…the QUIZ.

the Fake AP Stylebook.

…Heartsick, by Chelsea Cain.

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.

It’s always fun to find two books with the same cover art. 

This gallery features a huge number of examples.

When Autumn Leaves by Amy S. Foster.

If you’re in the mood for chick lit nestled in a cozy land of magical realism, When Autumn Leaves may be just the ticket.  Author Amy S. Foster has created a fictional coastal town called Avening where the impossible is possible and a mystical sisterhood called the Jaen is losing their leader Autumn; the challenge is choosing a replacement from a bevy of interesting, complex female characters (hence the cute double-meaning title).  The cover is glowing with warm autumnal shades of orange offset by  a black latticework-like border of leaves, and the loveliness of the image suggests that the reader’s journey with one filled with vivid images and lyrical writing.

From the publisher’s summary:

In Avening, a tiny town on the Pacific coast, it’s hard not to believe in magic. This is a town where the shoes in the window always fit, where you can buy a love potion at the corner shop, and where the woods at the outskirts of town just might be the door to another world. And, of course, there’s Autumn, Avening’s beloved resident witch. From what’s known of its mythical founding, Avening has always been a haven for people who are a little bit different, a place where they can come to discover what makes them so special. When Autumn receives news that she’s been promoted to a higher coven, she also learns she has to replace herself. But who in Avening is in tune enough with her own personal magic to take over the huge responsibility of town witch? Autumn has a list of thirteen women and men who just might have what it takes-but how can she get them to open their eyes to the magic in their lives? This endlessly surprising and heart-warming debut is the story of coming to terms with the magical things we take for granted every day-our friends, our community, and, most of all, ourselves.

Here’s a link to Amy S. Foster’s website.

If you’d like to place a hold on When Autumn Leaves you can call the library at 985-2173 or go to our website to place a hold online!

A book recently added to our collection — to place a hold, give us a call at 985.2173 or do it online!

Audrey Niffenegger’s Her Fearful Symmetry:

From the flap:

Six years after the phenomenal success of The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger has returned with a spectacularly compelling and haunting second novel set in and around Highgate Cemetery in London.

When Elspeth Noblin dies of cancer, she leaves her London apartment to her twin nieces, Julia and Valentina. These two American girls never met their English aunt, only knew that their mother, too, was a twin, and Elspeth her sister. Julia and Valentina are semi-normal American teenagers–with seemingly little interest in college, finding jobs, or anything outside their cozy home in the suburbs of Chicago, and with an abnormally intense attachment to one another.

The girls move to Elspeth’s flat, which borders Highgate Cemetery in London. They come to know the building’s other residents. There is Martin, a brilliant and charming crossword puzzle setter suffering from crippling Obsessive Compulsive Disorder; Marjike, Martin’s devoted but trapped wife; and Robert, Elspeth’s elusive lover, a scholar of the cemetery. As the girls become embroiled in the fraying lives of their aunt’s neighbors, they also discover that much is still alive in Highgate, including–perhaps–their aunt, who can’t seem to leave her old apartment and life behind.

Niffenegger weaves a captivating story in Her Fearful Symmetry about love and identity, about secrets and sisterhood, and about the tenacity of life–even after death.

See this interview with Time magazine for more.

A book recently added to our collection — to place a hold, give us a call at 985.2173 or do it online!

David Baldacci’s True Blue:

From the flap:

Mason “Mace” Perry was a firebrand cop on the D.C. police force until she was kidnapped and framed for a crime. She lost everything-her badge, her career, her freedom-and spent two years in prison. Now she’s back on the outside and focused on one mission: to be a cop once more. Her only shot to be a true blue again is to solve a major case on her own, and prove she has the right to wear the uniform. But even with her police chief sister on her side, she has to work in the shadows: A vindictive U.S. attorney is looking for any reason to send Mace back behind bars. Then Roy Kingman enters her life.

Roy is a young lawyer who aided the poor until he took a high-paying job at a law firm in Washington. Mace and Roy meet after he discovers the dead body of a female partner at the firm. As they investigate the death, they start uncovering surprising secrets from both the private and public world of the nation’s capital.

Soon, what began as a fairly routine homicide takes a terrifying and unexpected turn-into something complex, diabolical, and possibly lethal.

A book recently added to our collection — to place a hold, give us a call at 985.2173 or do it online!

John Irving’s Last Night in Twisted River:

From the flap:

In 1954, in the cookhouse of a logging and sawmill settlement in northern New Hampshire, an anxious twelve-year-old boy mistakes the local constable’s girlfriend for a bear. Both the twelve-year-old and his father become fugitives, forced to run from Coos County–to Boston, to southern Vermont, to Toronto–pursued by the implacable constable. Their lone protector is a fiercely libertarian logger, once a river driver, who befriends them.

In a story spanning five decades, Last Night in Twisted River–John Irving’s twelfth novel–depicts the recent half-century in the United States as “a living replica of Coos County, where lethal hatreds were generally permitted to run their course.” From the novel’s taut opening sentence–“The young Canadian, who could not have been more than fifteen, had hesitated too long”–to its elegiac final chapter, Last Night in Twisted River is written with the historical authenticity and emotional authority of The Cider House Rules and A Prayer for Owen Meany. It is also as violent and disturbing a story as John Irving’s breakthrough bestseller, The World According to Garp.

What further distinguishes Last Night in Twisted River is the author’s unmistakable voice–the inimitable voice of an accomplished storyteller. Near the end of this moving novel, John Irving writes: “We don’t always have a choice how we get to know one another. Sometimes, people fall into our lives cleanly–as if out of the sky, or as if there were a direct flight from Heaven to Earth–the same sudden way we lose people, who once seemed they would always be part of our lives.”

Here are some trailers to give you a taste of some of the new items in our collection.  As always, feel free to call us at 985.2173 to place a hold — or do it online!

The trailer for Rivers and Tides, a documentary about artist Andy Goldsworthy:

The trailer for the Freaks and Geeks boxed set:

The trailer for In the Mood for Love, which looks gorgeous and achy:

The trailer for Shutter,  a Thai horror movie that reduced me to a shrieking, quivering disaster of a librarian:

The trailer for the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series based on Alexander McCall Smith’s novels:

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
• Shannon Hale’s The Goose Girl — a retelling of the Grimm story
• 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
• Baum’s Oz books – specifically mentioned in TBoLT
• Neil Gaiman’s work — American Gods, Anansi Boys, the Sandman comic series and The Graveyard Book (as well as many others) all play with myth and fable
• Elizabeth C. Bunce’s A Curse Dark As Gold — a retelling of the Rumpelstiltskin story
• 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

Movies:

Labyrinth (1986):

Freaks (1932):

If I’ve forgotten anything — or if you have more recommendations – please add them in the comments.  See you next month!

______________________________________________________

*Highly, highly (highly, highly, highly) recommended.