truth or fiction?

That's a trick question, it's both!

Who doesn't love a good historical mystery? Unsolved cases, theories on top of theories, and unreliable narrators abound in the genre--especially when it comes to historical fiction based on actual mysteries from the past. These fictional takes on real stories are exactly the sort of high-stakes, unputdownable reading perfect for summer.

The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex

This novel is inspired by a mystery from 1900 in which three lighthouse keepers at Eilean Mor disappeared, leaving behind only a series of mysterious clues: the door locked from the inside, a stopped clock, and a strange series of final entries about a terrifying storm. It's a tense, atmospheric read.

The Red Palace by June Hur

Not so much based on a mystery as a mysterious figure from Korean history, this book follows a young nurse working in the royal palace when a string of murders seem to implicate the dangerous Crown Prince. Hur wrote an incredibly interesting newsletter going into the background of Crown Prince Jangheon.

Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

Grace Marks was convicted for her involvement in the murder of her employer and his housekeeper in the nineteenth century. But did she really do it? Some believe she's guilty and rightfully imprisoned. Others say she's an innocent victim. Whatever might be true, a group of reformers looking to see Grace pardoned call in an expert in the burgeoning field of mental illness in Alias Grace to examine her and plead her case.

See What I have Done by Sarah Schmidt

This novel imagines the 1892 Borden axe murders from four different perspectives, including that of the real-life primary suspect, Lizzie Borden; her older sister, Emma; their housemaid, Bridget; and a stranger named Benjamin. Although Lizzie was acquitted in real life, the story of these gruesome murders has remained a much-speculated piece of American lore.

The Girls by Emma Cline

If you’ve ever even heard the name Manson, it shouldn’t take much for you to figure out what this one’s based on: it’s summer in the late 1960s, and 14-year-old Evie becomes infatuated with Suzanne, an enigmatic personality she encounters in a Los Angeles park. Soon, she follows Suzanne into a cult, whose sprawling but run-down ranch is hidden in the hills. Edie must decide if she’s willing to go through with what the cult and their charismatic leader ask of her.

A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James

In December of 1976, just before the Jamaican general election and two days before Bob Marley’s scheduled performance at the Smile Jamaica Concert to ease political tensions, seven gunmen stormed the singer’s house in an attack that wounded Marley, his wife, manager, and several others. This Booker prize–winning novel explores this tumultuous period in Jamaica’s history and the rumors about the unnamed would-be-assassins’ fates.

The Perfect Nanny by Leila Slimani

In 2012, Yoselyn Ortega allegedly murdered two children under her care in New York City. It’s that gruesome real-life tale that inspired Ortega to write this award-winning best seller, in which the setting is moved to Paris, and focus is directed to the relationship between the grieving mother and the “perfect nanny” she trusted with her young children.

The Good People by Hannah Kent

In mid–19th century Ireland a woman called Anne Roche was tried for the murder of Michael Leahy, a young boy. Roche claimed that Leahy was a changeling and was eventually acquitted.

Girl Waits with Gun by Amy Stewart

Constance Kopp was one of the first women to become a deputy sheriff in the USA. After becoming the victim of a crime herself Constance joined forces with her sisters to bring the perpetrator to justice, and ended up with a job on the New Jersey police force.

Arthur and George by Julian Barnes

1903 was the year of the ‘Great Wyrley Outrages’, when a number of cows, horses and sheep were “slashed”. Suspicion feel on George Edalji, a local man of Parsi-heritage who did three years hard labour for the crime before he was proved innocent by Arthur Conan Doyle. Yes, the Sherlock Holmes guy.

Red Joan by Jennie Rooney

For most of her life, Melita Norwood got away with treason. The British civil servant provided Russian intelligence with private information before retiring and going into hiding. But in 1999, at age 87, Norwood (alias: Red Joan) was found. A film adaptation based the novel has Judi Dench and Sophie Cookson playing the titular Red Joan through different eras of her life.

My Sister, My Love by Joyce Carol Oates

The mystery of what happened to JonBenet Ramsey has endured, largely because of its sensationalistic aspects, but also because it's been a cold case for several decades now. In 2008, the prolific Joyce Carol Oates utilized details of the unthinkable crime as plot points this novel.

