I’ve been meaning to read this one for ages. And now that it has two sequels, I really need to get on the ball!
From the flap:
Damaged Portland detective Archie Sheridan spent ten years tracking Gretchen Lowell, a beautiful serial killer, but in the end she was the one who caught him. Two years ago, Gretchen kidnapped Archie and tortured him for ten days, but instead of killing him, she mysteriously decided to let him go. She turned herself in, and now Gretchen has been locked away for the rest of her life, while Archie is in a prison of another kind—addicted to pain pills, unable to return to his old life, powerless to get those ten horrific days off his mind. Archie’s a different person, his estranged wife says, and he knows she’s right. He continues to visit Gretchen in prison once a week, saying that only he can get her to confess as to the whereabouts of more of her victims, but even he knows the truth—he can’t stay away.
When another killer begins snatching teenage girls off the streets of Portland, Archie has to pull himself together enough to lead the new task force investigating the murders. A hungry young newspaper reporter, Susan Ward, begins profiling Archie and the investigation, which sparks a deadly game between Archie, Susan, the new killer, and even Gretchen. They need to catch a killer, and maybe somehow then Archie can free himself from Gretchen, once and for all. Either way, Heartsick makes for one of the most extraordinary suspense debuts in recent memory.
Thanks to everyone who participated in our very first Crossover meeting — I hope to see all of you next month for our discussion of Judy Blundell’s What I Saw and How I Lied. If you haven’t picked up a copy yet, do call us at 985.2173 to reserve one.
I did a bit of research and discovered that the poem I was thinking of wasn’t T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, but Robert Browning’s Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came. John Connolly provides a bit of information about it in this PDF. And you’ll find more information about the other stories that made their way into The Book of Lost Things at the book’s website. (Go to the Behind the Scenes section found under The Book of Lost Things tab.)
Some of the other books and movies that came up in last night’s discussion were:
Stephen King’s Dark Tower sequence — which is only one of the many works of fiction inspired (or partially inspired) by Browning’s poem
Megan Whalen Turner’s The Thief* — another book in which the narrative pauses while a characters tell stories
Charles de Lint’s Newford stories and novels – for their exploration of the dream world and parallel worlds, mythology, the power of story and for their all-around fantasticness
Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces — while it didn’t come up in conversation, it’s a great book about comparative mythology, heroes and myth-cycles
I looove the roughneck romance of the old timey railroad: the smokey, metallic smell of the railyard, the vibrating rumble of the tracks, and that haunting whistle you can hear for miles. The Yard Dog is steeped in these atomospheric elements, setting a murder mystery against the backdrop of WWII-era Oklahoma where protagonist Hook Runyon has been hired to drive off the winos and pickpockets from the railroad near POW Camp Alva. With such an intriguing premise, it’s definitely worth a look.
From the publisher’s summary:
The Yard Dog takes place near the close of World War II, when a large number of Nazi POWs were incarcerated in camps scattered across the prairies of the United States. At Waynoka Divisional Point, near POW Camp Alva, the disillusioned Hook Runyon is assigned by the railroad to run off hobos and arrest pickpockets. Left behind in the war because of the loss of his arm in a car accident, Hook lives in a caboose, collects rare books, and drinks busthead liquor. When a coal picker by the name of Spark Dugan is found run over by a reefer car, Hook and his sidekick, Runt, the local moonshiner, suspect foul play and are drawn into a scheme far greater than either could have imagined. This conspiracy reaches the highest echelons of the camp and beyond and will push Hook and Runt to their physical and mental limits. Hook is a complex character, equal parts rough and vulnerable, an unlikely and unwilling hero. He is more than matched by Dr. Reina Kaplan, a Jewish big-city transplant to Camp Alva who is battling her own demons and has been put in charge of educating the Nazi inmates in the basics of democracy before their eventual return to Germany.Vivid descriptions of period detail, stark landscapes, and unique characters make this first book in the Hook Runyon series a fascinating mystery full of tension and deep insight.
