Old and new favorites

Great thing about working in a library: I spend a lot of time working with books — checking them out to patrons, shelving them, scouting reviews, getting advanced copies.

One small downside: I almost never browse for a book any more, or am caught by surprise by a new title from a favorite author.

Recently, though, I came across a couple historical novels — one by Tracy Chevalier, whom I like a lot, and one a first novel that appeared on our New Books shelf without my having read any advanced press.

The Last Runaway is Tracy Chevalier’s first book set in the U.S. so I’ll admit I was dubious at first. But the lead character drew me in from the first (not only because I sympathized with her seasickness as she crossed the Atlantic from England to America in the 19th century and realized the voyage was so traumatizing that she could never cross again). It’s set in a Quaker community in Ohio before the Civil War — so the Underground Railroad was active as slaves made their way to Canada. The Quaker community, while opposing slavery in general, is divided in how far they should go in helping runaways even as the Fugitive Slave Act increased the pressure on them to help those trying to recapture the runaways.

Chevalier is best known for Girl With A Pearl Earring but my favorite of hers remains The Lady and the Unicorn (I’m the medieval-adoring geek who will go see those tapestries over and over again). I also liked Burning Bright, her book set around William Blake, and Remarkable Creatures, about English women who were fossil hunters in the 19th century.

The new book was Accidents of Providence by Stacia Brown, a first novel set in 17th century England — a period that is neglected compared to the overpowering Tudors but offers a rich landscape as the country went through Civil War and conflict over religion and political structures that divided families, classes and communities. The story revolves around the fate of an unmarried woman who bears a child and buries its corpse — requiring the state to charge her with murder, whether the child was stillborn or not.

The jacket copy says Brown wrote this book using material from her dissertation on martyrs in 17th century England. I hope we’ll see more fiction from her, and hope the book is successful enough to inspire others to write about this period in English history.

Another newish historical novel I read recently didn’t spring on me unawares as the previous two but it’s well worth a read, especially if you like historical crime fiction and are looking for something on American shores. The Gods of Gotham by Lyndsay Faye is set in 1840s New York, as the city is recovering from a catastrophic fire and establishing its first real police force. Another major factor is the increase in Irish immigration — viewed as a Catholic invasion by some Protestant residents — that is about to be increased manyfold by the potato famine. I first gave this book a try months ago and I’ll admit I was turned back by the language — Faye has goen to great lengths to use the terms of the time but it felt forced on my initial attempt. For some reason, on my second attempt, it won me over and I was soon enthralled. If you liked Caleb Carr’s early novels, this would be a good one to try. Also recommended for people like me, who are tired of waiting for C.J. Sansom to get back to Shardlake or Ruth Downie to tell us what the medicus has been up to lately in Roman Britain.

Time to get reading some Writers on Writers

I love this time of year for a few reasons. Holiday decorations in Key West are fun and appear to be getting more fun every year. I love the best of the year book lists that come out around now, to compare my own reading and to get ideas for books I might have missed. And I love the annual library display of books by writers appearing at the upcoming Key West Literary Seminar.  The theme this time is Writers on Writers and the works encompass straight-up biography, meditative memoir and novels with real writers as fictional characters. Lots more detail, including the writers appearing and the schedules for both sessions, is available on the Seminar website. You can still register!

The books by this year’s authors include some serious — as in long and demanding attention — books. But don’t let that discourage you. While you may not be up for wading through a magisterial Literary Biography, especially during the distractions of the holiday season, there are plenty of other books that you may find surprisingly entertaining, as well as edifying.

We’ve just put up a display of books by Seminar writers at the Key West Library so if you’re in town stop by and check it out (the display is in the Reference Department, turned over the summer into a more open reading room if you haven’t been in recently).

Recent reading roundup: The Brits, then and now

Just in time for the Fourth of July — or maybe in anticipation of the London Olympics? — OK, it was completely by accident – I recently finished two books whose authors are Brits and which concern mostly British people in harrowing situations. *

Other than that, they couldn’t be more different.