 

 

readers' choice

I’m pleased to report that last month, the Books & Beyond discussion group celebrated its 14th anniversary here at O’Neal!  Thanks for keeping the conversation alive!

The next BAB meeting is Tuesday, August 30th. Since August is Women in Translation month, that is our topic!  This will include books WRITTEN by women that are translated into English and books translated into English BY women.  If you’re looking for inspiration, there is a display at the 2nd floor service desk and the BAB column (7th row down) on the library’s Shelf Care webpage has a great selection too. 

BAB met last night for one of our biannual Salon Discussions, where there is no assigned topic and we share anything we’ve been enjoying lately!

Enthralled by Katie MacAlister (not available in the JCLC system, find in WorldCat) 

Keeley Moore was happy when he found his Beloved, the one woman fated to be the love of his immortal life. And then she left him at the altar without so much as a single word of explanation. One hundred and thirty years later, he’s still trying NOT to think about her. Jenna Boyle has no idea who this tortured, tormented, and sexy-as-sin man is who claims she betrayed him a century ago, but she’s not overly worried about their past. It’s the present that concerns her, mostly in getting Keeley free from the monsters who have turned him from a peaceful vampire into a Thrall, the dreaded ancestor of all Dark Ones…one who is about to go into a murderous, unstoppable killing spree. One Thrall and his Beloved, a bestie with a male harem, and a group of intrepid tourists tackling an international organization bent on the destruction of the mortal world…it’s just another day in the world of Katie MacAlister’s Dark Ones.

The Box in the Woods by Maureen Johnson

Amateur sleuth Stevie Bell needs a good murder. After catching a killer at her high school, she’s back at home for a normal (that means boring) summer. But then she gets a message from the owner of Sunny Pines, formerly known as Camp Wonder Falls—the site of the notorious unsolved case, the Box in the Woods Murders. Back in 1978, four camp counselors were killed in the woods outside of the town of Barlow Corners, their bodies left in a gruesome display. The new owner offers Stevie an invitation: Come to the camp and help him work on a true crime podcast about the case.

Cinderella is Dead by Kalynn Bayron

It's 200 years after Cinderella found her prince, but the fairy tale is over. Teen girls are now required to appear at the Annual Ball, where the men of the kingdom select wives based on a girl's display of finery. If a suitable match is not found, the girls not chosen are never heard from again. This fresh take on a classic story will make readers question the tales they've been told, and root for girls to break down the constructs of the world around them.

Ice Planet Barbarians by Ruby Dixon

You’d think being abducted by aliens would be the worst thing that could happen to me. And you’d be wrong. Because now the aliens are having ship trouble, and they’ve left their cargo of human women—including me—on an ice planet. Fall in love with the out-of-this-world romance between Georgie Carruthers, a human woman, and Vektal, an alien from another planet.

Slayer Slang: A Buffy the Vampire Slayer Lexicon by Michael Adams (not available in the JCLC system, find in WorldCat) 

In its seven years on television, Buffy the Vampire Slayer earned critical acclaim and a massive cult following among teen viewers. One of the most distinguishing features of the show is the innovative way its writers play with language--fabricating new words, morphing existing ones, and throwing usage on its head. The result has been a strikingly resonant lexicon that reflects the power of both youth culture and television in the evolution of American slang. Using the show to illustrate how new slang is formed, transformed, and transmitted, Slayer Slang is one of those rare books that combines a serious explanation of a pop culture phenomenon with an engrossing read for Buffy fans, language mavens, and pop culture critics.

One for All by Lillie Lainoff

Tania de Batz is most herself with a sword in her hand. Everyone thinks her near-constant dizziness makes her weak, nothing but “a sick girl.” But Tania wants to be strong, independent, a fencer like her father―a former Musketeer and her greatest champion. Then Papa is brutally, mysteriously murdered. His dying wish? For Tania to attend finishing school. But L’Académie des Mariées, Tania realizes, is no finishing school. It’s a secret training ground for new Musketeers: women who are socialites on the surface, but strap daggers under their skirts, seduce men into giving up dangerous secrets, and protect France from downfall. And they don’t shy away from a sword fight.

