Staff Picks

I discovered Canadian science fiction writer Robert J. Sawyer when ABC aired a television series based on his novel Flash Forward in 2009.   Whether or not you watched the show, the premise is intriguing -- a science experiment gone awry causes everyone on earth to fall into an unconscious state while they foresee themselves twenty years in the future.   The phenomenon lasts only two minutes and causes operating room tragedies, multi-car crashes and runway accidents worldwide but the most fascinating consequences are due to the revelations themselves.

What caused the flash forward and what are the effects on individuals and societies? What does it mean for people like researcher Theo Procopides who had no vision at all or for the presidential candidate assured of defeat?  Are the visions absolute?   I love the way Sawyer humanizes this intriguing scenario and (unlike the television show) explains the phenomena and offers a satisfying conclusion. 

Fans of thought-provoking science fiction will enjoy this memorable novel.   

Alicia Cavitt
Information Specialist

Staff Picks

Jonathan Evison tackles difficult subject matter in The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving.

Struggling to come to terms with his own family tragedy Ben Benjamin offers in-home care to a boy with Duchene Muscular Dystrophy, a crippling and incurable form of the disease.  Nineteen-year-old Trevor faces his disability with crude bravado that might come as a turnoff initially but you’ll love him for it by the end of this witty novel.   

The story is as much about physical struggles as it is about emotional ones and it’s surprisingly funny, especially when the duo expands to include a teen runaway, a would-be inventor with a criminal background and his pregnant girlfriend, all on the road trip of a lifetime.  

You’ll have a new appreciation for long car rides with your family after reading The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving.  Jonathan Evison has an amazing skill for finding comedy in the tragic and humanizing individuals with disabilities.

Alicia Cavitt
Information Specialist

The Literazzi Book Club

In the opening pages of Jamie Ford’s stunning debut novel, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, Henry Lee comes upon a crowd gathered outside the Panama Hotel. It has been boarded up for decades, but now the new owner has made an incredible discovery: the belongings of Japanese families, left when they were rounded up and sent to internment camps during World War II. As Henry looks on, the owner opens a Japanese parasol.

Henry Lee is certain that the parasol belonged to someone from his past.  In the hotel’s dark dusty basement he begins looking for signs of the Okabe family’s belongings and for a long-lost object whose value he cannot begin to measure. Now a widower, Henry is still trying to find his voice–words that might explain the actions of his nationalistic father; words that might bridge the gap between him and his modern, Chinese American son; words that might help him confront the choices he made many years ago.

Set during one of the most conflicted and volatile times in American history, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is an extraordinary story of commitment and enduring hope.  

Our Literazzi Book Club will be discussing this remarkable novel on Wednesday, May 22nd and Tuesday, May 28th at the Sharon Forks Library. 

Mary Ann Kowaleski
Information Specialist

Staff Picks

If you are interested in the new findings in research on our canine friends The Genius of Dogs by Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods is a great book to look at. 

Brian founded the Duke (as in University) Canine Cognition Center where they study dogs to help determine their true intelligence and how they learn.  This has been a fast growing area as scientists and behavioral studies experts around the globe have been finding out just how smart “man’s best friend” really is. 

If you are truly interested, you might even check out their website http://www.dognition.com that is an offshoot of their university work.  There are some sample activities you can try for free.  Additionally for a fee, you can join the studies and test your own dog with tests created by the Center.  Your results will be added to the others reported by “citizen scientists” and reviewed by the center.  It is not meant to signify “my dog is smarter than yours.”  Rather, it provides insights as to how your dog learns and how you might better communicate with your dog.

Joan Dudzinski
Information Specialist

Staff Picks

Have you ever taken care of a neighbor’s cat?

In Care of Wooden Floors by Will Wiles a freelance writer from London housesits in a gloomy unnamed Eastern Europe country.  One leather couch, two cats, a professional grade piano, an extremely delicate wooden floor, one hostile housekeeper and a few dozen bottles of wine – what could possibly go wrong?  A lot more than you could ever imagine. 

Humor and action give this literary novel real appeal.  Like red wine on light wood, what starts out as a simple story turns quite a bit darker.  Fans of Franz Kafka, Edgar Allan Poe and Charlie Chaplin films will appreciate the metamorphoses of both character and setting in Care of Wooden Floors.

