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New and upcoming books, author events, book groups and more!
June 29, 2009
Reviewed by EFP Library Patron Judith WillisHotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is a beautifully written book, which shows the conflict between father and sons, the innocence of first love, and the damages caused by war—focusing not on the battlefield, but on the cold, cruel damage to the hearts and humanity of individuals.
The story begins when Henry Lee, a man in his sixties, comes upon a crowd gathered outside the Panama Hotel, once a gateway between Seattle’s Chinatown and Japantown. Boarded up for decades, the new owner has made an incredible discovery in the basement: the belongings of Japanese families, left when they were rounded up and sent to internment camps during World War II. As Henry looks on, the owner opens a Japanese parasol found in the basement. Henry is certain that the parasol belongs to Keiko Okabe, a Japanese girl he befriended forty years ago. He gains permission from the owner to search the hotel basement for the Okabe family’s belongings. This simple act takes Henry back to the 1940s when he was 12 years old and to his father who was obsessed with the war in China and having Henry grow up American. He attended an exclusive elementary school, which he and his family called “scholarshipping.” His parents insisted whenever he left the house that he speak English at all times, which created a communications problem between Henry and his parents. He also must wear a button stating, “I am Chinese” to distinguish him from being of Japanese descent. At school he was ignored, teased, and bullied by the white children. He meets Keiko Okabe, a young Japanese-American student. Amidst the blackouts, curfews, and FBI raids, Henry and Keiko forge a bond of friendship and innocent love that transcends the long-standing prejudices of their Old World ancestors.
Henry’s father learns of his son’s and Keiko’s friendship and disowns Henry for dishonoring him. He has a stroke and Henry blames himself. After Keiko and her family are swept up in the evacuation of the internment camps, she and Henry are left only with the hope that the war will end and that they will continue their relationship and promises to each other. They write letters back and forth to each other, then suddenly Keiko stops her correspondence. Henry is despondent and decides that Keiko has gone in another direction with her life. Henry marries, has a family, and is now a widower. He misses his wife who has died of cancer, but he still can’t forget the memories of his first love. What will become of Henry and Keiko? If you are looking for a marvelous, bittersweet story, check out Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet.
Today’s review is for a richly rewarding historical novel, The Four Seasons: A Novel of Vivaldi’s Venice, by Laurel Corona, which our reviewer (a “hard marker”) gave a rating of 4 on a 1-5 scale.
The setting is 18th century Venice. A mother, unable to care for her daughters, leaves them on the steps of the Ospedale della Pieta, Venice’s world-famous foundling hospital and musical academy. The plot follows the very different fates of these two sisters. The author does an excellent job of weaving in the customs of the aristocracy in Venice with the City’s love and support of music. Including Antonio Vivaldi in the plot increases the historical interest; I have never heard music described in such a wonderful way! The fact that the mysterious mother had broken a comb, leaving part with her children and keeping a part so that they could identify each other, was never resolved leads to thoughts of a sequel. The characters were multidimensional, the customs, fashions and life of Venetian aristocracy were well presented and Vivaldi’s life and music added a wonderful dimension to the book. I would love to hear more about this family and am hoping that my hunch plays out.
June 25, 2009
A club member rated Brandon Sanderson’s world-building fantasy, Warbreaker, 5 stars. Check out the enthusiastic review to see if this might be your perfect summer read!
Warbreaker is the latest effort by Brandon Sanderson, an author whose greatest strength is undoubtedly his ability to build fascinating and remarkably complete worlds and magic systems–his latest novel is no different. Warbreakeris a hefty volume in which magic wielders use color-based BioChromatic Breath to animate objects, and one of the countries is ruled by “Returned” (those who come back to life with godlike levels of Breath, the most powerful of whom is the God King). While this may sound a little confusing, it’s introduced and used in such a way that the magic system becomes completely believable, though it is never fully explained. The book’s setting is the capital city of Hallandren, a country that is, by all indications, preparing to wage war on neighboring Idris. It focuses on five characters: two royal Idrian sisters, one of whom is promised in marriage to the mysterious and threatening God King; her rebellious younger sister; the unwilling god Lightsong, who feels that indolence is his highest calling; the aforementioned God King; and the mysterious Vasher, who could be on either side of the looming conflict. Sanderson balances the viewpoints carefully, weaving a sophisticated plot between these genuinely enjoyable protagonists as he also allows their characters to mature. Warbreaker is deeply concerned with questions of faith and ethics: What does it mean to believe in a religion where you can see the gods, versus one where you can’t? What if someone viewed as a god had a difficult time believing his own divinity? How far would you compromise your beliefs to save something important to you? As usual with a Sanderson book, there were things that I didn’t see coming (masterful plotting is another of his strengths), and I have to recommend this book to other fantasy readers. Warbreaker is available for free online, in its entirety, thanks to the generosity of the author.
