Summer is definitely over -

and so is the first ever Adult Summer Reading Club at WML.  We have our final prize winners.  Congratulations to Lenore S. who won the August monthly drawing of a $25.00 gift certificate to Acquaviva delle fonti and to Kasia S. who won the Grand Prize drawing of a $50.00 gift certificate to Limani Seafood Grill.

We hope you enjoyed the reading suggestions that were presented during the summer.  Hey, even though it's fall you could read them now. 

TTYL -

Grand prize drawing delayed -

Because library service was interrupted, we extended the Adult Summer Reading Club by a week.  The monthly and final prizes will be drawn during the first full week of September. Congratulations to Linda B., our latest weekly winner, who received a library tote bag, coffee mug and coupons for free DVD rentals.

Stay tuned for the announcement of the final prize winners. 

Adult Summer Reading Club update -

Congratulations to our weekly winner, Frank D. who won a coffee mug, library tote bag and coupons for free library DVDs.  We'll draw a final weekly winner on August 29th.  The club will wrap up at the end of next week with a monthly drawing, a $25.00 gift certificate to Acquaviva delle fonti, and a grand prize drawing, a $50.00 gift certificate to Limani Seafood Grill.

Who knows - you could be the grand prize winner!  But you can't win if you don't play.  Come in and check out some library materials and enter to win.

It's not too late...

We have another winner - yeah!

Congratulations to Deborah E-R who won a coffee mug, library tote bag and coupons for free library DVDs.  Summer is winding down and so is the club!  We still have two gift certificates to restaurants to give away though, so keep on entering.

It's all good!

The saga continues...

The season is beginning to wind down and perhaps you're still searching for that summer reading "blockbuster" to get lost in.  These works of historical fiction could be just what you're looking for.

The life of Mercy Lavinia "Vinnie" Bump is explored in the fictional account, The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb, by Melanie Benjamin.  The story follows Vinnie, who was only 32 inches tall, through her childhood in Massachusetts, her early career as a performer on a Mississippi riverboat and her experiences working for the showman, P.T. Barnum, as the wife of Charles Stratton, Mr. Tom Thumb.  Kamala Nair's, debut novel, The Girl in the Garden, is the story of a young Indian woman, Rakhee Singh, whose approaching wedding compels her to face a family mystery she has been avoiding for years.  She recounts the tale to her fiance of a summer visit, when she turned 11, to her ancestral home in India and discovered a mysterious garden in the jungle behind her grandmother's estate.  Entrance to the walled plot is forbidden to children, but Rakhee disobeys this rule and discovers the garden holds the key to her family's secrets.  Manhattan, at the end of the Jazz Age, is the setting for Amor Towles', Rules of Civility.  Towles chronicles the escapades of secretary, Katey Kontent, after she meets a Wall Street banker and enters the glamorous high society of New York just before it all comes crashing down.  And don't forget, The American Heiress, by Daisy Goodwin, which I mentioned in an earlier post about love stories.

The cicadas are still singing - summer isn't over yet!

This week's winner is

Christopher Beil.  Congratulations!  Chris won a library tote bag, coffee mug, and coupons for free library DVDs.  There are still plenty of prizes to give away.  Any library materials, including Playaways and Books on CD, can be used to enter the contest.  So if you're going on a road trip, why not listen to a book and use that check out to enter the Adult Summer Reading Club. 

You may be a winner!

The real thing -

If you like to relax with nonfiction books during the summer, here are some titles you'll enjoy.

On the true crime scene, Reasonable Doubt, by Peter Manso, relates the 2002 murder case of Christa Worthington who was stabbed to death in her kitchen on Cape Cod.  While it's possible that several local men who knew her could have killed her, an illiterate 34 year old, African-American garbage man was arrested and convicted of the crime.  Manso proposes that the police investigation was botched and the trial was rigged.  In The Man in the Rockefeller Suit, Mark Seal tells the story of a German immigrant who assumed several identities and rose to a position of success as an American businessman over the period of 17 years.  If you liked Catch Me if You Can, you'll enjoy the escapades of this con man, Clark Rockefeller.  Take a macabre tour of the world of organ trafficking in Red Market, by Scott Carney.  Carney has spent the last five years investigating organ brokers, bone thieves, blood farmers, and child traffickers and presents a chilling history of this horrific "business".

