books and tv

I don’t always take notes, but today’s Coffee Klatch netted some great read/watch/listen recommendations that beg to be shared! Join us at the Coffee Klatch next week for discussion of all things travel!  Register here: https://emmetoneal.libnet.info/events

TV Series

Medici the Magnificent (Netflix)

A political family drama set in Florence in the early fifteenth century. Cosimo de Medici finds himself at the helm of his banking dynasty when his father, Giovanni, dies suddenly.

Belgravia (Epix)

Belgravia is a story of secrets and scandals amongst the upper echelon of London society in the 19th Century. When the Trenchards accept an invitation to the now legendary ball hosted by the Duchess of Richmond on the fateful eve of the Battle of Waterloo, it sets in motion a series of events that will have consequences for decades to come as secrets unravel behind the porticoed doors of London’s grandest neighborhoods. The limited series reunites the award-winning creative team behind Downton Abbey with Julian Fellowes adapting his bestselling novel for the screen and a stellar ensemble cast.

Alias, Grace (Netflix)

In 19th-century Canada, a psychiatrist weighs whether a murderess should be pardoned due to insanity. Based on Margaret Atwood's award-winning novel.

Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness (Netflix)

A zoo owner spirals out of control amid a cast of eccentric characters in this true murder-for-hire story from the underworld of big cat breeding.

It’s Alive with Brad Leone (Bon Appetit website and app for streaming devices, Youtube, and Hulu)

Join Bon Appétit test kitchen manager, Brad Leone, on a wild, roundabout and marginally scientific adventure exploring fermented foods and more.

30 Rock (check your preferred streaming service)

Liz Lemon (Tina Fey), head writer of the sketch comedy show "TGS with Tracy Jordan", must deal with an arrogant new boss and a crazy new star, all while trying to run a successful television show without losing her mind.

Parks & Recreation (check your preferred streaming service)

The absurd antics of an Indiana town's public officials (Amy Poehler and Nick Offerman) as they pursue sundry projects to make their city a better place.

Schitt’s Creek (check your preferred streaming service)

When rich video-store magnate Johnny Rose (Eugene Levy) and his family (Catherine O’Hara, Dav Levy) suddenly find themselves broke, they are forced to leave their pampered lives to regroup in Schitt's Creek.

Community (check your preferred streaming service)

A suspended lawyer is forced to enroll in a community college with an eclectic staff and student body. Starring Joel McHale, Danny Pudi, and Donald Glover.

Justified (check your preferred streaming service)

U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) is reassigned from Miami to his childhood home in the poor, rural coal mining towns in eastern Kentucky.

Podcasts

White Lies (NPR)

(It was announced this week that White Lies was a 2020 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Audio Reporting.)

In 1965, Rev. James Reeb was murdered in Selma, Alabama. Three men were tried and acquitted, but no one was ever held to account. Fifty years later, two journalists from Alabama return to the city where it happened, expose the lies that kept the murder from being solved and uncover a story about guilt and memory that says as much about America today as it does about the past.

Reckon Radio (AL.com)

What is the South? A place? A people? A lifestyle? Each week, on the Reckon Interview, host John Hammontree explores that question and more, with some of the most interesting minds in the South – authors, entertainers, artists, activists, and thinkers. Join us as we learn how this place shaped them and how they’re reshaping this place. Think of it as Fresh Air but with a lot more humidity.

S-Town (Serial and This American Life)

John despises his Alabama town and decides to do something about it. He asks a reporter to investigate the son of a wealthy family who’s allegedly been bragging that he got away with murder. But then someone else ends up dead, sparking a nasty feud, a hunt for hidden treasure, and an unearthing of the mysteries of one man’s life.

Books (annotations from amazon.com)

The Only Woman in the Room by Marie Benedict

A powerful novel based on the incredible true story of glamour icon and scientist Hedy Lamarr, whose groundbreaking invention revolutionized modern communication, The Only Woman in the Room is a masterpiece.

