New Booklist on Bookguide: Read With Jenna Book Club Picks

 

In March 2019, one of the TODAY show hosts, Jenna Bush Hager, started a social media booklist -- Read With Jenna. We've finally added a page to our National Book Clubs section on BookGuide, which lists all the Read With Jenna titles (mostly fiction) since that club's inception, and we'll keep it updated with new titles moving forward. If you visit the Read With Jenna site, you can also sign up to follow their official posts on Instagram, Facebook and Goodreads.

 

Check out this new booklist featuring Jenna Bush Hager's monthly reading suggestsions, on BookGuide at the following hotlink:

 

Read With Jenna Book Club Picks

New BookTalks Booklists: Once Upon a Crime - True Crime book discussion group

Are you aware of the Once Upon a Crime book group, which started at the Gere Branch Library in the Fall of 2021, and continues there on a monthly basis?

This group is all about True Crime books, DVDs and podcasts. Each month has a specific "theme". This group is designed to be partially "presentation" style, and partially "participation" style. A team of three Gere staff members are the hosts, and every month each of them will provide a detailed description of one or more books on the monthly focus theme, plus give out a prepared handout with even more recommended reads. Before the end of the meeting, attendees are all given an opportunity to make recommendations of additional True Crime books, audiobooks, and podcasts to the assembled group members.

 

Check out the complete lists of prepared handouts from past Once Upon a Crime (OUaC) meetings in 2021 and early 2022, in these bookstalk booklists on the Lincoln City Libraries' BookGuide reader resources pages at the following links:

OUaC: All in the (Manson) Family: Cult Crimes
OUaC: And You Thought Your Co-Pay Was Bad: Medical Crimes
OUaC: Blood Red Carpet: Hollywood Crimes
OUaC: Cornhusker Crimes: True Crime Cases in Nebraska
OUaC: Don't Be Yourself: Identity Crimes
OUaC: March Madness: Irish Crimes
OUaC: Satanic Panic
OUaC: To Err is Human, to Arr is Pirate: Pirate Crimes
OUaC: With Friends Like These: Friends Who Kill

New BooksTalk Booklist: Bring Your Own Book(s) -- B.Y.O.B(ooks) group booklists for early 2022

Are you aware of the B.Y.O.B(ooks). group, which started at the Bennett Martin Public Library (downtown) in January and at the Bess Dodson Walt Branch Library in March?

Based loosely on the concept of “literary salons” of days gone by, the idea behind this group is that it will appeal to readers who want to talk about what they’ve read or listened to, but who don’t necessarily want to be “told” what to read, or who don’t feel like they have the time to read something assigned in addition to everything else that’s already on your “to be read” list.

Each meeting is “themed”, so participants can select a title to talk about that matches the monthly theme. You don’t actually have to bring the book with you.

Check out the complete lists of books featured in readings from both B.Y.O.B(ooks). groups so far this year, in these bookstalk booklists on the Lincoln City Libraries' BookGuide reader resources pages at the following link:

B.Y.O.B.: A Book I Wish I Could Read Again for the First Time
B.Y.O.B.: A Book That Made You Laugh Out Loud!
B.Y.O.B.: A Book With a Setting So Intriguing You Wish You Could Travel There
B.Y.O.B.: A Book You Read Because You Liked the Cover
B.Y.O.B.: Not Worth the Hype
B.Y.O.B.: A Book You Read Because You Saw Someone Else Reading It In Public
B.Y.O.B.: Your Favorite Beach Reads

Books Review: Fortune Favors the Dead and Murder Under Her Skin by Stephen Spotswood

Fortune Favors the Dead and Murder Under Her Skin

by Stephen Spotswood (Spotswood)

 

For the May meeting of the libraries’ Just Desserts mystery book discussion group, participants were encouraged to sample the first 1 or 2 entries in ANY new mystery/suspense/thriller series, and report back to the group to share info about characters, setting, time period, writing style, etc., and whether or not they would continue with the series in the future. I randomly stumbled across the second in the new “Pentecost & Parker” series, tracked down the first, and proceeded to read them both to report back to the Just Desserts members. I am SO glad I found this series, as I absolutely loved both of these books.

