September 2013

From Jay-Z to Frank Sinatra, folks from all over know that New
York City is a crazy, wonderful place to call home.  Not only is it the home of the Statue of
Liberty, the United Nations, and countless celebrities, all the lovely
LibraryLoveFest ladies hang our hats here as well.  NYC has captured the lives and imaginations
of so many artists and writers over the years. 
The glory and grit of the City
that Never Sleeps has captured the lives and imaginations of so many artists
and writers over the years, and we have several upcoming titles that
demonstrate how.

Dick Wolf’s The Execution features NYC as the setting for his second novel
starring Detective Jeremy Fisk.  Fisk
must team up with Mexican agent Cecilia Garza to find and stop an assassin who
has turned his sights on Manhattan for United Nations week.  If you are a fan of Wolf’s
Law & Order or Miami Vice, then check this one out.

From the author of Making
Toast and Kayak Morning comes
Roger Rosenblatt’s newest work, a memoir of his
early years exploring NYC.  In The Boy Detective, Rosenblatt remembers
a disappeared New York in his walks across Manhattan, tracing the physical
paths as he traverses the alleys of his memory in a tribute to and lament for
the city.  Available on Edelweiss.

Nathan W. Pyle explores the comical side of the Big Apple in
NYC Basic Tips and Etiquette, his hip
and funny illustrated guide to living in the city.  Pyle provides tips for any transplant on how
to survive NYC like a local, from successfully hailing a cab to properly riding
an escalator.  As a recent immigrant to
NYC myself, I wish I had read these tips earlier.

-Amanda

Banned Books Week is almost over!  I hope you’ve all celebrated by sticking
it to the man and reading whatever you want! 
But what I really hope is that our fight against censorship can continue
throughout the rest of the weeks of the year and all years to come.  To close out this official week, we have one
more challenged book for you.

Do you remember the movie Simon Birch? Well that movie was loosely based on A Prayer for Owen Meany, published in
1989 by John Irving, a story of two boys whose fates are irrevocably
intertwined: one suddenly orphaned, the other an only child who believes he is
God’s instrument on earth. 
The book is told through flash backs and forwards, showing how the two
boys affected each other into adulthood.

Reason for challenge: views on religion, criticism of the US
government for the Vietnam War and Iran-Contra scandal, and objectionable
language and sexuality.

-Amanda

You guys, I almost kerplotzed when I saw that Katherine Paterson was signing right.across.the.aisle. from me at ALA Chicago! It was like a surreal moment in life when you are chatting happily with co-workers and then turn around and are faced with a childhood icon…what?!?

Anyway, I slunk across the aisle with hopes that I could con, beg, steal  appeal to the Children's marketers to let me snag a copy of The Great Gilly Hopkins and have it signed. They are angels, and therefore let me. Now it lives in a place of honor on my bookshelf. I also was privy to a wonderfully naughty bit of Paterson humor which made me swoon a bit harder. She really is amazing.

Anyway, this book is #20 on the ALA's list of 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books for 1990-2000. Read it!

Reason for challenge: subject matter, language and conduct of Gilly.

– Annie

Husband and wife team Tom Franklin and Beth Ann Fennelly are taking the literary world by storm with The Tilted World.  Everyone. Loves. It.  And deservedly so.  This one goes on sale on October 1st, but if you don't want to wait that long to experience what everyone's going crazy over, it's still available on Edelweiss for a little while longer.  

BONUS: for anyone in the NYC area, Tom and Beth Ann will be at The Strand on October 8th with Wiley Cash and Bill Cheng.  Be there (or be square).

-Amanda 

Half way through Banned Books Week!  Have you read any banned or challenged books
yet to show how crazy rebellious you are? 
If not, here’s another option for you to show
your support. 

Olive’s Ocean, published in
2003 by Kevin Henkes, tells the story of Martha, a young girl who discovers
that a classmate who recently died had secretly wanted to be her friend.  Martha had hardly noticed Olive while she was
alive, but her posthumous confession leads Martha on a summer of soul searching
and leaving behind childhood innocence. 
During this summer of change, Martha must deal with changing
relationships within her family and her own feelings for a boy she meets at the
beach, with whom she shares her first kiss. 
It is a tale of growing up and seeing the world through older eyes.