…Lizzie Skurnick’s Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading.
How could I resist a book that celebrates all of the books that turned me into the huge reader that I am today? I ask you.
From the Publisher’s Weekly review:
Launched from her regular feature column Fines Lines for Jezebel.com, this spastically composed, frequently hilarious omnibus of meditations on favorite YA novels dwells mostly among the old-school titles from the late ’60s to the early ’80s much beloved by now grown-up ladies. This was the era, notes the bibliomaniacal Skurnick in her brief introduction, when books for young girls moved from being wholesome and entertaining (e.g., The Secret Gardenand the Nancy Drew series) to dealing with real-life, painful issues affecting adolescence as depicted by Beverly Cleary, Lois Duncan, Judy Blume, Madeleine L’Engle and Norma Klein. Skurnick groups her eruptive essays around themes, for example, books that feature a particularly memorable, fun or challenging narrator (e.g., Louise Fitzhugh’s Harriet the Spy); girls on the verge, such as Blume’s Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret or danger girls such as Duncan’s Daughters of Eve; novels that deal with dying protagonists and other tragedies like child abuse (Willo Davis Roberts’s Don’t Hurt Laurie!); and, unavoidably, heroines gifted with a paranormal penchant, among other categories. Skurnick is particularly effective at spotlighting an undervalued classic (e.g., Joan Aiken’s The Wolves of Willoughby Chase) and offers titles featuring troubled boys as well. Her suggestions will prove superhelpful (not to mention wildly entertaining) for educators, librarians and parents.
Get a taste of Lizzie Skurnick’s style and subject matter: give her Fine Lines column at Jezebel a read.
If you’d like to place a hold, give us a call at 985.2173 or do it online!
A book based in a country you’ve forgotten existed is always intriguing. Uruguay is the setting of The Invisible Mountain, promising 360 pages of cultural exploration with a family saga at its heart. I love the idea of a historical novel that follows a line of female ancestors (see A Short History of Womenby Kate Walbert) and this one opens with a mystery: the reappearance of a missing infant.
Here’s the publisher’s synopsis:
On the first day of the century, a small town gathers to witness a miracle and unravel its portents: the mysterious reappearance of a lost infant, Pajarita. Later, as a young woman in the capital city—Montevideo, brimming with growth and promise—Pajarita begins a lineage of independent women. Her daughter Eva, intent on becoming a poet, overcomes an early, shattering betrayal to embark on a most unconventional path toward personal and artistic fulfillment. And Eva’s daughter Salomé, awakening to both her sensuality and political convictions amidst the violent turmoil of the late 1960s, finds herself dangerously attracted to a cadre of urban guerilla rebels.
From Perón’s glittering Buenos Aires to the rustic hills of Rio de Janeiro, from the haven of a Montevideo butcher shop to U.S. embassy halls, The Invisible Mountain celebrates a nation’s spirit, the will to survive in the most desperate of circumstances, and the fierce and complex connections between mother and daughter.
Billed as a sex comedy–that alone immediately piqued my interest–Laura Rider sounds a bit like The Secret Life of Walter Mitty spiced up with a heaping spoonful of pure farce. The Riders, a middle-aged couple whose marriage–loveless only in the physical sense–is jumpstarted by a case of mistaken identity brought about by Laura Rider’s dream of being a famous author.
The delightfully retro cover with its 50’s romance pulp fiction cut-outs and artfully piled paperbacks give you a definite sense that Laura Rider’s fiction fantasy world should be a lot of fun to explore.
Publisher’s Summary:
Laura and Charlie Rider have been married for twelve years. They share their nursery business in rural Wisconsin, their love for their animals, and their zeal for storytelling. Although Charlie’s enthusiasm in the bedroom has worn Laura out, although she no longer sleeps with him, they are happy enough going along in their routine.