One is nonfiction, the other is a novel. The nonfiction book was just published, the novel came out eight years ago. One is a disturbing account of a young woman who falls victim to a sociopath. The other is a historical adventure romp that should appeal to people who like Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe novels – and/or the movie version of Last of the Mohicans. Yes, that happens to describe me.

I read the nonfiction book first, a contemporary true crime account called People Who Eat Darkness (note to publishers: why oh why would you give a book a title that is both generic and difficult to remember???). I’ve recently gotten into the true crime genre but almost exclusively on the historical end. More recent crimes just don’t interest me enough to read an entire book about them – most of the appeal is learning about a whole time period or society rather than just getting tons of detail about an ugly crime. But this book got a good review on Salon so I figured I’d give it a try. Especially since it was helpfully in the library’s collection.

The author, Richard Parry, is a British journalist based in Tokyo. One story he covered during his tenure there was the disappearance of a young British woman, Lucie Blackman and the subsequent trial of the man accused of killing her.

It’s very well done, especially on the inevitable but still heartbreaking cultural divide and incomprehension between Blackman’s desperate family and the Japanese authorities tasked with investigating her disappearance. Blackman was working as a hostess in a Japanese bar, one of scores of Western women who flirt and drink with Japanese men at bars in the Roppongi district of Tokyo. She was far from the first to encounter the man eventually charged with killing her — and that’s the other heartbreaking part of the story, how many opportunities were lost to stop the sociopath before he encountered Lucie.

Between the covers, without pain

It’s surprising who has read the Fifty Shades books, or at least the first one. Me, for instance. And other people I know whom I think of as No Dummies. I remain torn on this issue, kind of liking the out-of-nowhere fan-fiction origins – the literary equivalent of winning the lottery only with a tad more initiative involved. On the other hand, the fan fiction aspect is slightly annoying; more so is the Old Skool romance, virginal-heroine-must-redeem-the-tortured-dominant-hero theme whose problems are explicated to a far smarter degree than i could ever do in this post from the Rumpus. Not to mention the general annoyingness of the heroine, along with the not-very-inspired writing (many have suggested drinking games based on how many times Anastasia chews her lip — an action that just makes world-traveling sophisticated billionaire Christian Grey INSANE WITH LUST).

But my primary issue with the success of these books, really, is that there is so much out there in the broad area of the romance genre that is so much better written. I know this is true of many, many bestsellers. Why does Dan Brown sell so much better than writers who are so much better? And I won’t even go into the James Patterson Fictional Industrial Complex.

So as alternatives for people who are curious about books written primarily for women and that include differing amounts of nookie — and because at the Library we are embarking on a Summer Reading program for adults with the theme Between the Covers (with four weekly prize drawings! Prizes from Key West Island Books, the Tropic and Bad Boy Burrito!) — I am hereby offering my suggested alternatives for books you can read on your ereader … and not be cringing at the writing. Or the stupidity of the heroine, for that matter.

Most of my trashy romance reading is historical. However if Fifty Shades has you curious about contemporary romances, I can recommend Jennifer Crusie (my favorite of hers is called Bet Me, but they’re all pretty good). I like Lisa Kleypas, too; the one that got me hooked is called Smooth Talking Stranger. Kristan Higgins is also very well regarded; I have to admit I haven’t actually read her but I saw her at the ALA conference last year and she was charming.

And the winner is …

Summer is here, the poll is closed and my summer doorstop tome is decided: I’ll be reading Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray. Becky Sharp triumphed over Don Quixote by a whisker but that’s what you’d expect from her, isn’t it?

Thanks everyone for voting — and special thanks for choosing a book that I imagine is available for cheap or free in ebook edition, thus making its tome-ishness easier to handle. I’ll be reporting back once I’ve read it — and I’ll resist watching the Mira Nair film adaptation, starring Reese Witherspoon, till I’m done.

Happy summer reading, everyone! And speaking of summer reading, we have programs at the Key West Library this year, for children and, for the second year running, for adults. So stop by, pick up a reading log and get your read on.

Fewer than 50 links about That Book

Fifty Shades books on sale at Books & Books in Coral Gables.

I read Fifty Shades of Grey. Hey, it was for my job! So I could discuss the most popular book in the nation with patrons! Nothing to do with dirty bits and kinky sexual practices. Honest!

