Bibliophile - Jane Mount

If on a winter's night a traveler - Italo Calvino

"This one was a game-changer for me, way back when. Calvino completely overturned my understanding of what was possible with fiction." - Craig

The Book of Speculation - Erika Swyler

The Futilitarians - Anne Gisleson

Dear Fahrenheit 451: Love and Heartbreak in the Stacks - Annie Spence

A Child of Books - Oliver Jeffers

The book thief - Markus Zusak

The book thief - Zusak, Markus

Summary: Trying to make sense of the horrors of World War II, Death relates the story of Liesel--a young German girl whose book-stealing and story-telling talents help sustain her family and the Jewish man they are hiding, as well as their neighbors.



Kirkus Reviews
When Death tells a story, you pay attention. Liesel Meminger is a young girl growing up outside of Munich in Nazi Germany, and Death tells her story as "an attempt—a flying jump of an attempt—to prove to me that you, and your human existence, are worth it." When her foster father helps her learn to read and she discovers the power of words, Liesel begins stealing books from Nazi book burnings and the mayor's wife's library. As she becomes a better reader, she becomes a writer, writing a book about her life in such a miserable time. Liesel's experiences move Death to say, "I am haunted by humans." How could the human race be "so ugly and so glorious" at the same time? This big, expansive novel is a leisurely working out of fate, of seemingly chance encounters and events that ultimately touch, like dominoes as they collide. The writing is elegant, philosophical and moving. Even at its length, it's a work to read slowly and savor. Beautiful and important. (Fiction. 12+) Copyright Kirkus 2006 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved.

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The Book of Speculation - Erika Swyler

Summary:"Simon Watson, a young librarian on the verge of losing his job, lives alone on the Long Island Sound in his family home--a house, perched on the edge of a bluff, that is slowly crumbling toward the sea. His parents are long dead, his mother having drowned in the water his house overlooks. His younger sister, Enola, works for a traveling carnival reading tarot cards, and seldom calls. On a day in late June, Simon receives a mysterious package from an antiquarian bookseller. The book tells the story of Amos and Evangeline, doomed lovers who lived and worked in a traveling circus more than two hundred years ago. The paper crackles with age as Simon turns the yellowed pages filled with notes, sketches, and whimsical flourishes; and his best friend and fellow librarian, Alice, looks on in increasing alarm. Why does his grandmother's name, Verona Bonn, appear in this book? Why do so many women in his family drown on July 24? Could there possibly be some kind of curse on his family--and could Enola, who has suddenly turned up at home for the first time in six years, risk the same fate in just a few weeks? In order to save her--and perhaps himself--Simon must try urgently to decode his family history while moving on from the past. The Book of Speculation is Erika Swyler's gorgeous and moving debut, a wondrous novel about the power of books and family and magic"-- Provided by publisher.

Booklist Reviews

Long Island librarian Simon Watson knows loss. His mother purposely drowned herself and his father died a few years later. The little sister he had to raise ran off and now contacts him only infrequently. One day Simon receives an unsolicited book in the mail, posted from a book dealer who invites Simon to contact him for more information. The mysterious volume documents some previous suicides by drowning dating back to the early nineteenth century. Amazingly, they all took place on July 24. More sleuthing turns up the startling information that these doomed women were, in fact, ancestors of his mother, and, like his mother, they were all employed as circus performers. Simon then has to figure out if this family curse will claim his sister's life as well, and the next July 24 is but weeks away. Illustrations by the author add even more atmosphere to her prose. Copyright 2014 Booklist Reviews.

