Weekend read

Looking at a publisher's catalogue of upcoming titles, I was interested in one by a writer named Kate Summerscale. Her new book, The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher, is about a Victorian detective who became a model for a lot of great literary detectives. But the catalogue also referred to her previous book, The Queen of Whale Cay. That sounded interesting, so I looked it up. The story was REALLY interesting, about a classic 20th century eccentric, Marion "Joe" Carstairs, an heiress to the Standard Oil Fortune who became a very successful motorboat racer -- and very out-of-the-closet lesbian -- in the 1920s, then retreated to an island in the Bahamas as public opinion turned against her. Even better, it turned out that the Key West library had the book on the shelf. So on Wednesday evening, I stopped by and got it. It's a small book (literally), and a quick read.

Turns out Summerscale used to work for the British paper the Daily Telegraph, which is famous for its hilarious and outrageously candid obituaries, which is how she learned about Carstairs. When I heard that, I decided to check out the Telegraph online just to see if they had these great obits every day. Of course there are a limited number of Carstairs types out there -- but the Telegraph does the best it can with its material, and the obit editor has a pretty entertaining blog.

Props for the Pine

My friend Karen, a PhD student in marine ecology, says in my earlier paeon to Keys libraries I neglected the library on Big Pine. She's right: Probably because that branch was opened well after I moved to the Keys, and Big Pine is not a place I found myself killing time on trips up and down the Keys. Also the County Commission doesn't meet there, as it does at the Key Largo branch. Still, it's a great resource for the Lower Keys, where earlier people faced the choice of a longish trip to either Marathon or Key West for library access. Here's Karen's ode:

"Sandwiched between the bagel shop and Pizza Works, it must surely be the tastiest library in the county. And in "Torpedo Juice", Tim Dorsey's hero falls in love with the BPK librarian. Okay, so she turns out to be a serial killer. Big Time...Big Pine." Karen also reports that "Big Time ... Big Pine" is not an original phrase. But it sure fits here.

What to read?

I never actually have this problem -- I have the opposite one -- but I hear people sometimes wonder what they should read. The wonderful Anne Rice at the Key West Library has compiled a list of various "Best of 2007" lists. I love these lists, even if I've compiled my own "to read" lists that are longer than several lifetimes. A good resource and worth bookmarking. One of my favorite online reads, Slate, also has a list of winter reading recommendations from various writers. And the National Book Critics Circle recently posted its Winter List of Good Reads.

(A note on library nomenclature: The library at the corner of Fleming and Elizabeth streets is, in all accuracy, the May Hill Russell branch of the Monroe County Library system. However everyone in town refers to it as the Key West library so I will, too. But if you live here you should know we're part of a countywide library system and the other branches are all worth checking out -- I'm especially fond of the Islamorada, aka Helen Wadley, branch on Upper Matecumbe.)

He might bite back

Kris Neihouse from the Key West library reports: next Wednesday February 13 Book Bites will meet at 5:30 to discuss the author Chuck Palahniuk. I know many will have equal but opposite reactions to this cult favorite. Personally I adore him! I have been doing a lot of reading by and about him.  He is a very interesting writer (and person.)

Please come to share your opinion--no matter what it is!

See you at the Library!!

Kris

P.S.  Stay tuned for Toni Morrison in March!

Getting ready for 09

The 2009 Key West Literary Seminar is looking back -- specifically at historical fiction with some history thrown in. One of the historians we've invited is Jill Lepore and I just finished reading her book The Name of War, about King Philip's War and how it has been recorded and interpreted in American history. Sadly, I managed to grow up and receive an alleged education in New England and still had no clear idea what King Philip's War was until I read "Mayflower" by Nathaniel Philbrick last year. I thought it was one of the French and Indian Wars, since they're named after royalty. Oops.

Philbrick's book takes King Philip's War as a kind of coda to the initial landing and establishment of the Plymouth Colony (it was Philip's father, Massasoit, who made the initial contact and alliance with the English settlers, to the Native Americans' later regret and dismay). It's popular history, written with the layperson in mind. Lepore's is more academic but still very accessible. And it's really interesting on the whole issue of who controls the narrative of history, from the English settlers who initially wrote vivid accounts of the carnage -- to help justify sending Native Americans to slavery and death -- to the early 19th century Americans who staged an overwrought play called "Metamora," starring Philip as a sort of proto-Revolutionary American.

Interesting stuff. And since I'm finally about to return this book to the Monroe County Library, others can check it out.