 

Set in the late 1940s, Fortune Favors the Dead introduces our central narrator, Willowjean “Will” Parker, and her boss, legendary New York City private investigator Lillian Pentecost (something of a female Sherlock Holmes/Hercule Poirot). Will ran away from home at 15, joined a traveling circus as a roustabout and was subsequently taught the skills to serve as an assistant to many of the circus performers (knife throwing, animal handling, high wire and trapeze, etc.). With circus business on the decline, Will is encouraged by the circus owner to take a job with Ms. Pentecost, when Lillian recognizes skills in Will that could prove useful in her line of work. Lillian, meanwhile, suffers from multiple sclerosis, which creates increasing numbers of physical limitations to what she can do…so she desperately needs a “leg-man” to assist her with a lot of the physical investigations. In Fortune Favors the Dead, three years after they’ve first teamed up, Pentecost & Parker investigate a locked room mystery in which a socialite was brutally murdered — not long after her husband killed himself.

 

In Murder Under Her Skin, the murder of the tattooed lady in the circus Will used to travel with, calls Pentecost & Parker to a small town in Virginia, to try to prove that Will’s mentor, the circus’ knife thrower, didn’t commit the murder. The dramatic difference in setting, from New York City to Stoppard, Virginia provides a unique look at how Lillian Pentecost operates, and also gives us more insight into the background and emotional motivations of Will Parker.

 

This series is marvelous. Lillian and Will are terrific characters, who I want to learn more about. Will, through her actions, shows herself to be bi-sexual, and that very fact proves to be critical to solving the case in Fortune Favors the Dead. How this is handled, especially regarding characters living in the late 1940s, is impressively portrayed. Will’s patter throughout the novels is very reminiscent of the “tough guy” patois more commonly associated with male detectives of the noir and hard-boiled mystery sub-genres, and she is a refreshing and welcome addition to pantheon of private investigators. And the tidbits we learn about the background of Lillian in Murder Under Her Skin make her even more intriguing as a character. I can’t wait for the third volume, due out in December 2022! Highly recommended!

 

( official Pentecost & Parker and Stephen Spotswood web site )

 

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

 

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!

If you're a mystery fan, join us for this month's Just Desserts meeting tonight, June 30th, at 6:30 p.m. in the 4th floor auditorium of the Bennett Martin Public Library downtown at 14th & "N" St. -- this mystery-themed discussion group meets on the last Thursday of each month, January through October. This month's espionage master John Le Carre's final novel, "Silverview". Even if you haven't read this specific book, you can still participate, and learn about great new mysteries to try! For more information, check out the Just Desserts schedule at https://lincolnlibraries.org/bookguide/book-groups/#justdesserts

New Online Book Talk Booklists and the recent return of in-person book groups for the libraries!

 

Now that the city of Lincoln has moved into and remained in the "green" zone of  the local COVID-19 safety color wheel, library book groups have returned to "In-Person" meetings, instead of being held on Zoom, as they had been since mid-2020.

The Just Desserts mystery book group is meeting in the 4th floor auditorium of the downtown library, on the last Thursday of each month, with attendees all reading and discussing the same mystery novel, followed by a "round robin" in with participants can share whatever else they've been reading lately. You can see the forthcoming Just Desserts schedule on BookGuide's Book Groups schedule page.

Also on that page is the upcoming schedule for the Nebraska Heritage Book Club, which meets monthly in the Jane Pope Geske Heritage Room of Nebraska Authors on the 3rd floor at the downtown library. This group is focused on reading and discussing works by Nebraska authors, both classic and contemporary. You'll find their schedule here.

