Get Real

Get Real

by Donald Westlake

I'd never read any of the late Donald Westlake's Dortmunder books before the libraries' Just Desserts mystery discussion group selected Get Real for a recent monthly discussion. I loved it! What appeared, on the surface, to be an extremely spare writing style and simplistic descriptions actually turns out to be wholly appropriate for this cast of characters. Dortmunder is the "brains" behind a gang of thieves, whose capers inevitably run into serious difficulties. In Get Real, Dortmunder and his gang are hired to portray fictionalized versions of themselves in a reality tv series, in which they will be robbing a building owned by the series' production company. When Dortmunder and his cronies realize that there's hidden wealth in the building, they plot to really rob the building while at the same time "fake" robbing the building for the TV show. Sound complicated? It is, and, as usual, things go wrong in surprising ways. The only thing disappointing about this book was the fact that it ended. Guess I'll have to go back to 1972's The Hot Rock and read the Dortmunder books from the beginning. -- recommended by Scott C. - Bennett Martin Public Library

[ Dortmunder booklist on BookGuide ] [ official Donald Westlake web site ]

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New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide web site. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month.

...And Another Thing

...And Another Thing

by Eoin Colfer

I approached this book with considerable trepidation. As a long-time fan of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, I found myself lumped in with many other purists who didn't want to see that marvelous series sullied by another author trying to contribute to the legacy. It is impossible to review this book without comparing it to the five previous volumes in this famed "trilogy". And, in comparison, it certainly comes up short. However, this tale, which takes up not long after Adams' final volume, Mostly Harmless (1992) ended, has its moments. The wonderfully anarchic sense of humor and plot development that Adams employed continues here, with time-and-space traveler Arthur Dent, his alien friend Ford Prefect, and the wackjob Galactic President Zaphod Beeblebrox trying to escape the destruction of Earth (again), and getting pulled into a conflict between a bored immortal and a despondent Asgardian god Thor. Throw in some cheese-worshiping personal trainers and a sullen goth teenager and you've got some classic British farce. If you're looking for a light, fun read, I can recommend this book. If you're a hard-core H2G2 fan, you may want to pass on this one. My overall opinion is: Colfer tries too hard to sound like Douglas Adams and doesn't really pull it off. -- recommended by Scott C. - Bennett Martin Public Library

[ official Douglas Adams' Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy web site ] [ official Eoin Colfer web site ]

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New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide web site. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month.

New Booktalk Booklist: Books I Am Thankful For

Looking for some good new reading suggestions? Check out the new Booktalk Booklist, Books I Am Thankful For, featuring a dozen fiction and non-fiction releases that have recently made a connection for Lisa V.

Books I am Thankful For
Gere Books Talk, November 23, 2009
Lisa V.

Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World by Liaquat Ahamed [332.1 Aha]
Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right by Jennifer Burns [ On Order ]
Dust and Shadow: An Account of the Ripper Killings by Dr. John H. Watson by Lyndsay Sands Finding Nouf by Zoe Ferraris
The Weight of Silence by Heather Gudenkauf
What Angels Fear: A Historical Mysteyr by C.S. Harris
The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes [509 Hol]
Silent in the Grave by Deanna Raybourn
Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women by Harriet Reisen [Biography Alcott] Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art by Laney Salisbury [364.163 Sal]
Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1739-1815 by Gordon S. Wood [ On Order ]
The Girls From Ames: A Story of Women and a Forty-Year Friendship by Jeffrey Zaslow [305.4 Zas]

North & South

North & South
by Elizabeth Gaskell

This four-part adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell's novel about working conditions in a cotton mill in northern England is a riveting story of social reform, unions, and romance. Although I was not pleased with the ending of this adaptation, I enjoyed the film immensely due to its moodiness and fine performances. [If you like this, you may also enjoy Cranford, also by Elizabeth Gaskell] -- recommended by Kim J. - Bennett Martin Public Library

[ Internet Movie Database entry for this film ] [ official North and South web site from the BBC ]

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New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide web site. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month.

Cranford

Cranford

by Elizabeth Gaskell

I knew very little about author Elizabeth Gaskell prior to reading the book Cranford. Mrs. Gaskell was the close friend and biographer of Charlotte Bronte. Besides writing about her friend, she also wrote fiction, which she submitted to be published at the urging of her friend, Charles Dickens. Of her stories, Cranford is the closest thing to an autobiography of her life. The town of Cranford is based on the small town that Elizabeth grew up in, and many of the events that happen were taken from real-life experiences. My favorite one is the story about the cat who swallowed some lace and how the owner contrived to "get it back." The stories are enjoyable, but lack the dramatic tension of Gaskell's novel North and South. [If you like this, you may also enjoy the DVDs of North and South (see separate review on BookGuide or in the BookGuide Blog), Cranford and Wives and Daughters.[Also available in DVD adaptation, unabridged book-on-cd, and Large Print formats.] -- recommended by Kim J. - Bennett Martin Public Library

[ Cranford at Google Books ] [ Elizabeth Gaskell entry at The Literary Gothic ]

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New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide web site. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month.