These Precious Days: Essays by Ann Patchett

From the enchantments of Kate DiCamillo’s children’s books (author of The Beatryce Prophecy) to youthful memories of Paris; the cherished life gifts given by her three fathers to the unexpected influence of Charles Schultz’s Snoopy; the expansive vision of Eudora Welty to the importance of knitting, Patchett connects life and art as she illuminates what matters most. Infused with the author’s grace, wit, and warmth, the pieces in These Precious Days resonate deep in the soul, leaving an indelible mark—and demonstrate why Ann Patchett is one of the most celebrated writers of our time.

Ken Russell’s Gothic (not available in the JCLC system, find streaming)

Lord Byron promises his guests a night of horror only a mad poet can deliver and after partaking in hallucinogens, the guests tell ghost stories while exploring the dark corridors of his home - and of their minds.

Impromptu (available via Hoopla at select libraries)

French novelist George Sand flirts with composer Frederic Chopin and the poet Alfred de Musset.

The Vanishing by Tim Krabbe

When Saskia Ehlvest, a young Dutch girl, disappears from a rest stop along a highway in rural France, her lover, Rex Hofmann, cannot accept her disappearance and embarks on an obsessive search for her that spans years.

The Library Book by Susan Orlean

Weaving her lifelong love of books and reading into an investigation of the 1986 fire at the Los Angeles Public Library, award-winning New Yorker reporter and New York Times bestselling author Susan Orlean delivers a “delightful…reflection on the past, present, and future of libraries in America” (New York magazine) that manages to tell the broader story of libraries and librarians in a way that has never been done before.

The Latinist by Mark Prins

A contemporary reimagining of the Daphne and Apollo myth, The Latinist is a page-turning exploration of power, ambition, and the intertwining of love and obsession.

The Passenger by Lisa Lutz

Forty-eight hours after leaving her husband’s body at the base of the stairs, Tanya Dubois cashes in her credit cards, dyes her hair brown, demands a new name from a shadowy voice over the phone, and flees town. It’s not the first time. It’s almost impossible to live off the grid in the twenty-first century, but Amelia-now-Debra has the courage, the ingenuity, and the desperation, to try. Hopscotching from city to city, Debra especially is chased by a very dark secret. From heart-stopping escapes and devious deceptions, we are left to wonder…can she possibly outrun her past?

The River by Peter Heller

Wynn and Jack have been best friends since college orientation, bonded by their shared love of mountains, books, and fishing. Wynn is a gentle giant while Jack is more rugged. When they decide to canoe the Maskwa River in northern Canada, they anticipate long days of leisurely paddling and nights of stargazing and reading paperback Westerns. But a wildfire making its way across the forest adds unexpected urgency to the journey.From this charged beginning, master storyteller Peter Heller unspools a headlong, heart-pounding story of desperate wilderness survival.

The Guide by Peter Heller

Safe from viruses that have plagued America for years, Kingfisher Lodge offers a respite for wealthy clients. Now it also promises a second chance for Jack, a return to normalcy after a young life filled with loss. When he is assigned to guide a well-known singer, his only job is to rig her line, carry her gear, and steer her to the best trout he can find. But then a human scream pierces the night, and Jack soon realizes that this idyllic fishing lodge may be merely a cover for a far more sinister operation. A novel as gripping as it is lyrical, as frightening as it is moving, The Guide is another masterpiece from Peter Heller.

The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation by Rosemary Sullivan

Using new technology, recently discovered documents and sophisticated investigative techniques, an international team—led by an obsessed retired FBI agent—has finally solved the mystery that has haunted generations since World War II: Who betrayed Anne Frank and her family? And why?

Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Made History by Richard Thompson Ford

In Dress Codes, law professor and cultural critic Richard Thompson Ford presents a “deeply informative and entertaining” (The New York Times Book Review) history of the laws of fashion from the middle ages to the present day, a walk down history’s red carpet to uncover and examine the canons, mores, and customs of clothing—rules that we often take for granted. After reading Dress Codes, you’ll never think of fashion as superficial again—and getting dressed will never be the same.

