Category: Books

Harleen by Stjepan Sejic

- Beth Leave a comment

When I start something new, I have to start at the very beginning. Lately, I’ve been wanting to take a deep dive into the world of graphic novels, but I know I’d quickly get overwhelmed. However, Harleen might be the perfect fit to both start at the beginning and jump into an established universe. The new graphic novel from Stjepan Sejic tells the fall-from-grace origin story of Batman and Gotham City’s favorite antihero — Harley Quinn.

We meet a restless Dr. Harleen Quinzel looking for funding to develop a method for detecting stages of deteriorating empathy. What are the trigger points throughout a lifetime for creating a sociopath? After presenting her theory at a conference she encounters a classic Joker / Batman duel on the streets of Gotham City.

The outcome of this fight is:

  • a demoralized Gotham City Police Department and the rise of the Executioners, a group of masked officers taking justice into their own hands.
  • newly disfigured District Attorney Harvey Dent taking leadership of the Executioners and veering into his own villainous ways.
  • Joker in the Arkham Asylum as a subject of Dr. Quinzel’s study, newly funded by the Wayne Foundation.

When Dr. Quinzel meets her new patient, the Joker (Mr. Jay, she respectfully calls him), she becomes infatuated with him. As she reflects often, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Dr. Quinzel alternates between falling for his manipulation that he is the perfect candidate for her study, therefore an asset to her career, and believing she can cure the Joker from his mental illness.

Dent and the Executioners stage a breakout of the Arkham Asylum. In an effort to protect the Joker, Quinzel kills a security guard, falls into the arms of the Joker and is baptized Harley Quinn.

The characters are complex and intriguing. More than once, I found myself questioning if Harleen and the Joker were  manipulating other characters, themselves or me, the reader. Harleen and Harvey Dent struggle to keep a grasp on reality, while the Joker seems eager to get back to a world chaos and madness.

Clear flashbacks and subtle flash-forwards compel the story through a coherent timeline. There is so much set up for future stories, I’m looking forward to reading anything else that comes out of Sejic’s Harleen story and going further into this universe.

Virtual Book Club

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Practice social distancing with us and join our Virtual Book Club that meets every Wednesday at 2pm! We meet to discuss a new book every week. Follow us on social media and our website to get the link for each Virtual Book Club.

Tomorrow, Wednesday, May 6th, we will be discussing Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng. This 2017 novel has been made into a hit show recently released on Hulu in 2020 starring Reese Witherspoon, Kerry Washington, and Rosemarie DeWitt. We hope you join us to discuss this book!

Curious what Little Fires Everywhere is about? Check out the following blurb from the publisher!

In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is planned – from the layout of the winding roads, to the colors of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules. Enter Mia Warren – an enigmatic artist and single mother – who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenaged daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the mother-daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past and a disregard for the status quo that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community. When old family friends of the Richardsons attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town–and puts Mia and Elena on opposing sides. Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Elena is determined to uncover the secrets in Mia’s past. But her obsession will come at unexpected and devastating costs. Little Fires Everywhere explores the weight of secrets, the nature of art and identity, and the ferocious pull of motherhood – and the danger of believing that following the rules can avert disaster.

Online Reading Challenge Wrap Up

- Ann Leave a comment

So. That was quite a month, wasn’t it? How did you do with your Online Challenge reading? I have to admit, I haven’t been reading as much lately. With the extra time at home, I had thought I would get lots of reading done, but I’ve found that I get distracted easily. I think it has to do with this new normal that we are living through, adjusting and absorbing how life is now and wondering what it will be like in the future. What about you, are you having issues adjusting?

I did read a book for this month’s theme which was inspired by the film and television series Downton Abbey. I read A Duty to the Dead by Charles Todd, the first in the Bess Crawford mystery series. While I enjoyed the book, I found it slow in parts and it didn’t grab my attention completely.

Bess Crawford is a nurse serving in the British army during World War I. She is injured when the hospital ship she is on, the HMHS Britannic, is sunk by a German mine (a true event) Home again in England to recuperate, she is haunted by a promise she made to Arthur Graham, a soldier she cared for who died in France, a promise that she has yet to fulfill. At her father’s urging she takes the time now while she is home to lay this promise to rest.

Traveling by train to Kent, Bess pays a visit to the Graham family estate and delivers Arthur’s cryptic message to his family. They are startling unimpressed and, while polite, seem to have no interest in pursuing the matter further. Delayed on her return, Bess stays with the Grahams a few extra days and discovers a complicated family dynamic with a mysterious brother hidden away in an insane asylum. Bess gets caught up in the dramas of the small local village (jumping in to help the local doctor in an emergency) and the mystery surrounding the Graham family.

