Fifty Books for Our Times from Newsweek

One of my on going diatribes is for librarians and readers to remember the one thing that libraries do better than book stores, and that is that we have the backlist. Libraries will always have, for example, copies of that book which was popular 3 years ago, but no one remembers now. Yes we have the newest books and the classics, but unlike the bookstores, we have everything in between. Oh, and by the way, our books are free to borrow.

Promoting the backlist is where libraries can help readers best. This week, Newsweek is focusing on the backlist with this list 50 books for our times. As they say in the article, who needs them to tell you that The Great Gatsby is a great book?

This really is a great list, with helpful annotations. They cover a wide range of genres and have fiction and nonfiction. There should be something here for just about any reader.

Thanks to Early Word for singling out this great list.

What I'm Reading: The Last Dickens

I thought it was just me, but here in America we seem to be on a Dickens kick. I just finished Matthew Pearl's latest, The Last Dickens and I am in the process of listening to the 24 discs that make up Dan Simmons, Drood.

There have also been the PBS Masterpiece reworkings of Dickens' Tales. I also looked back at my blog over the past 12 months and saw that Dickens had come up frequently. All I have to say is that somebody has been doing some great subliminal Dickens' marketing.

But on to the book at hand, Matthew Pearl's The Last Dickens. I have read all three of Pearl's books. His newest has a more convincing mystery than Poe Shadow and is less bloody than The Dante Club. But like both of his previous books, The Last Dickens is chocked full of historical facts and people. In fact, at the end of the book, Pearl lists which characters were based on real people and which were made up for the narrative's sake.

Here is the basic plot. James Osgood, the American publisher for Dickens' work is waiting for the 6th installment of Dickens' latest novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, to arrive. He sends his right hand man to the dock to await the manuscript, but the young man mysteriously dies on the way back to the office. Was it murder? A nefarious foreigner is also introduced as chasing down the manuscript.

A few days later, Dickens dies; thus leaving his last work unfinished forever. Osgood and and a young divorcee from his office, Rebecca, travel to England to try and unravel the mystery surrounding Dickens' death and his mysterious last novel. Like any amateur detective novel, Osgood is in for more than he bargained and mortal danger, high speed horse and carriage races, and burning buildings await him on his journey. Their adventures and inquiries make up one of the two main story lines.

The second storyline takes place 3 years previously, during Dickens' last American tour. James Osgood was a part of this tour, but it is Dickens' young bodyguard Tom Branagan, through whom we see the story here. The two story lines do merge in the "present" of the book in a satisfactory way.

The Last Dickens was published in 2009, but is written as if it were a novel of 1870. So to those reviewers who complain that the villain's need to explain himself at the end is a bit much, I say that's how it would have been in a crime novel in 1870. That is why I enjoyed this novel. It was very much about the time while also mimicking it. It is even written in 6 "installments," just as the real publication of The Mystery of Edwn Drood was. And much like installment published novels of the era, Pearl ends each installment with a cliff hanger, but begins the next with the other storyline, alternating until the two collide and the novel moves briskly toward a conclusion. Again, just like most novels in the late 19th Century. As a reader who appreciates the history of leisure reading, I loved this aspect.

Without giving the ending away, I do have to mention some of the complaints about it. This is a work of historical fiction. Historical fiction needs to stay true to history. History stands than The Mystery of Edwin Drood went unfinished. This book needed to end with an unfinished book. However, The Last Dickens is also a mystery. And here our mystery involves what the finished book would contain. So, Pearl needed to have Osgood find the manuscript to have a satisfactory resolution to the mystery, but then he still needed to have it lost somehow, preserving the true historical outcome.

Personally, As I was getting closer to the end and Osgood had discovered that the last 6 installments were probably out there, I was getting worried that he would find them. Once he did locat ethe pages, I appreciated that rather exaggerated way in whcih they were lost forever. But really, I think it is a matter of taste; you will either like the ending or think it is a cop out.

Readalikes: There are so many options here. First and foremost is the other current book about Dickens' and his last work, Drood by Dan Simmons. Also, many are going to want to read The Mystery of Edwin Drood for themselves. Here is a link to all of Dickens work while we are at it.

