Beautiful Public Libraries (in the U.S.)

Salt Lake City Public Library

Parkway Central Library, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

New York Public Library

More here. 

Thanksgiving Poem

“Listen” by W.S. Merwin

with the night falling we are saying thank you


we are stopping on the bridge to bow from the railings


we are running out of the glass rooms


with our mouths full of food to look at the sky


and say thank you


we are standing by the water looking out


in different directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging


after funerals we are saying thank you


after the news of the dead


whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you


in a culture up to its chin in shame


living in the stench it has chosen we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you


in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators


remembering wars and the police at the back door


and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you


in the banks that use us we are saying thank you


with the crooks in office with the rich and fashionable


unchanged we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us


our lost feelings we are saying thank you


with the forests falling faster and faster then the minutes


of our lives we are saying thank you


with the words going out like cells of a brain


with the cities growing over us like the earth


we are saying thank you faster and faster


with nobody listening we are saying thank you


we are saying thank you and waving


dark though it is

"I dreamed of having a book of my own, of writing one that I could put on a shelf."

“Please, no matter how we advance technologically, please don’t abandon the book. There is nothing in our material world more beautiful than the book.”


Patti Smith wins the National Book Award for nonfiction for her memoir Just Kids. 


Jaimy Gordon wins for fiction with his book Lord of Misrule.

November Poem

My November Guest
Robert Frost


My Sorrow, when she's here with me,
  Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
  She walks the sodden pasture lane.

Her pleasure will not let me stay.
  She talks and I am fain to list:
She's glad the birds are gone away,
She's glad her simple worsted grady
  Is silver now with clinging mist.

The desolate, deserted trees,
  The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so ryly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
  And vexes me for reason why.

Not yesterday I learned to know
  The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell he so,
  And they are better for her praise.

In the Shadow of Gotham

By Stephanie Pintoff

Winner of the Minotaur Books/MWA Best First Crime Novel award, In the Shadow of Gotham begins with the brutal murder of a young woman in the middle of a cold November day. The year is 1905 and Pintoff manages to incorporate the General Slocum steamship tragedy, New York City politics, and the growing field of criminal psychology into the murder investigation. 


The book was well-written and entertaining, and like other reviewers have noted, her writing does remind me of Caleb Carr's work. Truth be told, I think Carr is better, but overall In the Shadow of Gotham was a a fun, entertaining read. 

A Cold Treachery

By Charles Todd

I was traveling this past week, and there's nothing I hate more than being stuck in an airport (or hotel) without a good book. This mystery was another Bas Bleu find and I really enjoyed it. Charles Todd is the nom de plume of a mother and son writing team who live in America, but whose books take place in Britain. Click here to see their website. 


The year is 1919 and Scotland Yard detective Ian Rutledge is sent into a snowstorm to investigate the murder of an entire family in northern England. After arriving in the remote town he discovers that a young boy may have survived and may hold the clue to what happened. Shell-shocked and haunted by his past as a soldier in WWI, Rutledge is a recurring character in Todd's novels and makes for a richly drawn protagonist. 


If you love mysteries or just want a good read definitely check out A Cold Treachery or another Charles Todd novel. 


Ian Rutledge Mysteries: 
A Fearsome Doubt
A False Mirror
A Long Shadow
Watchers of Time
Search the Dark
Legacy of the Dead
A Pale Horse
A Matter of Justice
A Test of Wills
The Red Door
A Lonely Death

Free Kindle Books

I'm not a huge Kindle user, but free books are always fun. Especially free classics.

Check it out here. 

Amazon's Best Books of 2010

Editor's picks and customer favorites.


I've been in a bit of a book "drought" lately. This list might do the trick. (My personal favorite for this year is #5). 


Here are the choices for their Top Ten: 


1. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
2. Faithful Place by Tana French
3. Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes
4. Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
5. The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson
6. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
7. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson
8. To the End of the Land by David Grossman
9. Just Kids by Patti Smith
10. The Big Short by Michael Lewis


Top 100 editor's picks. 
Top 100 customer favorites. 

Fingersmith

By Sarah Waters

Back in my college days, my best friend read Sarah Waters' debut novel Tipping the Velvet, and told me I had to read it. I never got around to reading that particular Sarah Waters novel, but I did just finish Fingersmith, and I'm happy to report I wasn't lead astray. Waters is a fantastic novelist, with a gift for bringing to life a particular time and place while building an enjoyable suspense novel. 

The novel takes place in Victorian England, and contains multiple Dickensian motifs: orphans, prisons, insane asylums, pickpockets, handsome villains and stolen fortunes. It seems to be the straightforward story of Sue Trinder, a small-time thief who is recruited by a family friend to help him seduce and marry the wealthy orphan of his employer. However, once Sue takes on the role of the young woman's maid her alliance begins to shift. Once the deed seems to be done the story takes a highly unexpected turn. 

Waters has an eye for detail, vividly bringing to life the slums of Victorian London, as well as the decaying country homes inhabited by the wealthy who spend their time in idle pursuits. Her intricate narrative mapping makes Fingersmith a gripping read right until the end of Sue's journey.