There was a lot I liked about this book – the brave, level-headed Bess, the time period and the settings. The sinking of the HMHS Britannic at the beginning of the book was very interesting and exciting, but I found the pace of the rest of the book slowed and even dragged at times. It is the first of the series though and it will be worth trying more titles in this popular series in the future.

How was your reading this month? Did you read anything good? Let us know in the comments!

The Wild Robot

- Brenda Leave a comment

An uncharacteristic thing has happened to this librarian lately: I haven’t felt much like reading. Of all the strange happenings in our world right now during this COVID-19 pandemic, this was yet another unexpected experience. I have no shortage of reading material. I have a reliable device I can use to download a variety of digital books. This seems like the perfect time to work my way through that looming stack of print books on my table waiting to be read.

And yet, my heart is just not in it. I sit down for about five minutes and then I am distracted and put it down and go do something else.

There has been one exception, however. I happened to be in the middle of reading The Wild Robot by Peter Brown with one of my children before bedtime each night before all this began. The chapters are short, and at one chapter a night, it was taking us a while to work our way through this 279-page book about a robot stranded on an island. But each night I read it aloud, the Wild Robot and its island populated by many animals and no humans endeared itself to me more and more.

You might think that reading a book with no humans in it during a pandemic is a lonely choice in an already lonely situation. Or perhaps on the contrary, you think it is a logical and fitting choice to read about being stranded on an island when it often feels exactly like that as we are isolated in our homes. I think there was something reflective about this mechanical protagonist who gradually (though paradoxically) becomes more humane through time and experience that captured my interest and my heart. Human interaction right now -when it does happen- is less warm and personal, more technological. Somehow the mirror image of a technological being becoming more warm and personal through challenging life experiences was a sort of balm to my woes.

Brown’s writing made reading effortless for me once again. His animal characters have unique personalities. The events that happen on his remote island, both tragic and joyful, are magically relatable. I have always been a fan of anthropomorphism. I am even more so now.

I wish I could point you to a digital version of this title that you can download immediately for free through the library, but our library currently only owns this in print. If you would like to request it for purchase in digital format, you can log into your library account using either the Libby or Overdrive apps and request this title. Be aware that it ends on a cliffhanger and you will probably want to read its sequel, The Wild Robot Escapes.

In the meantime, here are some similar books with anthropomorphic characters available digitally when you log into Overdrive with your Davenport Public Library account that you may enjoy:

Simon the Fiddler by Paulette Jiles

- Ann Leave a comment

Set against an atmospheric backdrop of a rough and nearly lawless East Texas near the end of the Civlil War, Simon the Fiddler by Paulette Jiles is a story of overcoming hardship, taking chances and following your dreams no matter what.

Simon Boudin is a gifted fiddler that has been dogged by hard luck. He scrapes together a living by playing at dodgy taverns scattered through the wild west. By March of 1865 he has managed to avoid conscription into either army, but his luck runs out when his volatile temper gets the better of him and he gets into a bar fight. Hauled off to jail, he is picked up by the Confederate Army and forced into service. Because he is a fiddler and a very good one, he is put into the regimental band and manages to mostly avoid harm.

Just as the Civil War is winding down, Simon and his rag-tag band are sent to play for a victorious Union colonel who is throwing a party for the officers and their families from both the North and the South. It is here that Simon meets Doris, an Irish servant indentured to work for the colonel and his family. Although their meeting is brief, Simon and Doris make a connection. Driven apart by their duties – Simon sent away with the Army, Doris leaving with the colonel – they spend the next many months working to find each other again. Doris is miserable and feeling trapped as a servant while Simon struggles to save enough money from the jobs he and his band can find, enough to buy some land and make a life with Doris.

Through many obstacles – poverty, Yellow Fever, lawlessness, abject cruelty – there is also strength through friendship, a helping hand and the belief in love. While this is a slower read than Jile’s popular (and excellent) previous book News of the World, this book has the power to draw you in, to root for characters that are flawed but striving for something better, to morn their loses and cheer their triumphs.

 

No Judgments by Meg Cabot

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Meg Cabot has long been a favorite author of mine for a number of years ever since she released her Princess Diaries series in the early 2000’s. She released a new book in the fall of 2019 called No Judgments that peeked my interest from the swirly cover and the main character’s pink hair on the cover.