Gone: A Girl, a Violin, a Life Unstrung by Min Kym

In this lucid and transfixing memoir, Kym reckons with the space left by her violin’s absence. She sees with new eyes her past as a child prodigy, with its isolation and crushing expectations; her combustible relationships with teachers and with a domineering boyfriend; and her navigation of two very different worlds, her traditional Korean family and her music. And in the stark yet clarifying light of her loss, she rediscovers her voice and herself.

Seven Steeples by Sara Baume

It is the winter following the summer they met. A couple, Bell and Sigh, move into a remote house in the Irish countryside with their dogs. Both solitary with misanthropic tendencies, they leave the conventional lives stretched out before them to build another—one embedded in ritual, and away from the friends and family from whom they’ve drifted. Seven Steeples is a beautiful and profound meditation on the nature of love and the resilience of nature. Through Bell and Sigh, and the life they create for themselves, Sara Baume explores what it means to escape the traditional paths laid out before us—and what it means to evolve in devotion to another person, and to the landscape.

GENERAL DISCUSSION

Truly Devious series by Maureen Johnson
Truly Devious
The Vanishing Stair
The Hand on the Wall
Ellingham Academy is a famous private school in Vermont for the brightest thinkers, inventors, and artists. It was founded by Albert Ellingham, an early twentieth century tycoon, who wanted to make a wonderful place full of riddles, twisting pathways, and gardens. “A place,” he said, “where learning is a game.” Shortly after the school opened, his wife and daughter were kidnapped. The only real clue was a mocking riddle listing methods of murder, signed with the frightening pseudonym “Truly, Devious.” It became one of the great unsolved crimes of American history. True-crime aficionado Stevie Bell is set to begin her first year at Ellingham Academy, and she has an ambitious plan: She will solve this cold case. That is, she will solve the case when she gets a grip on her demanding new school life and her housemates: the inventor, the novelist, the actor, the artist, and the jokester. But something strange is happening. Truly Devious makes a surprise return, and death revisits Ellingham Academy. The past has crawled out of its grave. Someone has gotten away with murder.

Into Every Generation a Slayer is Born: How Buffy Staked OurHearts by Evan Ross Katz

Over the course of its seven-year run, Buffy the Vampire Slayer cultivated a loyal fandom and featured a strong, complex female lead, at a time when such a character was a rarity. Evan Ross Katz explores the show’s cultural relevance through a book that is part oral history, part celebration, and part memoir of a personal fandom that has universal resonance still, decades later.

The Vanishing (Dutch film)

Rex and Saskia, a young couple in love, are on vacation. They stop at a busy service station and Saskia is abducted. After three years and no sign of Saskia, Rex begins receiving letters from the abductor.

The Vanishing (American film)

A vacationing Seattle couple stops at a highway rest area where the woman disappears without a trace in this gut-wrenching remake.

Daniel Silva’s Gabriel Allon series

Gabriel Allon is a master art restorer and sometime officer of Israeli intelligence.

The Revenant by Michael Punke (film adaptation starring Leonardo DiCaprio)

The year is 1823, and the trappers of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company live a brutal frontier life. Hugh Glass is among the company’s finest men, an experienced frontiersman and an expert tracker. But when a scouting mission puts him face-to-face with a grizzly bear, he is viciously mauled and not expected to survive. Two company men are dispatched to stay behind and tend to Glass before he dies. When the men abandon him instead, Glass is driven to survive by one desire: revenge. 

Anne Frank The Whole Story miniseries (2001) Available on Youtube

The life of Anne Frank and her family from 1939 to 1945: pre-war fears, invasion of Netherlands by German troops, hiding in Amsterdam, deportation to the camps, return of Anne's father.

My Best Friend Anne Frank (Netflix)

Based on the real-life friendship between Anne Frank and Hannah Goslar, from Nazi-occupied Amsterdam to their harrowing reunion in a concentration camp.