This summer, the Bethany BooksTalk group continues to meet each Friday at the Bethany Branch Library at 10:30 a.m. However, the June, July and August sessions of this group do not have any presenters -- they are simply "Book Share" sessions...opportunities for book lovers to talk about what they've read lately. Presenter-led discussions will return to both Bethany and Gere Branch BooksTalks in the Autumn.

You can see an archive of past Book Talk Booklists here, including several of the recent "Book Share" meetings of the Bethany BooksTalk group:

Archive of Book Talk Booklists

Note: A large number of book talk booklists from 2013 to 2016 have recently been added to archives after it was discovered that they had never been archived before!

Interested in being added to an e-mail list for notifications about future In-Person or Online Book Talks? Visit our E-mail Groups Sign-Up page to sign up!

Reading Recommendations from Let's Get Books Together book group - Jan 8 2020

The “Let’s Get Books Together” reading group met on Wednesday, January 8^th, 2020. The theme of this meeting was “Graphic Novels” that address LGBTQ+ topics. All attendees shared their reading suggestions. Many of these Graphic Novel selections are available from the libraries via the Hoopla digital downloads service. If a title was also available in physical printed format, the call # for that version is provided first in the list below. Hotlinks will go to all formats of the title in the libraries’ online catalog. This list is in Alphabetical order by author name.

Various call # - various authors – Lumberjanes

741.5 Tar – various – Motor Crush

Hoopla only – Allison, John – Giant

306.766 Bar – Barker, Meg-John – Queer: A Graphic History

(not in library) – Be-Papas (collective) – Revolutionary Girl Utena (manga/anime)

741.5 Bec – Bechdel, Alison – Dykes to Watch Out For (multi-volume series)

YA PB (Non-Fiction) Bongiovanni – Bongiovanni, Archie – A Quick and Easy Guide to They/Them Pronouns

741.5 Car – Carrol, Emily – When I Arrived at the Castle

Hoopla only – Ellis, Grace – Moonstruck

741.5 Fra – Franklin, Tee – Bingo Love

(not in library) – Gillan, Kieron – The Young Avengers

YA PB (Graphic Novel) Gillman) – Gillman, Melanie – As the Crow Flies

(not in library) – Jacques, Jeph – Questionable Content

(not in library) – Kamatani, Yuki – Our Dreams at Dusk

YA PB (Graphic Novel) Larson – Larson, Hope – Goldie Vance

(not in library) – Nagai, Go – Devilman

741.5 Nag – Nagata, Kabi – My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness

(not in library) – Neely, Tom – Henry and Glenn Forever and Ever

YA PB (Graphic Novel) O’Malley – O’Malley, Bryan Lee – Snotgirl

j O’Neill – O’Neill, Katie – Princess Princess Ever After

J O’Neill – O’Neill, Katie – Tea Dragon Society

jPB Series Osterag – Osterag, Molly – The Witch Boy

YA PB (Graphic Novel) Panetta – Panetta, Kevin – Bloom

YA PB (Graphic Novel) Pascat – Pascat, C.S. – Fence

(not in library) – Patil, Amruta – Kari

Hoopla only – Rivera, Gabby – America, Vol 1.: The Life and Times of America Chavez

YA Stevenson – Stevenson, Noelle – Nimona

741.5 Tag – Tagame, Gengoroh – My Brother’s Husband

YA PB (Graphic Novel) Tamaki – Tamaki, Jillian – Supermutant Magic Academy

YA PB (Graphic Novel) Tamaki – Tamaki, Mariko – Laura Deen Keeps Breaking Up With Me

YA PB (Graphic Novel) Tamaki – Tamaki, Mariko – This One Summer

YA PB (Graphic Novel) Tynion – Tynion, James – The Backstagers

YA PB (Graphic Novel) Usdin – Usdin, Carly – Heavy Vinyl

741.5 Vau – Vaughn, Brian – Paper Girls

jPB Series Wang – Wang, Jen – The Prince and the Dressmaker

(not in library) – Weaver, E.K. – The Less Than Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal

(not in library) – Woolfson, Alex – Artifice

(not in library) – Woolfson, Alex – Young Protectors

Hoopla only – Young, Keezy – Taproot

YA PB (Non-Fiction) Zuckerberg, J.R. – A Quick and Easy Guide to Trans and Queer Identities

Just Desserts meeting tonight -- Favorite Stand-Alone Mystery Novel

Join the members of the Just Desserts Mystery Fiction Discussion group tonight at Bennett Martin Public Library (14th & "N" St.) in the 4th floor auditorium for their month meeting.