Reason for challenge: offensive language and being sexually
explicit.

-Amanda

Crisp weather and beautiful colors make September and
October two of the most popular wedding months, so to celebrate the up-coming wedding
season, here are some stories, both true and fictional, of how a few women journeyed
to the aisle. 

In The Fishing Fleet
by Anne de Courcy, a true story of husband hunting in the late 19^th
century, many of Britain’s eligible bachelors have gone to
India to pursue positions and wealth. 
Due to the subsequent lack of men, young British women follow behind
with the express purpose of finding a husband. 
But while many members of the Fishing Fleet did find husbands in a
whirlwind of parties and picnics, they discovered that married life after their
husbands are reassigned to remote outposts is significantly less glamorous.

In Hopeful by
Shelley Shepard Gray, Amish waitress Miriam dreams of a family of her own.  She thinks her dream may finally come true
when her long-time crush suddenly seeks her out—until, that is, she realizes he
only wants her help in pursuing her neighbor. 
Should Miriam agree to help—and get to spend time with him in the
process—at the risk of losing him forever?

This bride may already have found her man, but getting
married isn’t as easy as she’d hoped.  In The
Bride Wore Size 12 by Meg Cabot, former pop-star turned detective Heather Wells
is back, and has to find her missing wedding planner, deal with her long-lost mother,
and solve the murder of an innocent college student before she can finally tie
the knot.

The Fishing Fleet
and The Bride Wore Size 12 are
available on Edelweiss.

-Amanda

Hey there, rebels! Today's Banned Books Week special is brought to you by Annie's life, circa 1993. Maybe the enjoyment I got out of The Pigman was due to the fact that I am also a native Staten Islander, so comments like "Paul Zindel lived on this street," were possible when my Mom was driving me to gymnastics. Or maybe it was because I was totally not a trouble maker and wanted to be more bad-a$$ like the kids in the book. Either way, I loved it and re-read it a lot. 

It's sad that I haven't read it in so long, so perhaps I will dig my dogeared copy out of storage and bring it with me when I go on vacation next week. 

Reason for being challenged: Obscene language, main characters are liars, cheaters, and thieves. 

– Annie

This Banned Books Week we celebrate the fight against
censorship by giving you a glimpse at a few of our titles that have been
challenged the most times over the years. 
Everyday this week we will post a new book with the reason it was
challenged.  And all of these were
challenged within the last twenty years (so, not as far in the past as we would
like to believe). 

We dedicate today’s Banned Books celebration
to Shade’s Children, published in 1997 by Garth Nix.  This book features a futuristic dystopian world
where foreign beings called Overlords have taken over and decreed that no human
will live past age 14, at which time their organs are harvested to create
servants for the Overlords.  The story
follows a group of teenagers who managed to escape from the prison-like dorms
and have been recruited by a mysterious man named Shade, the only adult to
survive the Overlord’ arrival, who uses the children
to attempt to overthrow the Overlords. 
These teens must decide whom to trust in this hostile world where they’re
not meant to be alive, filled with war and betrayal, all the while just trying
to survive the trials of being a teenager, making friends, and burgeoning
feelings.

Reason for challenge: vulgarity and for being obscene.

-Amanda

James Bond is back for another adventure.  The Ian Flemming Estate chose acclaimed
author William Boyd to write the newest addition to the Bond canon, Solo, in which
Agent 007 is sent to West Africa to squash the rebel forces in a civil war.  But of course, nothing is ever as it seems,
and Bond must cross the Atlantic and connect the dots in this gripping
thriller.  So grab yourself a martini and
sit down with this intense story full of breathtaking twists, heart-stopping
action, and, of course, Bond, James Bond.

If you’re in the mood for some more spy
action, here are a couple more books to satisfy your sneaky urges.

