Friday, February 7, 2014
Thursday, February 6, 2014
Introducing Our New VIB
A lush and thrilling romantic fable about two lovers set against the scandalous burlesques, midnight séances, and aerial ballets of the 1898 Omaha World’s Fair.
On the eve of the 1898 Omaha World’s Fair, Ferret Skerritt, ventriloquist by trade, con man by birth, isn’t quite sure how it will change him or his city. Omaha still has the marks of a filthy Wild West town, even as it attempts to achieve the grandeur and respectability of nearby Chicago. But when he crosses paths with the beautiful and enigmatic Cecily, his whole purpose shifts and the fair becomes the backdrop to their love affair.
On the eve of the 1898 Omaha World’s Fair, Ferret Skerritt, ventriloquist by trade, con man by birth, isn’t quite sure how it will change him or his city. Omaha still has the marks of a filthy Wild West town, even as it attempts to achieve the grandeur and respectability of nearby Chicago. But when he crosses paths with the beautiful and enigmatic Cecily, his whole purpose shifts and the fair becomes the backdrop to their love affair.
One of a traveling troupe of actors that has descended on the city, Cecily works in the Midway’s Chamber of Horrors, where she loses her head hourly on a guillotine playing Marie Antoinette. And after closing, she rushes off, clinging protectively to a mysterious carpetbag, never giving Ferret a second glance. But a moonlit ride on the swan gondola, a boat on the lagoon of the New White City, changes everything, and the fair’s magic begins to take its effect.
From the critically acclaimed author of The Coffins of Little Hope, The Swan Gondola is a transporting read, reminiscent of Water for Elephants or The Night Circus.
Heather says:
"Timothy Schaffert's The
Swan Gondola is an immersive, picturesque novel recounting the
recent history of one “Ferrett” Skerritt – an orphan who came
of age on the dusty streets of 1898 Omaha, Nebraska, first as an
accomplished pick-pocket, then as a ventriloquist working with a
sophisticated mechanical dummy named Oscar. Ferrett has mysteriously
crashed a hot air balloon into the rural farm of two elderly
spinsters, and as they tend to his injuries and hear his tale, they
present him with mysteries of their own. The crash of the hot air
balloon is the culmination of a poignant love story, set agains the
magnificent scenery of the Omaha World's Fair. With wonderful
allusions to The Wizard of Oz – a wicked witch, a man-made
cyclone, and Emerald Castle, and a girl named Dorothy in addition to
the hot-air ballon – as well as a remarkable cast of quirky
characters, the story is sweet and haunting and enchanting."
Every now and then we encounter a new book that we’re so
excited about we want to shout it from the rooftops, so we've created a
special tag to distinguish it from the rest: TC VIB (very impressive book)! That means it’s a true stand-out in a season of many excellent and compelling new books.
Liz and Michele Are Recommending:
Still Life with Bread Crumbs begins with an imagined gunshot and ends with a new tin roof. Between the two is a wry and knowing portrait of Rebecca Winter, a photographer whose work made her an unlikely heroine for many women. Her career is now descendent, her bank balance shaky, and she has fled the city for the middle of nowhere. There she discovers, in a tree stand with a roofer named Jim Bates, that what she sees through a camera lens is not all there is to life.
Brilliantly written, powerfully observed, Still Life with Bread Crumbs is a deeply moving and often very funny story of unexpected love, and a stunningly crafted journey into the life of a woman, her heart, her mind, her days, as she discovers that life is a story with many levels, a story that is longer and more exciting than she ever imagined.
Rosetta doesn't want her new husband Jeremiah to enlist, but he joins up, hoping to make enough money that they'll be able to afford their own farm someday. Though she's always worked by her father’s side as the son he never had, now that Rosetta is a wife she's told her place is inside with the other women. But Rosetta decides her true place is with Jeremiah, no matter what that means, and to be with him she cuts off her hair, hems an old pair of his pants, and signs up as a Union soldier.
With the army desperate for recruits, Rosetta has no trouble volunteering, although she faces an incredubous husband. She drills with the men, proves she can be as good a soldier as anyone, and deals with the tension as her husband comes to grips with having a fighting wife. Rosetta's strong will clashes with Jeremiah's while their marriage is tested by broken conventions, constant danger, and war, and she fears discovery of her secret even as they fight for their future, and for their lives.