Witch, Please podcast

A fortnightly podcast about the Harry Potter world hosted by Hannah McGregor and Marcelle Kosman. “Those who have never read a Potter book can certainly listen to the Witch, Please podcast. Frankly, by just walking the earth with your eyes and ears open you have likely ingested enough Potter information to enjoy this funny and thought-provoking podcast.” - Vancouver Sun, 2020

Victoria Finlay

Victoria studied Social Anthropology at St Andrews University, Scotland and William & Mary College, Virginia, after spending time in Himalayan India, teaching in a Tibetan refugee camp and realizing how amazing it was to learn about different cultures.  A lifelong interest in color led to her first book, Color: A Natural History of the Palette, before branching out into other interests with Jewels: A Secret History and her most recent (June, 2022), Fabric: The Hidden History of the Material World.

Game of Thrones: The Costumes by Michele Clapton (not available in the JCLC system, find in WorldCat)

The official guide to the complete costumes of HBO’s landmark television series Game of Thrones. Discover how BAFTA and Emmy Award-winning costume designer Michele Clapton dressed the heroes and villains of Westeros and beyond, including Daenerys Targaryen, Cersei Lannister, Jon Snow, and Arya Stark.

(image: A reading of Molière, Jean François de Troy, about 1728)

Booker Prize novels

 

The next Books & Beyond (BAB) meeting will be on Tuesday, July 19 at 6:30pm.  You’ll notice we’re meeting a week early to avoid conflict with the Children’s Department summer reading block party.  The meeting will be one of our biannual Salon Discussions, so there is no assigned topic.  Come to the meeting and tell us about something good you’ve read, watched, or listened to recently!

This week, BAB met to chat about Booker Prize-shortlisted and winning novels.  If you are not familiar with the Booker Prize, it is a literary prize awarded each year for the best novel written in English and published in the UK or Ireland.

Winners

Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively

The elderly Claudia Hampton, a best-selling author of popular history; lies alone in a London hospital bed. Memories of her life still glow in her fading consciousness, but she imagines writing a history of the world. Instead, Moon Tiger is her own history, the life of a strong, independent woman, with its often contentious relations with family and friends. At its center — forever frozen in time, the still point of her turning world — is the cruelly truncated affair with Tom, a British tank commander whom Claudia knew as a reporter in Egypt during World War II.

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell: a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people, and implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?

Shortlisted

Real Life by Brandon Taylor

Almost everything about Wallace is at odds with the Midwestern university town where he is working uneasily toward a biochem degree. An introverted young man from Alabama, black and queer, he has left behind his family without escaping the long shadows of his childhood. For reasons of self-preservation, Wallace has enforced a wary distance even within his own circle of friends. But over the course of a late-summer weekend, a series of confrontations with colleagues and an unexpected encounter with an ostensibly straight white classmate, conspire to fracture his defenses while exposing long-hidden currents of hostility and desire within their community.  

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

One postwar summer, in his home in rural Warwickshire, Dr. Faraday is called to a patient at Hundreds Hall. Home to the Ayres family for more than two centuries, the Georgian house, once impressive and handsome, is now in decline. Its owners--mother, son, and daughter--are struggling to keep pace with a changing society. But are the Ayreses haunted by something more sinister than a dying way of life? Little does Dr. Faraday know how closely, and how terrifyingly, their story is about to become entwined with his.

Room by Emma Donoghue

Held captive for years in a small shed, a woman and her precocious young son finally gain their freedom, and the boy experiences the outside world for the first time. Room is a tale at once shocking, riveting, exhilarating — a story of unconquerable love in harrowing circumstances, and of the diamond-hard bond between a mother and her child.

The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry

Once one of the most beguiling women in Sligo, Roseanne McNulty is now a resident of Roscommon Regional Mental Hospital and nearing her hundredth year. Set against an Ireland besieged by conflict, The Secret Scripture is an engrossing tale of one woman's life, and a poignant story of the cruelties of civil war and corrupted power. The Secret Scripture is now a film starring Rooney Mara, Eric Bana, and Vanessa Redgrave.

Several of these titles have a film or TV adaptation:

Wolf Hall

The Little Stranger

Room

Secret Scripture