'Gone Girl' is back in demand at the library

In 2012 the library acquired many copies of Gillian Flynn's 2012 mega-bestseller 'Gone Girl' to keep up with demand. Topping the 'New York Times' bestseller list for months, in demand by bookgroups and readers of mysteries, we could barely keep up with the lengthy reserve lists for the book. Then demand quieted down for a year or so - until this week. The movie starring Ben Affleck will open tomorrow, the reviews are pretty good and the advertising and p.r. for the film are ubiquitous, so we brought the books up out of storage and put them on display. (Thanks to library staffer A-M S. for that idea:-) Library  patrons instantly checked out every single copy we own and the book is probably checked out at most public libraries and trending on book sales this week.
Our library book group read and discussed 'Gone Girl' a year ago in September and our imaginary blog correspondents, Marian the Librarian and Fleur the Frog wrote 'Gone Girl, the definitive review' in alternating parts to mimic the conflicting points of view of married couple Amy and Nick Dunne that Ms. Flynn uses in her book. In the review, Marian the Librarian presents a dark, obsessive point of view teetering into madness. Fleur the Frog presents a cheerful facade masking a dark side. Both Fleur and Marian frankly seem a bit unhinged, possibly from reading this book and possibly from identifying with the characters in the book a bit too much. To say that this book takes the idea of the unreliable narrator to extremes is an understatement. The twist at the end is worthy of Alfred Hitchcock and Patricia Highsmith. The creepiness of the characters turns off a lot of readers, but the page-turning suspense will probably make you want to finish the book anyway.
Did the book group like 'Gone Girl?' Well, yes and no. The verdict: it is readable, entertaining, clever, and original, but the main characters are so loathsome that most book group readers found it all a bit unsettling. Still, I would recommend this book to most readers of fiction and mysteries. Just wait a few weeks until the movie is gone, and then the copies will all be back on the library shelves.
The 'Gone Girl' review from last year follows: thanks again to 'special' correspondents Marian and Fleur. We hope they are reading happier books and are recovering from their 'Gone Girl' experience.

Gone Girl: the definitive review

MARIAN THE LIBRARIAN
THE DAY OF THE BOOK GROUP MEETING

When I think of my book group, I always think about how many people will come to the meeting, how many will have read the book, did they like the book, should I have questions ready to ask about the book? The book group starts in 45 minutes. Where to start? I finally read the mega-bestselling thriller/mystery Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (2012) and I did not go into the reading with an open mind. People either love this book or hate it. The opinions I heard from patrons at the library and from friends and family and the reviews I read had already made me dread reading it. I don't like to read bestsellers; they sell themselves; I like to read literary orphans. I don't like dark books with twisted characters; I like sunny distractions, the book equivalent of a situation comedy on television.

FLEUR THE FROG
AUGUST 26, 2013

JOURNAL ENTRY

Tra and la! I am a happy frog blogger reading the nifty bestseller for the library book group. I am so happy I finally got my book from the holds list so I can see what all the excitement is about this huge bestseller. I put the book in my perfect little froggy book bag and went home to make a cup of green tea and sat down with great anticipation to read Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. Even though she's not a frog, I hear she's a really good writer. My parents are the famous authors of the 'Fantastic Fleur the Frog' series about the perfect little frog who always does the right thing. They based the books on me because I'm perfect and always cheerful and also I like to make up puzzles just like Fantastic Fleur does.
1. Do I pretend to like this book even if I don't?
2. Do I just read reviews and get back to my fun books that I want to read.
3. Do I read the book, take notes, write a review and ask questions from a list at the book group meeting?
Answer: I think you know that Fantastic Fleur will do #3, don't you? Don't you? You don't? Oh, I might have to punish you, dear reader.