Citadel by Kate
Mosse: While war rages across Europe in 1942, a group of all-female operatives,
codenamed Citadel, fight to free their home from the Germans by smuggling
refugees over the surrounding mountains and sabotaging the occupiers at every
chance.  These women’s
struggle will also reveal an ancient secret that, if in the wrong hands, could
change the course of history.

And for some real life spy adventures, we have Dark Invasion by Howard Blum: In the
beginning of WWI, Germany is angry that the supposedly neutral America has
become a trading partner with the Allies, giving them a distinct
advantage.  They then launch a plot to disrupt
trade through terrorism and sabotage on American soil, and it’s
up to NYPD Police Inspector Tom Tunney and his team of agents to unravel the
conspiracy, find the culprits, and stop the bombs before more damage is done.

-Amanda

Aside from a brief fling with Harlequin novels the summer I turned 16, I haven't been a big Romance reader. Recently however, I did a webinar for Booklist, and because I am dedicated to my job, I read many of the 33 titles that were discussed. I came away with a very real appreciation for Sarah MacLean's books.

No Good Duke Goes Unpunished is the third in her four-part series, Rule of Scoundrels, about a group of four friends who own the most prestigious gambling hell (a fun new term I learned) in London. This book focuses on Temple, The Killer Duke,  the brawn behind the club. He was banished from society after he was thought to have caused the disappearance and possible murder of his future stepmother, Mara Lowe.

12 years later, she reappears desperately in need of Temple's help. He is the only person who can forgive the debts her brother has accrued…an even exchange, money for absolution. 

As you can imagine, Temple is MAD, but there is a fine line between hate and love and these wonderfully strong characters dance back and forth until the conclusion.

Two thumbs up. Snag an egalley!

– Annie

Phillip Margolin, bestselling author of The Washington Trilogy, has written something a bit different this time around. Worthy Brown's Daughter is a novel of frontier justice based on a heart-breaking true story of racism in the 19th-century Oregon Territory. Today, Phillip has stopped by to chat a bit about his new book.

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Dear Librarians: 

Worthy Brown’s Daughter is my first historical novel and one that I have worked on for thirty years. Inspired by Holmes v. Ford, an 1853 case from the Oregon Territory, the book is a labor of love that revolves around a young lawyer, still grieving over his beloved wife who drowned on the Oregon Trail, who tries to rescue the fifteen-year-old daughter of a freed slave from one of Oregon’s most powerful attorneys. 

I was driven to write Worthy Brown’s Daughter after reading about the case in an article published by the Oregon Historical Society in 1983. But I knew very little Oregon history: What was the practice of law like in the 1800s? What was day-to-day life like? I had no clue, but I knew I had to find answers to these and many other questions if I was going to write a book that captured the tenor of 1860 Oregon. So I spent a lot of my spare time during the next six years in the library of the Oregon Historical Society and the Multnomah County Library reading journals, letters, and books about the times so I could make my book ring true.

Worthy Brown’s Daughter has all of the elements that make my contemporary legal thrillers fun to read but, at its heart, it is a serious novel that explores the effect of slavery on a fifteen-year-old girl and her struggle to become a strong, confident young woman; the grief experienced by a young man dealing with the loss of the woman he loves and the guilt he feels when he falls in love again; and a moral dilemma presented to two of the main characters which I have not seen in another novel. Writing this historical novel would not have been possible without the books I found in the Oregon Historical and Multnomah County libraries. I hope you like it.

****

Thank you, Phillip!

If you'd like an egalley, be sure to request one on Edelweiss.

– Annie

It's finally here! Help for the Haunted is on sale today! You love it, we love it, if you haven't read it yet, please do yourself a favor and run to your nearest book depository and get a copy!