June 23, 2009
Now that the reviews from the Adult Summer Reading Club have started to pour in in earnest, it’s time to resume our popular “Review of the Day” feature.
Today’s review is of Good in Bed, by Jennifer Weiner. This 2001 novel was the author’s well-received debut. Here’s what the ASRC member said:
I was actually surprised that I enjoyed this book so much. I figured it would be a pretty mindless read (it is, after all, chick lit) and the themes of self-empowerment and body acceptance that ran through it were surprising. I’d recommend it for folks looking for a quick and enjoyable (but not totally vapid) beach/pool read.
June 15, 2009
Reach for the Stars - Read! Springfield City Library’s Adult Summer Reading Club begins today and runs through August 22. There are great monthly prizes, and a Grand Prize of a $200 gift card from Eastfield Mall!
Due to staffing shortages, this blog has been on hiatus, but we will be reprising the popular “Book of the Day” feature that ran during last year’s club as soon as reviews start rolling in. Share your thoughts on a great book you’re reading or have recently read, and it might appear here to inspire others. Both registration and review/raffle forms are available at all our library locations and online. Sign up today!
June 8, 2009
A participant in last year’s Adult Summer Reading Club recently posted a comment saying that she had enjoyed the experience and wondered if we would be able to offer it again this year. We will - it will be starting next week , and will run through August 22. As with last year, readers will share their ratings of books they’ve read (written comments/summaries are encouraged but not required this year) and will get chances to win great prizes.
Once again, the Friends of the Springfield Library, Inc., is our primary sponsor. It is thanks to the Friends that we will be able to offer the Grand Prize, a $200 gift card to Eastfield Mall. They will also be sponsoring a lively celebration with music and refreshments on Monday, August 24 - stay tuned for more details!
In addition to the Friends, many local businesses generously gave gift certificates and prize items, despite this year’s tough economy. Thus, there will once again be great monthly prizes at each location. We’ll be pulling raffle winners in early July, early August, and after the club’s end on August 22, with the Grand Prize winner to be announced at the August 24 celebration.
Brochures and registration forms will be available in print and online soon!
April 21, 2009
Reviewed by Reggie Wilson
It would be difficult to find a better memoir than The Road of Lost Innocence. The riveting book tells the true story of Somaly Mam, who as a girl survived years of abuse and brutal sexual slavery in Cambodia. Ms. Mam escaped her bondage and now rescues other girls trapped in horrible brothels throughout Southeast Asia. Somaly Mam was born in a lush forest in rural, northeastern Cambodia. She was so isolated from modern life that she never experienced riding in an elevator, escalator, or airplane until she became an adult. Somaly’s road to lost innocence started before she was eight years old. She writes of her childhood, “The four years of Khmer Rouge rule, from 1975 to 1979, were responsible for the deaths of about one in five people in Cambodia through execution, starvation, or forced labor.” Somaly’s parents disappeared during this war-torn period and she was forced to live on her own. When she was nine years old, she was introduced to a man whom she thought “was my real grandfather, someone who would adopt and love me.” The man also tricked her into believing that he might know where her parents were. Somaly was taken by truck to his house where she was frequently beaten and forced to work as a servant. The worst of Somaly’s troubles started when she became a victim of sexual abuse by the man she called her grandfather. She was a preteen when her breasts started to develop and was horrified when her degenerate grandfather began to grope her while she tried to sleep. Soon after that humiliating experience, her grandfather made a perverse pact with a merchant that would lead Somaly down the path to sexual slavery. Somaly’s grandfather sold her to a merchant to cover one of his many gambling debts. The merchant later robbed Somaly of her virginity when he raped her. She was then forced to work in Aunty Peuve’s brothel in Phnom Penh. Mam writes, “It makes me vomit just thinking about it. The clients were horrible. To them we were meat. They would say, ‘I paid a fortune, and you’re not even pretty,’ and smack, hit you against the wall. They were dirty. They stank.” Somaly put up with years of severe beatings, rapes, verbal abuse, and emotional numbness. How much longer would she have to endure being considered just another “cheap whore” by her clients who were policemen, firemen, shopkeepers, soldiers, and construction workers? Her hopes of ever escaping the brothel and leading a decent life were evaporating. Somaly