Time Travel

Time Travel

by Paul J. Nahin [808.388 Nah]

Third of four volumes in Writers Digest's Science Fiction Writing Series. Author Nahin approaches the science behind theoretical methods of time travel from a literary perspective by highlighting popular time travel methods used in classic novels and stories to date. He then explores a wide variety of scientific theories about time travel, with concrete examples of how to incorporate these into your own speculative fiction. Interesting chapters include "Time as the Fourth Dimension", "When General Relativity Made Time Travel Honest", "Time Machines That Physicists Have Already 'Invented'", "Quantum Gravity, Splitting Universes, and Time Machines" and "Reading the Physics Literature for Story Ideas." As with earlier volumes in this series, there is a helpful glossary of terms and concepts, and an extensive bibliography of additional reading on the topic. Of the four volumes in this series, I found this one to be the most technical, dealing as it is with theoretical physics. Still, a useful tool for writers of science fiction. -- recommended by Scott C. - Bennett Martin Public Library

[ Paul Nahin bio ]

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New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide web site. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month.

Amazing Grace

Amazing Grace

This true story about the struggle to abolish British slaving via Parliament focuses on the efforts of William Wilberforce, and highlights one of his greatest inspirations, John Newton, the slaver-turned-priest who wrote one of the most-loved hymns in history, "Amazing Grace." The whole cast, including Ioan Gruffudd as "Wilber", Michael Gambon as Lord Fox, and Romola Garai as Barbara, who became Wilberforce's wife, is wonderful. Albert Finney particularly stands out with a humble yet powerful peformance as Newton. Winner of a Christopher Award for affirming "the highest values of the human spirit." Producers include such names as Terrence Malick and Patricia Heaton. [If you like this, you may also enjoy DVD Hiding Place, The Hiding Place; DVD 822 Nic, C.S. Lewis through the Shadowlands; and DVD B L97, Martin Luther.] -- recommended by Becky W.C. - Walt Branch Library


[ Internet Movie Database entry for this film ] [ official Amazing Grace movie web site ]

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New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide web site. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month.

The Foreign Correspondent

The Foreign Correspondent
by Alan Furst

The story -- a journalist reports on events leading up the World War II, especially the Spanish Civil War -- is just so-so. The ambiance, however, is superb. Most of it takes place in Paris in 1938 and a spring snow, cigarette smoke, cognac, and the food establish a definite sense of place that is most appealing. -- recommended by Rianne S. - Bennett Martin Public Library

[Also available in Large Print format.]

[ official Foreign Correspondentpage on the official Alan Furst web site ]

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New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide web site. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month.

New Booktalk Booklist: Stop...You're Killing Me!

Hey, mystery fans...looking for some new reading suggestions? Check out the new Booktalk Booklist, Stop...You're Killing Me, featuring new mystery novels Marcy G. found while browsing her favorite mystery web site -- www.stopyourekillingme.com.

The Twilight Zone Radio Dramas - Collection 1

The Twilight Zone Radio Dramas - Collection 1

based on stories by Rod Serling for the original Twilight Zone television series

I've been a lifelong fan of The Twilight Zone, the old B&W anthology TV series produced by Rod Serling in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Some of the stories from that series are among the most iconic tales of "What If" in fiction. In the early 2000s, Dennis Etchison adapted many of Rod Serling's original scripts for the radio, as a regular syndicated radio broadcast. Those radio plays have been gathered into 13 CD collections (of which the library has only the first). Each episode features a well-known actor as the lead voice, with a cast of recurring voices as the supporting cast. Collection #1 features 10 episodes, the highlights of which include Lou Diamond Phillips in "A Kind of Stopwatch", Ed Begley Jr. in "The Man in the Bottle", Tim Kazurinsky as "Mr Dingle the Strong" and Chris MacDonald in "The Night of the Meek". Production values are all top-notch, with the voice casts, special and sound effects all very good. I would highly recommend this set for TZ fans and for fans who remember the days of live radio dramas. My only complaint would be that with a few small exceptions, the stories were not updated from their early 1960s-era settings for a more modern audience. But that's a minor quibble. -- recommended by Scott C. - Bennett Martin Public Library

[ Twilight Zone stories are available in both print and DVD formats from the library ][ official TwilightZoneRadio.com web site ]

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New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide web site. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month.