And I’m afraid I’m late enough to this show that I don’t have much say about the book that hasn’t been said. No, it’s not very well written. But neither, in my opinion, are many other bestselling works of fiction (I’m still waiting for the International Court of Literary Justice to convene and give me back the four hours I spent reading Angels & Demons). Mostly, it struck me as oddly retro, a throwback to the romances referred to these days as Old School — of the Kathleen Woodiwiss/Rosemary Rogers 1970s-80s school. No rape scenes, thank God, but a lot of the touchstones were there. The heroine is virginal and insecure. The hero is dominant (literally, in this case), but tortured by his past, yet still able to recognize virginal heroine’s stunning beauty when no one else had noticed. And also induce her to multiple orgasms the first time out. And like a lot of the older romances, it’s epic in length — three books at more than 500 pages each. And I feel confident that the vast majority of its readers understand this is a fantasy. Lots of us think of ourselves as insecure but goodhearted people — and wouldn’t it be nice if the one person who recognized our qualities was an incredibly goodlooking billionaire who flies his own helicopter and practices global philanthropy and is extremely good at sex, even if he has some serious issues — that only you can help him get past? Like I said, fantasy. Just like vampires, dragons, elves and whatever that guy does in all those Clive Cussler novels that fly off the library shelves. (5/23 update: See last link below for an opposing view on this issue.)

So instead of opining further about the book or trying to diagnose the social factors behind its unlikely and astonishing success, I’ll simply share a few links worth reading if you’re curious.

• First up, there’s the bizarre action of the Brevard County Library where they yanked their 19 copies of Fifty Shades off the shelves.
• My favorite response came from Sarah Wendell of Smart Bitches Trashy Books who had this to say about the Brevard County decision.  (Warning: that last link contains explicit selection from books that are in the, wait for it, Brevard County Library collection).  I’m sorry to report that we don’t have any of those, um, Longarm books in the Monroe County Public Library collection. Though one of my colleagues had the brilliant idea of requesting them via Interlibrary Loan. From Brevard County.
• Wendell has had a number of interesting posts about the Fifty Shades phenomenon - she’s as good as anyone about discussing the appeal of certain books and how romance, even erotic romance, is different from porn.
•  In case you were wondering, yes we have all three Fifty Shades books in the Monroe County Public Library collection, both as an ebook (it’s the whole trilogy at once; sorry it was just far more affordable that way) and as individual titles on paper. And yeah, there’s a waiting list. For all of them. Fun fact: Overdrive, our ebook service, places the Fifty Shades trilogy in the Literature collection. That’s them, not us.
• Another good piece on the Fifty Shades phenemonen was posted over at Bookriot where they read and discussed the book in two parts — the second part is here. I liked their take on it, which was realistic (some of the lines ARE hilarious) without being cruel to either the book, its writer or its many, many readers.
• And finally here’s a more critical take from The Rumpus pointing out that maybe these books and their popularity is not all harmless fun after all.
• 5/25 update — really finally — one last link.
• 10/1 update — OK I shouldn’t claim really finally because this puppy has legs but this one from Dear Author was too good not to share.

Ebooks for everyone! At least everyone who wants them

Photo courtesy of teclasorg, via Flickr Creative Commons

I wrote a piece about ebooks and libraries that appeared in Sunday’s edition of Solares Hill. If you are not a Citizen subscriber, or you didn’t happen to buy a copy of Sunday’s paper, I’m afraid I can’t tell you a way to look at the piece.

I can, however, give you a little explication on my attitude toward ebooks: If you like them, great. If you fear them, relax. No one, at least in the world of the public library, is going to force you to use them instead of old-fashioned print books. And I think all the doomsayers who predict the end of Civilization As We Know It are wallowing in their own bitterness and I just don’t see the point. Sure, civilization as we know it is changing. That’s what it does. Some of the changes are good, others not so much. But constantly calling out all new developments as harbingers of evil is just tiring. And sad. Who wants to be angry all the time? If you only want to read books on paper, knock yourself out.

