Welcome to Springfield City Library…A Place for Readers
Is one of your resolutions for the new year to expand your reading horizons? If so, consider sampling one of our two open-format book groups. In this type of group, staff review several new and upcoming titles that go beyond the bestsellers, and everyone who attends has a chance to share their recent reads. It’s a great way to find new books and authors to enjoy. If you’re a reader or would-be reader, these groups are a place for you!
One of these groups has been running for over forty (!) years, while the other is just starting off next month. The long-running group, the Wednesday Book Group, meets on the second and fourth Wednesday of the month in the Central Library’s Community Room, 220 State Street, from 10 am to noon. Can’t make a group during the day? On February 7, we’re kicking off a First Thursday Group at the Pine Point Branch, 204 Boston Road, which will meet at 6:30 pm. Come and be a charter member, and bring along a friend or two. Questions? I’d love to hear from you - just give me a call at 263-6828, ext. 294.
The Wednesday Book Group held its first meeting of 2008 on January 9. In addition to staff reviews, members reviewed 20 different titles. Here are the 7 titles that members rated as 5* (on a scale of 1-5):
1. Peter Hamill’s North River - “Wonderful!”
2. Irene Nemirovsky’s Suite Francaise - A real heart-tugging WWII story by a writer who died in Auschwitz. Beautiful, emotional writing that makes you think about what was lost to the world during that war.
3. Doris Lessing’s The Fifth Child (which was the book discussed at January’s Noon Group meeting) - An “incredible strange” story of a family in 1950s Britain turned upside down when their son - the titular fifth child - is born a genetic throwback, rough and cruel even as a toddler. “Loved it!”
4. Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns - Fantastic story of two women in Afghanistan, married to the same abusive man, who develop a close friendship over the years.
5. Anne Easter Smith’s A Rose for the Crown - Creates a spirited mistress for England’s King Richard III, the mother of his illegitimate children. “Almost a Harlequin romance for historical fiction lovers.”
6. Georgina Howell’s Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations -Absorbing biography of a truly exceptional woman, the “female Lawrence of Arabia,” who was, among many things, a traveler, spy, linguist, archaeologist, linguist, author, and driving force behind the creation of modern-day Iraq. Fascinating!
7. Peter Robinson’s In a Dry Season Solid entry in the Yorkshire-based Alan Banks detective series featuring a decades-old skeleton uncovered in a local reservoir during the hottest, driest summer in memory.
There were lots of 4* and unrated but enthusiastic reviews as well, for titles ranging from Chris Bohjalian’s Double Bind to Marie Arana’s American Chica: Two Worlds, One Childhood. Not everyone loved every book they picked up - Dorothea Benton Frank’s The Christmas Pearl and Jennifer Lee Carrell’s Interred with their Bones took the most heat (both under 2*), although this reviewer enoyed the latter very much.
Staff reviews:
1. April Smith’s Judas Horse: An FBI Special Agent Ana Grey Mystery. To be published Feb. 12. 4*
If you love high-tension thrillers peopled with well-fleshed-out charcters set in interesting locales, you might want to discover April Smith. Only Smith’s third Ana Grey thriller, (following North of Montana and Good Morning, Killer), this one combines non-stop suspense with an absorbing psychological exploration of what it’s like to live deep undercover.
2. Adam Langer’s Ellington Boulevard. To be published Jan. 22 . 4*
Author of Crossing California and Washington Story introduces a wide array of wickedly-described characters circling around an apartment “going condo” on West 106th St. Langer nails the characters and their milieu, from the rebel jazz clarinetist who lives in the apartment to the mismatched academic couple who want to purchase it to the dysfunctional brokers, owner, and lawyers who swoop around them. Funny and original.
3. Stewart O’Nan’s Last Night at the Lobster. Currently available. 5+*
O’Nan manages to create a world in only 140 pages. With corporate headquarters deciding that the New Britain Red Lobster, tucked in a far corner of a mall parking lot, wasn’t “meeting expectations,” manager Manny DeLeon received notice in early December that on December 20 the restaurant would close, and he could take four employees with him to a nearby Olive Garden. December 20 arrives, a busy Saturday shopping day before Christmas, although a snow storm is brewing. The book simply traces Manny’s day, from his mid-morning arrival to the 11 pm final closing - he won’t give in and close early, even on the restaurant’s last day in the middle of a blizzard. Making sure that everything goes as perfectly as possible even on this last day, Manny is the heart of this restaurant family, a loyal and conscientious working-class hero in a system that seems not to value those traits. Perfectly observed.
Join us at our next meeting on January 23 to hear all the full reviews!
Love the blog!
Comment by Eileen Foley — January 18, 2008 @ 4:26 pm