Lists

At the end of the year, library list-servs and message boards are always full of librarians’ lists of favorite books of the past year. Librarians like to outdo one another with odd book titles that the rest of us have never heard of. I think it makes them feel smart to have read something peculiar. I also think that if a librarian claims to find great value in a book that nobody else read, it makes the money spent to buy that library book seem less foolish.
Me (I?), I’m a pretty ordinary reader. If it’s on the New York Times Bestsellers List, I probably read it and loved it, or at least plan on reading and loving it. Two of the best books I read in 2010 weren’t brand new. The Book Thief was a terrific story of World War II Germany told through the voice of a young, female narrator. I also loved Driftless by David Rhodes. I heard Rhodes speak at a library conference. He said that he was inspired to write the book after attending the funeral of a friend. It was there he realized that each of the attendees knew the deceased in a different way. A couple of brand new books I enjoyed were Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter: A Novel by Tom Franklin. The title refers to the way kids learn to spell Mississippi. The other book is Room by Emma Donoghue. These are both mysteries and are “must reads” for any mystery fan.
When I polled the library staff for their favorite 2010 books, I received a motley, assorted list of titles. Oddly enough, two suggestions from two different staff members involve elephants: Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen and Hannah’s Dream by Diane Hammond. The only other animal book that made anyone’s list is The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein. The narrator in that one is Enzo, a lab-mix. He is the side-kick of a race car driver. Even a non-dog lover would like this story about love, parenthood and following one’s dreams.
One librarian discovered author Pat Conroy this year. Several of his novels made it to her top ten list. The library owns his newest one, South of Broad. It is a good, if not particularly plausible story. Any group of high school friends that had that many shared major events and catastrophes would never make it to adulthood.
Books by many of the standard, popular writers made our lists: Danielle Steel, Jude Deveraux, Phillipa Gregory, Nora Roberts and Barbara Delinsky, for example. A couple of classics were mentioned: Giants in the Earth and To Kill a Mockingbird. And, lots and lots of mysteries by Harlan Coben, Linwood Barclay, Andrew Gross and Preston & Childs.
A library patron just stopped by the office. Her favorites of 2010 included Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese and Crow Lake by Mary Lawson. Not coincidentally, Crow Lake will be our February reading group selection for Humboldt Reads!. The January choice is Sing Them Home by Stephanie Kallos. We will meet January 20 at Vinny’s at 5:30 to discuss it, so you still have plenty of time to get it read.
Whatever your reading mood, there’s a book for that at your library.

Old Andrew

Last week I read a book review that brought back such disturbing memories that I wanted to run home and pull the covers over my head. This book brought back one of those humiliating moments when I was forced to face the fact that I’m not really as smart or well-read as I like to think I am.
One frigid early January day when I worked at the Denison library, an older woman, a farm-wife who only came into town for library books and livestock feed approached me at the front desk. She had a list of ten or so book titles. She handed it to me and asked if I could find these books somewhere or other and borrow them through the state interlibrary loan program. I replied that I would do my best. The books were mostly fifty to one hundred years old and a little difficult to acquire. When the first one arrived, she came in promptly to pick it up.
“Oh, I’m so excited to get started on this” she said. “You see, I decided to study up on Andrew Jackson’s cabinet as my winter project.” Andrew Jackson’s cabinet? That type of intellectual curiosity just leaves me dumbfounded. I could (maybe) tell you in what century Jackson lived, but nothing else I ever learned about him comes to mind.
This new book is A Being So Gentle: The Frontier Love Story of Rachel and Andrew Jackson. Now that’s a title that catches my eye! It was enough of a clue to Jackson’s life that I googled him and read a short internet encyclopedia biography. Rachel and Andy were rather “free thinkers” of their day. The fact that they married while Rachel was still married to another man was quite the scandal. Eventually she was persuaded to obtain the first divorce in the (young) history of the state of Kentucky and remarry Jackson in a legitimate ceremony. Jackson fought thirteen duels, several over his wife’s honor. Charles Dickinson was the only man he ever killed in a duel, but not before Dickinson shot him near the heart. It was said about Jackson that he was shot so frequently in duels that he “rattled like a bag of marbles.”
Jackson was heartbroken when his beloved Rachel died a few weeks before he took office. He wrote the following inscription for her tombstone:
"Here lie the remains of Mrs. Rachel Jackson, wife of President Jackson, who died the 22d of December, 1828, aged 61. Her face was fair, her person pleasing, her temper amiable, and her heart kind; she was delighted in relieving the wants of her fellow creatures, and cultivated that divine pleasure by the most liberal and unpretending methods; to the poor she was a benefactor; to the rich an example; to the wretched a comforter; to the prosperous an ornament; her piety went hand in hand with her benevolence, and she thanked her Creator for being permitted to do good. A being so gentle and yet so virtuous, slander might wound but could not dishonor. Even death, when he tore her from the arms of her husband, could but transport her to the bosom of her God."
So, when it comes in, I’ll read that book, and perhaps feel a little more confident in my knowledge of Andrew Jackson. However, I’m not sure I’ll ever recover from hearing my younger sister say recently “I just read the best biography of Genghis Khan.”

Last week, all week long I looked forward to finding time to pop open the December issue of Library Journal. LJ isn’t the sort of magazine that can be paged through in a few minutes. I need a stretch of quiet time, a cup of coffee, and a bright orange highlighter when I open my copy, don’t you?
I paged through the articles looking for whatever information might apply to our public library. This issue was devoted to library architectural projects that opened in 2010. Most of them are huge academic libraries or public libraries in big cities that have more in common with an airplane hangar than with our cozy building.
I scanned an article about an upcoming American Library Association meeting in San Diego. Big time authors will be there…Stewart O’Nan, Kathy Reichs and Ted Danson. Ted Danson? He’s that guy from Cheers, isn’t he? Sam Malone. Apparently as he grew older, Ted became an environmental activist with a new book about to be published. They will have to enjoy the California sunshine without me. I’ll be here shoveling.
Along about page 84 I came to the heart of the magazine….the book reviews. The first section is a prepublication alert. These are books that have created some buzz in the book industry and among those lucky folk who have access to advance reader copies. These book reviews end with statements like “Bought in a two-book deal at a hotly contested publisher’s auction” and “A real thought-provoker for book clubs” and “Essential for thriller collections.” I highlighted about one in four reviews in that section of the magazine. Those I will order for sure. A few more I marked with a question mark. Those books I will look up on Amazon.com to get a glimpse of the book cover, if it is available. Although we hear “don’t judge a book by its cover” we all do it anyway. If the cover has a robot or alien on it, nobody will pick it up and give it a chance. If a book has a muscle-bound hero and a damsel in distress on its cover, no one will check it out unless it is a small paperback that can be easily hidden from view. If a book has a fighter plane or battle ship on the cover, most women will pass right over it.
In addition to the book covers, I need to worry about the binding. I’ve written before about how library patrons will pass right over those “trade” paperbacks. They are the larger sized ones, not the kind found on a revolving rack at a truck stop. Over and over I try to explain that these aren’t (necessarily) inferior books. They can be by unknown authors. The publisher hopes it will be a big seller, but just isn’t sure enough to spring for the added expense of a hard binding. Other times it might be a terrific book that appeals to a smaller “niche” audience. Sometimes that “niche” might just be people who are smarter than average. That’s the niche I’m striving for!
Once again, I’ve been swayed by very promising book reviews for “trade paperbacks”. I’m going to throw a bunch of them in a basket and invite you all to join my niche and give a book a chance, at your library.