For some pleasant armchair travel, you could try these titles.  Wild Coast, by John Gimlette, takes the reader on a tour of the lesser known South American coastal countries of Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana. This area, commonly known as the Guianas, is host to charming undiscovered small towns and dense forests, filled with unusual flora and fauna.  A famous South American site is visited in Turn Right at Machu Picchu, by Mark Adams.  This is an historical account of Hiram Bingham's 1911 discovery of the still mysterious "city in the sky".  Take a tour of a legendary wine region in, To Burgundy and Back Again, by Roy Cloud.  The author relates his and his brother's adventures in the French countryside as they build a wine exporting business.

Visit the animal planet with Feathers, by Thor Hanson. This book, a natural history of the evolution of (you guessed it) feathers, is the first exploration of this 100 million year old wonder of the ornithology field.  Amy Stewart has written a different type of natural history in her look at the insect world in Wicked Bugs.  She presents the reader with a catalog of the earth's most insidious bugs and the role they've played in the history of mankind.  You won't want to go in water after reading, Demon Fish, by Juliet Eilperin.  The author focuses on sharks and explores how these denizens of the deep and humans interact around the globe.

Forecast for the dog days of summer - more reading ahead!
 

We have two winners this week!

Congratulations to Madeleine B. and Susanna T. who won prizes in the Adult Summer Reading Club yesterday.  Madeleine won a library tote bag, coffee mug and free DVD coupons.  Susanna won a gift certificate to the Westfield restaurant, Clyne and Murphy.  There are still plenty of prizes to be awarded during the month of August.

Any type of library material - adult books, children's books, DVDs, Playaways, books on CD - counts as a chance to win.  It's easy to participate.  So come in and play!

Boo...scared you!

There's nothing like a good thriller for some exciting summer reading.  These page turners will keep you on the edge of your beach chair.   

Ladies first...These three female authors have just published books that won't disappoint.   Scottish writer, Morag Joss, has produced a psychological thriller as her seventh novel, Among the Missing, that involves mistaken identities.   As a result of a bridge collapse, the lives of three strangers become intertwined and they find that they all have secrets from the past.  M.J. McGrath's first novel, White Heat, is a tense thriller set in a barren Arctic landscape.  Edie Kiglatuk, a half Inuit female, makes a living as a guide for hunting expeditions on remote Ellesmere Island.  When the local council of elders tries to cover up a murder that took place during one of her tours, she becomes involved in solving the crime.  Never Knowing, by Chevy Stevens, relates the chilling tale of an adopted woman who identifies her birth parents.  Sara Gallagher is extremely dismayed when she learns that her real father was a convicted serial killer.

And now for the gentlemen...Each of these three male authors return with books that are their second in a series.  Retired NYPD detective, Dave Gurney, returns in, Shut Your Eyes Tight, by John Verdon, to solve the macabre murder of a bride on her wedding day.  Things get even uglier when the criminal targets Gurney's family.  In Very Bad Men, by Harry Dolan, David Loogan, who is the editor of a mystery magazine, is back.  After an anonymous manuscript arrives at his office that begins "I Killed Henry Kormoran", the bodies start to pile up.  Loogan helps his lover, Police Detective Elizabeth Waishkey, try to identify the author of the document who is the perpetrator of the homicides.  Maine game warden, Mark Bowditch, appears again in Trespasser, by Paul Doiron.  A woman is killed and the crime is similar to one committed a year earlier, but the murderer is in jail.  Bowditch follows his instincts in a hunt through the wilderness for the real culprit to make sure there isn't a serial killer on the loose.

The Department of Missing Persons...In The End of Everything, author Meg Abbot, explores the lives of two teenage girlfriends, Lizzie and Evie, who are inseparable, that is until Evie disappears.  During the search for her abducted friend, Lizzie uncovers secrets that jar her and make her wonder if she ever really knew Evie at all.  You Believers, by Jane Bradley, enters the nightmarish world of a mother who is searching for her missing daughter.  The characters involved in the horrific crime take turns narrating this tale set in the South.

Hope these books will thrill you to pieces!  Have you read any good suspense novels this summer?

Congratulations to

Judith Ohl who was the lucky winner in the Adult Summer Reading Club on Monday.  She won the usual goodies - a library tote bag, coffee mug and free DVD coupons.  This Monday we'll be awarding a gift certificate to a local restaurant as the prize.

Come in and check out a good "summer read" from the special book display on the first floor and enter to win the G.C.

Good luck!