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The story of Alice : Lewis Carroll and the secret history of Wonderland - Robert Douglas-Fairhurst

Summary: Drawing on numerous unpublished sources, the author examines the peculiar friendship between Oxford mathematician Lewis Carroll and Alice Liddell, the child for whom he invented the Alice stories, and analyzes how this relationship stirred Carroll's imagination and influenced the creation of Wonderland. - (Baker & Taylor)

Booklist Reviews

As its title suggests, this is more than a biography of Lewis Carroll, the famous but enigmatic author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. It is also the story of the books themselves, their inspiration, their writing, and their impact on the worlds of literature and popular culture. That culture worked both ways, though, for in its meticulous research this is also the story of how the Victorian culture of Carroll's day itself influenced the books, their creator, and their creation. Context, thus, is king in this work of sometimes overwhelming erudition and endless—and sometimes superfluous?—detail. As for Carroll himself, the quotidian details of his life are so well known that there is little new here, and the usual questions—Why did he break off his relationship with the Liddell family? Why his fascination with little girls? Why his photographing of them in the nude?—are acknowledged but not explicated. He remains, as the author puts it, "a frustratingly elusive figure." Though not for the casual reader, Douglas-Fairhurst's "story" will be catnip for serious Carroll enthusiasts and academics. Copyright 2014 Booklist Reviews.

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Austenland - Shannon Hale

Austenland - Hale, Shannon

Summary: Because her obsession with Jane Austen's Mr. Darcy, as played by Colin Firth in the BBC adaptation of "Pride and Prejudice," is ruining her love life, Jane Hayes is delighted when she gets the chance to take a trip to an English resort catering to Austen-crazed women.

Kirkus Reviews
Yet another player in the literary parlor game of re-writing Jane Austen.From the dedication to Colin Firth, Mr. Darcy in the 1995 BBC miniseries, Hale, author of YA novels (River Secrets, 2006, etc.), lets the reader know her tongue is firmly in cheek. Hale's heroine, Jane Hayes, is a single New York professional with a secret passion for Pride and Prejudice—not the novel, but the more over-the-top romantic screen versions, particularly the one starring Firth. Shortly after her Great-Aunt Carolyn discovers Jane's obsession, the old lady conveniently dies, having bequeathed to Jane a three-week stay at Pembrook Park, a fantasy version of a Regency England country estate (modern plumbing, but no cell phones allowed). Temporarily re-christened "Miss Jane Erstwhile," Jane soon finds herself plopped into the center of several Austen novels rolled together. Her fellow guests are the pathetically needy "Miss Charming" and the gentle, genuinely charming "Miss Heartwright." Knowing that the hosts and male guests are clearly actors does not keep Jane from confusing fact with fantasy. As she resists the falseness of the situation, she falls into a contemporary fling with Martin, an actor playing a gardener on the estate, with whom she watches television and makes out. She also finds herself drawn to "Mr. Nobley," a Darcy stand-in. But is it the character being played whom she's attracted to? Or the man playing him? The novel is clever in its depiction of the many ways in which romance can fall away, and Jane is no fool as she attempts to sort out the real from the make-believe. Readers will be as surprised as she is by some of the twists. But ultimately this is a romance novel in which lovers who are meant to be together overcome miscues and misunderstandings before the final clinch.Mindless froth that Austen addicts will love. Copyright Kirkus 2007 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved.

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The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry - Gabrielle Zevin

The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry - Zevin, Gabrielle

Summary: When his most prized possession, a rare collection of Poe poems, is stolen, bookstore owner A. J. Fikry begins isolating himself from his friends, family and associates before receiving a mysterious package that compels him to remake his life.



Booklist Reviews
In this sweet, uplifting homage to bookstores, Zevin perfectly captures the joy of connecting people and books. A. J. Fikry, the cantankerous owner of Island Books, is despondent after losing his beloved wife and witnessing the ever-declining number of sales at his small, quirky bookstore. In short order, he loses all patience with the new Knightly Press sales rep, his prized rare edition of Tamerlane is stolen, and someone leaves a baby at his store. That baby immediately steals A. J.'s heart and unleashes a dramatic transformation. Suddenly, the picture-book section is overflowing with new titles, and the bookstore becomes home to a burgeoning number of book clubs. With business on the uptick and love in his heart, A. J. finds himself becoming an essential new part of his longtime community, going so far as to woo the aforementioned sales rep (who loves drinking Queequeg cocktails at the Pequod Restaurant). Filled with interesting characters, a deep knowledge of bookselling, wonderful critiques of classic titles, and very funny depictions of book clubs and author events, this will prove irresistible to book lovers everywhere.