Our theme this month is "Memorable Stand Alone Mysteries" -- instead of all members of the group reading the same title to discuss it, we will be doing a round robin style of discussion, with each attendee given time to describe their favorite "stand alone" mystery/thriller/suspense novel -- it can't be part of a series, but it can be either an old classic or a more recent book.

This is your perfect opportunity to attend Just Desserts for the first time and see what kinds of mysteries all the "regulars" enjoy!

You can find out more about Just Desserts by clicking this link!

Book Review: A Willing Murder by Jude Deveraux

A Willing Murder
by Jude Deveraux

I’ll have to admit, I’ve never read any of Jude Deveraux’s 70+ romance or romantic-suspense novels, though her name is one of the first to come up when thinking about contemporary best-selling romance authors. However, when the May theme for the library’s Just Desserts mystery book group came up — to read the first or second volume in ANY new mystery/thriller/suspense series that had just recently started, I stumbled across A Willing Murder — the first in the new Medlar Mysteries series by Deveraux, which came out in 2018. [A second entry (A Justified Murder) in the series is already out in 2019, and a third is scheduled for 2020.]

This novel (and the series in general) features a trio of central characters. Sara Medlar is a best-selling romance novelist (a thinly-veiled version of Deveraux herself) — a silver-haired senior who stays fit by boxing — who lives in the small community of Lachlan, Florida, not far from Miami. Living with her in her large, mansion-like home, are Jack Wyatt, son of a local trouble-maker, who’s establishing himself as a success on his own terms, and Kate Medlar, Sara’s niece, who’s only just moved to Lachlan and is staying with the aunt she’s never met before, while she takes a new job with a local real estate firm. When the toppling of a large poinciana tree (in the backyard of a property that Jack had recently bought) reveals a pair of bodies buried under the tree many years ago, and Jack’s late father is implicated in murder, which the local cops don’t feel is worth digging into, this trio decides to investigate, in order to clear Jack’s father’s name.

As they look into the deaths from more than a dozen years earlier, they uncover old rivalries, hidden shames, and secrets that other folks would like to keep out of sight. The witty banter among this trio of amateur sleuths is amusing, the story is fast-paced, and Deveraux has great skill at creating interesting settings. Does it matter that the mystery itself is fairly light-weight and easy for the reader to figure out before the conclusion of the book? Not really, as this one is more about establishing these new characters and letting them start to interact. And Deveraux’s career as a romance novelist certainly shows through, as the beginnings of a romantic entanglement between Kate and Jack are firmly planted in this entry. I enjoyed this amiable introduction to the Medlar Mysteries, and look forward to future volumes…though I hope that the mysteries themselves turn out to be a bit more robust in upcoming stories.

[ official A Willing Murder page on the official Jude Deveraux web site ]

Check out other “new series” recommended by the members of Just Desserts at our May 2019 “Series Share” meeting

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library

Don't miss the June 2019 Just Desserts mystery book discussion group's meeting -- tonight! -- where the group will be discussing several volumes of Donna Andrews amateur detective series featuring Meg Langslow. Guests are always welcome. Just Desserts meets in the 4th floor auditorium of the downtown Bennett Martin Public Library on the last Thursday of each month, 6:30-7:45. Attendees are encouraged to bring a dessert to share with fellow mystery fans. Coffee and juice are provided.

Have you read 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!