Mad Men in Books

  The fourth season of Mad Men ended last week, and while I'm sad to see it go, I've recently discovered some fun Mad Men inspired books to keep me going until next season. And with the holidays right around the corner these books make fantastic gifts for any Mad Men fanatics. 


The Fashion File: Advice, Tips, and Inspiration from the Costume Designer of Mad Men
By Janie Bryant

Janie Bryant is the immensely talented costume designer for Mad Men and she just released The Fashion File this past month. The book works more like a how-to reference for dressing yourself. She also gives behind the scenes peeks into the Mad Men world, as well as her process for creating the costumes. 

Mad Men: The Illustrated World

By Dyna Moe

Dyna Moe became famous when she began posting illustrated depictions of Mad Men on her Flickr stream (check it out here). AMC then used her considerable skill to create their Mad Men Yourself machine. The book isn't just illustrations, it includes a Sally Draper drink menu, Joan paper dolls, and instructions on how to create the perfect bouffant.

 

Freedom: A Novel

By Jonathan Franzen

I wish I had a post to do this novel justice. All I can say is Jonathan Franzen rocks and I'm pretty sure he's the greatest living writer of fiction in the U.S. Read this book right now!


And if you still haven't read it, pick up the The Corrections.

Never Let Me Go

By Kazuo Ishiguro 

I read Never Let Me Go a few years ago when it was first published. I was reminded of the book when I recently saw the trailer for the upcoming movie (featuring Keira Knightley and the lovely Carey Mulligan).  I never read Remains of the Day, Ishiguro's most famous novel, but I was impressed by the books' understated style. 


The book takes place in a dystopian Britain and revolves around the boarding school Hailsham, where the students are all taught they are special and not like other children. Slowly, the reader is given clues regarding the children's role in society, gradually unfolding until the deeply unsettling end. 


Ishiguro's prose has a simplicity I have always admired in writers. Every word and every sentence is a choice, and those choices are made with great care. Ishiguro manages to create an eerie distance between the reader and the characters, never fully stating what is happening, but all the while managing to mimic the half-lives they are forced to live for the good of society. 

Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks

By John Curran

For an Agatha Christie lover this book is a fantastic trove of information and insight into her writing process. Curran poured through over seventy notebooks in order to piece together Christie's plot developments, a task made even more challenging because Christie didn't record her musings in any sort of order. 

Sex With Kings: Five Hundred Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry, and Revenge

By Eleanor Herman



I've been slowly making my way through Sex with Kings for the past few months, since it's the type of book you can easily pick up and come back to a few days/weeks later. 


While the writing is light and frothy, it still covers a lot of ground, detailing the wide array of royal mistresses that have populated monarch's beds for centuries. Some are serious loves, with relationships spanning decades, while most are temporary placeholders until the next beauty comes along to take her place. One thing is clear, being a royal mistress was hard work, and those lucky few who found themselves on the receiving end of a king's affections had to work non-stop to hold onto their place of honor. 


Overall a fun, interesting read. My only warning, Herman doesn't cover her subjects chronologically, so it's easy to get mixed up with the numerous names and dates she throws at you. 

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

By John Le Carré

"Treason is very much a matter of habit." -George Smiley

Sometime last year I read that the British writer John Le Carré (the pen name of David Cornwell) was considered to be one of the greatest spy novelists of all time. I've always loved mystery novels, but the spy genre tends to be a very different animal altogether. And while spy novels sound like fun, I had never really found a great book to reel me in. However, last summer I ended up reading the American-based The Romeo Flag by Carolyn Hougan and enjoyed the quiet, intellectual style her spies possessed. 

Luckily, John Le Carré's novels seem to have a similar understated intensity to them. Browsing through Amazon I discovered that Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy is considered to be one of his best novels (along with The Spy Who Came in From the Cold and A Perfect Spy). (An interesting side note, the term "mole" was first used by Le Carré in this novel.)


The novel takes place during the height of the Cold War and focuses on the recently fired George Smiley, who is asked to return to his British Intelligence stomping grounds to find a long-ago implanted Russian mole. The character of Smiley goes against the suave James Bond-type made famous by Ian Fleming. Instead, Smiley is short, overweight, with a beautiful wife who has left him. He is later described  by one of his agents: "You thought, to look at him, that he couldn't cross the road alone, but you might as well have offered protection to a hedge hog." 


The spywork laid out in Tinker, Tailor is not flashy, or even exciting. Instead, it involves pouring through paperwork and the ability to analyze vast networks of spies and their handlers. He also manages to convey the strangeness of the double agent's life, working his way up in an organization while slowly destroying it in such a way as not to attract attention. Le Carré has the gift of possessing sparse, yet descriptive prose, allowing his work to more than just another spy novel. 


Le Carré's attention to the vast details present in British Intelligence also sets his novel apart; the relationships, office hierarchies and the constant watchfulness present in all its agents. The detailed focus isn't surprising since Le Carré spent the 1950s and 1960s working for M15 and M16 running agents and conducting interrogations. His intelligence career came to an end when he was betrayed by Kim Philby, a British double-agent who was part of the Cambridge Five. In the book's introduction, Le Carré indicates that he used Philby as a model for his KGB mole.