BOOK LUST: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment,
and Reason by Nancy Pearl
With a title appealing to all book lovers,
this lively and informative guide to what to read by a well-known book
reviewer has 170 categories of reading lists with well written descriptions
that will be a boon to the indecisive!
VICTORINE: A NOVEL by Catherine Texier
In this lush and deeply romantic novel,
the author actually is writing about her own grandmother, a remarkable
married woman of a quiet province in France, who falls desperately in love
and leaves her family to begin a new life in Indochina in the late 1800s.
Unforgettable adventure in this new country colors the book, but we read
of a woman's struggle between duty and independence, longing and regret.
THE SEX LIVES OF CANNIBALS by J. Maarten Troost
Ignore the title, but read out loud this
true story of a harrowing and hilarious two-year odyssey in the distant
destination of the South Sea's Kiribati - in Tarawa. Troost joins his stalwart
girlfriend who has taken a U.S. government job there, and finds himself
battling incompetent government officials, alarmingly large critters, erratic
electricity, and bone-searing heat. What a great tale - but be glad It's
not you!
SECRET WORLDS by Stephen Dalton
Dalton is a world-class nature photographer
with the skill and patience of Job. As with high-speed photography in all
areas of the world, he captures insects, birds, bats, and other creatures
in flight. This coffee table book will elicit ohhs and ahhs and leave you
with a new sense of wonder of our natural world. Beautiful.
THE HAMILTON CASE by Michelle De Kretser
Set in 1930's Ceylon amid tea plantations
and full of irresistible characters, the heart of the novel deals with
the Hamilton Case, a murder scandal that shakes the upper class island
society. The island setting of what is now called Sri Lanka, with its jungles
and searing heat, is so well described that the reader is pulled into a
compelling story of the time, one filled with complex characters and life
in Ceylon at the end of an era.
SAM'S LETTERS TO JENNIFER, by James Patterson
A best selling author, Patterson is making
a name for himself in writing compelling love stories. In a light novel,
but one almost impossible to put down, Patterson combines two unforgettable
love stories. As Jennifer reads a series of letters written by a beloved
relative, we learn of a passionate partnership that had lasted for years.
And then Jennifer fords that she, too, is falling in love.
NOT FADE AWAY: A SHORT LIFE WELL-LIVED by Laurence
Shames
A true story of life and death, told with
unflinching candor and surprising humor at times, this book finds meaning
as we read of Peter Barton's confrontation with mortality. As he dares
to stare down death, he addresses what for us are universal hopes and fears,
and redefines the quietly heroic task of breaking through to personal faith,
going through incredible pain, and achieving peace after sincere questioning.
It is one you will remember, only to learn that tragedy is in store. A
page-turner and a must-read for romance lovers.
- Joan Larsen
Imagination is the highest kite one can fly.
-- Anonymous
This Fall - - a look at the personal spaces in our lives . . .
A ROOM OF OUR OWN
There is a crisp tang in the air, the sense of winding down. We live lives of overfilled appointment books, nurturing everyone but ourselves, giving away the best we have to everyone else and saving nothing - nothing - for us. There just has to be a balance somewhere, an alternating rhythm between the two extremes of solitude and communion, between retreat and return. Journalist Sally Quinn says it best:"What about me for a change?"
It is time to refresh ourselves, give ourselves the best gift there can be - our own sacred place. We need that spot of total privacy, that place to get away for a bit . . . that great big bed or deep soft enveloping chair that for a time is ours and ours alone. And so I hope to entice you with books I have found that you will take to your hearts and will let you escape, free to indulge in your own thoughts and daydreams.
Author Chris Madden's A Room Of Her Own was my own inspiration and will be yours. She offers a beautiful collection of those spaces that each of us can find in our own homes, rooms that will become our magic sanctuaries, allowing us to get away for a bit, to renew and regenerate. The book explores 38 delightful rooms created by women, many of whom you will recognize, with glorious photographs to peruse and inspire. You will find that the thoughts of these women - as they talk of their own personal needs for that private place just for themselves - will often reflect your own so much that you will want to go back and re-read. A book to treasure.
M. Scott Peck says: A life of wisdom must include contemplation combined with action. In A Walk on the Beach - Tales from an Unconventional Woman, Joan Anderson tells us that she came to realize that there are only 8700 hours in a year and it is essential that some of those hours should be just for you. On a Cape Cod foggy beach, she encountered Joan Erikson, wife and collaborator of Erik Erikson, a leading psychoanalyst of his day. The two women, though 40 years apart with Erikson in her 90s, "clicked" and became inseparable, with the author absorbing and sharing the most thought provoking words of wisdom of a woman who had "lived" her life fully and was so honest in sharing what she had learned. "We don't stop playing because we grow old. We grow old because we stop playing," Erikson told her. The book was so personal, stocked with so much to think about, that I ended up buying it so I could look back on it forever. When you have a long evening to spare, take it with you to bed.
