Laugh Out Loud

Our newest display, thanks to our Head of Circulation and Display Maven Extraordinaire, Ann-Marie, features funny books. If you are looking for something entertaining to read and to tickle your funny-bone, stop by the bookshelf near the Reference Desk and pick up a book by Bill Bryson, Erman Bombeck, George Carling, Mindy Kaling, Aziz Ansari, or other humorists.

Laugh Out Loud Book Display

The book 'Texts from Jane Eyre' looks interesting. The subtitle is 'and Other Conversations with Your Favorite Literary Characters.' For example Edgar Allan Poe explaining to a friend by text why he can't leave the house because of some bird. Hamlet sending depressed texts to a friend. Jo and Meg from 'Little Women' have issues. From early literature to Harry Potter's Ron and Hermione texting each other, this book will make you wonder what people in history might have texted if they'd had a smart phone. J/K (just kidding.) IMHO funny books are the best things for tough times.

More Funny Books on Display

Staff Picks or What to Read Next

The library staff has an ongoing display of our favorite books for readers to choose from, because finding the next good book to read is always a challenge and a familiar question at the library. In fact, when librarians go anywhere and admit to being a librarian, that is among the first questions we get.
"Can you recommend a good book?"
To which we answer, "it depends, what do you like to read?"
The other common question is, "I thought libraries and librarians were unnecessary now that everything is on the internet."
The answer to that is, "Why, no, we're still here."

My favorites from the shelves above are 'The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid' by Bill Bryson, the author's really funny memoir of growing up in Des Moines, Iowa. We recommend this title often and almost everyone reports back that they loved it. 'The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry' by Gabrielle Zevin is a short, sweet love story about a bookstore owner. Each chapter begins with a quote from a short story which will lead you to more good authors to read.  Spencer Quinn's series about Chet the Dog are excellent for dog lovers and mystery lover and are very funny, as told by the dog Chet. Follow Chet on Facebook for more canine hijinks and fun.

In this shot above, my pick is 'Merry Hall' by Beverley Nichols, a 1950's memoir by an avid English gardener who buys an old manor house and revives its garden with the help of his skilled, but opinionated gardener. Lovers of P.G. Wodehouse will like the whole series.

'Packing for Mars' by Mary Roach is the very funny and determined science writer's research into what it will take to put a person on Mars. Ms. Roach tries the zero-gravity experience at NASA with predictably nauseating results and stores her own urine in the frig to her husband's disgust. She discusses the realities of what a body must endure for such a long space voyage. 'Pompeii' by Robert Harris is a terrific book of historical fiction about the destruction of Pompeii by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D. You will notice another Bill Bryson book: 'A Walk in the Woods.' This is laugh-out-loud funny and the audio version is terrific. Be prepared to be caught laughing while you commute and listen to it. Speaking of humor, but of a slightly more farcical, hyperbolic (I'm trying not to say raunchier) type, Carl Hiaasen is a friend of Dave Barry, enough said if you like the really crazy humor coming from Florida's journalists-turned-novel-writers, which I do. And you will notice another book about a bookstore owner, 'Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore' for fans of 'A.J. Fikry' (see above) but with a slightly techy/fantasy/futuristic plot twist.
Happy Reading.

What I Read in 2016

Best Book  of My Reading Year:
The Risk Pool by Richard Russo.
 I started reading Everybody's Fool, Richard Russo's much anticipated 2016 sequel to Nobody's Fool, but I had to return the book before I finished because it became due and there was a long waiting list. I will get back to that book when I can - Russo books require a fair commitment of time. Meanwhile, I owned a copy of The Risk Pool (1994) that features a shiftless, but charming, character who reminded me of the Sully in Nobody's Fool, one of my favorite books and favorite characters. Reading the Risk Pool over Thanksgiving week was a total immersion experience. It is a slow read, highly recommended for Russo fans, and readers who enjoy a deep dive into character and place, told with a sly, dark wit.

Short Novels, almost Novellas
Dinner with Edward: A Story of an Unexpected Friendship by Isabel Vincent (Reviewed in this blog)

My Name Is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout

My Mrs. Brown by William Norwich (Reviewed in this blog)

Precious and Grace by Alexander McCall Smith

Mysteries:
Cozies:
Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd, a Flavia de Luce Novel by Alan Bradley
Smile and Be a Villain, a Dorothy Martin mystery by Jeanne M. Dams
No Corners for the Devil, a Cornish mystery by Olive Etchells
Dearly Departed, an Amy's Travel mystery by Hy Conrad
The Perfect Murder, the 1st Inspector Ghote mystery by H.R.F. Keating
The Darling Dahlias and the 11 O'Clock Ladies by Susan Wittig Albert
Threats at Three by Ann Purser
Dead Bolt (Haunted Home Renovation Mystery, #2) by Juliet Blackwell