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Texts from Jane Eyre - Marllory Ortberg

Texts from Jane Eyre: and other conversations with your favorite literary characters - Ortberg, Mallory

"Hilariously imagined text conversations--the passive aggressive, the clever, and the strange--from classic and modern literary figures, from Scarlett O'Hara to Jessica Wakefield. Mallory Ortberg, the co-creator of the cult-favorite website The Toast, presents this whimsical collection of hysterical text conversations from your favorite literary characters. Everyone knows that if Scarlett O'Hara had an unlimited text-and-data plan, she'd constantly try to tempt Ashley away from Melanie with suggestive messages. If Mr. Rochester could text Jane Eyre, his ardent missives would obviously be in all-caps. And Daisy Buchanan would not only text while driving, she'd text you to pick her up after she totaled her car. Based on the popular web-feature, Texts from Jane Eyre is a witty, irreverent mashup that brings the characters from your favorite books into the twenty-first century"-- - (Baker & Taylor)

Library Journal Reviews
This is the best kind of English-major humor. Ortberg, cocreator of the website The Toast, has a wicked sense of humor and an enviable grip on roughly the entire Western literary canon. The book consists of text conversations between notable fictional characters and authors, who are characters in their own right, such as Lord Byron, Henry David Thoreau, and Emily Dickinson. It's loosely arranged by literary era. A final section includes more modern authors (Cormac McCarthy), works (Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca), and literary phenomena (the "American Girl" series, The Hunger Games, Harry Potter books, etc.). Conversations involving Great Expectations and Little Women are particularly entertaining. There's not a weak point in the book; it's terrific, snicker-inducing fun throughout. For the uninitiated, this title may serve as a gateway drug for The Toast. VERDICT Bibliophiles who enjoy their humor laced with snark will be thrilled to find this book, which is probably the only published work containing texts from Medea, Scarlett O'Hara, and Jessica Wakefield. [See Prepub Alert, 6/2/14.]—Audrey Snowden, Orrington P.L., ME

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This book just ate my dog - Richard Byrne

This book just ate my dog - Byrne, Richard

Summary: "When her dog disappears into the gutter of the book, Bella calls for help. But when the helpers disappear too, Bella realizes it will take more than a tug on the leash to put things right"-- Provided by publisher.

Booklist Reviews
Here's a piece of metafiction ideal for those who have recently mastered physical books. A little girl named Bella is "taking her dog for a stroll across the page" when the gutter of the actual book—that seam where the two pages meet—sucks up half of the dog, and then the whole darn thing. While Bella stands agog with her leash, her pal Ben shows up to help, but he ends up disappearing into the gutter, too. After the dog-rescue van, fire engine, and police car all vanish the same way, Bella stomps into the void herself. Then, a note flies out of the gutter instructing the reader to lift the book and shake it until all of the characters fall out. And, in two funny vertical spreads, they do. What begins as an existential absurdity ends as an excuse to throttle a book, but it's all good fun. Byrne's use of two-page spreads as a stretch of sidewalk is clever, and the surprise of his melon-headed characters will be reproduced in his readers. Copyright 2014 Booklist Reviews.

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So we read on - Maureen Corrigan

So we read on: how the Great Gatsby came to be and why it endures - Maureen Corrigan

Summary: "The "Fresh Air" book critic investigates the enduring power of The Great Gatsby -- "The Great American Novel we all think we've read, but really haven't." Conceived nearly a century ago by a man who died believing himself a failure, it's now a revered classic and a rite of passage in the reading lives of millions. But how well do we really know The Great Gatsby? As Maureen Corrigan, Gatsby lover extraordinaire, points out, while Fitzgerald's masterpiece may be one of the most popular novels in America, many of us first read it when we were too young to fully comprehend its power. Offering a fresh perspective on what makes Gatsby great-and utterly unusual-So We Read On takes us into archives, high school classrooms, and even out onto the Long Island Sound to explore the novel's hidden depths, a journey whose revelations include Gatsby's surprising debt to hard-boiled crime fiction, its rocky path to recognition as a "classic," and its profound commentaries on the national themes of race, class, and gender. With rigor, wit, and infectious enthusiasm, Corrigan inspires us to re-experience the greatness of Gatsby and cuts to the heart of why we are, as a culture, "borne back ceaselessly" into its thrall. Along the way, she spins a new and fascinating story of her own"-- Provided by publisher.

Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* In So We Read On: How The Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why It Endures (a take on the novel's last line: "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past"), Maureen Corrigan—book critic for NPR's Fresh Air, critic-in-residence and lecturer at Georgetown University, and author of Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading (2005)—attempts to fathom the perpetual fascination of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "inexhaustible" 1925 masterpiece. A slim yet saturated and gorgeously written book in which every element resonates, it is "our Greatest American Novel" and a book Corrigan unabashedly loves. Corrigan's immersion in Fitzgerald's novel inspires a dazzling literary appraisal of his assiduously polished, innovatively "modern and urban" language with its "hard-boiled" tone. And the word immersion is apt, given all the water imagery Corrigan highlights. She also quotes a letter from Fitzgerald to his daughter with the line: "All good writing is swimming underwater and holding your breath." Like Nafisi, Corrigan pinpoints restlessness as a quintessential American quality, one she perceives in Fitzgerald's knowing depiction of New York City, the great mecca for dreamers with its promise of freedom, new identities, success, and "unsentimental sex." She explains why she considers The Great Gatsby to be "America's greatest novel about class" as well as the vanquishing of God and the worship of idols in the aftermath of WWI, the fantasy that one can truly reinvent one's self, the grandeur of longing, and the spell of illusion. Fitzgerald, Corrigan writes, appreciated the "doomed beauty of trying" and roamed his own "inner geography of yearning." Biographical currents run strongly throughout Corrigan's many-branched, stimulating, and beautifully crafted inquiry. Corrigan marvels over the almost eerie "predictive quality" of The Great Gatsby and makes sure we appreciate its overlooked humor, intricate patterns, and density of symbols, at every turn replenishing our amazement over its flow, sparkle, and shadow. She glides gracefully from the glimmering depths of the novel to the harsh light on land, where it was forgotten soon after it was published until it was gradually reclaimed, resurrected, and acclaimed, the subject for ongoing discussions both private and in classrooms and book groups, cinematic variations, and even merchandising. Corrigan's research was as intrepid as her analysis is ardent and expert, and she brings fact, thought, feelings, and personal experiences together in a buoyant, illuminating, and affecting narrative about one depthless novel, the transforming art of reading, and the endless tides that tumble together life and literature. Copyright 2014 Booklist Reviews.

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The right word: Roget and his thesaurus - Jennifer Bryant

The right word: Roget and his thesaurus - Bryant, Jennifer

Summary: The story of "shy young Peter Mark Roget, [for whom] books were the best companions--and it wasn't long before Peter began writing his own book. But he didn't write stories; he wrote lists. Peter took his love for words and turned it to organizing ideas and finding exactly the right word to express just what he thought. His lists grew and grew, eventually turning into one of the most important reference books of all time"--Amazon.com.

Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Bryant's and Sweet's talents combine to make the lowly thesaurus fascinating in this beautifully illustrated picture-book biography of Peter Mark Roget. Born in the late eighteenth century, shy Roget was prone to wandering alone and began keeping lists of words at a young age. Even as he went to medical school and became a talented and respected physician, he still kept his book of word lists, gradually improving on the concept until he published his first thesaurus, classified thematically rather than alphabetically as it is today, in 1852. Echoing Roget's obsession with words, Sweet's intricate and elaborate collage illustrations—made out of textbooks, graph paper, maps, fabric, typewriter keys, and other found objects—put words on center stage. Lists in wildly expressive handwritten fonts along with cut-paper assemblages stuff the dynamic pages, even the appended time line and endpapers, with arresting detail. Pivotal moments in Roget's life get a similar treatment: terms related to plants bloom in tendrils around a watercolor illustration of Roget on one of his many walks. In brilliant pages teeming with enthusiasm for language and learning, Bryant and Sweet (A Splash of Red, 2013) joyfully celebrate curiosity, the love of knowledge, and the power of words. Copyright 2014 Booklist Reviews.

