New eBook titles exclusively for Mac library patrons!

Good news for those awaiting the most popular titles on our Library2Go eBook site:

The McMinnville Public Library has purchased exclusive access to certain titles using the Overdrive Advantage program.  This way, our patrons have one digital copy exclusively for the library, which will cut back wait times.

Here’s the list of the titles we’ve purchased.
1st to Die by James Patterson
77 Shadow Street by Dean Koontz *must be signed in to check out
A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyere
Catherine the Great by Robert K. Massie *must be signed in to check out
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer
Explosive Eighteen by Janet Evanovich *must be signed in to check out
Heaven is for Real by Todd Burpo & Lunn Vincent
In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson
Inheritance by Christopher Paolini
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)  by Mindy Kaling
New Moon by Stephenie Meyer
The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson
The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
The Litigators by John Grisham
The Paris Wife by Paula McLain
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
Unfinished Business by Nora Roberts *must be signed in to check out
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

Forget the radio for your commute…try out a (NEW) book on CD!

I’m a neophyte to the audio book world, but I’ve absolutely fallen in love. Based on a recommendation, I checked out the first Artemis Fowl audiobook from our library, and began listening on my 40 minute commute into work. It was amazing! Listening to an audiobook, especially one with an excellent narrator, makes the time I spend driving go by so much faster (and is much safer than talking on a cellphone!).  As the story progressed, I found I was so caught up in the plot that it became harder to get out of my car once I arrived at work! I also started listening to a downloaded version on my mp3 player while at the grocery store. Thanks to audio books,  the stressful aspects of my day was transformed into something entirely different.
Our library has a wide variety of books on CD available, come by and look at the selection. Here are some of the newest titles available, place your holds today!

Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression
The Vertical Farm: Feeding the World in the 21st Century
Rival Rails: The Race to Build America’s Greatest Transcontinental Railroad
The Amazing Story of Quantum Mechanics: A Math Free Exploration of the Science that Made Our World
Nelson Mandela: Conversations with Myself
On The Edge of Survival: A Shipwreck, A Raging Storm, and the Harrowing Alaskan Rescue That Became A Legend
Betty White: Here We Go Again
Fresh Air with Terry Gross: Just for Laughs
The Mob and Me: Wiseguys and the Witness Protection Program
Bound: A Novel
Composing a Further Life: The Age of Active Wisdom
Don’t Vote: It Just Encourages the Bastards
At Home: A Short History of Private Life

~Courtney

The Help

Set in the volatile world of Jackson, Mississippi in the early 1960s,The Help, a debut novel from Kathryn Stockett, is full of good food and hidden feelings. The tension between the world of the white and the separate but intersecting world of black people is like a tight wire about to snap. Enter into this scene a naïve, newly graduated young Southern woman full of ambition- not to get married like most of her friends but rather to be a journalist. “Skeeter” Phelan was born and raised in Mississippi, but she is somewhat oblivious to the fragility of the relationship between the whites of Jackson and the blacks that work for them.

Aibileen has always known she would be a maid. Her mother was a maid and her grandmother was a domestic slave before her. She knows how to get the ring off of the bathtub and she has raised seventeen white babies, but what she can not do is get over the death of her own son. With patience and wisdom, Aibileen raises the white children to know they are important for who they are on the inside.

Minny, the third narrator of the book, is an artist with a caramel cake and unable to hold her tongue. This has lost her plenty of jobs and most recently has got her in hot water with Miss Hilly Holbrook, women’s league president and society queen of Jackson. Fearing that Miss Hilly will have her blacklisted from all maid jobs in Jackson, Minny fakes a reference for a job with Miss Celia Rae Foote, a white woman who may be even more alone and isolated than Minny.

When Skeeter decides to write a book which tells the secret life of black maids and their white employers, the three women begin a journey which is always dangerous, often painful and sometimes hilarious. As the women tell their stories, Skeeter’s eyes are opened to the painful truth about her friends and her family who are hiding a secret about their own long time maid.