Sidney Chambers and The Dangers of Temptation (The Grantchester Mysteries #5) by James Runcie

Blood Orange (China Bayles, #24) by Susan Wittig Albert
Unnatural Death (Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries, #3) by Dorothy L. Sayers

Hard-boiled:    
An Obvious Fact (Walt Longmire #12) by Craig Johnson (This is Cowboy genre, not Cozy)
The Highwayman (Walt Longmire, #11.5) by Craig Johnson

Night Passage (Jesse Stone, #1) by Robert B. Parker


 By M.C. Beaton, one of my favorite mystery  authors:
Agatha Raisin Pushing up Daisies (Agatha Raisin, #27)
Death of a Valentine (Hamish Macbeth, #25)
Death of a Nurse (Hamish Macbeth, #31)

By Elly Griffiths:
The Zig Zag Girl (Stephens & Mephisto Mystery, #1) and the second in this new, renamed 'Magic Men' series,  Smoke and Mirrors
The Woman in Blue (Ruth Galloway, #8)

By Agatha Christie:
Black Coffee (Hercule Poirot, #7) by Agatha Christie
Closed Casket, a new Hercule Poirot mystery by Sophie Hannah and Agatha Christie


Spies 
A Murder of Quality (George Smiley #2) by John le Carré
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré
I started John le Carré’s memoir, The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories from My Life, but did not have time to finish before the holds list demanded I return the book.
The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum (unfinished, this was a long slog and I finally decide to go with the movie versions)
Journey to Munich, a Daisie Dobbs mystery by Jacqueline Winspear
Princess Elizabeth's Spy, a Maggie Hope novel by Susan MacNeal
 
Humor   
By Bill Bryson: (author reviewed on this blog)
The Road to Little Dribbling: Adventures of an American in Britain by Bill Bryson
Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe by Bill Bryson
Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson

The Rosie Project (Don Tillman, #1) by Graeme Simsion
The Diamond Caper by Peter Mayle
The Revolving Door of Life, a 44 Scotland Street novel by Alexander McCall Smith

Read for the Tuesday Library Book Group  
The View from the Castle by Alice Munro
Necessary Lies by Diane Chamberlain
Brooklyn by Colm Toibin
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Tea with the Fireflies by Shona Patel
    
Thanks to Jane Austen
North By Northanger: Or The Shades of Pemberley (Mr. & Mrs. Darcy Mysteries, #3) by Carrie Bebris
Eligible: A Modern Retelling of Pride and Prejudice (The Austen Project, #4) by Curtis Sittenfeld
  
Medicine and Health (see blog post about reading while sick)

No Laughing Matter by Joseph Heller

Left Neglected by Lisa Genova
A Lucky Life Interrupted: A Memoir of Hope by Tom Brokaw
Being Mortal by Atul Gawande
   
Fiction, not otherwise classified in this list
Modern Lovers by Emma Straub
Election by Tom Perrotta 


Children's Books
Beyond the Pawpaw Trees: The Story of Anna Lavinia by Palmer Brown
The Silver Nutmeg: The Story of Anna Lavinia and Toby by Palmer Brown
     
The Secret Garden & A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
   
I am gradually rereading the Harry Potter series:
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (#1 in the series) by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (#2 in the series) by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (#3 in the series) by J.K. Rowling

Christmas Books
Mistletoe Murders: and other stories by P.D. James
A New York Christmas by Anne Perry

Related posts from this blog:
What I Read in 2014
My Year of Reading 2013
My Year of Reading 2013, continued
The Year in Books 2012
The Blog Christmas Posts recapped


   

   

   

   

What to Read While Sick

This winter, yours truly disappeared from the Reference Desk for several months after contracting a rare condition called Guillain Barre Syndrome. On the day that I headed to the emergency department of the local hospital, I threw the book I was reading into my purse:The Road to Little Dribbling, adventures of an American in Britain by Bill Bryson. Mr. Bryson is one of my favorite authors, a very funny travel writer and humorist, so I was not going anywhere without his book. But it turned out to be too big and too heavy to pick up and hold as my hands were growing weaker quickly. As strength gradually returned to my hands, I finally did finish the book. It was great. It took my tired mind a month to get through it, but finish it, I did. Then I re-read Mr. Bryson's travel books in reverse chronological order after I got home by raiding my daughter's bookcases. I was looking forward to the bit about how hard it is to understand Glasgow cabdrivers and it did not disappoint. My daughter and I used to read aloud this bit and other Bryson gems to each other, but could never get through them without breaking up. He is that kind of funny. I guess the greater lesson might be: don't take heavy books to the ED, you might be too sick to read/hold them. On the other hand, humor is the best medicine. So take the book anyway.