The Mountains Sing by Nguyen Phan Que Mai

With the epic sweep of Min Jin Lee's Pachinko and Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing and the lyrical beauty of Vaddey Ratner's In the Shadow of the Banyan, The Mountains Sing tells an enveloping, multigenerational tale of the Trần family, set against the backdrop of the Việt Nam War.

A Place for Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza

All the joy and struggle of family life is here, from Rafiq and Layla's own arrival in America from India to the years in which their children - each in their own way - tread between two cultures, seeking to find their place in the world as well as a path home. A Place for Us is a book for our times and an astonishingly tender-hearted novel of identity and belonging.

Writers & Lovers by Lily King

Writers & Lovers follows Casey - a smart and achingly vulnerable protagonist - in the last days of a long youth, a time when every element of her life comes to a crisis. Written with King’s trademark humor, heart, and intelligence, Writers & Lovers is a transfixing novel that explores the terrifying and exhilarating leap between the end of one phase of life and the beginning of another.

The Dearly Beloved by Cara Wall

In The Dearly Beloved, we follow two couples through decades of love and friendship, jealousy and understanding, forgiveness and commitment. Against the backdrop of turbulent changes facing the city and the church’s congregation, these four forge improbable paths through their evolving relationships, each struggling with uncertainty, heartbreak, and joy.

Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver

Prodigal Summer weaves together three stories of human love within a larger tapestry of lives in southern Appalachia.

Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver

Kingsolver's riveting story concerns a young wife and mother on a failing farm in rural Tennessee who experiences something she cannot explain, and how her discovery energizes various competing factions - religious leaders, climate scientists, environmentalists, politicians - trapping her in the center of the conflict and ultimately opening up her world.

The Eighty Dollar Champion: Snowman, the Horse That Inspired a Nation by Elizabeth Letts

Here is the dramatic and inspiring rise to stardom of an unlikely duo, based on the insight and recollections of “the Flying Dutchman” himself, Harry de Leyer. Their story captured the heart of Cold War-era America - a story of unstoppable hope, inconceivable dreams, and the chance to have it all. Elizabeth Letts’s message is simple: Never give up, even when the obstacles seem insurmountable.

The Perfect Horse: The Daring U.S. Mission to Rescue the Priceless Stallions Kidnapped by the Nazis by Elizabeth Letts

In the chaotic last days of the war, a small troop of battle-weary American soldiers captures a German spy and makes an astonishing find - his briefcase is empty but for photos of beautiful white horses that have been stolen and kept on a secret farm behind enemy lines. Hitler has stockpiled the world's finest purebreds in order to breed the perfect military machine - an equine master race. But with the starving Russian army closing in, the animals are in imminent danger of being slaughtered for food.

The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

A heart-wrenching but deeply funny and ultimately uplifting story of family, love, loyalty, and hope--a captivating look at the wonders and absurdities of human life . . . as only a dog could tell it

Film/Opportunities to support small business

Sidewalk Cinema film discussion on Instagram Live 5/12 at 7pm with Thank You Books about the documentary film “The Booksellers” and the bookselling world.  

Event description:

Directed by DW Young
Documentary Feature
Not Rated
Run time 1 hour 39 minutes

Antiquarian booksellers are part scholar, part detective and part businessperson, and their personalities and knowledge are as broad as the material they handle. They also play an underappreciated yet essential role in preserving history. THE BOOKSELLERS takes viewers inside their small but fascinating world, populated by an assortment of obsessives, intellects, eccentrics and dreamers.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymcRRt3Ix04

Sidewalk will be hosting a special Q & A with friends from Thank You Books on Instagram Live on 5/12 at 7 PM! Head on over to their Instagram account @sidewalkfilm to watch.