Kathryn Stockett’s novel reflects her own life and gives insight into a complexity of emotional relationships between people treated unequally. While not presuming to know what it was really like to be a black woman in the 1960’s south, the author does hope that we will realize: “We are just two people. Not that much separates us. Not nearly as much as [we] thought.” A good reminder for any place and time.

~Diane

Books for all seasons

As the nights start to get chilly and the leaves begin to fall, I always think of one of my favorite books Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. Maybe I first read it in the autumn or maybe the tone of the book just fits so nicely with the fading light or maybe  the morning fog reminds me of the man with the thistle-down hair. Similarly, I associate Pride and Prejudice with summer and Wuthering Heights with winter. But, I have read Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell at least three times, so I must search for another book to suit the season.

The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields . “ Bittersweet, beautifully written . . . deliciously unclassifiable, blatantly intelligent and subtly subversive . . . The Stone Diaries chips away at our most cherished, comforting beliefs about the immutability of facts and fate.”
—San Francisco Chronicle

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon. “A page turner in the most expansive sense of the word: its gripping plot pushes readers forward…Chabon is a reader’s writer; with sentences so cozy they’ll wrap you up and kiss you goodnight.”—Chicago Tribune

The Seance by John Harwood. “Harwood’s spellbinding second novel…pays homage to such nineteenth-century suspense masters as Wilkie Collins and Sheridan Le Fanu…Harwood invokes the hoariest cliches of supernatural suspense, from stormy nights to haunted houses, and effortlessly makes them his own.” (Publishers Weekly, starred review )

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger. “A compelling modern-day ghost story set in and around London’s atmospheric Highgate cemetery…An engrossing love story that crosses to the ‘other side,’ Symmetry offers an inventive take on sibling rivalry, personal identity and what it’s like to be dead.”– People (3 1/2 stars)

Poe’s Children: the new horror: an anthology edited by Peter Straub. “Revelatory. . . . A remarkably consistent, frequently unsettling book.” —The Washington Post

Happy autumnal reading!

~ Diane

Vampires everywhere!

Still can’t get enough of novels about vampires? Given the sucess of the Twilight Series, it’s not surprising that there are a lot of books out- mostly in the Young Adult section- about vampires. Here are some that you an find at your library:

Vampire Academy (series) by Richelle Mead

Blue Bloods by Melissa de la Cruz

In the Forest of the Night by Amelia Atwater- Rhodes.

Evernight by Claudia Gray.

My Sword Hand is Singing by Marcus Sedgwick.

Eighth Grade Bites by Heather Brewer.

From the Adult fiction:

Aunt Dimity: vampire hunter by Nancy Atherton.

Fangland by John Marks

Baltimore,or, The steadfast tin soldier and the vampire by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden.

~Diane

New Audio Books!

A great new selection of audio books are on their way to our shelves. Here is a partial list:

King of the World by David Remnick

Edith Wharton by Hermione Lee

The Legs Are the Last to Go: Aging, Acting, Marrying, Mothering and Everything Else I Learned Along the Way by Dianne Carroll

Things I’ve Been Silent About by Azar Nafisi

Diary by Chuck Palahniuk

Books: A Memoir by Larry McMurtry

Too Fat To Fish byArtie Lange

Wildwood Dancing by Juliet Marillier

A Most Wanted Man by John la Carre

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks

Hurry Down Sunshine by Michael Greenberg

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford

The Labrador Pact by Matt Haig

Shadowfires by Dean Koontz

What books did you get for the holidays?

We received two copies of The Savage Detectives by Roberto Balano. I’m looking forward to reading about this very different world of a militant literary movement in Mexico City in the 1970s.  A friend who has read it already has warned me that the middle section of the book (there are three written in different voices and styles) was rather slow for him- he loved it, he hated it but ended up thinking it was the best book he read last year.

I also got two books that our library system does not currently have a copy but I will be recommending them:

The Sacred Book of the Werewolf by Victor Pelevin. I have yet to read this one either, but the reviews of it have me intrigued! Written by a Russian who uses magic and myth as  symbolism of culture- it’s richness and general fun narrative remind me of one of my favorite all time books, The Master and the Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov.