Just a helpful reminder of some of the endless praise this book has been getting:

"Superlative Storytelling" —Booklist starred review

"Highly recommended.” —Library Journal starred review

"Everything about the novel makes it a great read for teens…This one is a real page-turner."—School Library Journal starred review

“Unsettling…Keeps the reader on edge while Sylvie bravely uncovers her family’s many secrets.”—Publishers Weekly starred review

"…a dazzling, dark portrait of a troubled family beset by the supernatural…The result is a novel both frightening and beautiful." —Gillian Flynn, bestselling author of Gone Girl

– Annie

Beth Ann Fennelly is the co-author of The Tilted World, a book that is getting lots of praise in the library world and was just included in the LibraryReads October Top 10! She and husband, Tom Franklin, have written a beautiful, sweeping story of love and bootlegging during the great 1927 Mississippi River flood. 

Today she joins us to share an experience that helped shape her into the writer and poet she is today. 

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100,000 BTUS and Endless Possibilities

I walked to the Lake Forest library.

…

Guest Blogger: Beth Ann FennellyRead More »

Keep your eyes on the skies this
October and November because we have some great Booklist star reviewed books coming your way: Amy Tan’s The Valley of Amazement, Yossi Klein Halevi’s
Like Dreamers, and Ann Patchett’s This is the Story of a Happy Marriage.

Tan’s first new novel in almost nine
years, The Valley of Amazement carries
on her well known and loved subject of the profound connections between mothers
and daughters, telling the story of an American courtesan and her half
American, half Chinese daughter as they each search for identity over five
decades and two continents.  “Ultimately,
Tan’s prodigious, sumptuously descriptive, historically grounded, sexually
candid, and elaborately plotted novel counters violence, exploitation,
betrayal, and tragic cultural divides with beauty, wit, and transcendent
friendships between women.” — Booklist

In Like
Dreamers, Yossi Klein Halevi researches a group of 1967 paratroopers who reunited
Jerusalem during the Six Day War, following the lives of seven of these men,
their evolving beliefs, and their involvement in disparate political and
religious movements in the years after the war. “This is a beautifully written
and sometimes heartbreaking account of these men, their families, and their
nation.”—Booklist

Patchett puts aside fiction writing in This is the Story of a Happy Marriage, a
memoir that stretches from her tumultuous childhood, through a disastrous early
marriage, and into a happy second. 
Patchett explores the moments that shaped her as a writer, friend, wife,
and daughter while sharing wisdom and advice in this portrait of her life. “Patchett
is a commanding and incisive storyteller, whether her tales are true or
imagined.”—Booklist

All of these titles are currently
available on Edelweiss, so y’all should definitely check them out!

-Amanda

We are so thrilled to announce that Amanda Coplin, author of
The Orchardist, was recognized as a “5
under 35” honoree by the National Book Foundation.  This distinction is awarded to five promising
young fiction writers selected by previous National Book Award winners and
finalists.  Coplin was chosen by Louise
Erdrich, who won a National Book Award in 2012 for The Round House.  The Orchardist has also received a
Starred Review from Library Journal
and was chosen as Costco’s Pick of the Month this past
August by Pennie Ianniciello.

To celebrate this wonderful achievement, we’re
giving away copies of The Orchardist
to the first 20 people who send an email to librarylovefest@harpercollins.com.  You don’t want to miss out on the
opportunity to read this outstanding novel by such a talented young author.  Congratulations, Amanda!  We can’t wait to see what the
future has in store for you.

-Amanda

It's such a thrill having a book on the LibraryReads list, but to have two! The October list was just released and you lovely librarians picked We Are Water by Wally Lamb and The Titled World by husband and wife dynamos Tom Franklin and Beth Ann Fennelly. 

Thank you for your support of these great novels…we love them and it is great knowing that sentiment is shared. 

Keep those LibraryReads votes coming in…can't wait to see what the November list has in store!

– Annie

PS: For anyone in the NYC area, Tom Franklin and Beth Ann Fennelly are appearing with Bill Cheng and Wiley Cash at The Strand on October 8th.  I am going to be on vacation or else I would definitely be going.

Everyone loves a good heroine, the kind you love to hate or hate
to love, who mixes up all the feelings surrounding her. We have a few books
coming up that feature femme fatales with questionable morals and ulterior
motives but whom you just can’t help rooting for
anyway. 

