Mystery

A few months ago I predicted on my non-NYPL blog that Paper Towns (2008) would be receiving a nod from the Printz committee at the 2009 awards ceremony. Failing that, I was certain that after nabbing a National Book Award, What I Saw and How I Lied (2008) would take a Printz award/honor.

You can therefore imagine my surprise when it was neither of my predicted titles but Melina Marchetta's Jellicoe Road* (2008**) that won the 2009 Printz Award for excellence in young adult literature. Being a fan of Marchetta's previous novels Looking for Alibrandi (1992) and especially Saving Francesca (2005) you can also imagine my embarrassment upon realizing one of my favorite authors had published a new book without my realizing it.

The only solution, of course, was to immediately procure a copy from the library and read it as soon as possible.  read more »

I didn't plan on starting my review of John Green's newest book Paper Towns (2008) with a mention of Brotherhood 2.0, I really didn't. But having finished the book I find that, really, it is the right place to start.

Back when I had a myspace page, a lot of my friends were authors, library types, and bands. One of those friends was John Green who posted a bulletin about a project he and his brother decided to start in January 2007. Having noticed that they communicated almost entirely through e-mails or instant messages, Hank Green decided that he and John should communicate for a year only through daily (except for weekends and holidays) video blogs. The rules are more elaborate, but that was the basic premise. Throughout the course of the year, John and Hank exchanged a lot of videos about two things: Being a Nerd Fighter, the true meaning of Awesome, and World Suck Levels. (Fans might also remember an entertaining Valentine's Day post relating to pink wine.)

At some point during this crazy brilliant idea, John Green and Hank Green continued to work. For John Green that work was writing a book. And, maybe it's because I now know more about Green, but reading Paper Towns kept bringing me back to those Vlogs whose themes seemed to have made their way into this novel to interesting (and entertaining) effect.  read more »

Every good book should start with a good story. In the case of What I Saw and How I Lied (2008) by Judy Blundell, it actually starts with two. This is Blundell's debut novel although, under pen names, she has written many other titles. In a School Library Journal article, Blundell said that this was the first book that felt like it was hers. How wonderful then to also have it win the National Book Award for Young People's Literature and receive accolades from all over. (Plus, the book was edited by David Levithan, himself a YA author/editor extraordinaire).

But that's just the backstory. What I Saw and How I Lied also has an excellent actual story.

The year is 1947, the place Queens, New York. For fifteen-year-old Evie Spooner, it feels like life has gone back to normal. Her step-father Joe is back from the War, Evie's blonde bombshell mother Barb is back to playing housewife, and Joe's mother is annoying everyone. All everyday, mundane things.

That changes when Joe announces suddenly that the family is going to take a trip to Florida. When Peter Coleridge, a dashing ex-GI who served with Joe, finds the family, Evie knows that things will never be mundane again. The close Evie gets to Peter, the more secrets she finds--not only Peter's but also secrets surrounding her own family.  read more »

"Annette Berowne had a sweet, heart-shaped face. She had honey-blond hair and wide brown eyes. She was not beautiful, and certainly not glamorous, but only Phillip Bethancourt noticed that."

So begins Cassandra Chan's debut novel, The Young Widow (2005), in her debut mystery series of Phillip Bethancourt and Jack Gibbons mysteries. But before discussing Annette Berowne, it is important to know about Gibbons and Bethancourt.

Bethancourt and Gibbons could not be more different. Everything comes easily to Phillip Bethancourt, a young and wealthy Englishman with a model girlfriend and posh apartment to match his high standard of living. Jack Gibbons, on the other hand, is more of an everyman--an ambitious detective sergeant at Scotland Yard, Gibbons has his eye on more important things than parties and women: he's watching for a career-making case. Despite their differences the two men strike an easy friendship, largely because of Bethancourt's interest in all things criminal and his knack for helping Gibbons with his more, shall we say, complex cases.  read more »

“As Abelard said to Heloise, ‘Don’t forget to drop a line to me, please.’
As Juliet cried in her Romeo’s ear, ‘Romeo, why not face the fact, my dear?’”

— Cole Porter, Just One of Those Things

Is love “just one of those things?” Now that the Godiva chocolates have been eaten, the frilly greeting cards opened, and the Vermont Teddy Bear-gram forgotten on a dusty shelf, is the spirit of Valentine’s Day dead? Maybe for everyone else, but for the true librarian, whose very profession is embedded in the soul of romanticism, it lives on. Some time ago, for an article in an online magazine, librarians were asked to name what we considered the world’s most romantic love stories. With yearning hearts, raging hormones, and brains overloaded with dopamine, we arrived at ten titles (Wuthering Heights, Anna Karenina, Romeo and Juliet, Casablanca, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Doctor Zhivago, Sense and Sensibility, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Pride and Prejudice, Hunchback of Notre Dame). Some of these responses were predictable: Romeo and Juliet, Cathy and Heathcliff, Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy. Others were less so: Did Les Liaisons Dangereuses ever really give someone a warm inner glow? Did no one realize that Casablanca is not strictly-speaking one of the most romantic reads ever?  read more »