The Harvest by Jean Giono.  This book is out of print- so if you see it at a used book store, snatch it up! It’s an earthy, sweet story  with fantastic wood cut prints.

What books did you get for the holidays? Did you like them?

Happy reading!

~Diane

Change

I get into reading ruts- I mean, I like what I like so I read that. But, sometimes, something really different comes along and spices up my reading life.  Here are two recent surprises:

Jellaby by Kean Soo is a wonderful graphic novel that I checked out for my eight year old. I read the first couple pages and could hardly wait for her to finish so I could read it. Charming and a bit dark. The second volume of this story Jellaby:Monster in the City will be published in April 2009.

I just started The Age of Bronze: One Thousand Ships by Eric Shanower and it’s great! Another graphic novel (with a radically different style from Jellaby) that tells the story of the Trojan War- “each sensual touch, every savage blow, the smiles and tear, the lust and betrayal, the entire tapestry of drama and action” the cover says. O.k. There are two more volumes of this story which are available at the library.

So, I’m thinking that change is good.

~Diane

What to read next?

Having just finished Sandra Gulland’s novel Mistress of the Sun (and throughly enjoyed this historical novel of the life of Louise de la Vallière (1644–1710), mistress to Louis XIV, the Sun King of France), I am faced with the reader’s perpetual question: What should I read next? I have a long list and a pile of books to read at home (yes, I may be the only person yet to read Twilight by Stephenie Meyer), but it isn’t that easy. It doesn’t just have to be a good book- it has to be the right good book.

After a quick look at the New Book shelf, here is my short list:

Jeff Talarigo’s second novel, The Ginseng Hunter, is set in China along the border of North Korea. The sequestered life of a Chinese Ginseng Hunter is disrupted when he meets a North Korean prostitute who brings tragedies of her family to life through her stories. The Christian Science Monitor had this to say:

“Jeff Talarigo has a remarkable talent: from some of the most horrific experiences a human being might face, he somehow crafts beautiful, haunting works of fiction. Talarigo [now] offers The Ginseng Hunter, a story of quiet humanity discovered in the midst of overwhelming inhumanity.”

The novel The Toss of a Lemon by Padma Viswanathan explores the world of a southern India village and specifically the life of Sivakami, a Tamil Brahmin girl. Publishers Weekly says that “Viswanathan is especially adept at unobtrusively explaining foreign customs and world views to Westerners while wholly respecting the power and significance they hold for practitioners”.

Last but not least on my list is Salman Rushdie’s latest novel, The Enchantress of Florence. In the reviews “challenging but worth it” is mentioned as well as page-long sentences. This novel- which some describe as a collection of short stories- sounds like a foggy, gilded dream of a fairy tale.

So- a choice must be made. I am leaning toward The Toss of a Lemon because I like long novels that immerse me in a world very different from my own. If you are tempted- two of these books will be on the New Books shelf on the library’s second floor. One will be going home with me.

~Diane

Windy City; A novel about Politics by Scott Simon

                                      I really enjoy Scott Simon. I look forward to his Saturday show on NPR and am delighted that one of his many talents is writing books. This one is of particular interest to me since I grew up in the Windy City. The title refers to the politics of Chicago rather than the meteorology. Politicians there have a lot of wind and exercise their verbosity on a regular basis. This story starts with an unlikely murder and the subsequent election by the 50 Chicago Aldermen (and women) to fill the post. Chicago is one of the most diverse cities in the country and each ward is unique in its nationality and politics.  The willingness of ward politicians to really be a part of the lives of their constituents is unique to Chicago. This book is fiction, but the subjects are drawn from real life. It is a true testament to the diversity of people and politics that makes Chicago run like a “smooth machine”.   Windy City

If you like his style of writing, try “Pretty Birds“, a novel about Sarajevo during the Bosnian War, 1991-1995.