Some critics have called The Mystery of Edwin Drood the first modern crime novel. Some other books that compete for that title are Moonstone by Wilkie Collins and The Dupin Tales by Poe (this edition has an introduction by Mattew Pearl).

Other similar titles would be the novels Ghostwalk by Rebecca Stott and The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti, both of which I have read and written about here and here.

Similar nonfiction readalikes would be The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester, The Lost City of Z : a Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann, and The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher by Kate Summerscale.

Book Discussion Survey Results

In this post I urged you to take the Reading Group Guides Survey for book club participants. They just posted the results here.

7,700 people took the survey. One of the findings that most interested me was the fact that over 70% of people get their discussion book suggestions from friends. This is a void into which your public library can step.

Whether or not you library hosts a book discussion group, the staff should be able to help you find appropriate titles for your group.

Here at BPL we have noted this finding, and we are going to try to market our services better to the groups that meet outside of the library. People don't know what we can do for them unless we tell them.

Now It's Your Turn to Vote on the Best Beach Reads

Enough of everyone else telling you what the best beach read is. NPR is going to let you tell them. Click here for details and vote for your favorite beach read.

They asked, I say we tell them!

Click here for all of my summer reading posts.

Over 100 Summer Reading Lists!

Someone with way more time than me has been keeping a list of every summer reading list he has come across. Click over to his delicious bookmarks to check them out for yourself.

Again, you can also click here to see everything I have posted about summer reading.

Library Lovers Unite to Save Ohio Libraries!

As reported on the 23rd in Early Word, Ohio Libraries (which unlike most public libraries in the country, get the majority of their budget from the state) are facing a 50% cut in funding.

A blog called, Save Ohio Libraries has been set up. Go on over there to see how you can help.

Ohio, along with my home state of Illinois, is known for having some of the best public libraries and public library services in the country. In these tough economic times, the library is one place where funding needs to at least stay the same.

Click here to see my past posts about how the economy is effecting library service.

Please go to their blog and help as best you can. Just adding them as a friend on Facebook will help. No matter where you live, if you believe in the value of public library service, they need your help. Spread the word.

Student Annotations: Special Reading Interests

Today's class is a catch all that we call Special Reading Interests. These are books that fall into any genre but fit the following reading interests: African-American, Latino/a, Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered, or Inspirational.

These are the four most common special interest in the area around Dominican University, as a result, these are the ones we focus on. If you were near a reservation, I could see why you might focus on Native American Literature, or if you were in CA, you might need to add Asian-American Literature to the list.

The key to this day is to show the students that you sometimes need to think about issues beyond just genre when giving reading suggestions. And, a great way to do this is by picking the most popular reading interests in your area.

Also, we use this class to stress how important it is to not think of, for example, "African-American" books as a genre. This is a big mistake. Within each of these special reading interests, there is a book in every genre, with appeal factors specific to that genre. For example, just because a reader likes "gay authors" does not mean they will like the literary fiction of David Leavitt the same as the mysteries of Mark Zubro. You need to further understand within the confines of "gay authors" what type of book that reader wants.

Enough explaining, here is the link to Joyce's students' annotations for today.

More Summer Reading Suggestions

My friends over at the Readers' Advisor Online Blog have a few summer reading suggestions.

Here is a list by Sarah Statz Cords on her idea of Summer Beach Reads. Again, I like that this list combines new and back list titles.

Also from the RA Online Blog in Cindy Orr's weekly RA Run Down, she cites this fun article from the Washington Post in which some best selling authors pick the author they would want to spend a day at the beach with. What a cute twist on the whole "Beach Read" phenomenon.

If you are interested you can, click here for all my summer reading posts.

Lit Lists, Lots and Lots of Lit Lists

Newly added to my list of interesting RA sites is Lit Lists. Lit Lists is part of a network of blogs headed by Campaign for the American Reader, whose main goal is to get more people reading more books.

But back to Lit Lists specifically. Readers are always looking for suggested lists of books. Visit this blog regularly and you will never be out of lists.