Rent the film here:

https://www.sidewalkfest.com/event/sidewalk-home-video-the-booksellers/

Or simply click the ticket link on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/230378954895989/

If you’d like to support Sidewalk Cinema with other rentals, find the list here:

https://www.sidewalkfest.com/cinema/movies/now-playing/

The Belcourt Theatre in Nashville is providing a similar service.  Check out their offerings here:

http://www.belcourt.org/

first fiction

The next Genre Reading Group meeting will be Tuesday, September 27^th at 6:30 pm and the topic up for discussion will be “Myth & Legend.”  The display is up at the 2nd floor Reference Desk and is of…mythic proportions (see what I did there?). 

We have a Poetry & Yoga series with Marie Blair coming up September and October!  What do poetry and yoga have in common? A call to pay attention, an exploration of self, and invitation to notice.  Yoga teacher and librarian Marie Blair brings movement and words together in a four-week series. Bring your curiosity and wear comfortable clothes!  September 17 & 24, October 8 & 29, 10am-12:30pm FREE

Also, if you and your friends/family are wine connoisseurs, you DEFINITELY don’t want to miss the Western Supermarkets Fall Wine & Food Festival on Friday, September 30^th 6-9pm at the Birmingham Zoo.  Tickets are available at the Library, Western Supermarket locations, and online at http://westernsupermarkets.tixclix.com/2262.  Proceeds from the event benefit Emmet O’Neal Library, Birmingham Zoo, East Lake Initiative, and Junior League of Birmingham. 

This week, GRG met to discuss debut novels!  There’s something fresh and untried about an author’s first book.  Stephen King started with Carrie, Khaled Hosseini with The Kite Runner, John Grisham with A Time To Kill, and Harper Lee with To Kill a Mockingbird.  Some of the authors we discussed went on to multi-book deals, while some stuck with one (or two) or are just starting out in their careers.  It was a great discussion!

Security by Gina Wohlsdorf
Manderley Resort is a gleaming, new twenty-story hotel on the California coast. It’s about to open its doors, and the world--at least those with the means to afford it--will be welcomed into a palace of opulence and unparalleled security. But someone is determined that Manderley will never open. The staff has no idea that their every move is being watched, and over the next twelve hours they will be killed off, one by one.

Writing in the tradition of Edgar Allan Poe and Stephen King, and with a deep bow to Daphne du Maurier, author Gina Wohlsdorf pairs narrative ingenuity and razor-wire prose with quick twists, sharp turns, and gasp-inducing terror. Security isgrand guignol storytelling at its very best.

A shocking thriller, a brilliant narrative puzzle, and a multifaceted love story unlike any other, Security marks the debut of a fearless and gifted writer.

You Should Pity Us Instead by Amy Gustine
You Should Pity Us Instead explores some of our toughest dilemmas: the cost of Middle East strife at its most intimate level, the likelihood of God considered in day-to-day terms, the moral stakes of family obligations, and the inescapable fact of mortality. Amy Gustine exhibits an extraordinary generosity toward her characters, instilling them with a thriving, vivid presence.

Once a Crooked Man by David McCallum (YES! Ducky from CSI!)

Crime pays. And pays well.

Sal, Max and Enzo Bruschetti have proved this over a lifetime of nefarious activity that they have kept hidden from law enforcement. Nowhere in any file, on any computer is there a record of anything illegal from which they have profited. But Max has a problem. His body is getting old and his doctor has told him to take it easy. Max has decided that the time has come for the family to retire.

But when young actor Harry Murphy overhears the Bruschetti brothers planning changes to their organization, including the murder of a man in London who knows too much, the Bruschetti's plans begin to unravel.

After Harry makes the well-intentioned if egregious mistake of trying to warn the Bruchetti's intended victim he finds himself alone in a foreign country, on the wrong side of the law, with a suitcase full of cash and a dangerous man on his trail. And while his good looks, charm and cheerful persistence may prove assets in the turbulent events that follow, none of Harry's past roles have prepared him for what happens next.