Inspired by more than 250 documented accounts of the women who fought in the Civil War while disguised as men, I Shall Be Near To You is the intimate story, in Rosetta’s powerful and gorgeous voice, of the drama of marriage, one woman’s amazing exploits, and the tender love story that can unfold when two partners face life’s challenges side by side.
Eve Lattimore’s family is like every other on their suburban street, with one exception. Her son Tyler has a rare medical condition that makes him fatally sensitive to light, which means heavy curtains and deadlocked doors protect him during the day and he can never leave the house except at night. For Eve, only constant vigilance stands between an increasingly restless teenage son and the dangers of the outside world.
Until the night the unthinkable happens. When tragedy strikes, it becomes clear that this family is not the only one on the quiet cul-de-sac that is more complicated than it appears. And as Eve is forced to shield her family from harm, there are some crises she cannot control—and some secrets that not even love can conceal.
Deeply moving and stunningly suspenseful, The Deepest Secret is a novel of rare power—a story about hope and forgiveness, about the terrifying ways our lives can spin out of control and the unexpected sacrifices that may save us.
For Sonja, the arrival of Akhmed and Havaa is an unwelcome surprise. Weary and overburdened, she has no desire to take on additional risk and responsibility. But over the course of five extraordinary days, Sonja’s world will shift on its axis and reveal the intricate pattern of connections that weaves together the pasts of these three unlikely companions and unexpectedly decides their fate. A story of the transcendent power of love in wartime, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena is a work of sweeping breadth, profound compassion, and lasting significance.
Now with Extra Libris material, including a reader’s guide and bonus content from the author
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Hank Enjoyed This Curious Feat of Storytelling
Points of view shift, as we learn about the circumstances leading up to the... crime? Foul play seems certainly to be the likeliest explanation, but even within the traumatized mind of the Iraq War vet who is the primary suspect, his status as Unreliable Narrator casts doubt on what really happened. Lacking more than the sketchiest of evidence, he ends up confessing to the... crime? and being incarcerated.
But, it's never as simple as that, in Oates's world. The middle part of the book explores her recurring fascination with the twin odysseys of personality and identity in a deeper way than debatably anything she's written since Wonderland, over 40 years ago. To reveal more about this curious feat of storytelling would be a disservice to readers.
Ultimately, we return to pick up the threads of the aftermath of a... crime? without adequate closure, and the disparate ways people handle Not Really Knowing. The vivid description of "The Long Wall" drivers arriving in the real-life prison town of Dannemora experience evoked a strong memory of the one time I passed through, quite different from general-purpose Carthage. It's kind of an alternate-route town, if that isn't your destination. The story ends in a startling truncation I found somewhat unsatisfying, with an imminent development on the brink of happening. While it can be fun to engage readers in using their own imaginations to fill in the blanks, I would have been more interested to know what Oates thinks is going to happen next. I really didn't have any particular theory, even though I liked going along for the ride, as far as it went.
Kate M. Is Recommending:
As the Founder and CEO of Venture for America, Andrew Yang places top college graduates in start-ups for two years in emerging U.S. cities to generate job growth and train the next generation of entrepreneurs. He knows firsthand how our current view of education is broken. Many college graduates aspire to finance, consulting, law school, grad school, or medical school out of a vague desire for additional status and progress rather than from a genuine passion or fit.
In Smart People Should Build Things, this self-described "recovering lawyer" and entrepreneur weaves together a compelling narrative of success stories (including his own), offering observations about the flow of talent in the United States and explanations of why current trends are leading to economic distress and cultural decline. He also presents recommendations for both policy makers and job seekers to make entrepreneurship more realistic and achievable.
Love. We want it. We need it. We pay it homage with songs and poems and great works of art. And when we lose it, there's no pain as intense or excruciating. For centuries we've been trying to figure it out, control it, or just get better at it. As the editor of a column about love for the New York Times, Daniel Jones reads thousands of stories about people's intimate relationships--the ones that soar, crash, or hum along, from the bizarre to the supposedly "normal." It's possible that he's read more true love stories than anyone on earth. In Love Illuminated, he teases apart this mystifying emotion that thrills, crushes, and sustains.
Drawing from the 50,000 stories that have crossed his desk over the past decade, Jones explores ten aspects of love--pursuit, destiny, vulnerability, connection, trust, practicality, monotony, infidelity, loyalty, and wisdom--and creates a lively, funny and enlightening journey through this universal human experience that jangles the head and stirs the heart.
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