Love and marriage

go together like a horse and carriage...sometimes.  Some of these stories, about men and women falling in and out of love, have a happy ending and others don't.  But they all make for a good summer read.  

Britannia rules in these historical fiction works that have the British Isles as their setting.  Margaret Leroy's latest novel, The Soldier's Wife, takes place on the Isle of Guernsey during the WWII German occupation.   Vivienne de la Mare is living with her two daughters and her mother-in-law while her husband is at war.  After she falls in love with one of the German soldiers, she must make a difficult decision that will affect everyone. If you enjoyed The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, you'll like this one too.  The American Heiress, by Daisy Goodwin, is the saga of Cora Cash (yes that's her name), a rich American who marries Ivo, the Duke of Wareham, a broke British aristocrat with a secret in his past.  The plot is familiar, but the book delivers with its rich detailing of the English social scene of the 1890's and the unraveling of her new husband's secret.  My Dear I Wanted to Tell You, by Louisa Young, relates the story of two couples and their intertwined lives during WWI.  Commanding officer, Peter Locke, and Riley Purefoy, who served under him, bring the horrors of war home and involve their loved ones in the despair that haunts them.

Let's fast forward to some love stories that are set in the present day.  Best Staged Plans, by Claire Cook, is a light, humorous book about a woman who stages houses for a living.  She has trouble staging her own life though as an empty-nester facing some mid-life craziness.  Veteran author, Mary Gordon, presents a thoughtful work about first love in The Love of My Youth.  Miranda and Adam, reunited in Rome after 30 years, explore each other's lives and revisit the affair they had during high school and college. Tom McNeal also tackles first love in the heart breaker, To Be Sung Underwater.  Judith Whitman, caught in an unhappy marriage begins to wonder if she made a mistake by not staying with her first, Willy Blunt, who still lives in her small home town.

These books are not yet published but should be worth waiting for.  A Small Hotel, by Robert Olen Butler, is set in New Orleans, where the soon to be divorced Michael and Kelly Hayes fell in love.  Kelly returns to room 303 in the hotel and begins to examine her life and where her future lies.  A debut novel, Before Ever After, by Samantha Sotto, takes us on a wild journey in search of a supposedly dead husband who appears 3 years later half way around the world.

Read any good love stories lately?

We have another winner!

Congratulations to Madeleine L.  She won a library tote bag, coffee mug and coupons for free DVD rentals yesterday for participating in the Adult Summer Reading Club.  Good stuff!  Future prize drawings will include gift certificates to local restaurants. Anyone with a Westfield Memorial Library full-service card can participate. 

The air conditioning is on full blast in the library.  Come in - cool down - check out some materials - fill out a prize entry form.

You can't win if you don't play!

Whodunit?

I love a good mystery novel with a detective solving the crime.  I usually turn to them during the winter when I can curl up in front of the fireplace while I read.  But I have been known to enjoy one during the heat of the summer in an Adirondack chair in my backyard.

There are several good "whodunits" that have been published recently.  Det. Supt. Diamond, of the Bath Police, reappears in Peter Lovesey's latest work, Stagestruck, and this time the murder takes place in the Theater Royal on opening night.  In, Death at the Chateau Bremont, Mary Lou Longworth introduces the detective duo of Antoine Verlaque, a local magistrate and Marie Bonnet, his ex-lover.  Longworth's debut novel, set in Aix-en-Provence, is steeped in the rich, local flavors of Provencal France.  Another new face on the detective scene, Sarah Quinn, appears in Maureen Carter's latest novel, A Question of Despair. DI Quinn is called upon to solve a mystery involving the kidnapping of a child in Birmingham, England.  On the Swedish front, Inspector Van Veeteren investigates the murder of a young girl at a holiday camp in, The Inspector and Silence, by Hakan Nesser.  Conor Fitzgerald's detective, Alec Blume, is an American ex-pat living in Rome, who speaks Italian fluently and knows the "Eternal City" like the back of his hand.  Fatal Touch, the second in a series, has just been released and deals with an art forgery.

Speaking of reading in my backyard...Last summer I discovered Kate Atkinson and read all of her novels featuring, the semi-retired PI, Jackson Brodie. They aren't officially a series, but Brodie's story is woven in and out of the books so you might want to start with Case Histories and read them in order.  I've placed a  hold on her latest, Started Early, Took my Dog, and can't wait to read it!

Who's your favorite "tec" right now?