At turns tense and funny, Once a Crooked Man is infused with the infectious charm that has made David McCallum one of television's longest running, most-beloved stars.

The Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki
Written in the eleventh century, this exquisite portrait of courtly life in medieval Japan is widely celebrated as the world’s first novel. Genji, the Shining Prince, is the son of an emperor. He is a passionate character whose tempestuous nature, family circumstances, love affairs, alliances, and shifting political fortunes form the core of this magnificent epic. Royall Tyler’s superior translation is detailed, poetic, and superbly true to the Japanese original while allowing the modern reader to appreciate it as a contemporary treasure. Supplemented with detailed notes, glossaries, character lists, and chronologies to help the reader navigate the multigenerational narrative, this comprehensive edition presents this ancient tale in the grand style that it deserves.

Ecko Rising by Danie Ware
In a futuristic London where technological body modification is the norm, Ecko stands alone as a testament to the extreme capabilities of his society. Driven half mad by the systems running his body, Ecko is a criminal for hire. No job is too dangerous or insane.

When a mission goes wrong and Ecko finds himself catapulted across dimensions into a peaceful and unadvanced society living in fear of 'magic', he must confront his own percepions of reality and his place within it.

A thrilling debut, Ecko Rising explores the massive range of the sci-fi and fantasy genres, and the possible implications of pitting them against one another. Author Danie Ware creates an immersive and richly imagined world that readers will be eager to explore in the first book in this exciting new trilogy.

Somnium (Latin for “The Dream”) by Johannes Kepler
According to Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov, Kepler´s "Somnium" ("The Dream"), written around 1611, should be considered the first science-fiction novel ever. The eminent astronomer Johannes Kepler imagines a trip to the moon and speculates about its inhabitants and astronomy.

The Headmaster’s Darlings: A Mountain Brook Novel by Katherine Clark
The Headmaster's Darlings is a satirical comedy of manners featuring the morbidly obese Norman Laney, an unorthodox, inspirational English teacher and college counselor for an elite private school in Mountain Brook, a privileged community outside of Birmingham. A natural wonder from blue-collar Alabama, Laney has barged into the exclusive world of Mountain Brook on the strength of his sensational figure and its several-hundred-pound commitment to art and culture. His mission is to defeat "the barbarians," introduce true civilization in place of its thin veneer, and change his southern world for the better. Although Laney is adored by his students (his "darlings") and by the society ladies (also his "darlings") who rely on him to be the life of their parties and the leader of their book clubs, there are others who think he is a larger-than-life menace to the comfortable status quo of Mountain Brook society and must be banished.

When Laney is summoned to the principal's office one day in November 1983, he expects to be congratulated for a recent public-relations triumph he engineered on behalf of the school. Instead his letter of resignation is demanded with no explanation given. Faced with an ultimatum and his imminent dismissal, Laney must outflank the principal at his own underhanded game, find out who said what about him and why, and launch his current crop of Alabama students into the wider world--or at least into Ivy League colleges.

In her debut novel, Katherine Clark casts a comical eye on southern society and celebrates the power of great teachers and schools to transform the lives of young people and lift up their communities. Surrounded by a colorful cast of his colleagues, his young protégés and Mountain Brook's upper echelon, Laney emerges as a heroically idiosyncratic character with Falstaffian appetites, an inimitable wit and intellect, and a boundless generosity toward his students that reshapes their lives in profound, unexpected ways.

GENERAL DISCUSSION: Clark’s second novel, All the Governor’s Men, is also available.
It’s the summer of George Wallace’s last run for governor of Alabama in 1982, and the state is at a crossroads. In Katherine Clark’s All the Governor’s Men, a political comedy of manners that reimagines Wallace’s last campaign, voters face a clear choice between the infamous segregationist, now a crippled old man in a wheelchair, and his primary opponent, Aaron Osgood, a progressive young candidate poised to liberate the state from its George Wallace–poisoned past. 

