Staff Pick - God Help the Child

Gold Help the Child tells the story of Bride who was born with dark, blue-black skin. Bride was raised by Sweetness, a mother who couldn’t bear to event touch her and whose affection stopped short of neglect. However, she grows to become a successful career woman in the cosmetics industry, and, with the help of a fashion consultant, learns to love herself through accentuating what her mother found so detestable.

Unexpectedly, Booker, the man Bride’s been seeing, skips town; his last words, “You not the woman I want.” This leads Bride to a trip through the country to Whiskey, Booker’s hometown. On the way, she wrecks her car and ends up spending six weeks recovering with a rural couple and Rain, the pale skinned girl they’ve also taken in.

When Bride's strength returns, she continues on her path to Whiskey where she plans to confront Booker. Along the way, we learn an important incident in Bride’s childhood that led to a series of events that came between the lovers.

Anger, pity, jealousy – Morrison develops her characters through their personal experiences and makes you feel something for them. God Help the Child is another wonderful book by the Pulitzer and Nobel prize winning author who doesn’t disappoint.

If you'd like to check it out, you can find it in our catalog by clicking here.

-William

Staff Pick - Percy Jackson and the Olympians

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightening Thief is the first in Rick Riordan’s series that follows the adventures of Percy Jackson, the half mortal son of Poseidon, the Greek god of the Sea. Unaware of his godly heritage, twelve year old Perseus “Percy” Jackson starts to learn of his true identity after an encounter with his pre-algebra teacher, who transforms into a mythological creature called a Fury and attacks him.

Sent home for summer vacation, Percy plans to enjoy a trip to the beach with his mother, until a giant Minotaur attacks them and sends her to the underworld. He wakes up at Camp Half-Blood where he learns that his best friend is a satyr (half goat) and his favorite teacher is a centaur. Oh, and that he’s the son of Poseidon, who’s currently in a quarrel with Zeus and Hades about the location of Zeus’s missing master lightning bolt.

That quarrel sends Percy off on a quest across America to return the master bolt to Mount Olympus, a portal to which is now conveniently located in New York City. Whether it’s a fight with a mythological beast or escaping from an ambush, the pages of this book are filled with action that will carry you through to the end. An exciting and enlightening read!

If you'd like to check out The Lightning Thief, you can find it in our catalog by clicking here.

-William

Staff Pick - Landline

Georgie McCool’s husband, Neal, has left her and she’s trying to keep cool. They’ve been together for fifteen years.

He’s actually only taken their two girls to spend the holidays in Omaha, but he wasn’t happy with her when they left. That’s because Georgie elected to skip out on the Midwestern Christmas to work on her sitcom.

Then something strange happens. Using the old yellow, rotary landline at her mother’s house, she contacts Neal. 1998 Neal, not 2013 Neal. The Neal that left her once before when they had temporarily broken up.

Is she going insane? Hallucinating? Or is she actually talking to the Neal of the past? Between working long hours on scriptwriting and reflecting on her marriage and taking care of herself, Georgie tries to make sense of all this.

Rainbow Rowell is one of my new favorite authors. Both heartbreaking and romantic, Landline also offers moments that will make you laugh. Rainbow’s characters are as real as your best friend, and you’ll find yourself soaring through this read.

If you'd like to check it out, you can find it in our online catalog by clicking here.

-William

Staff Pick: Half Bad

Sally Green's Half Bad is the thrilling start to a trilogy about a young witch with an indomitable will to survive. Nathan Bryn looks forward to his seventeenth birthday when he'll receive three gifts and become a full witch. But he's a Half Code. Born the illegitimate son of a white witch and the infamous, hated black witch named Marcus, he's put under strict surveillance and house arrest by the council of white witches that views him as a threat.

Nathan is eventually imprisoned in a cage, beaten and handcuffed by a merciless trainer because of the council. Through all this, he struggles to determine if he's inherently good like his mother or evil like his father. As his seventeenth birthday approaches, Nathan fights to escape and find his father while remaining undetected by the council and the witch hunters after him. He must receive his three gifts before it's too late.

Half Bad is a thought provoking and engaging read that I couldn't put down. Green's character is honest, and the story makes you want to fight on his side. I look forward to reading the next book, Half Wild, which is due out March of 2015.

If you'd like to check out our copy of Half Bad, you can find it in our catalog by clicking here.

