The Book of Fires

Note lack of snappy title on this post. I think that might be reflective of my feelings about the book I just finished, The Book of Fires by Jane Borodale. Uninspired, I guess. It was an intriguing premise and time -- 1752 London, where a young woman from Sussex has fled after being raped and impregnated. She finds work in the home of a fireworks manufacturer. And then ... we wait. The pregnancy advances but she manages to keep it hidden. Somehow. We get ominous information about hangings and what happens to poor people who lie and steal. Our heroine bonds with her employer about fireworks and suddenly waxes lyrical about colors. I'm going to give it a B.

I feel bad. I wanted to like this book. I didn't dislike it. But it just didn't transport me to another time and place like, say, Geraldine Brooks' The Year of Wonders did. Maybe I was distracted by finishing up a research paper for library school. Maybe that's a good thing, at least as far as my academic and professional careers go. This one would be good for serious historical fiction fans looking for new writers. I got it from the FKCC Library though, as it happens, it is in the Monroe County Library collection (Marathon has it; easy to request if you're a Key West or other branch patron).

And by the way, if I haven't done so lately, let me call attention to the FKCC Library -- a vastly underutilized community resource because most of us are so lazy we won't cross White Street. Any Monroe County resident can get a library card there which allows you to borrow books and movies. You just can't use their computers unless you're a student -- or you buy one of their computer user passes, $25 a month, which is a pretty good deal if you need more access than we can provide in our half-hour-at-a-time free internet at the public library. The college library is open more hours than the public library -- Monday through Saturday and evenings Monday through Thursday -- and unlike the public library there's ample parking. They have a great selection of new stuff through the McNaughton book leasing service and if you're looking for some literary classic, your chances are as good or better at getting it there than with the public library. Plus it's just fun to browse -- and look at art; right now the annual Student Art Show is up on the walls. So stop by, 8901 College Road, upstairs in the A building.

I had to go there

I guess I'll blame Neil Gaiman. OK, I've never read the guy much less met him, but he is the darling of librarians and Goth girls everywhere (I'm not a Goth girl but I've had a medium Edward Gorey thing since the mid 1970s so that counts, right?). Plus my sister gave me a copy of American Gods like three years ago and from time to time I think, I really need to read that. I've also acquired copies of the first volume in his Sandman graphic novel series, and The Graveyard Book. I need to read those, too. Then today I read this. And thought OK, OK, I will sign up for Twitter. And I did.

I still don't entirely get Twitter -- and I'll admit, enjoyed the feeling of superiority many of my friends espouse about Facebook -- and a few friends maintained, until recent years, about email and the Internet in general. But I'm intrigued enough to check this out. And like I said, I've been meaning to read that book, plus a couple others of Gaiman's, forever anyway. And how can you not like a guy who served as the honorary chair of National Library Week?

Not only that, but a mere few hours after signing up for my account (keywestnan) I've already got two followers! How did that happen??? And why???? I haven't posted anything! Like most things web and everything else, I suppose I'll figure it out as I go along. See you somewhere on this weird new universe ...

Book Bites doubleheader

If you've ever thought about re-reading F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterwork, The Great Gatsby -- or if for some reason you never had to read it multiple times in high school and college, like I did -- now is a very good time, at least if you're in Key West. The Great Gatsby is one of the twin foci of the May Book Bites Book Club at the Key West Library. And on Wednesday, May 5, at 5:30 p.m. we'll be showing the movie version starring Robert Redford (as Gatsby, natch) and Mia Farrow (as Daisy Buchanan). Typically, Book Bites discusses anything by or about an author but this time Circulation Librarian Kris Neihouse is trying something a little different and the book discussion, at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 12, will focus solely on Gatsby from Fitzgerald's work -- and on a much more recent novel, The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian. Why The Double Bind? Here's an excerpt from Jodi Picoult's guest review on Amazon:

"Fact and fiction become indistinguishable in The Double Bind: The story centers on Laurel Estabrook, a young social worker and survivor of a near-rape, who stumbles across photographs taken by a formerly homeless client and tries to understand how a man who'd taken snapshots of celebrities in the 50s and 60s might have wound up on the streets. However, an author's note tells us that Bohjalian conceived this book after being shown a batch of old photographs taken by a once-homeless man; and the actual photos of Bob "Soupy" Campbell are peppered throughout the text. In another neat twist, Bohjalian's resurrects details from The Great Gatsby, which become "real" in the context of his own novel--Laurel lives in West Egg; part of her hunt for her photographer's past involves meeting with the descendants of Daisy and Tom Buchanan."