Daniel Dobbs, a twenty one-year-old Harvard graduate and South Alabama native, is one of many young people who have joined the campaign representing hope and change for a downtrodden Alabama. A political animal himself, Daniel possesses so much charm and charisma that he was nicknamed “the Governor” in college. Nowhe is engaged in the struggle to conquer once and for all the malignant man Alabamians have traditionally called “the Governor.” 

This historic election isn’t the only thing Daniel wants to win. During his senior year, he fell in love with a freshman girl from Mountain Brook, the “Tiny Kingdom” of wealth and privilege, a world apart from his own Alabama origins. A small-town country boy, Daniel desperately wants to gain the favor of his girlfriend’s family along with her mentor, the larger-than-life English teacher Norman Laney. Daniel also wants to keep one or two ex-girlfriends firmly out of the picture. In the course of his summer, he must untangle his complicated personal life, satisfy the middle-class dreams of his parents for their Harvard-educated son, decide whether to enter law school or launch his own political career, and, incidentally, help his candidate defeat George Wallace, in a close and increasingly dirty race.
 
All the Governor’s Men is a darkly comic look at both the political process in general and a significant political chapter in Alabama history. This second novel in Katherine Clark’s Mountain Brook series depicts the social and political landscape of an Alabama world that is at once a place like no other and at the same time, a place like all others.

Neuromancer by William Gibson
Case had been the sharpest data-thief in the business, until vengeful former employees crippled his nervous system. But now a new and very mysterious employer recruits him for a last-chance run. The target: an unthinkably powerful artificial intelligence orbiting Earth in service of the sinister Tessier-Ashpool business clan. With a dead man riding shotgun and Molly, mirror-eyed street-samurai, to watch his back, Case embarks on an adventure that ups the ante on an entire genre of fiction.

GENERAL DISCUSSION: Pattern Recognition is another great Gibson novel.
Cayce Pollard is an expensive, spookily intuitive market-research consultant. In London on a job, she is offered a secret assignment: to investigate some intriguing snippets of video that have been appearing on the Internet. An entire subculture of people is obsessed with these bits of footage, and anybody who can create that kind of brand loyalty would be a gold mine for Cayce's client. But when her borrowed apartment is burgled and her computer hacked, she realizes there's more to this project than she had expected. 

Still, Cayce is her father's daughter, and the danger makes her stubborn. Win Pollard, ex-security expert, probably ex-CIA, took a taxi in the direction of the World Trade Center on September 11 one year ago, and is presumed dead. Win taught Cayce a bit about the way agents work. She is still numb at his loss, and, as much for him as for any other reason, she refuses to give up this newly weird job, which will take her to Tokyo and on to Russia. With help and betrayal from equally unlikely quarters, Cayce will follow the trail of the mysterious film to its source, and in the process will learn something about her father's life and death.

The Bronte sisters all published their first novels at the same time, under pseudonyms

Emily Bronte = Ellis Bell: her only published novel was Wuthering Heights
Lockwood, the new tenant of Thrushcross Grange, situated on the bleak Yorkshire moors, is forced to seek shelter one night at Wuthering Heights, the home of his landlord. There he discovers the history of the tempestuous events that took place years before; of the intense relationship between the gypsy foundling Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw; and how Catherine, forced to choose between passionate, tortured Heathcliff and gentle, well-bred Edgar Linton, surrendered to the expectations of her class. As Heathcliff's bitterness and vengeance at his betrayal is visited upon the next generation, their innocent heirs must struggle to escape the legacy of the past.

Charlotte Bronte = Currer Bell: her first novel was Jane Eyre
Having grown up an orphan in the home of her cruel aunt and at a harsh charity school, Jane Eyre becomes an independent and spirited survivor-qualities that serve her well as governess at Thornfield Hall. But when she finds love with her sardonic employer, Rochester, the discovery of his terrible secret forces her to make a choice. Should she stay with him whatever the consequences or follow her convictions, even if it means leaving her beloved?

