Friday, December 31, 2021

Book Review: Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead

Great Circle

by Maggie Shipstead (Shipstead)

 

Strong female characters from two different time periods were at the center of this book from the 2021 Booker Shortlist. Marian Graves & her twin brother were born in 1914, then raised by an uncle in Missoula, Montana. Marian’s story, of pursuing her dream of being a pilot, paints a picture of our country’s development during the 20th century. A century later Hadley Baxter, also raised by an uncle after being orphaned, researches Marian’s life before portraying her in a film. This book is an epic story and a shining example of historical fiction.

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson, The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott, Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalieror People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks.)

 

( official Great Circle page on the official Maggie Shipstead web site )

 

See Jodi R.’s 2021 Booker Award Longlist booklist here on BookGuide!

 

Recommended by Jodi R.
Anderson and Bethany Branch Libraries

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?


New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. 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. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Thursday, December 30, 2021

Book Review: The Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao

The Iron Widow

by Xiran Jay Zhao (YA Zhao)

 

Let me start off by saying it is hard to do this book justice without a whole podcast. It is by turns a futuristic dystopia, a love triangle, enemies to lovers/friends to lovers and a history-rewritten novel. Zetian is a woman from an impoverished inter-generational, provincial Chinese family who is sold as a concubine to pilot mechas with a male partner. She knows being sold will most likely result in her death, having watched it happen to her perfect older sister, yet she proceeds willingly in an attempt to mete out justice to the pilot who murdered her sister. She discovers she is more powerful than she believed. She finds love but doesn’t need it to be successful. This whole plot is inspired by the story of Wu Zetian, China’s only empress, who lived from 624- 709 AD. The audiobook is especially cool as the narrator pronounces Chinese names and nouns for a non-Chinese speaking audience. #womanboss #femaleempowerment

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Pacific Rim, The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang or Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir.)

 

( publisher’s official Iron Widow web page ) | ( official Xiran Jay Zhao web site – including links to her Twitter, Instagram and YouTube pages )

 

Recommended by Caitlin L.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?


New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. 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. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Wednesday, December 29, 2021

Book Review: A Slow Fire Burning by Paula Hawkins

A Slow Fire Burning

by Paula Hawkins (Hawkins)

 

The story begins with several horrific tales. The first involves a girl staggering in the dark from a murderer. The second is a young woman stumbling into her apartment bloody and bruised. The third story details a woman investigating oddities on the houseboat next to hers, only to discover a gruesome murder. There’s nothing like a bit of bloodshed and dread to get a mystery book started. A Slow Fire Burning by Paula Hawkins (author of The Girl on the Train) grabs you from the start. Which of these experiences have caused a “slow fire burning?” Are they related? And which of them might have pushed someone over the edge to commit murder?

 

Our victim Daniel is a young man with his own dark demons resulting from a negligent, drunken mother. He has always been a bit off. Then again, so are a lot of the other quirky characters in the book. One lost a child from negligence. Another was hit by a car as a child and almost left for dead. Another was abducted as a teen. It’s a smorgasbord of dark deeds, madness, and resentment. But do you have to be just a little mad to commit murder?

 

There are twists and turns. It’s the kind of book you race through to see if you have guessed correctly. Even then, Hawkins packs a surprise punch at the end you don’t see coming. I highly recommend A Slow Fire Burning. Just make sure you leave yourself enough time to go racing through it. You won’t want to put it down.

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins, Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens or Eight Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson.)

 

( publisher’s official A Slow Fire Burning web page ) | ( official Paula Hawkins web site )

 

Recommended by Cindy K.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?


New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. 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. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Tuesday, December 28, 2021

Book Review: Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells

Fugitive Telemetry

by Martha Wells (Wells)

 

This is sixth story in the Murderbot Diaries series by Martha Wells, featuring one of the most unique narrative voices in modern science fiction. The story is told from the point-of-view of a self-aware security bot (SecUnit), who broke the security software and hardware that was keeping it a slave to its human owners back in the first novella, All Systems Red (2017). Since then, despite the fact that all “Murderbot” (which is what it calls itself) wants to do is be left alone to hide somewhere and watch its hundreds of hours of popular media (the futuristic equivalent of soap operas), the Security Unit has made friends — both biological and mechanical — and through their intervention, has achieved a certain level of autonomy over its own fate — this, despite the fact that most humans would prefer to see it back under human control.

 

In this sixth volume of this compelling science fiction series, the SecUnit ends up having to investigate the murder of a human on the research colony where it currently resides. Always distrustful of human motivations, SecUnit doesn’t really want to help the human security officers it has been asked to assist, but without SecUnit’s technological capabilities, the humans’ ability to quickly investigate and solve the murder is questionable. So…SecUnit grudgingly cooperates. What ensues is a fascinating murder mystery investigation in a high-tech futuristic science fiction environment.