Jenna Faroli is the host of a popular radio show, and in Laura’s mind is “the single most famous person in the Town of Dover.” When Jenna happens to cross Charlie’s path one day, and they begin an e-mail correspondence, Laura cannot resist using Charlie to try out her new writing skills. Together, Laura and Charlie craft florid, strangely intimate messages that entice Jenna in an unexpected way. The “project” quickly spins out of control. The lines between Laura’s words and Charlie’s feelings are blurred and complicated, Jenna is transformed in ways that deeply disturb her, and Laura is transformed in her mind’s eye into an artist. The transformations are hilarious and poignant, and for Laura Rider, beyond her wildest expectations.
I have to admit that it was the cover that caught my eye – while we try to tell ourselves that we don’t judge books by their covers, there are Art Departments for a reason.
Without knowing anything about the book or the author, the jacket design immediately made me think of a quirky indie movie.
The publisher’s description is as follows:
The death of Judd Foxman’s father marks the first time that the entire Foxman family-including Judd’s mother, brothers, and sister-have been together in years. Conspicuously absent: Judd’s wife, Jen, whose fourteen-month affair with Judd’s radio-shock-jock boss has recently become painfully public.
Simultaneously mourning the death of his father and the demise of his marriage, Judd joins the rest of the Foxmans as they reluctantly submit to their patriarch’s dying request: to spend the seven days following the funeral together. In the same house. Like a family.
As the week quickly spins out of control, longstanding grudges resurface, secrets are revealed, and old passions reawakened. For Judd, it’s a weeklong attempt to make sense of the mess his life has become while trying in vain not to get sucked into the regressive battles of his madly dysfunctional family. All of which would be hard enough without the bomb Jen dropped the day Judd’s father died: She’s pregnant.
This Is Where I Leave Youis Jonathan Tropper’s most accomplished work to date, a riotously funny, emotionally raw novel about love, marriage, divorce, family, and the ties that bind-whether we like it or not.
This very unfinished work reads largely like an outline, full of seeming notes-to-self, references to source material, self-critique, sentence fragments and commentary (“The whole scene was pretty artificial in a fishy theatrical way”). It would be a mistake, in other words, for readers to come to this expecting anything resembling a novel, though the few actual scenes wedged between the notes are unmistakably Nabokovian, with cutting wordplay, piercing description and uneasy-making situations—a character named Hubert H. Hubert molesting a girl, a decaying old man’s strained attempt at perfunctory sex with his younger wife.
Here is the top 10:
1. The Harry Potter series, by J.K. Rowling
2. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
3. The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
4. Bridget Jones’s Diary, by Helen Fielding
5. Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
6. Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, by Rebecca Wells
7. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
8. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
9. Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, by Fannie Flagg
10. The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver
“Should the case go all the way to trial, we are confident that New Line will lose its rights to The Hobbit,” says Bonnie Eskenazi, an attorney with Greenberg Glusker, the Los Angeles firm representing the estate. And in that case, production of The Hobbit would be halted.
…Heartsick, by Chelsea Cain.
Thanks to everyone who participated in our very first 
I looove the roughneck romance of the old timey railroad: the smokey, metallic smell of the railyard, the vibrating rumble of the tracks, and that haunting whistle you can hear for miles. 
…Lizzie Skurnick’s Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading.
A book based in a country you’ve forgotten existed is always intriguing. Uruguay is the setting of The Invisible Mountain, promising 360 pages of cultural exploration with a family saga at its heart. I love the idea of a historical novel that follows a line of female ancestors (see A Short History of Womenby Kate Walbert) and this one opens with a mystery: the reappearance of a missing infant. 
Billed as a sex comedy–that alone immediately piqued my interest–Laura Rider sounds a bit like The Secret Life of Walter Mitty spiced up with a heaping spoonful of pure farce. The Riders, a middle-aged couple whose marriage–loveless only in the physical sense–is jumpstarted by a case of mistaken identity brought about by Laura Rider’s dream of being a famous author. 
I have to admit that it was the cover that caught my eye – while we try to tell ourselves that we don’t judge books by their covers, there are Art Departments for a reason. 