Anne Bronte = Acton Bell: her first novel was Agnes Grey

The novel follows Agnes Grey, a governess, as she works in several bourgeois families. Scholarship and comments by Anne's sister Charlotte Brontë suggest the novel is largely based on Anne Brontë's own experiences as a governess for five years. Like her sister Charlotte's novel Jane Eyre, it addresses what the precarious position of governess entailed and how it affected a young woman. The choice of central character allows Anne to deal with issues of oppression and abuse of women and governesses, isolation and ideas of empathy. An additional theme is the fair treatment of animals. Agnes Grey also mimics some of the stylistic approaches of bildungsromans, employing ideas of personal growth and coming to age, but representing a character who in fact does not gain in virtue.

GENERAL DISCUSSION: There are several great museums dedicated, or holding collections dedicated, to the Bronte sisters. The Morgan Library & Museum and the Bronte Parsonage Museum.  

A Wuthering Heights musical tribute

Nelly Dean: A Return to Wuthering Heights by Alison Case

Young Nelly Dean has been Hindley’s closest companion for as long as she can remember, living freely at the great house, Wuthering Heights. But when the benevolence of the master brings a wild child into the house, Nelly learns she must follow in her mother’s footsteps, be called "servant" and give herself over completely to the demands of the Earnshaw family.

But Nelly is not the only one who finds her life disrupted by this strange newcomer. As death, illness, and passion sweep through the house, Nelly suffers heartache and betrayals at the hands of those she cherishes most, tempting her to leave it all behind. But when a new heir is born, a reign of violence begins that will test even Nelly’s formidable spirit as she finds out what it is to know true sacrifice.

Nelly Dean is a wonderment of storytelling and an inspired accompaniment to Emily Bronte’s adored work. It is the story of a woman who is fated to bear the pain of a family she is unable to leave, and unable to save.

What are YOU reading?

Genre Reading Group recap - books & literacy

Next month's topic is Alabama authors. Drop by the library for a local author selection or please feel free to browse for your own selection.  I'm happy to help either way.

Also, next month we'll probably be meeting OFF-SITE! The Children's Department will be hosting their Halloween extravaganza so parking and maneuverability in general will be compromised. I'm working on that and will let you know when I find a spot for us. I'll also bombard you beforehand with Friendly Reminders.

If you or someone you know loves horror movies, make plans to attend the Nightmare on Oak Street Horror Movie Double Feature on Friday, October 21
from 5pm-9pm. Pizza, snacks, and horror...is there any better combination? (ages 18 and up only)

If horror movies are not your bag, plan to visit the Dead Authors' Graveyard on Saturday, October 22. The Graveyard will be open for visitation 10am-4pm so you may visit the graves, learn some cool facts, and eat some snacks...but you might not want to linger much past sunset.

On to the list!

Days of Reading by Marcel Proust
In these inspiring essays about why we read, Proust explores all the pleasures and trials that we take from books, as well as explaining the beauty of Ruskin and his work, and the joys of losing yourself in literature as a child.

The Lost Art of Reading: Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time by David L. Ulin
Reading is a revolutionary act, an act of engagement in a culture that wants us to disengage. In The Lost Art of Reading, David L. Ulin asks a number of timely questions — why is literature important? What does it offer, especially now? Blending commentary with memoir, Ulin addresses the importance of the simple act of reading in an increasingly digital culture. Reading a book, flipping through hard pages, or shuffling them on screen — it doesn’t matter. The key is the act of reading, the seriousness and depth. Ulin emphasizes the importance of reflection and pause allowed by stopping to read a book, and the focus required to let the mind run free in a world that is not one's own. Far from preaching to the choir, The Lost Art of Reading is a call to arms, or rather, pages.