writes, “The word for prostitute in Cambodian is srey kouc, ‘broken woman’—broken in a way that cannot be mended.” Just when you start to believe that there is no way out of the bottomless pit of depravity that Somaly is sinking deeper into, she slowly uses her wits to get out of the brothel. When she leaves the brothel, she does not turn her back on the thousands of other young girls who are ripped from their families and sold into sexual slavery. She starts working for the humanitarian agency Doctors Without Borders that provides emergency medical relief to impoverished countries and urges the staff not to treat the prostitutes who desperately need their help with contempt or hostility. As a health aide, she distributes much needed soap, disinfectant, and condoms to help prevent the spiraling rate of AIDS in the brothels. Today she is co-founder and president of Acting for Women in Distressing Situations and the Mam Foundation. The two agencies founded by this modern day Harriet Tubman have rescued hundreds of girls from sexual slavery and re-integrated many former prostitutes into society by providing them with safe houses and job skills. Somaly writes, “When a victim meets another victim, there’s a look of understanding that is powerful. I was connected to these girls, and they trusted me. I had to help them. I knew these girls: they were me.”
March 24, 2009
Kathryn Stockettwas born in Jackson, Mississippi in 1969, the youngest of three children of parents who divorced when she was 6. Growing up, she reports that she felt unloved and unattractive, except for when the family’s African-American maid, Demetrie, offered her loving reassurances. Stockett never thought to ask how it felt for Demetrie, who died when Stockett was 16, to work for a white family in Mississippi, and that lack has weighed on her ever since.
Her debut novel, The Help, explores the complex relationships between white families and black household help in Jackson. Instead of setting the novel during her own growing-up years, she has set it back in 1962-63 during the days of segregation. She tells the story from the perspectives of an older, maternal black maid; a younger, sharp-tongued maid and a young white college graduate who wants to be a writer. Skeeter, the would-be writer, returns to her home after graduation to find that the black maid she loved as much as or more than anyone else on her family is no longer a part of the household. The trauma over this event launches her on a project to interview a variety of black maids in order to write about what it means to be a black maid working for a white family in an unnamed southern town. Her resulting book has the potential to be explosive, especially if the book’s readers are able to identity the town as Jackson.
The historical and cultural background feels authentic, though some of the chararacters - such as Skeeter’s former friend who becomes a narrow-minded Junior Leaguer - seem a bit stereotypical. All in all, though, it’s an eye-opening, well-crafted look at a bygone era - a solid 4 on a scale of 1-5.
March 19, 2009
Dan Simmonsis an exceptionally versatile and talented author. He has written outstanding titles in genres ranging from science fiction to horror to thrillers to historicals. His latest, Drood, imagines the final years of Charles Dickens, as seen through the lens of jealous fellow author Wilkie Collins, and imagines events that might have formed the basis for Dickens’ uncompleted final novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood.
Brilliantly capturing London of the period - especially London’s underbelly - this long, genre-spanning novel will keep you flipping the pages with its rich psychological puzzles. Simmons is an author not to be missed. If you’re more of a science fiction than a historical novel fan, be sure to check out the stunning, award-winning Hyperion.
March 18, 2009
For a debut novel offering characters that are achingly REAL, look no further than Shelter Me, by Juliette Fay. Set in a Massachusetts town (called Pelham, though it’s located not near Amherst but in the the eastern part of the state), the novel follows a 40-ish mother of two during the year after her husband is killed in an accident. Her grieving process is captured in part through her honest, emotionally charged journal entries. She gradually learns where her heart can find shelter after the expected course of her life has been snatched away in an instant.
There were a number of points in the story at which it could have easily slid into melodrama, but the author avoided that fate with unusual skill and sensitivity. Seldom have I seen characters and their complex interrelationships portrayed so believably and so empathetically. There are a number of holds on our copies at the moment - if you enjoy solid, emotionally-rich women’s fiction, you’ll want to add your name to the holds list for this exceptional debut. On a scale of 1 to 5, I’d give this one a 6.
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