And what about libraries? We could be in for some rocky times as the digital tidal wave that has already swamped newspapers now reaches us. But we’re trying to do what we’ve always done, which is provide people with reading material and information for their edification and entertainment. Already, in the world of reference, online is the way to go. And as the world goes online, public libraries play an increasingly important role in providing online access and guidance for those who don’t have or can’t afford computers and internet access on their own. Possibly general interest books will go largely digital, too. But I think it will be awhile. The Monroe County Library’s ebook collection, as of this writing, is 549. Our collection of physical books numbers around 150,000.

A couple interesting developments that have come to my attention since I wrote the piece. One is that charging as much for an ebook as for a hardcover may not be as outrageous as I once thought. This piece from Digital Book World made me reconsider and I certainly favor publishers spending money on important things like author advances, editors and marketing. However … it’s one thing to charge $30 or the hardcover equivalent of a book. It’s another to triple the prices for libraries (and libraries only) like Random House has done. Their theory seems to be that elending at libraries is just too easy so more readers will borrow instead of buy; but surely they realize from decades of experience with physical books that frequent book borrowers are also frequent book buyers, who may well be inclined to snap up a writer’s backlist or recommend a title to their friends? Like many librarians, I was also unhappy with HarperCollins’ decision to limit library checkouts to 26 per license. Some library books fall apart (or go missing) sooner than that. But others hang around for years and years.

I’ve been waiting for someone to figure out the appropriate model for library ebook lending … and I think a good candidate just appeared. The folks over at Pottermore, the J.K. Rowling empire, are licensing the Harry Potter series as ebooks (yep, we’ve got all seven of them in the Monroe County Library digital collection). They cost $28, around the price of a quality hardcover. And they expire after five years, which seems like a reasonable length of time for a popular title. In fact, such expirations based on time rather than number of checkouts could serve as a sort of self-weeding mechanism for libraries — popular titles would, one presumes, be re-licensed while others would be quietly allowed to expire, much as we do today with weeding the shelves. Only without all the cardboard boxes and magic markers.

Now someone just has to figure out how to loan ebooks on an interlibrary basis. And how patrons can donate their copies if they wish. I have faith that somewhere in libraryland, someone smarter than me is already working on both tasks.

The train has left the station

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One Island One Book, the Key West Library’s program now in its third year, is well underway. This year we’re reading “Last Train to Paradise,” Les Standiford’s book chronicling the construction of the Over-Sea Railroad, completed 100 years ago. The book also covers the railroad’s destruction in the harrowing Labor Day hurricane of 1935.

We’re in the final week of the online readalong on the One Island One Book blog– but you’re welcome to jump in at any point; the beauty of this is it can stay up there forever for anyone reading the book and we can continue the conversation as long as we want.

Next week things really pick up when the author himself, Les Standiford, arrives in town. He’ll be signing books at Key West Island Books, 513 Fleming St., at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 26.

Then at 3 p.m. Monday, Feb. 27, he’ll be at the Key West Library, 700 Fleming St., to talk about Last Train to Paradise. Later that day, at 6 p.m., he’ll be speaking at the Friends of the Library Lecture Series at The Studios of Key West, 600 White St. Both those events are free and open to all.

We’ve already had a couple great events — a presentation about how the old bridges went from rail to trail (many of them are now part of the Overseas Heritage Trail) and a guided tour of the Speedway to Sunshine exhibit at the Custom House. There’s another tour planned for 2 p.m. this Friday, Feb. 24 — the tour is free but you need to sign up; just stop by the library or call 305-292-3595.  And if that weren’t enough, the Art & Historical Society has generously offered free admission to the Custom House to anyone with a Monroe County Library card, until March 15.

Lots to do — and still plenty of time to read the book. They have them on sale at Key West Island Books and we have many, many copies in the library collection (still a couple available on the special exhibit shelf last time I checked). So please stop by, in person or online, and help make this really One Island One Book.

Most of the action, thus far, as taken place online in our first online readalong but the live events have started, wtih a presentation on how the original railroad bridges went from rail to trail (many of them are now part of a state park called the Overseas Heritage Trail) and a special guided tour of the Speedway to Sunshine exhibit at the Custom House (there’s another this Friday — you can still sign up by coming into the library or calling there at 305-292-3595).