No Judgments by Meg Cabot is the first book in the Little Bridge Island series. Bree Beckham moved to Little Bridge Island to escape her emotionally abusive ex-boyfriend only to find herself in the path of a massive hurricane. Not believing all the hype, Bree doesn’t think that this hurricane is going to be as bad as everyone says it will be. Working at the local diner, Bree is privy to all the happenings of the locals and the news talking about the hurricane. While the locals are boarding up their homes and businesses, Bree is busy dodging calls from her famous worried mother and her intrusive ex-boyfriend.

When the hurricane lands and Little Bridge Island loses all power and cell service, as well as its connection to the mainland, the little peace that Bree made for herself begins to unravel. Not able to get back into her place, Bree’s mind wanders and when she realizes just how many islanders are now stranded off the island with no way to get back to their pets, she has to help. She can’t leave those pets to suffer in the heat with no food or water until their owners come back. She has to do something.

As Bree begins to make a plan, she has no choice but to accept that she needs help. Enter Drew Hartwell, her boss’s seriously sexy nephew. As the two travel across Little Bridge Island looking for lost pets, Bree finds herself falling for Drew. Are her feelings real? Is this island fling the result of them being thrust together by the hurricane? Could Bree and Drew last past the cleanup of the hurricane and the power being turned back on or is it just a stormy relationship meant to kill time? Bree isn’t sure what to believe in, but she knows that those pets need her help.

This book is also available in the following formats:

After the Flood by Kassandra Montag

- Stephanie Leave a comment

I picked up this book to read because the cover was relaxing and the lines swirling over it looked like map lines. It turns out that I was right! Those are map lines after all and they turn out to be a key element in this book.

After the Flood by Kassandra Montag is set over a hundred years into a dystopian future where rising flood waters have crept up and overtaken the continents. This slow rise of water has obliterated and destroyed the mountaintops and known landscape and has, as a result, left in its place deep wide expanses of open water.

Myra is angry. Why is she angry? Her husband Jacob abandoned her while she was pregnant with their daughter Pearl. To top it off, he took their oldest daughter Row with him when he took off. Myra and Pearl are travelling from island to island on Bird, the boat that Myra’s grandfather made in the attic of their house before he died. Surviving by fishing and trading at the islands they visit, Myra is constantly on the lookout for any information about Row and Jacob.

Their life may be tranquil and at an even keel, but Myra knows that this peace can be interrupted at a moment’s notice. A bad wave, an interaction with violent people and breeding ships, or a fish shortage could all spell disaster for the pair. While stopped at an island to trade, Myra learns that Row may in fact still be alive. This chance encounter leads her to pack up Pearl, search for help, and start the dangerous journey to The Valley. Far up north, the trek to The Valley will be full of breeding ships and savage people looking to steal anything they can and willing to take over any unsuspecting ships. Add in the fact that The Valley might be going through an epidemic and Myra needs to get there as soon as she can to save Row.

On their way to The Valley, Myra and Pearl are hit with obstruction after obstruction with death and strangers littering their path. They eventually end up on board the boat, Sedna. This boat couldn’t be more different than Bird: Sedna has a fully able crew and seemingly all the supplies they could ever need (food, ammo, weapons, building/boat materials). Myra slowly discovers that in order to make it to Row and rescue her, she will have to betray and deceive everyone around her. Is Myra willing to sacrifice Pearl in order to save Row? Is Row even there? Could this all be for nothing? Myra has to decide what she’s willing to do to find out the truth.

This book is also available in the following format:

Start French by Michel Thomas

- Brenda Leave a comment

If you find languages interesting, have I got a treat for you!  There is an excellent language learning series by Michel Thomas that is great listening!

I began with Start French. I always wanted to learn a little French, but it was offered during music class at my high school, so I could only choose one. I chose music and took an afternoon Spanish class for my foreign language. I’ve always found French to be a challenging accent to get, and reading the words on a page just didn’t work for me.

Enter Michel Thomas and his method.

When I popped his CD into my car, suddenly my commutes and errands turned into listening in on fun little conversations. He introduces basic words and phrases in a way that builds successively on one another, feels natural, and is a little easier to remember than trying to memorize nouns and conjugate verbs. He also relates the French word to the root of the English word, helping form connections in your brain to both words and their shared meaning.

After some time, I began talking with the recorded Thomas and enjoying being able to speak un peu de francais. I couldn’t help but share my discovery with family members and friends. My Dad wanted to try Start German. He has been listening to it before bed each night and greets the day with a guten Morgen!