The Girl with a Clock
for a Heart by Peter Swanson stars the enigmatic Liana, a woman you
immediately know from the title is not your average girl.  The story follows George as Liana reappears
in his life after twenty years on the run from the feds for one definite count
of murder, and possibly another.  She has
stolen money from a former, not-quite-law-abiding lover but now wants to return
it to ensure her safety, and she needs George to deliver it.  Because of their prior relationship, George
agrees and is soon dragged into a whirlwind of violence, passion, and greed.  Available on Edelweiss.

 We have a true-life
femme fatale in Priscilla, by
Nicholas Shakespeare.  In this biography,
Nicholas stumbles upon a trunk full of his late aunt’s
old love letters and diaries which show her to be a glamorous, beautiful, and
morally ambiguous woman—overy different from the one he remembered as a
child.  Nicholas learns about friendships
betrayed, lovers abandoned, and an escape from a German prisoner-of-war camp in
occupied France.  This book asks us to
consider what we might do to survive in similar circumstances.  Check it out on Edelweiss.

Josephine Marcus Earp is the Lady at the O.K. Corral, by Ann Kirschner.  Kirschner tells the story of how an aspiring
actress and dancer from New York became the common-law wife of the famous
Western lawman and gambler, Wyatt Earp. 
Josephine was a woman at home in the deserts of the American Southwest
and the boomtowns of the Alaskan Gold Rush, in opulent hotels and rough mining
camps.  Kirschner paints an engaging portrait
of this vivacious and versatile woman who ensnared a legend.

These beautiful, powerful women want some attention, and
they get what they want.

-Amanda

The Kept by James Scott is a debut novel that is getting a crazy amount of in-house buzz. So naturally…interest piqued. It was not what I was expecting, but it definitely lived up to the hype. The writing completely transports you to turn of the 20th century, rural NY where a family lives in isolation until the day the outside world crashes into their sheltered existence, bringing tragedy in it's wake. 

Midwife Elspeth Howell returns to her isolated farmstead to find her husband and four of her five children murdered. Before she can look for her remaining son Caleb, she is shot. Caleb nurses his mother back to health, cleaning her wounds and keeping her fed, before he and Elspeth leave their home to seek retribution from the men who committed this heinous crime. 

On their journey, Elspeth and Caleb are forced to examine their complex relationship in order to survive. Additionally, Elspeth nurses a very deep secret that causes her to question her part in this tragedy, was it vengeance or karma?  

Reminiscent of Charles Portis, Cormac McCarthy and Flannery O’Connor, this book is sad but very satisfying. Please snag an e-galley from Edelweiss!

– Annie

Reconstructing Amelia, Kimberly McCreight's debut novel about a mother's love for her deceased daughter, struck a cord with many of you and got lots of praise from publications. It is a well written and researched book and I thought my Mom, a NYC high school guidance counselor, would particularly like it. She did, so we asked her to come up with some questions from her perspective as an adult who is exposed to and must navigate the world of bullying, teen behavior and relationships between children and parents on a daily basis. 

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Mama Mazes: How did you learn all the latest internet “buzz” words/abbreviations used by teens and what would you recommend to adults who want to stay current with computer-speak?

Kimberly: I interviewed local teens and did extensive research online.  But much of the lingo I was already using myself.  Perhaps I should be more embarrassed about that.  

For parents not so well versed in text acronyms, a simple Google search—“popular text abbreviations teens”—goes a long way.  Be aware that there are micro-local variations, so this research might not explain the entire alphabet soup in your child’s texts, but it will be a good start.

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Back to School: A Guidance Counselor’s Q&A with Kimberly McCreightRead More »

I can’t watch scary movies anymore (Paranormal Activity pretty much ruined
that for me), but I love suspenseful, thrilling books, and Sonja Condit’s
Starter House is deliciously
creepy.  