Adult Summer Reading Club update -

We have a winner - congratulations to Christina F.!!! She won a library tote bag yesterday as a prize in the new Adult Summer Reading Club. There's a lot more prizes too. We're giving away coffee mugs, DVD coupons and more tote bags. Weekly prize drawings take place each Monday morning. At the end of the month we'll be giving away a gift certificate to a local restaurant. It's easy to participate - no registration necessary - just fill out a coupon when you check out materials at the circulation desk.

Why not come in and grab a "good read" from the summer book display on the first floor. You can use that checkout to enter to win a prize.

It's all good!

I confess...

to not reading a lot of non-fiction. When I do read outside my "fiction comfort zone", I usually chose a memoir, an autobiography or a biography because I enjoy reading about other people's lives. For those of you that have the same interest, there are some good books in this genre for summer reading.

For you foodies, there are two titles that come to mind. A Season to Taste, by Molly Birnbaum, is the story of a chef who lost her sense of smell due to an accident and how she copes with the disability. A collective memoir, Man with a Pan, edited by John Donohue, features essays by 21 famous chefs on their adventures in the kitchen cooking for their families.

If you're not traveling to "the Continent" this summer, we have some books that will take you there. In, The Sinner's Grand Tour, author Tony Perrottet takes us on a rather bizarre, x-rated trip through Europe. Set in London and France, The House in France, by Gully Wells, explores the lives of the rich and famous during the 1960's. For true crime fans, there's Violette Noziere, a Story of Murder in 1930s Paris, by Sarah Maza, an historical work that chronicles an attempted "double parricide".

These three books should satisfy the history buffs. Brothers, Rivals, Victors, by Jonathan Jordan, describes the relationship between the most important American generals, Eisenhower, Patton and Bradley, during World War II. The surprisingly complicated life of Noah Webster is narrated in The Forgotten Founding Father, by Joshua Kendall. Michael Wallis exposes the reader to the true tale of the "king of the wild frontier" in the engaging biography, David Crockett, Lion of the West. 

Back to my confession...my last two non-fiction reads were the bestsellers, Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot. If you haven't gotten to them yet, I recommend them highly!

Please recommend some of your favorite memoirs, autobiographies or biographies by commenting -

Let's talk about summer reading -

Summer reading means many things to many people.  For some it's a light "beach read" while others like to tackle fiction that's a little more literary.  Many readers can't go on vacation without a good mystery or thriller.  But for other people, non-fiction is their preference.  Here are some titles from all of these categories...

For some light reading, you'll want to check out Beach Trees by Karen White, Heat Wave by Nancy Thayer and My Jane Austen Summer by Cindy S. Jones.  Notice a pattern here - beach - heat - summer...

If you're looking for something a little deeper you might try Joseph O'Connor's Ghost Light, The Year We Left Home by Jean Thompson or The Storm at the Door by Stefan Block.

The Upright Piano Player by David Abbott,  Break the Skin by Lee Martin and Tunnel Vision by Gary Braver are thrillers that will keep you on the edge of your beach blanket.

For those of who like the real thing, we recommend these nonfiction titles: Railroaded by Richard White, Floor of Heaven by Howard Blum, The Killer of Little Shepherds by Douglas Starr, For the Love of Physics by Walter Lewin and Carl Hoffman's The Lunatic Express.

In future posts we'll explore each of these genres in more depth and also other topics of interest to the avid readers in this community.

And don't forget there's a display in the library of "good summer reads" that has books from all of these categories.  Something for everyone!

Happy Holiday Weekend Reading!

Welcome!

The Westfield Memorial Library is proud to debut a new blog for adult readers. Our hope is that you'll use this as a source to find good books at WML and that you'll join the conversation and suggest books that you've enjoyed. 

Stay tuned for some good suggestions for summer reading.

Speaking of summer reading, we are also proud to announce that this year there's a reading club for adults. Seriously, why should the kids have all the fun!  Here's how it works. On July 5th you may start submitting entry forms. One entry form is allowed per checkout each day. Prizes will include gift certificates to Clyne & Murphy, Aquaviva Della Fonti and Limani Seafood Grill.  The club will conclude at the end of August. 

In conjunction with the adult reading club, there is a display on the first floor of the library that features "good summer reads". All of the books on the display have received good reviews and have been selected as titles that you'll enjoy while on vacation or in the hammock in your back yard.  

So come in - get some books - join the fun - Westfield Reads!