I’ve Got My Eye On…

There Once Lived A Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor’s Baby by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya.

What a title!  Either it sucks you in or totally repells you, so keeping in line with my rather twisted personality, I just had to pick this book up.  Don’t worry, it’s not a true crime novel; this collection of stories are described as scary fairy tales and penned by a Russian author, which to me promises a different, darker flavor.  Remember the story the Russian neighbors told the protagonist of My Antonia, about the wedding party attacked by wolves on a snowy night?  That one stills gives me the shivers.  Anyway, if you’re in the mood for something completely different, pick up There Once Lived A Woman… and indulge in a good scare!

From the publisher’s summary:

Vanishings and aparitions, nightmares and twists of fate, mysterious ailments and supernatural interventions haunt these stories by the Russian master Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, heir to the spellbinding tradition of Gogol and Poe. Blending the miraculous with the macabre, and leavened by a mischievous gallows humor, these bewitching tales are like nothing being written in Russia-or anywhere else in the world-today.

Take a peek at a little info about Ludmilla Petrushevskaya.

If you would like to place this book on hold, please call the library at 985-2173  or visit our website.

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Highly Recommended Read

Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie.

If  you’ve never experienced the gritty, heartbreaking world of the Spokane Indian Reservation as described by author Sherman Alexie, it’s time for you to be initiated–and what better book to start with than Reservation Blues.  Alexie paints a bittersweet rendering of a struggling people with wit, compassion, and singular style; the vicious circle of poverty and alcoholism is a major vein through most rez stories, but Reservation Blues is about getting out–and the self-discovery that can happen along the way.     

From the publisher’s summary:

 Winner of the American Book Award and a critically acclaimed national best seller, Reservation Blues continues to find new and adoring readers in academic and popular circles alike. In 1931, Robert Johnson allegedly sold his soul to the devil, receiving legendary blues skills in return. He went on to record only twenty-nine songs before being murdered on August 16, 1938. In 1992, however, Johnson suddenly reappears on the Spokane Indian Reservation and meets Thomas Builds-the-Fire, the misfit storyteller of the Spokane Tribe. When Johnson passes his enchanted instrument to Thomas—lead singer of the rock-and-roll band Coyote Springs—a magical odyssey begins that will take the band from reservation bars to small-town taverns, from the cement trails of Seattle to the concrete canyons of Manhattan. Sherman Alexie imaginatively mixes narrative, newspaper excerpts, songs, journal entries, visions, radio interviews, and dreams to explore the effects of Christianity on Native Americans in the late twentieth century. In addition, he examines the impact of cultural assimilation on the relationships between Indian women and Indian men. Reservation Blues is a painful, humorous, and ultimately redemptive symphony about God and indifference, faith and alcoholism, family and hunger, sex and death.

Here’s a link to Sherman Alexie’s site.

If youd like to place a hold on Reservation Blues please call the library at 985-2173 or visit our website.