The novel opens with a young married couple
moving into their first home together.  After searching for months Lacey
has finally found a house that instantly captivates her, and after a childhood
spent moving from place to place, sleeping in cars and motel rooms, she believes
she’ll finally be able to settle down.  But hesitant words of
warning from the real-estate agent set off the story’s
vaguely uncomfortable, ubiquitous sense of unease surrounding the house. 
Inside the house lurk dark forces that rush down stairs and a creepy child
specter who can be eating sugar cookies one moment but whose tantrums can
utterly destroy rooms the next.  Lacey must figure out how to pacify this
spirit in the house before her own son is born into a hostile environment where
only one child is tolerated.

Starter House
is extremely well written, able to evoke moments of both suspenseful
anticipation and the beauty of being a mother and teacher, while Lacey’s
character really draws you into her fright and the horrible decisions she is
forced to contemplate.  I seriously
recommend looking out for this one, which comes out January of next year.  If you can’t wait that long to
experience this chilling story, eGalleys are currently available on
Edelweiss. 

-Amanda

As she did in When We Were Strangers, Pamela Schoenewaldt once again does a beautiful job of writing strong female characters in her latest book Swimming in the Moon (on sale now!). She stopped by to share her thoughts with us on her writing, influences and inspiration.

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What was your inspiration for writing Swimming in the Moon?

I was intrigued by the dark history of the Palazzo Donn’Anna in the 10 years I lived near Naples. I’m active in worker rights today and thus inspired by the great strikes of the early 20^th Century. Watching friends and colleagues live with mentally ill family members gave urgency to the Lucia-Teresa trials. Vaudeville is just plain fascinating. The setting in Cleveland was born when I presented When We Were Strangers at the Western Reserve Historical Society and explored its archives on Italian immigrant communities and garment workers’ lives. Once I’d settled the story in Cleveland, I was curious about Lula, who figures in the 1880’s setting of my first novel, and decided to link her journey with Lucia’s. 

What was the most challenging aspect of writing your story?

I have rough deadlines and word counts to hit in my day job, but they were new for me in novel writing. Aside from these process challenges, Lucia’s character arc tracks the dramatic events of the 1911 Cleveland Garment Workers Strike; it was challenging to be faithful to history while developing the novel’s true center: Lucia’s journey. Most of us have had or will face the daily, difficult task of balancing our own dreams and choices with the pressing needs of a loved one. It was often emotionally difficult for me to “live” Lucia’s complex rapport with her talented, adored, but rapidly unraveling mother, Teresa. 

…

Guest Post: Pamela Schoenewaldt, author of Swimming in the MoonRead More »

Exciting news, Agatha Christie fans! William Morrow is publishing the first-ever new Agatha Christie novel, to be written by international bestseller Sophie Hannah. That's right…next September Hercule Poirot is making a comeback in yet another diabolically clever murder mystery! Agatha Christie introduced the Belgian detective in her first book, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, published in 1920, and it has been 39 years since the final Poirot, Curtain.

“It was pure serendipity that led to Sophie Hannah being commissioned to write this book,” notes Mathew Prichard, Chairman of Agatha Christie Ltd and grandson of Agatha Christie. “Her agent happened to approach HarperCollins in exactly the same week that my colleagues and I started discussing a new Christie book. Her idea for a plot line was so compelling and her passion for my grandmother’s work so strong, that we felt that the time was right for a new Christie to be written.”

Hannah, a leading writer of psychological crime fiction says, “It is almost impossible to put into words how honored I am to have been entrusted with this amazing project." 

Ahhh we have to wait a whole year! Well, maybe we'll be lucky enough to get a sneak peek and if we do, I'll be sure to share.

– Annie

Morning lovelies! I have a bit of a literary crush on Willy Vlautin, so I can tell you exactly where I will be on November 1st – watching The Motel Life on the big screen! His book (my personal fave) about two brothers who flee Reno after one is involved in a hit and run, will be brought to life by Emile Hirsh, Stephen Dorff, Dakota Fanning and Kris Kristofferson. The film has been well received, so I'm hoping it really captures the feel of Vlautin's writing.

If you go see it, please let me know what you think. And don't forget to read Willy's latest novel, The Free, available on Edelweiss now. 

– Annie