This series is also currently available to check out in Irish, Italian, and Spanish. Also coming soon…Norwegian!

Dying in the Wool: A Kate Shackleton Mystery by Frances Brody

- Michelle Leave a comment

We meet amateur sleuth and former World War I nurse, Kate Shackleton a few years after the conclusion of the war in her small village of Bridgestead, England in the first book of the Kate Shackleton Mystery series, Dying in the Wool  by Frances Brody.  Kate is still reeling from her husband being declared missing in the war but, at the same time,  continues to hold out hope that he is alive.  As a nurse in the war, Kate has picked up the skills of a sleuth in helping a few fellow nurses find missing loved ones.  She has gained quite the reputation as a novice detective and based on her reputation one fellow nurse, Tabitha Braithwaite, calls on Kate for a mystery of her own.

Tabitha is engaged to be married within weeks and her wish before she walks down the aisle is to find her father, Joshua Braithwaite, who mysteriously disappeared and no trace of him was ever found.  Was Mr. Braithwaite, the owner and operator of a textile mill, a victim of someone with a grudge, did he stage his own disappearance or is the truth something more sinister?  Kate has little time to dig to the bottom of the mystery before Tabitha’s wedding day.  She meets a cast of characters in the village, including many mill workers who may have a grudge against the powerful mill owner and are potential suspects.  Kate, along with Sykes, a former detective who she hires as an employee, get closer and closer to finding the truth with potential murderous results.  Told in alternative chapters merging past and present, Dying in the Wool  gives the reader a glimpse into British society and culture in the early 1920s within a cozy mystery.

One of the most unique aspects of this mystery is the detail that Brody adds to the novel regarding the British textile mill industry immediately following WWI.  It is clear she has done her research, giving the reader a sense of the intricacies of how this industry was run.  Readers of Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs series may want to consider starting this series (the eleventh book in the series came out in November).  I’m already nearly done the second book, A Medal for Murder, and am looking forward to the third!

Online Reading Challenge – April

- Ann Leave a comment

Welcome to the April edition of the Online Reading Challenge! Here is a low-pressure challenge that can help distract you – perfect for this crazy time.

This month our movie inspiration is: Downton Abbey!

Lose yourself in the elegant and refined world of the English upper class where every whim is handled by the staff. Or venture into the world of “downstairs” with the hardworking servants and their endless duties. To give us a wide range of topics to choose from, I’m including the wildly popular Downton Abbey television series, so our time period runs from the early 1900s (just after the Titanic sank) to the 1930s and beyond. A lot happened during that time – a devastating world war, the rise of women’s rights, a decline of the English aristocracy, and the Great Depression. Here are some book suggestions to get you started.

Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey by Fiona Carnavon is a non-fiction account of Highclere Castle, where Downton Abbey was filmed, and its dramatic, true history written by the current Countess. Also available as an ebook.

Below Stairs by Margaret Powell shows, in vivid detail, just how hard those servants worked and how hard their life could be.

American Heiress by Daisy Goodwin. A lot of the English aristocracy fell into financial ruin while trying to maintain large estates. Many of them married their sons to rich American women in exchange for a title. This is the fictional story of one of those young women.

The Poppy Wife by Caroline Scott. The aftermath of World War I and the survivors struggling to come to terms with what they’ve witnessed.

If you’re looking to read a classic, Henry James and Edith Wharton are the gold standard. For modern/newer classics, try Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro about an English estate that is bought by a rich American and how the servants adapt or Atonement by Ian McEwan about how a wrong accusation reverberates through several lives for many years.

For mystery lovers, there are several good series to explore including the Below Stairs series by Jennifer Ashley (servants solving crimes), the Inspector Ian Rutledge series by Charles Todd (recently returned veteran of World War I who struggles with PTSD), the Maisie Dobbs series by Jacqueline Winspear (young woman sets up her own private investigation agency just after World War I).

I’m going to read the first title in the Bess Crawford mystery series by Charles Todd, A Duty to the Dead. Bess is a British nurse serving in France during World War I and in this book, makes a promise to a dying soldier that leads her to a case of murder and intrigue. I’m looking forward to this! What will you be reading this month?

Usually at this point I remind you that there will be displays at each library with lots of title suggestions. However, it looks like we may not be open to the public for some time so instead I’ll remind you that you can still call the library and have a book held for you at the Fairmount drive up window. I also strongly urge you to take advantage of our free ebook service Overdrive which has thousands of titles available to read on your tablet or computer, including many of the titles mentioned here.

Until we meet again, stay safe and keep reading!