Pretty cool, huh? Gatsby itself is a pretty slim volume and the Bohjalian title, while I haven't read it, strikes me as the kind of book that once you enter, you have a hard time leaving until you're through. There's still time to read one or both. Questions? Stop by the library or call Kris at 292-3595.

Be careful what you ask for

For about two years now, I have been enthralled with the website LibraryThing -- if you are a book dork of any kind it's worth checking out. You can create your own library catalog to keep track of what you own/have read/want to read and it's great at generating reviews, recommendations and interesting online forums. It's also got a program called Early Reviewers where you can enter to win advanced copies of books as long as you review them on LibraryThing. Being a glutton for any kind of free book -- yes, I know, you'd think working at a library would give me access enough but no ... -- I immediately signed up and was fortunate to win several times. Fortunate, that is, until I foolishly signed up for Wildebeest in  Rainstorm by Jon Bowermaster. And won it. It has taken me a shamefully long time to finally finish reading this book -- so long that I may never win another book from LibraryThing (which is fitting punishment since this month's Early Reviewers program features the next book in Naomi Novik's Temeraire series and I REALLY WANT THAT RIGHT NOW!!!). I started reading Wildebeest months ago. This morning, I finally finished it.

It's a collection of Bowermaster's magazine stories for outdoor/adventure/environmental pubs like Outside, Audubon and National Geographic Traveler. The pieces are profiles of conservationists and adventurers, mostly, with a couple athletes thrown in. But it was hard to get through. Not because they weren't perfectly fine magazine stories. They just didn't hold up as pieces you'd want to read 10 or 20 years after publication -- like, say, the work of Calvin Trillin or David Grann -- and they didn't really make the leap to interest someone who isn't all that interested in conservation or exploration. And there were a couple (OK, two) instances of horrendous editing lapses that really irritated me. In one case, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is described, on the morning after his father's assassination, as waking early to read the California primary results in the Washington Post and then feeding the paper into the fire at his family's home in Virginia. This is immediately followed by a quote from Kennedy describing a priest waking him with the news while he was at boarding school. So where was he? In another case, "penultimate" is used in a way that makes no sense whatsoever. Yes, these are small, maybe even tiny quibbles. But if you're going to bother to turn something into a book, someone should at least be making sure it holds water, no? Anyway I give it a BC. And if LibraryThing lets me back into the Early Reviewers program (I've got a couple more titles stacked up; this one was like the dam holding everything back) I promise to be way more careful in what titles I request.

A Quick read

If you had told me two years ago that I'd be hooked on a series of paranormal romantic suspense novels, with titles set in the Victorian era, the present day and the future on some other planet, I'd have told you ... something extremely rude that I don't want to post on the blog. Yet when a new Amanda Quick Arcane Society novel crossed the circulation desk the other day, I scarfed it up, took it home and read it that night.

My recent return (after several decades) to reading romances is a whole other post that I SWEAR I WILL ACTUALLY WRITE ONE DAY. But today is not that day. However to my surprise, I have found myself, as I said, hooked on this Arcane Society series that venerable romance diva Jayne Ann Krentz writes under her own name (for the present day books), Amanda Quick (for the historicals) and Jayne Castle (for the future different planet titles which I will confess I haven't read any yet). This is not Great Art but Krentz is a seasoned hand at likeable characters and plots that trip right along without setting off the bullshit meter. For me, at least. This latest is a fine entry and like I said, I ripped through it in an evening. Which meant I stayed up way too late but such are the perils of picking up titles like this on a school night. I really should save them for weekends when I can ignore all the other stuff I'm supposed to be doing. This one gets an AB.

Speaking of romance, I would just like to point anyone who's read this far to the website Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, which is a great example of reader/reviewers who both love their genre but hold no illusions -- and have high standards for the writers. For a special treat check out this recent review of a Diana Palmer book. For an extra-special treat check out this review by the same reviewer of a book that currently vies (in my mind) for Best Romance Title Ever: Pregnesia.  (She's pregnant ... but she has amnesia! Pregnesia!) Still, I'm not sure that tops my all time favorite romance title, which I also discovered via a Smart Bitches review: The Playboy Shiekh's Virgin Stable Girl. I immediately assumed they had made that up but I looked up the book and it really does exist. Shame on you, Harlequin!