About those images: One of the most fun parts of this year’s One Island One Book program, for me, has been spending time with our fabulous online archive of photographs. These are scanned, identified and uploaded by Monroe County Historian Tom Hambright and his team of dedicated volunteers. There are more than 11,000 images in the whole collection and 700 just related to the railroad. The slideshow above is a small sample of my favorites but I recommend checking this site out to anyone interested in Keys history. Another favorite from the same era I can’t resist revisiting: the waterfront passes that were required of workers in that area during World War I. The photographs are haunting and beautiful and the information provides a time capsule of Key West life in that era.

The Over-Sea Railroad: You can no longer ridealong but you can still readalong

Exactly 100 years ago, Key West was in a tizzy, getting ready for the arrival of the First Train. On Jan. 22, 2012, the train would arrive bearing oil tycoon-turned-railroad magnate Henry Flagler and marking the completion of the Over-Sea Railroad.

These days, we’re in a bit of a tizzy ourselves, getting ready to commemorate the Centennial of that event — a major one by the standards of any small town and, you could argue, in the history of Florida and the nation. It was certainly a remarkable achievement, crossing mangrove swamps and open water. Crews endured hurricanes, mosquitos and the relentless humidity of the subtropics — without the modern comforts we take for granted now.

Lots of events are planned to mark the Centennial — more information is available at the official Centennial committee’s website. At the Key West Library, we’re celebrating with our One Island One Book program. This year we’re reading Last Train to Paradise by Les Standiford, which tells the story of the construction of the Over-Sea Railroad — and its destruction, barely two decades later, when the Upper Keys were hit by one of the strongest hurricanes ever to strike the continental U.S.

Most of our One Island One Book events don’t start until mid-February — Standiford will be speaking at the Library on Monday, Feb. 27. But one event is starting in the next few days: our first every online readalong. What does that mean? It means  you read about 50 pages a week of the book (there’s a reading schedule on the blog), and comment about it at the blog. We’ll start things out with some comments and questions but this isn’t a class and our posts are not a syllabus — everyone is welcome to chime in on whatever aspect they like, from wherever they are. So if you’re curious about the railroad and feel like learning some more — and interacting with others who are doing the same, please join in.

Some of you, especially those familiar with the Keys, may have noticed that the image above does not show Key West. It’s Pigeon Key, the island in the bend of the Old Seven Mile Bridge (and one the best places these days to get a feel for how things were back in the railroad days). Even though it’s not Key West, this is one of my favorite images of the railroad, probably because of the human element introduced by the kids waving below. And it comes from the library’s spectacular collection of historic images that have been scanned and placed online for open public access — including a collection of 700 images about the Over-Sea Railroad. Many of the library’s images, incidentally, were used for a beautiful new Centennial edition of Last Train to Paradise, published by Books & Books and the Flagler Museum.

Besties forever

I am unable to resist best book lists of almost any form so I’ve been keeping an eye on the usual end of the year productions. I’m not as into it as some others, like the blogger Largehearted Boy, who amasses a giant list of best lists, or the librarian/bloggers at the Williamsburg Public Library, who take all those lists and turn them into one mega-list (though that list is broken into different categories, mostly for fiction).

Mostly, I keep an eye out for the lists compiled by the sources I rely on most for book reviews — The New York Times and Salon (which has separate lists for fiction and nonfiction). But I have to admit this year my favorite list came from Lev Grossman at Time magazine (which also had separate fiction and nonfiction lists). Perhaps it’s Grossman’s unapologetic appreciation of genre fiction — which was an awful lot of my fiction reading this year. Or, in a related angle, it’s his noticing books that are not the usual suspects — two graphic novels (The Death-Ray and Hark! A Vagrant!) became Christmas gifts in my house this year after I saw them on the list.

My best list consists of books I read this year, whenever they were published — though a large number were indeed new this year (one of the many benefits of working at a library is access to advanced review copies and awareness of newly published works). I chose my favorites with flat-out enjoyment as my only criterion, realizing that many factors go into that.

Fiction: A Song of Ice & Fire, books 1-3, George R.R. Martin (That’s A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords)

Nonfiction: Rin Tin Tin, Susan Orlean.