General discusion:
Proust Was a Neuroscientist by Jonah Lehrer
In this technology-driven age, it’s tempting to believe that science can solve every mystery. After all, science has cured countless diseases and even sent humans into space. But as Jonah Lehrer argues in this sparkling debut, science is not the only path to knowledge. In fact, when it comes to understanding the brain, art got there first. Taking a group of artists — a painter, a poet, a chef, a composer, and a handful of novelists — Lehrer shows how each one discovered an essential truth about the mind that science is only now rediscovering. We learn, for example, how Proust first revealed the fallibility of memory; how George Eliot discovered the brain’s malleability; how the French chef Escoffier discovered umami (the fifth taste); how Cézanne worked out the subtleties of vision; and how Gertrude Stein exposed the deep structure of language — a full half-century before the work of Noam Chomsky and other linguists. It’s the ultimate tale of art trumping science. More broadly, Lehrer shows that there’s a cost to reducing everything to atoms and acronyms and genes. Measurement is not the same as understanding, and art knows this better than science does. An ingenious blend of biography, criticism, and first-rate science writing, Proust Was a Neuroscientist urges science and art to listen more closely to each other, for willing minds can combine the best of both, to brilliant effect.

Is Google Making Us Stupid: What the Internet is Doind to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr (Atlantic Monthly, July/August 2008)

Lost Classics: Writers on Books Loved and Lost, Overlooked, Under-read, Unavailable, Stolen, Extinct, or Otherwise Out of Commission edited by Michael Ondaatje, Michael Redhill, Esta Spalding, Linda Spalding
Compiled by the editors of Brick: A Literary Magazine, Lost Classics is a reader’s delight: an intriguing and entertaining collection of eulogies for lost books. As the editors have written in a joint introduction to the book, “being lovers of books, we’ve pulled a scent of these absences behind us our whole reading lives, telling people about books that exist only on our own shelves, or even just in our own memory.” Anyone who has ever been changed by a book will find kindred spirits in the pages of Lost Classics. Each of the editors has contributed a lost book essay to this collection, including Michael Ondaatje on Sri Lankan filmmaker Tissa Abeysekara’s Bringing Tony Home, a novella about a mutual era of childhood. Also included are Margaret Atwood on sex and death in the scandalous Doctor Glas, first published in Sweden in 1905; Russell Banks on the off-beat travelogue Too Late to Turn Back by Barbara Greene–the “slightly ditzy” cousin of Graham; Bill Richardson on a children’s book for adults by Russell Hoban; Ronald Wright on William Golding’s Pincher Martin; Caryl Phillips on Michael Mac Liammoir’s account of his experiences on the set of Orson Welles’s Othello, and much, much more.

The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life: How to Get More Books in Your Life and More Life from Your Books by Steve Leveen
Do not set out to live a well-read life but rather your well-read life. No one can be well-read using someone else's reading list. Unless a book is good for you, you won't connect with it and gain from it. Just as no one can tell you how to lead your life, no one can tell you what to read for your life. How do readers find more time to read? In The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life, Steve Leveen offers both inspiration and practical advice for bibliophiles on how to get more books in their life and more life from their books.
His recommendations are disarmingly refreshing, as when he advises when not to read a book and why not to feel guilty if you missed reading all those classics in school. He helps readers reorganize their bookshelves into a Library of Candidates that they actively build and a Living Library of books read with enthusiasm, and he emphasizes the value of creating a Bookography, or annotated list of your reading life. Separate chapters are devoted to the power of audio books and the merits of reading groups. The author himself admits he came "late to the bookshelf," making this charming little guide all the more convincing.

General discussion: A favored quote from the book above, "Reading groups are health clubs for the mind."

You've Got To Read This Book: 55 People Tell the Story of the Book That Changed Their Life compiled by Jack Canfield, Gay Hendricks with Carol Kline
There's nothing better than a book you can't put down—or better yet, a book you'll never forget. This book puts the power of transformational reading into your hands. Jack Canfield, cocreator of the bestselling Chicken Soup for the Soul® series, and self-actualization pioneer Gay Hendricks have invited notable people to share personal stories of books that changed their lives. What book shaped their outlook and habits? Helped them navigate rough seas? Spurred them to satisfaction and success?