 

Highly recommended…as long as you’ve read the five previous installments in the series!

(Before you read this, you’ll want to read the previous five novels or novellas in the Murderbot series by Martha Wells.)

 

( official Murderbot Diaries page on the official Martha Wells web site )

 

Read Scott C.’s reviews of All Systems Red in the July 2019 Staff Recommendations on the libraries' BookGuide resource pages!
Read Scott C.’s review of the first four volumes of the Murderbot Diaries in the January 2020 Staff Recommendations on the libraries' BookGuide resource pages!

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?


New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. 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. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Monday, December 27, 2021

Book Review: My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones

My Heart is a Chainsaw

by Stephen Graham Jones (Jones)

 

My Heart is a Chainsaw mixes realistic contemporary fiction with horror, slashers in particular. Jade is on the verge of graduating high school in a small lake town in Idaho. She’s been obsessed with slasher films for years. She’ll talk about them at any perceived opportunity and goes on at length about slasher film elements and history in her homework. She’s convinced all the elements are right for a local slasher event. There WAS a long-ago slasher event at the summer camp on the lake where Jade sometimes hides out to avoid her home. Plus, there’s the preacher who died rather than abandon his drowning church when the dam created the lake. And there’s a local witch legend about a Native girl like Jade.

 

If all this history weren’t enough, a group of wealthy people have decided to make a new luxury development across the lake, on top of what was once a burial ground. When one of these rich girls joins Jade’s senior class, Jade knows: she’s found the Final Girl who will stand up to the slasher. It’s a good thing Jade is so ready to prepare her for the coming blood bath. And, yes, there ARE a number of odd deaths happening. Is it really a slasher cycle starting, or is Jade deluded?

 

This book is not itself tightly paced like a slasher film. When I checked other reviews, this seems to be the main complaint from people who expected that. Instead, it’s leisurely paced with maybe ten short, scattered chapters that are literally Jade’s history class essays about slashers, local history and legends, and interviews she’s done with people in town about their experiences. This is a book for people who like extended editions DVDs and watching the special features. And, yes, there will be blood.

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix, or When No One is Watching by Alyssa Cole.)

 

( official My Heart is a Chainsaw page on the official Stephen Graham Jones web site )

 

Recommended by Garren H.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?


New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. 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. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Sunday, December 26, 2021

New Booktalk Booklist: Scott's Grab Bag - Fall 2021, with Scott C.

 

In November 2021, Scott C., from the Bennett Martin Public Library downtown, presented a new booktalk, at both the Bethany and South BooksTalks, focusing on a variety of both Fiction and Non-Fiction titles, for both adults and youth.

Check out his huge list of recommended reads/listens/views, in this new booktalk booklist on BookGuide at the following link:

SCOTT'S GRAB BAG - FALL 2021

Saturday, December 25, 2021

DVD Review: The Last Shift

The Last Shift

(DVD Last)

 

This is a quirky, somewhat depressing, little “slice of life” drama, with terrific performances from its two leads. Richard Jenkins plays Stanley, a man nearing the end of his career as a late-shift manager of a hole-in-the-wall fast independent fast food restaurant. Shane Paul McGhie plays Jevon, the young black man that restaurant management hires to take over from Stanley — and they want Stanley to train his replacement.

 

Stanley is stuck in his ways, and feels he and the job he does are due some respect. Jevon realizes that the job is mere grunt work and nobody really cares how well its done. Their personality conflict provides for some great scenes as they get to know each other in Stanley’s last week. Meanwhile, Stanley is planning to move down to Florida, where his mother is in a retirement facility, but everything in his life conspires against him being able to do that.

 

This is an awkward, uncomfortable film, but the performances by Jenkins and McGhie lift it above the material. The set design is superb and gritty. And Ed O’Neill (Married With Children, Modern Family) provides some nice support work. Even though the ending just sort of meanders off, this is still worth two hours of your time!

 

( Internet Movie Database entry for this film )

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you watched this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?


New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. 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. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Friday, December 24, 2021

Music Book Review: William S. Burroughs and the Cult of Rock and Roll by Casey Rae

William S. Burroughs and the Cult of Rock and Roll
by Casey Rae (Music 781.66 Burroughs)

 

Novelist William Burroughs wasn’t a musician, and there are rarely descriptions of music or musical events in his writing, yet his evocative work is often referenced by musicians. Author Casey Rae has published a book that explores these links, called William S. Burroughs and the Cult of Rock and Roll, and while I ultimately find the book to be fairly flawed, there are some interesting musical moments documented here.

 

Particularly during the periods where Burroughs lived in London and then New York City in the 1960s and 70s, he was introduced to many people who were inspired by his work, among them many musicians. By the 80s and 90s, he was living in Lawrence, KS, and he often accepted musical collaborations that simply required him to record himself reading in a studio near his home. From there, his voice recordings were sent off to various musicians to use as they desired. I suspect that he thought of these collaborations more as work than pleasure—his income from writing was never particularly fruitful, and once he became known as a Beat Generation icon, he realized that he could leverage public appearances and collaborations as another form of income.