What else did I read while sick? Well, first of all, when a librarian gets sick, the library staff naturally starts thinking about what that sick librarian might like to read and dispatches a staff member to the  hospital with a book bag full of books. Using their best readers' advisory skills, my colleagues felt that light, humorous books would seem to be the order of the day. The books had to be lightweight in both senses of the word - easy to hold and  easy to read. So all this got me to thinking about how do we accommodate our reading habits to an illness? I started in the usual way by browsing through magazines that were mostly pictures and celebrity gossip that my daughter bought in the hospital gift shop. Then I graduated to my favorite mystery author M.C. Beaton whose books my coworker had brought in the BHPL bookbag. Perfect: escaping to the Highlands of Scotland to solve murders was just the ticket. I reread Death of a Nurse and Death of a Valentine

After returning home, I reread some of my favorite children's books:

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett was even better than I remembered and was about the curative powers of hanging out in nature, breathing in fresh air and, of course, gardening. How apropos! I could not garden without falling over, but I could read about it.
Beyond the Paw Paw Trees and The Silver Nutmeg  by Palmer Brown were so enchanting and inventive and slyly humorous - good for early elementary age or a sick person wanting to escape.
The first two Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets were better the second time around.

Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder was not one of her best, but I think the idea of rereading the Little House series was good. I still like The Long Winter and Little House in the Big Woods best.

I also read from a pile of 'emergency' books that I buy from the library sale racks, mostly mysteries. Owning books has the advantage of no due dates to worry about. Admit it- you have a pile of emergency books, right? I read the second and third Smiley books by John Le Carre: A Murder of Quality and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (and then watched the movie which I borrowed from the library.) Those were the first Smiley books I ever read and obviously I now have to track down the first one, Call for the Dead, and read that because these old spy thrillers were great.

As noted in the post from earlier this month, hoping to get some perspective on my situation, I read two books about how people cope with severe illnesses: Left Neglected and A Lucky Life Interrupted. On my 'To Read' list is The Anatomy of Hope: how people prevail in the face of illness by Jerome Groopman which Tom Brokaw, author of A Lucky Life Interrupted recommended.

I did not read or listen to books on my iPad, but for some patients, listening to audiobooks is a good
option, especially if there are vision issues or trouble holding books or possibly while undergoing infusions which can take quite a while. Another option is to use Hoopla on a tablet. The library offers movies, music, audio- and e-books and TV shows through Hoopla. Patrons can put the app on their tablet and watch/listen/read up to 8 titles per month for free. Flipster and Zinio offer free browseable magazines to library card holders which look beautiful using the app on a tablet. Take a look at our All Things E page for these and other downloadables.

What to read while sick? Whatever you want is the answer. This was one time in my life when I did not feel I really should read some difficult, 'improving' tome. Thanks to all the authors who helped me get through this and thanks to the BHPL staff for those book bags full of light mysteries and quirky novels. Thanks to so many patrons, family and friends for visiting, texting, emailing, calling, sending cards and flowers. I am back at the Reference Desk, see my cartoon below, awaiting your questions.

Further Reading:
Joseph Heller, author of Catch 22, may be the most famous author to get Guillain Barre Syndrome and he wrote a book about the experience, No Laughing Matter. I just started it and it is fantastically written. I may put Catch 22 on my reread list now.

Guillain Barre Syndrome Fact Sheet from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke

The library's All Things E page has links to our downloadable resources for Berkeley Heights Public Library card holders.

Before falling ill, my only knowledge of certain medical specialties was from reading funny medical blogs:
My favorite neurologist, besides my own, writes the very funny Dr. Grumpy is in the House
My favorite physiatrist, doctors who treat patients needing physical therapy is the blogger Dr. Fizzy who writes The Cartoon Guide to Becoming a Doctor
No, really, what is a physiatrist? Read this AAPM&R 

Sure Bets for Readers

What to Read: Sure Bets (originally posted March 27, 2013) 

or how does the librarian know what her patrons want to read next?

'Sure bets' according to librarian Joyce Saricks in her 'At Leisure' column in the December 1, 2012 Booklist are,
'titles and sometimes authors that appeal to a wide range of readers, that fly off displays, and that we turn to when our minds go blank and we can't think of anything to suggest to a waiting reader. These aren't current best-sellers but, rather, older titles we treasure.'