Before the neighbors drop off their keys this summer make sure you've read Care of Wooden Floors by Will Wiles.   It's definitely the funniest and most original book you'll ever read about housesitting.       

Alicia Cavitt
Information Specialist

Staff Picks

Two of my favorite recent novels couldn’t be more different.

The Dinner by Herman Koch is a novel originally published in the Netherlands which has become an international bestseller.  Two couples meet at a fancy restaurant and, as they eat their very sophisticated dinner, more is revealed about their relationships and the real reason they have met: to discuss a terrible crime committed by their teenaged sons.  Critics have compared The Dinner to another hot novel, Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl.  (I liked Gone Girl, but I liked The Dinner more.)  Claire Messud writes in The New York Times: “There is a bracing nastiness to this book that grows ever more intense with the turning of its pages.  It will not please those who seek the cozy, the redemptive or the uplifting.”

 Much less misanthropic is The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer, a sweeping novel that follows the lives of a group of six creative people who meet as teenagers at a summer camp for the arts.  It is a very satisfying read about love and friendship, with likable characters.  Critics have compared The Interestings to Freedom by Jonathan Franzen and The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides.  (I liked Freedom and The Marriage Plot, but I liked The Interestings more.)

Stephen Kight
Assistant Director for Public Services

Staff Picks

 I discovered Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones long before J.K. Rowling created Harry Potter and often recommend it to fans of magical stories here at FCPL. This 1977 young adult novel is a classic that really stands up to the test of time.   Charmed Life has a peculiar setting -- witches and wizards are common place but magic is a heavily regulated trade.  Bad girl Gwendolen Chant is as nasty to her brother Cat as any mean girl today with spells and incantations to boot.   When the two orphans are sent to a castle with its own brother and sister pair, sparks really begin to fly.  

Charmed Life takes a turn from the typical fantasy when Gwendolen transports herself to an alternate universe and leaves a teen from our own world in her place. It’s all part of her sinister plot to seize even greater power at Cat’s expense.  This imaginative story blends science fiction, fantasy and sibling rivalry into a story that inspired the four book series Worlds of Chrestomanci. 

Alicia Cavitt

Information Specialist

Staff Picks

I don’t know if I watched the TV series first or read the books—I am of that vintage that it could have gone either way.  Anyway, it was a long time ago, but  I did read and enjoy all of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books and I watched Melissa Gilbert and Michael Landon every week on NBC.  I was fascinated by Wilder’s depiction of the hardships faced by the settlers on the frontier and their resourcefulness in overcoming them.  I haven’t re-read the books, nor have I read the continuing series written by her descendants, but the memory seems to have a “good night, John-Boy” feel to it.  (Played by Richard Thomas in The Walton’s television series on CBS, based on the book Spencer’s Mountain by Earl Hamner.)  

Stop the Train by Geraldine McCaughrean, is the same era, different feel.  Inspired by the history of Enid, Oklahoma during the Land Run of 1893, we see a new town being settled on the prairie.  The characters are more colorful than I remember the Wilders’ being.  For instance, there is a Mormon sign painter trying to barter his way to Salt Lake City by painting signs for the local businesses:  “Charlie Quex, Barber, ‘Thy hair is as a flock of wild goats, Song of Solomon 4:1,’” and a schoolteacher who arrived in town as a mail-order bride and whose bona fides are iffy.  There is plenty of adventure and lots of laughs, as well as love and heartbreak and head lice and ear trumpets.  It all ends well, and if you like this book the story continues in The Glorious Adventures of the Sunshine Queen.

Mary Kretsch
Information Specialist   

Staff Picks

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivery

Based loosely on a Russian folktale called the Snow Child or Snow Maiden, this story tells the bittersweet tale of an older couple who move to Alaska in the 1920s to work off the land. 

After losing their only child as an infant the subsequent grief takes a toll on their relationship.  During an early winter snow, the couple builds a snowman and dresses it as a young girl.  The next day when they wake up the snowman is gone.  Soon after, a mysterious girl appears and befriends the couple.  They are concerned for her welfare as she disappears into the woods after visiting them and despite gaining her trust, she refuses to stay with them.

Several other interesting characters are introduced and their relationships become intertwined in the story. 

Joan Dudzinski
Information Specialist