-William

Staff Pick: The Goldfinch

Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch is a 784 page tome chronicling the misadventures of a young man who gains possession of a famous Dutch masterpiece, a painting by the same name as the novel.

Captivated by the painting of a small bird tethered to a perch, thirteen-year-old Theo Decker obtains it after a bomb explodes at the New York City art gallery in which it was being displayed. This same explosion kills his mother, leaving him orphaned. Theo also receives a ring, given to him by a dying elderly man by the name of Welty. After dealing with social workers and the possibility of being shipped off to uncaring grandparents, he ends up under the temporary hospitality of the wealthy parents of a former friend from primary school.

Trying to come to terms with his mother's death, Theo delivers the ring, as promised, to an antique furniture shop and townhouse where he meets Welty's business partner, Hobie, and Welty's granddaughter, Pippa, who was also injured in the explosion. Meanwhile, Theo's estranged father shows up and whisks him off across the country to Las Vegas to live with him and his lover, Xandra with an X. There, Theo meets and befriends Boris, a Russian burnout who ends up playing a key role in Theo's misadventures. Those misadventures take him back to lavish New York, to Amsterdam, and through the criminal underworld, all for the enrapturing masterpiece that consumes him.

The Goldfinch - the novel - is a masterpiece in itself. Donna Tartt has a penchant for detail that - though leads to a lengthy story - often times provides a perfect visual for the setting. Wading through the detail, the reader comes upon scenes that are gripping and suspenseful. Anger, frustration, confusion, fear - I felt all of these while I followed Theo on his quest to come to terms with his past and set things right in his world.

If you'd like to check out a copy of The Goldfinch, it's available in our collection in both large print and regular print, as well as audio.

-William

The Downton Abbey Book Club

Reading Recommendations for Downton Abbey Characters

A few of the staff here at the library, and we know many patrons, are big Downton Abbey fans. Some of us eagerly await each week's episode, while others, knowing it's aired and then released overseas before here, binge watch entire seasons at once. You can reserve our copy of Series 4 on DVD by clicking here! We decided put together this list of reading recommendations for some of our favorite - or least favorite - characters:


Character: Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham
Book: Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think by  Diamandis and Kotler

The Dowager Countess is well known for having a firm grip on matters and getting her way. However, modern technology is not one of those matters. From telephones to swivel chairs, any newfangled creation seems to discombobulate her - that's why we'd recommend Diamandis' and Kotler's Abundance. The authors consider human need by the categories water, food, energy, healthcare and freedom, and present several innovators who are making great improvements in each area. Though the Dowager Countess would probably take this title with a huge grain of salt, its positive outlook on the future, technology and innovation just might be enough to convince her thing's aren't so bad.


Character:  Lady Edith Crawley
Book: The Family Fortune by Laurie Horowitz

Poor Lady Edith, living in the shadows of the head strong Mary and the fair Sybil, she has such trouble determining what to do with her life. And forget love.  It seems that any man she expresses interest in is uninterested, too old, or outside of her father’s approval. Our first instinct for Lady Edith was Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice, but we felt that might have been a little too obvious.  Aiming for something a little more modern, we think she’d benefit from reading Laurie Horowitz’s The Family Fortune. Central character Jane, like Lady Eidith, is terminally single and nearing middle age. However, she devotes her time to the Fortune Family Foundation, a philanthropic institution that helps aspiring writers, including Jane’s first and only true love, Max Wellman.


Character: Beryl Patmore
Book: The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollen

Mrs. Patmore is conscious of making sure that the family upstairs always has something good to eat, whether they’re entertaining or just sharing dinner together.  She runs her kitchen like a battleship, ensuring everything is perfect and presentable, and, not to mention, done the old fashioned way. In his book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollen attempts to answer the important question, “Where did our food come from, and how did it get that way?”  He looks at the moral and ecological consequences of the food we consume and examines them in detail. We think Pollan’s book could further inform Mrs. Patmore’s decisions about the food she prepares for the household.


Character: Thomas Barrow
Book:  How Not to Be a Dick: An Everyday Etiquette Guide by Meghan Doherty

Thomas is probably our least favorite character on the show.  We find the way he behaves pretty terrible. How Not to Be a Dick is actually aimed at teenagers as they make their way to adulthood, explaining how to be a half decent person.  It’s filled with expert advice alongside illustrations of two young people who mean well, but don’t always behave so. They confront moments of potential dickishness throughout their normal day. Perhaps if Thomas read this book he’d learn a few lessons, but then again, that could make his life a lot more boring.