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The Charlemagne pursuit - Steve Berry

The Charlemagne pursuit - Berry, Steve

Summary: A mysterious manuscript discovered in the tomb of Charlemagne sends Cotton Malone on a perilous international quest that takes him and twin sisters with their own agenda from an ancient German cathedral to the harsh, unforgiving world of Antarctica in pursuit of the truth about the death of his father on a classified sub mission beneath Antarctica.

Booklist Reviews
Berry's Cotton Malone series is beginning to develop a case of been there, done that. In this fourth installment, the globe-trotting ex–government agent turned bookseller is caught up in the mystery of Charlemagne, the eighth-century empire builder whose tomb is somehow linked to an early Nazi exploration of Antarctica and, even stranger, to the death of Cotton's own father. The story follows the by-now overly familiar course: Cotton is thrust immediately into life-threatening danger and spends the rest of the novel evading pursuers and pursuing the solution to a historical puzzle. There are colorful bad guys, likable good guys, and plenty of action scenes (it's a mystery why no one has turned these books into Indiana Jones–like movies). As in previous episodes, the dialogue ranges from graceful to clunky, and the frequent chunks of historical background are worked into the narrative in ways that vary from seamless to clumsy. This is a solid action thriller that will appeal to the author's fans, but how long Berry can prolong the series without tinkering even a bit with his formula is the real question here. Copyright 2008 Booklist Reviews.

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When books went to war - Molly Manning

When books went to war: the stories that helped us win World War II - Manning, Molly

Summary: "When America entered World War II in 1941, [it] faced an enemy that had banned and burned over 100 million books and caused fearful citizens to hide or destroy many more. Outraged librarians launched a campaign to send free books to American troops and gathered 20 million hardcover donations. In 1943, the War Department and the publishing industry stepped in with an extraordinary program: 120 million small, lightweight paperbacks, for troops to carry in their pockets and their rucksacks, in every theater of war"--Amazon.com.
Chronicles the joint effort of the U.S. government, the publishing industry, and the nation's librarians to boost troop morale during World War II by shipping more than one hundred million books to the front lines for soldiers to read during what little downtime they had.

Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Books mattered. As war machines rolled across Europe after 1939, Nazis shuttered libraries and burned books they deemed objectionable because of authorship or content. Then the U.S. began its own mobilization, early conscripts training with broomsticks for rifles. America's industry eventually supplied requisite war matériel, but soldiers and sailors needed weapons capable of fighting combat's psychological and spiritual stresses. Under the leadership of redoubtable librarian Althea Warren, the Victory Book Campaign rallied the nation's libraries, publishers, booksellers, and ordinary citizens, marshaling millions of volumes to send to front lines. Magazine publishers ran off issues on lightweight newsprint that could similarly be carried into foxholes. Manning has scoured archives to retrieve soldiers' touching accounts of the therapeutic, life-saving influence of stories that took their minds away from daily horrors. Servicemen loved these flimsy paperbacks, which they could slip into pockets and trade with one another. She also reports a less-savory tale of American politicians conniving to censor some titles. Includes bibliography of books published as Armed Services Editions and a partial list of authors the Nazis tried to suppress. Copyright 2014 Booklist Reviews.

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Ten Years in the Tub - Nick Hornby

Ten Years in the Tub: A Decade Soaking in Great Books - Hornby, Nick

Summary: Culling the best of his monthly column "Stuff I've Been Reading" in The Believer magazine, the bestselling author presents hilarious observations on a vast array of topics, and provides a wide-ranging reader list that serves as a reminder as to why we read.


Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* How often do you begin reading a book that makes you—immediately, urgently, desperately—want to read more books? Collecting 10 years of Hornby's wonderful Stuff I've Been Reading column in The Believer, this is the next best thing to having a real-live Hornby to urge you on. Each column starts with a list of Books Bought and Books Read, instructive in themselves, and then proceeds to a digressive discussion that is as much about the enterprise of reading as it is about the books he discusses; I haven't even read the books I think I've read. I can't tell you how depressing this is. Frequently funny and endlessly quotable, Hornby's columns discuss reading out of his comfort zone, binge reading, reading fasts (usually when soccer season starts), reading his writer-friends' books, and the rarely aired idea that, sometimes, when a book doesn't seem good, maybe—just maybe—it's the reader's fault. Through it all, he struggles, cheekily, against The Believer's dictum that all reviews be positive. (Disliked books, sadly, must not be named.) Bursting with enthusiasm and clear-eyed about the author's own contradictions, Ten Years in the Tub deserves to be devoured whole by anyone willing to spare 10 minutes to think about the books they read.

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Lost for Words - Edward St. Aubyn

Lost for Words - St. Aubyn, Edward

Summary: A frenzied competition for a major British literary award pits several colorful characters against one another and is complicated by an accidental entry, a scandal involving a judge, and a vengeful reject.




Library Journal Review
As literary awards go, there couldn't be a more unlikely collection of judges, authors, publishers, and publicists than the one assembled for the Elysian Prize, a fiction award standing in for the real-life Man Booker Prize. The committee, chaired by former MP Malcolm Craig and made up of a self-important group of writers, academics, and actors, set themselves the task of finding works of fiction with social relevance, geographic representation, and political correctness. With no intention of actually reading most of the cringe-worthy submissions, each member champions the one book he or she has glanced at, the most improbable of which is The Palace Cookbook, an assemblage of recipes and anecdotes from India submitted accidentally by a careless publisher instead of the serious novel that should have been sent. The fun begins when the delusional nephew of the cookbook author sets out for murderous revenge after his own self-published tome has been overlooked. VERDICT For anyone who wonders about the process of judging literary awards, this fast and funny lark from the author of the notable Patrick Melrose novels may shed some comedic light.

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Careless people - Sarah Bartlett Churchwell

Careless people: murder, mayhem, and the invention of the Great Gatsby - Churchwell, Sarah Bartlett

Summary: An investigation into the inspiration behind F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece traces his parties and quarrels at the side of Zelda amid the scandals and milestones of 1922 before a brutal double murder in New Jersey set the stage for what was to become an American classic. - (Baker & Taylor)

Kirkus Reviews
The Great Gatsby floats on a limpid river fed by myriads of autobiographical, cultural and historical tributaries. Churchwell (American Literature and Public Understanding of the Humanities/Univ. of East Anglia; The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe, 2004, etc.) has written an excellent book on a novel that remains a favorite in English courses in American high schools and colleges. Surprisingly, she even manages to find fresh facts that escaped previous scholars, including one of F. Scott Fitzgerald's own published comments about his novel, a book that, as Churchwell notes, neither sold well nor received uniformly favorable reviews. Churchwell weaves together a variety of strands: a summary of the novel (including its earlier drafts), a biographical account of the years Fitzgerald was working on the novel (including the time he and Zelda were living and partying in Great Neck, near the novel's setting), and an account of a sensational New Jersey murder case in 1922 (the year that Gatsby takes place), an investigation that resulted in arrests and a trial but no convictions. Churchwell also digs deeply into the architecture of the novel--looking, for example, for the relevance of specific details Fitzgerald mentions. She also examined Simon Called Peter, a novel that Nick Carraway picks up early in Gatsby; she read countless New York newspaper and magazine files looking for items in 1922 that may have found their way into the novel (car wrecks, wild parties and the like). She haunted the rich Fitzgerald archives at Princeton and elsewhere and, employing the clarity of hindsight, chides most of the early critics who missed what Fitzgerald was up to. At times, Churchwell attempts Fitzgerald's lyrical style--one chapter-ending sentence alludes to "the vagrant dead as they scatter across our tattered Eden"--she's earned the right to play on his court. Prodigious research and fierce affection illumine every remarkable page. Copyright Kirkus 2013 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved.

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