My most recent favorite is "Ten of the Best Pieces of Fruit in Literature." Some people really like fruit.

But seriously, there are many less esoteric lists available, with a new one posted daily.

What I'm Reading: Ghost Radio

Recently I listened to Ghost Radio, the debut novel by Leopoldo Gout. This 2008 horror title worked very well on audio because it centers around the host of an occult call-in radio show called Ghost Radio. However, I should note that Gout, who is also a graphic novelist, included intricate drawings at the start of each chapter in the printed book that are also worth checking out. Gout has also set up the Ghost Radio website to continue the conversations begun the fictional radio show.

The plot revolves around a young man named Joaquin. When he is a teenager, on a trip from his home in Mexico to see his Grandma in Houston, TX, Joaquin and his parents are in a car accident. In another car, Gabriel and his parents are also involved in the accident. Only the 2 boys survive. This event unites them in a life-long friendship. Both boys also like the Dead Kennedys' song, "Kill the Poor," which later in the book becomes important.

The story alternates between the present, where a grown Joaquin hosts a popular Mexican call-in radio show called Ghost Radio, in which callers talk about their occult experiences, and the past, where Joaquin's and Gabriel's life from accident to the present is explained. In the present, however, Gabriel is dead and Joaquin hosts the radio show with his girlfriend Aolondra.

The novel alternates between these three characters' points of view, but the focus is very clearly on Joaquin. Joaquin moves the Ghost Radio show to America, but after relocating, Joaquin's reality quickly begins to unravel, and he goes on a quest to discover the truth. Along the way, Joaquin meets up with a Toltec Priest and finds archives of his own radio show from 20 years before he began working on it.

There is also a sinister, unnamed force which is stalking Joaquin and speaks directly to the reader off and on throughout the novel. And, as we find out, this is not surprising because the dead can hear all of the living's radio shows. This force is using Ghost Radio to move back into the world of the living.

The novel is in the 300 page range, but has 55 short chapters, so it moves briskly. The narrative is also interspersed with the stories from some of the show's callers recounting their own terrifying experiences with ghosts and other supernatural forces. I loved these asides. They added to the tension and unease which Gout builds relentlessly. Also, since I was listening to this novel, I felt like I was listening to the real radio show.

The ending is a perfect horror ending. The story is resolved, Joaquin completes his quest, but the supernatural force is left completely open ended. In fact, the reader is left questioning what the truth is and what really happened to Joaquin. The implication is that the entire book was really just the story of one caller into Ghost Radio. Gout left me completely unsettled, and I loved it.

For another reader's take on Ghost Radio, there is a review on the Fantasy Book Critic Blog.

Readalikes: I really liked the creepy uneasiness that permeated Ghost Radio. The book constantly has you questioning what is real and what is supernatural. The lines of reality are blurred and you believe everything (even the obviously supernatural events) is really happening. In this way, Gout's book reminded me of Stephen King's work. Like King, Gout is a storyteller first and foremost. Joe Hill's collection of stories 20th Century Ghosts is also a great readalike for Ghost Radio. I wrote about reading this collection here (middle of the post) and suggest a few more readalikes.

For the rabid Neil Gaiman fans out there (I am one of you), Gout should be a reliable new author for you to enjoy.

Bentley Little also writes novels in which the real world and the supernatural collide in an unsettlingly realistic way. Try The House.

While I was reading Ghost Radio, I also thought it was similar to the work of Dan Simmons, specifically, The Terror, and then there was a memorable scene in which a caller recounts a terrifying tale of his ship being crushed in the arctic ice. This solidified my feeling. But please note, The Terror is a much longer book, with a more measured paced since it is both historical fiction about the doomed Franklin Arctic expedition, and a horror book with supernatural elements.

For those interested in more about The Dead Kennedys, producing radio shows, or the Toltecs of Mexico, use the embedded links for more information.

And finally, please remember the wonderful horror radio programs of the past. Many have now been restored and compiled on CD. At the Berwyn Library we have this wonderful collection, Horror in the Air, available for checkout. Click here for more detail. You can take this 8 disc collection home and continue listening to Ghost Radio.