Reviving and inspiring the human spirit is our theme this fall, so I couldn't resist some beautiful books that take little reading but whose photographic images have the power to distill the essence of some of the most evocative and soul-stirring spots on earth. You mustn't miss Pilgrimage as Gideon Bosker pairs the breath-taking images with poetry and reflections on the power of nature and the nature of pilgrimage, with scenes that will bring the armchair traveler into another world. Photographer David Muench's coffee table books of photographs of the stunning beauty of the American landscape have been a staple on my bookshelves. But his latest takes the breath away. Windstone: Natural Arches, Bridges, and Other Openings will bring back memories to us who have traveled the west and looked with awe at the red rock formations, but few have been able to capture the play of form and light on these natural creations as Muench does. On an evening when sitting back and slowing the march of time is enough, turning the pages of Windstone will infect you with the landscapes of the soul. A wonderful way to end an evening.
Put on music by Vivaldi or Schubert in the background, for the setting is important. Then open one of the most beautifully illustrated and remarkable collection of writing I have ever seen - Bridge of Stars: 365 Prayers, Blessings and Meditations from Around the World by Marcus Braybrooke. I find it a masterpiece, with its perfect placement of the prayers and poetry from throughout the world, matched by art images so beautiful that you are given a sense of peace as you turn the page. A perfect gift for the collector of beautiful books, each of us should find thoughts within that seem to give off a feeling of tranquility and calm.
You are entertaining thoughts of travel. Just thoughts, mind you, just daydreaming a bit. You're a little bit like author Alice Steinbach, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the Baltimore Sun, who read Thoreau's words: "Live each season as it passes: breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each." She arose from the soothing warm waters of her bathtub, quit her job, and left friends and family for a way that would allow her to combine three of her greatest passions: learning, traveling, and writing.
If you hold any of those urges and have not yet dared to venture forward, do read Educating Alice - Adventures of a Curious Woman. This funny and tender book is the result of her decision to roam the world as an informal student, taking lessons and courses in such things as cooking classes at the Ritz in Paris, Border collie training in Scotland, and attending a Jane Austen convention in England, all traveling alone. My own favorite is her search for a bonsai garden in Florence that ended up in a lengthy private tour of gardens of Tuscany, palaces, and homes normally closed to the public. Read, and you are off on a vacation from reality, still lounging in your own little "nest." But you may just say "why not?" and find this a grand way to live your life to the fullest.
Just two more books on travel I've uncovered by chance that are great travel companions for the experienced traveler or a boon to you who are lying on the sofa for the season, fantasizing. City Secrets, guidebooks for those travelers returning to old haunts for the third time, have come out with New York, London, Rome, and Florence and environs. Small enough to drop in your purse, each leads you through every city through the eyes of those who live there and know every nook and cranny. I read New York cover-to-cover. Did you know that you can kayak, learning free, in New York City and go out to the Statue of Liberty in a way that none of your neighbors ever will? For those who will follow every lead to an author's home-that-was, I now know that poet (I now call her "racy poet") Edna St.Vincent Millay's New York home adjoined her lover's by a hidden back way, fooling her husband and her best friend, who eventually married the "other man." What can I say - I couldn't put City Secrets down.
The other: Victoria Brooks' two volumes of Literary Trips, who are for those of us who will follow up on an author all the way to the graveyard. Provocative essays about writers as diverse as Maeve Binchy, Pablo Neruda, Jack London, and Graham Greene are followed by a blow-by-blow of the Following in the Footsteps, literary sleeps, sites, books, websites, and guidebooks. Read A.A. Milne's Ashdown Forest section of Winnie the Pooh. Just stuff this guidebook in your backpack, bring along some sturdy walking shoes for the muddy bits, and a smidgen of imagination. Then just follow in his footsteps to Ashdown Forest - with the good directions in finding all the old spots. Once you begin, you will find that the world is your oyster!
The House to Ourselves: Reinventing Home Once the Kids Are Grown by Todd Lawson covers renovations and remodels, single floor plans to accommodate the needs of people as they get older, and may just give you ideas on that room of your own. And then dream away, as you spend an evening or more drooling over the ideas for interior design - all shown in more than 100 glorious color photographs - in this ultimate treasure of the beautiful and yes, the practical. It will be a night of dreaming, I promise!
It's fall and it's time to smell the roses. To read, to think, to love, to pray - these are the things that make men and women happy. Come into the library and let our vast array of new books weave their magic in that special place of your own.
- Joan Larsen
Books Featured in footnotes: The books reviewed in footnotes are available in the lobby of the library for patron checkout. The bookcase is located just before entering the adult reading section next to the copy machine. Many thanks to staff member Karen Blackful for assembling, displaying, and maintaining these books for