Favorite Fantasy Author Starts New Trilogy

One of my favorite fantasy authors, Robin Hobb, has just published the first book in a new trilogy.  Dragon Keeper begins with the hatching of the rescued sea serpents which the great blue dragon, Tintaglia, led up to their hatching grounds.  Unfortunately, the dragons which emerge are not the magnificent creatures of old, but are mostly small, deformed and unable to fly.  A group of misfits and outcasts is formed to escort the sickly creatures up the Rain River to their legendary home far away in the mountains.  Hobb has set three other trilogies,  Liveship Traders,  Tawny Man and Farseer, in this same fascinating world.  If you’ve read any of the other books, you will be pleased to greet many of the same characters in the new book.

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The Big Read comes to Spokane

A celebration of the beloved American classic, To Kill a Mockingbird, begins this month and continues through the middle of March at area libraries, universities and community venues. I’ve been recording the book this past month to be broadcast on the Bookshelf, a program of KPBX radio in Spokane.  This will start at 6:30 on Monday, February 1 and continue every Monday through Thursday for about 4 weeks.  While many readers love this book for its story of a Southern lawyer defending a Negro man falsely accused of rape, I love it for its portrait of a small Alabama town during the Great Depression and the authentically youthful voice of the narrator, Scout.  The Big Read is sponsored by The National Endowment for the Arts and The Spokane City and County Library Systems.

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Local Author on Time Magazine Best of 2009 list

Jess Walter’s latest, The Financial Lives of the Poets, was picked by Time Magazine’s editorial staff as #2 in its list of the ten best fiction books of 2009.  There are lots of people right now who are waiting for a library copy of this particular book, but in the meantime there are lots of other ‘Best of’ lists to peruse. The Early Word (http://www.earlyword.com/category/best-books-2009/), a blog for publishers and librarians, has handy links to all of those lists.  Are you ready to make your reading list for 2010?

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National Book Award

This year’s winners of the National Book Awards were  announced on November 18th. The choice for fiction, Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann, is one of my favorite books from this year’s reading, and I was thrilled to find out this morning that it had won this prestigious award.  Too often in recent years I have been disappointed by the winner, but this choice is one that I will be able to personally recommend with enthusiasm. Set in New York City during the days in 1974 that Phillipe Petit crossed a wire between the twin towers of the World Trade Center, each chapter is told from a different character’s point of view.  The individual stories connect in surprising and satisfying ways.

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What was the best? Your chance to vote.

The National Book Foundation is giving the American reading public the chance to vote for the best. The Foundation has chosen six previous winners of its prestigious annual award for fiction written by an American author and invited readers to choose their favorite.  Four short story collections and two women authors are on this short list.  Click here to vote and to see more about the National Book Award.

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How about a Pulitzer Prize winner?

I just finished reading this year’s winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout.  This character driven series of interconnected stories set in a small town in Maine is characterized by an emotional intensity expressed in elegant writing.  Olive is in each story, sometimes she’s the main character, sometimes she has a cameo.  This book was one of my favorites so far this year and it got me thinking about other novels that have won this coveted prize in previous years.  So what follows is a list of some of my favorites–one from each of the last six decades, although I had a hard time choosing one from the 1990s and had only read one from the 1960s.  The prize was first awarded in 1948 so my list starts with the 1950s.

The Travels of Jamie McPheeters by Robert Taylor (1959) is a sprawling, raucous saga of a boy during California’s Gold Rush.

The only winner in the 1960s that I’ve read is the perennially popular To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1961).  Told in the authentic voice of a young girl, the characters and theme remain unforgettable.

I had no trouble choosing a favorite from the 1970s.  It had to be Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner (1972). One of the best writers from the West, Stegner presents a loving, if sometimes harsh, portrait of a couple trying to keep their marriage alive in the mining camps of the late 1800’s.  Wonderful writing.

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry (1986) was my obvious choice from that decade.  The sweeping scope of the novel makes reading it an even better experience than watching the mini-series.

I decided that I would highlight Martin Dressler: the Tale of an American Dreamer by Stephen Millhauser (1997) as my pick from the 90s.  New York City during the Gilded Age is the setting for this story of a young man’s ‘rags to riches’ rise in society.  Concise, dreamlike in places.

The Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (2000) is my pick for the 2000s.  The immigrant experience is expertly and poignantly portrayed in a series of short stories featuring Indians in both America and India.

Other favorites of mine include Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, The Shipping News by Annie Proulx and Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie. For a complete list of winners visit the Pulitzer Prize website.