 

A brief introduction outlines most of the musicians we’ll learn about in more detail through the rest of the book. This is followed by a chapter about Burroughs’ single long-distance collaboration with Kurt Cobain of Nirvana, and a retelling of the later occasion where they met at Burroughs’ Lawrence home. Then the book dips back in time to the 60s, from which it moves forward again more or less chronologically to the end. I found this to be a strange formatting choice—his association with Cobain was minimal, to be generous, and is Cobain somehow more notable than other artists mentioned throughout the book like David Bowie or Bob Dylan? The author is a Gen-X fellow, as am I, so I’m sure his awareness of Burroughs is somehow associated in time with Cobain’s rise to stardom. But I don’t think there’s a compelling reason to place Cobain at the beginning of this book. It feels awkward.

 

As we get into each musician in Burroughs’ orbit throughout the book, a similar kind of narrative structure guides us along: we read a bit about a time and place in Burroughs’ life (and sometimes we flash back to earlier points for more context), and we get a quick summary biography of a musician, setting us up for a (usually fleeting) interaction between the two. As each of these meetings take place, the general theme of the book comes into view, which is that Burroughs as a counterculture figure has either influenced the musician in a general way, or that the Burroughs cut-up methods used in his early 60s “Nova Trilogy” are techniques they’ve found revelatory for manipulating lyrics, sound, or both. Musicians influenced by his counterculture status generally manifest the influence explicitly, through song titles, lyrics, or band names such as The Soft Machine, Steely Dan, or the Wild Boys. Musicians influenced more by his cut-up techniques manifest what they’ve borrowed from Burroughs more implicitly, like the rapid-fire audio cutups of John Oswald or the lyrical manipulation Bob Dylan and David Bowie tried on a few songs.

 

But what I find frustrating about the book is that the relationships aren’t mutual, or even relationships at all. Burroughs didn’t know much about the work of these artists, and didn’t particularly care, either. I felt the same way years ago reading the Victor Bockris book With William Burroughs: A Report From the Bunker, which documented many evenings of dinners at the Burroughs “bunker” in NYC. That book is a succession of folks being brought in front of Burroughs, many of whom obviously looked up to him while he knew little about them. It felt exploitative, like the people surrounding him were mostly interested in seeing what shenanigans might occur. That’s mostly the level of relationship in the musician/Burroughs interactions featured here. Among the musicians that he clicks more fully with, it’s because they have mutual interests, experiences or ideologies that have nothing to do with music.

 

There are a few little mistakes and omissions in the book as well. The Burroughs/Cobain collaboration EP is mentioned as being a “two-song set,” but there is only one. When the Gysin/Sommerville flicker machine is mentioned, it’s called a “Dream Machine,” but the actual device was marketed as the stylized “Dreamachine.” Interestingly, there’s no mention that Burroughs directed Cobain to David Woodard, a bespoke producer of Dreamachines, and that Cobain had some related electronic gadgets on hand as well. And some connections that might have made musical collaborations with Burroughs more interesting are omitted: both Daevid Allen and Bill Laswell are interviewed, for example, and both worked with Burroughs, but it would have been noteworthy to mention that Laswell got his start in the music business playing in Allen’s New York Gong band, which morphed into Laswell’s early Material project.

 

So there is an influence to be documented here, but it’s an abstract one, not really musical, and it’s fundamentally a pretty obvious kind of influence that might not have merited a book. If you’re a Burroughs fan, or a fan of various strains of prog, punk, folk, industrial, hip-hop and pop from the 60s to the 90s, you’ll find some interesting tidbits to read about here, but ultimately I think the notion that Burroughs was a pervasive underground influence on music is overstated. While he was involved with more music-related projects than many of his literary contemporaries, a lot of that came down to his relative accessibility and his need for income. While this book provides a unique way to navigate both Burroughs’ biography and popular music trends of the 60s through the early 90s, the two elements ultimately remain parallel stories rather than interconnected relationships.

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Music of the Counterculture Era by James E. Perone, Gentleman Junkie: The Life and Legacy of William S. Burroughs by Graham Caveney or Nonbinary: A Memoir by Genesis P-Orridge.)

 

( official Williams S. Burroughs and the Cult of Rock and Roll web site )

 

Recommended by Scott S.
Polley Music Library

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?


New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. 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. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!


Check out this, and all the other great music resources, at the Polley Music Library, located on the 2nd floor of the Bennett Martin Public Library at 14th & "N" St. in downtown Lincoln. You'll find biographies of musicians, books about music history, instructional books, sheet music, CDs, music-related magazines, and much more. Also check out Polley Music Library Picks, the Polley Music Library's e-mail newsletter, and follow them on Facebook!