The contributors include Dave Barry, Stephen Covey, Malachy McCourt, Jacquelyn Mitchard, Mark Victor Hansen, John Gray, Christiane Northrup, Bernie Siegel, Craig Newmark, Michael E. Gerber, Lou Holtz, and Pat Williams, to name just a few. Their richly varied stories are poignant, energizing, and entertaining. Author and actor Malachy McCourt tells how a tattered biography of Gandhi, stumbled on in his youth, offered a shining example of true humility—and planted the seeds that would help support his sobriety decades later.

Bestselling author and physician Bernie Siegel, M.D., tells how William Saroyan's The Human Comedy helped him realize that, in order to successfully treat his patients with life-threatening illnesses, "I had to help them live—not just prevent them from dying."

Actress Catherine Oxenberg reveals how, at a life crossroads and struggling with bulimia, a book taught her the transforming difference one person could make in the life of another—and why that person for her was Richard Burton.

Rafe Esquith, the award-winning teacher whose inner-city students have performed Shakespeare all over the world, recounts his deep self-doubt in the midst of his success—and how reading To Kill a Mockingbird strengthened him to continue teaching.

Beloved librarian and bestselling author Nancy Pearl writes how, at age ten, Robert Heinlein's science fiction book Space Cadet impressed on her the meaning of personal integrity and gave her a vision of world peace she'd never imagined possible. Two years later, she marched in her first civil rights demonstration and learned that there's always a way to make "a small contribution to intergalactic harmony."

If you're looking for insight and illumination—or simply for that next great book to read—You've Got to Read This Book! has treasures in store for you.

Books: A Memoir by Larry McMurtry
With astonishing charm, grace, and good humor, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Lonesome Dove returns with a fascinating memoir of his lifelong passion of buying, selling, and collecting rare books.

The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: the True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession by Allison Hoover Bartlett
Unrepentant book thief John Charles Gilkey has stolen a fortune in rare books from around the country. Yet unlike most thieves who steal for profit, Gilkey steals for love-the love of books. Perhaps equally obsessive is Ken Sanders, the self-appointed "bibliodick" who's driven to catch him. Following this eccentric cat-and-mouse chase with a mixture of suspense, insight and humor, Allison Hoover Bartlett plunges the reader deep into a rich world of fanatical book lust and considers what it is that makes some people stop at nothing to posses the titles they love.

The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel
Inspired by the process of creating a library for his fifteenth-century home near the Loire, in France, Alberto Manguel, the acclaimed writer on books and reading, has taken up the subject of libraries. “Libraries,” he says, “have always seemed to me pleasantly mad places, and for as long as I can remember I’ve been seduced by their labyrinthine logic.” In this personal, deliberately unsystematic, and wide-ranging book, he offers a captivating meditation on the meaning of libraries.

Manguel, a guide of irrepressible enthusiasm, conducts a unique library tour that extends from his childhood bookshelves to the “complete” libraries of the Internet, from Ancient Egypt and Greece to the Arab world, from China and Rome to Google. He ponders the doomed library of Alexandria as well as the personal libraries of Charles Dickens, Jorge Luis Borges, and others. He recounts stories of people who have struggled against tyranny to preserve freedom of thought—the Polish librarian who smuggled books to safety as the Nazis began their destruction of Jewish libraries; the Afghani bookseller who kept his store open through decades of unrest. Oral “memory libraries” kept alive by prisoners, libraries of banned books, the imaginary library of Count Dracula, the library of books never written—Manguel illuminates the mysteries of libraries as no other writer could. With scores of wonderful images throughout, The Library at Night is a fascinating voyage through Manguel’s mind, memory, and vast knowledge of books and civilizations.

What is YOUR favorite book about books?