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Summer Book List 2009

Eva Ibbotson has recently gained recognition for her light-hearted fantasy fiction for grade school children but she started out writing romantic novels for adults.  A favorite of this genre is A Song for Summer.  Set in Austria just before the start of World War II, Ellen is a housekeeper at an eccentric boarding school.  The summer that she falls in love with Marek (the mysterious groundskeeper at the school) seems enchanted—just like the natural enchantment that summer brings to the Alps.

Another author known more for her novels for young people, Judy Blume has written a fast paced story of family and friendship in The Summer Sisters.  The novel features the six summers that wild, wealthy Caitlin and quiet, dull Victoria spend together on Martha’s Vineyard from the time they are in middle school through college.  As breezy as a summer day, this is a perfect beach read.

One teenager’s summer on Long Island is the focus of Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead. Benji and his family are middle class African American New Yorkers who spend every summer at their beach house in Sag Harbor.  The author admits that this book blurs the line between fiction and memoir as he himself was just such a teenager in 1985 when the book is set.  Any reader can relate to the teenage escapades and emotional dramas of this humorous and thought provoking book while also appreciating the glimpse it provides of this particular community.

A sun drenched summer in Tuscany with a group of eccentrics awaits the reader of Love Falls by Esther Freud. Seventeen-year-old Lara accompanies the father she rarely sees to visit an old friend with an Italian villa.  A neighboring villa houses a disgraced British aristocrat and his family. Lara is immediately attracted to the handsome Kip but is charmed by the whole family.  This coming-of-age novel is not always happy and light but it is fascinating and intelligent.

An old woman and her six-year-old granddaughter spend the summer together on a tiny island in the Gulf of Finland in The Summer Book by Tove Jansson.  Sometimes cranky, grandmother is also wise; sometimes impetuous, young Sophia is also attentive to her grandparent’s needs.  Together they explore this small, complete world as they discuss the important things in their life: family, love and the nature that surrounds them.

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Stephen King Suggests 7 for Summer

Perennially popular author Stephen King, writing on Entertainment Weekly’s website, offers seven fiction titles to try this summer.  All are owned by Spokane Public Library and range from contemporary to classic.  As could be expected from this master of suspense, they are mostly mystery or adventure titles.  Click on the titles below to find out if a copy is available today or could be reserved.

Shatter by Michael Robotham–”an exceptional suspense novel”

Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson –”told with a sense of humor. Very cool.”

Tourist by Olen Steinhauer –”best spy novel…not written by John Le Carre.”

Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens –”his most sentimental, absorbing, delightful novel.”

Drood by Dan Simmons –”a masterwork of narrative suspense.”

Dog On It by Spencer Quin  –”a new genre–call it canine noir.”

Handle with Care by Jodi Picoult –”a medical/legal thriller” that ” never descends into soap opera.”

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Recent Award Winners

The American Booksellers Association recently announced the winners of the inaugural Indies Choice Book Awards. An expanded version of the ABA’s Book Sense Book of the Year Award, the winners this year include Sherman Alexie who was chosen as Most Engaging Author.

The Best Indie Buzz Book for fiction went to The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. Written as a series of letters, this historical novel is both humorous and poignant as it tells a story of the German occupation of one of the Channel Islands during World War II.

Chosen as Best Conversation Starter was the non-fiction book about the Puritans, The Wordy Shipmates, by Sarah Vowell.

Mystery lovers will welcome the recent announcements of both the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar awards and the Malice Domestic winners for books published in 2008.

The Edgar for best novel went to Blue Heaven by C. J. Box, described as an adrenaline producing adventure featuring two children on the run in the woods of North Idaho.

The Agatha goes each year to a traditional, or ‘cozy’ mystery and is this year awarded to The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny. When a seance in a small village in Quebec turns deadly, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is called to investigate.

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Novels from Indian Authors

Q and A by Vikas Swarup, the book upon which the Academy Award winning film, “Slumdog Millionaire” was based, has a short waiting list. Here are half a dozen more novels by Indian writers that you might want to try.

A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth is a sprawling multi-generational story about a Hindu family in 1950 India trying to find a suitable husband for their daughter.

The language in The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy is as lush as the landscape of Kerala, the southernmost state in India, in which this family drama takes place.

Written in the mid-fifties, Nectar in a Sieve by Kamala Markandaya is a poignant portrait of a peasant woman finding solace and joy amidst the tragedies and disappointments of her life.

Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh, set in the heyday of the British Raj, tells the amazing life stories of half a dozen or so people whose destinies come together on a ship bound for the Seychelle Islands.

Oprah picked A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry for her book club.  Set in 1975 in a city by the sea, it is the story of four strangers who are forced to live together in a small apartment during the nerve-wracking time of a national emergency.

In Padma Viswanathan’s The Toss of a Lemon a young Brahmin widow shocks her orthodox family by moving back into her husband’s house. This decision has ramifications for generations to come.

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