However you define it, every reference librarian likes to have certain books to recommend for each type of reader that will be available on the shelf. That's why bestsellers don't fit into this category very well. If a patron NEEDS a book to read RIGHT NOW, recommending a book with a weeks-long waiting list is probably not a helpful suggestion.

Of the books and authors Ms. Saricks recommends, I agree that for fun non-fiction, Mary Roach and Bill Bryson might work for readers who like science (Roach's 'Packing for Mars' is very funny and informative) and who like just plain laugh-out-loud writing (Bryson's 'A Walk in the Woods' has been very well-received by many patrons I have recommended it to.)

Here are some 'sure bets' I have recommended and heard back from readers who enjoyed them:

For readers who want an action/adventure type of mystery, Stuard Woods' Florida-based mysteries deliver a good page-turning experience with a tough-guy edge and a little sex but not too much gore.

For readers who like dark mysteries, try Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch police procedurals set in Los Angeles. Readers who liked the TV series 'The Wire' would be a good fit for this author.

For readers who want cozy, reassuring, character-based novels, our Library Director has had success recommending Mary Ann Shaffer's 'The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel pie Society'. Unfortunately the author died before the book was published so this is a stand-alone title. But if readers like this historical cozy, they might enjoy Adriana Trigiani's 'Big Stone Gap' series based in West Virginia.

Trigiani falls almost in the 'chic lit' category but without the shopping aspect. For more good writing in the chic lit genre, try anything by Jennifer Weiner.

Some readers are WWII fans, for them recommend 'Unbroken, a World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption' by Lauren Hillenbrand.

My favorite genre is cozy mystery, so if I find a fellow cozy fan who has not yet discovered Alexander McCall Smith's 'Number One Ladies Detective Agency' series, I can feel confident that reader is going to have a lot of good reading ahead of her.

Putting the right book in the right hands at the right time that suits the reader's mood just that that moment is a great feeling. What are some of your sure bets?

How do you call your children home for dinner?

Because I'm leaving for a few days to see my grown children who live out-of-state, I thought I would post a few old blog posts. My children and I talk and text by cell phone, we use 'Facetime' (video by cell phone or computer), we share online calendars, and follow each other on 'Facebook' and 'Twitter', but I just can't remember how I got them to come home for dinner when they were young. Probably a prearranged time and/or the old land-line telephone. But here's how it was when my friends and I were growing up in the Philadelphia suburbs.

Excerpt from an old post about Bill Bryson's books  
http://bhplnjbookgroup.blogspot.com/2007/02/more-on-bill-bryson.html

"My online book group just finished reading and discussing Bryson's latest book, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, a memoir. Everyone in this group is part of the baby boomer generation, born in the early fifties. His recollections of growing up in the fifties in DesMoines, Iowa rang a bell for all of us. Literally, we had quite a discussion of what kind of bells and whistles our parents used to get us home by dinner after a day of unsupervised outdoor play in the neighborhood.
Here are some of our memories:
" kids [were more] independent and less scheduled. My father had an old US Army gong, probably WWI vintage, God knows where he got it, that he used to clang to get us all home for dinner. It was kind of embarrassing."
"My father (ex-marine) had a bosun's pipe, a form of whistle, that was very distinctive and also very embarassing! By age 10 or 11 my friends and I had a "roaming radius" of about a mile and a half in any direction from our houses, by foot or by bike."
"My mother had a two-tone whistle she did – and she could do it today and we would all come running. Our next door neighbor had a simple whistle which she blew in different codes depending on which kid she wanted. We all knew each others parent calls – and we all knew who needed to go home. "
" in Gladwyne our lunch and dinner call was the firehouse siren at noon and 6 pm. In Ardmore, we had to be home by the time the church bells finished ringing at 6 pm."
"We had an honest to god boater's FOG HORN to bring us home! It looked like a New Year's horn only was made of metal that my mother painted blue and made a much louder noise! One toot - time to come home. Two toots - hurry Three toots all at once - emergency, get home at once. I think my brother has the fog horn but I can't imagine any kid being far enough away to need one now."
That's the problem, no one would need any of these bells, whistles, horns or church bells these days. Kids are scheduled, tracked and on the electronic leash known as a cell
phone."

Confession: that was my father who had the Army gong and the bosun's whistle family lived nearby, but we knew the difference and it was only years later that I met the bosun's whistle person and realized we had lived near each other. We must have all been like well-trained dogs, just a-waitin' that sound to call us home. And of course, at the end of dinner, our ears were perked for the sound of the ice-cream truck bell. And school was controlled by bells that told us when to go from class to class. I think some schools have dispensed with the bell system. Why am I feeling like Andy Rooney now? Are my eyebrows growing?