitting 7 million tons of CO2 every year." In the "Finish Rich" section, Bach turns his attention from going green to getting green-investing the money you save in eco-friendly businesses. A winning and wise guide, this book-printed on recycled paper with proceeds going to a green advocacy group-will find a large audience.

Best in Books for December 2010

In Defense Of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

This month’s pick will make you think before shopping and preparing the delicious food for your holiday table. In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto by Michael Pollan is the 2009 James Beard Foundation Award in the Writing and Literature category and a New York Times Bestseller. Pollan presents his readers with the background of what has gone wrong with our “Western Diet”. The second half of the book provides suggestions to correct the food problems that have made the United States a nation with diet related health issues. Pollan urges us go back to our cultural roots to eat sensibly and he then provides the history of why we are tied up in knots of what and what not to eat to maintain a healthy diet. In the end, the author suggests we listen to our grandmothers and not the food industry for our food choices as we push our carts through the supermarket. A back-to-basics whole food menu will provide us with a diet that is healthy for our bodies, community and environment. This manifesto encourages us to make thoughtful food choices and enjoy our food with all of our senses instead of using the flawed nutrient-by-nutrient approach pushed on us by food conglomerates.

Author Information