MARIAN THE LIBRARIAN
THE EVENING OF THE BOOK GROUP DISCUSSION OF GONE GIRL

The clock on my computer says 6:56 PM so I have to finish my review before the group meets. I have read the book. I'm not sure I liked the book. The book was compulsively readable, but nasty. Oh, I feel so dirty. It drew me in, and I ate it up, but I hated the characters and the plot was so contrived and unbelievable at the end, but I kept reading anyway. I felt like putting it down and reading something fun like Alexander McCall Smith, something light and sunny and uncomplicated, not dark and twisted like Amy and Nick Dunne's story. But that would be cheating. On the book, turning my back on the book group. So I read it. I couldn't help myself. I loved this book, but I hate it too, I just don't know how to tell the truth about this book.

FLEUR THE FROG
AUGUST 29, 2013
JOURNAL ENTRY

I'm so fantastic. I finished the book in less than three days! Here's a quiz I made up about the book:
1. Do you hate Amy or Nick more?
2. Did you guess what the plot twist was?
3. Did you want to kill Amy more than Nick does?
4. Did you want to make as much money as that lawyer of Nicks?
Answer: all of the above!!! Duh.

MARIAN THE LIBRARIAN
ONE MONTH GONE SINCE I CHECKED OUT THIS BOOK

You can "Google" the title and find reviews and, as the vernacular saying goes, unless you've been living under a rock,  you know that this book is the story of a marriage, a failed marriage, between two really twisted people. On their fifth wedding anniversary Amy, the wife, disappears and soon after, Nick the husband is suspected of her murder. The book is told from the point of view of Nick alternating with Amy's journal entries chronicling the story of their marriage up until the day of her disappearance. The second part of the book, and here's the spoiler, is told from Amy in the present tense and continues with Nick's narration too.
Quiz:
1.Did you see the spoiler there?
2. Did you see it coming? I did.
3.Do you feel cheated, manipulated as a reader or
4. Do you just not care anymore.
Oh, wait, I'm Marian, not Fleur. Fleur's the character who makes up quizzes.  I think our characters are merging. Help I hate that frog, I love that frog, I am a frog.

Posted by Fleur: Fleur's other contributions to the blog
Posted by Marian the Librarian: Ms. Librarian's previous posts

Growing old: The Best Exotic Quartet, er Marigold Hotel-like Movies and TV Shows

I've been borrowing lots of DVD's from the library for the last few weeks, probably because the TV shows I watch are between seasons so there's not too much to watch if you like scripted comedy/dramas like me. I noticed a trend lately in my borrowing habits. The trend could be called:

If you liked 'The Best, Exotic Marigold Hotel' (2012), try these DVD's:

'Quartet' (2013), like 'Best Exotic MH', features lots of famous, older British actors. In 'Quartet' they play retired showbiz types and opera singers who are now in a home for retired musicians and the setting is a country house-turned-nursing-home set in the English countryside. The hotel in 'Best Exotic etc' was a dilapidated hotel in India run by an idealistic, but somewhat impractical, young Indian man played by Dev Patel, the star of 'Slumdog Millionaire.' You might also like 'Slumdog' if you haven't already caught that Academy Award-winning 2008 hit, although it has nothing to do with the aging British actor in bittersweet film theme that I'm enumerating here. In any case, 'Quartet" and 'Marigold' are often mentioned in the same breath because they are so similar in theme and casting as well as being released within a year of each other. The other title often confused with 'Quartet' is 'A Late Quartet' (2013) also about aging musicians. Patrons often come to the Reference Desk and ask for the 'Quartet' movie or the 'Marigold' movie so we know the three movies get confused very easily.
Continuing the theme, 'Waiting for God' is an early 1990's UK series about two feisty old people in a retirement home who question the authority of the youngish bean-counters who run the home for profit. Each episode is less than an hour and I'm enjoying the first season now.
'New Tricks' is a current BBC TV series about an unsolved crimes unit made up of old, retired police detectives who are curmudgeonly and eccentric, but always get their man.

By searching our catalog for the subject heading 'Retirees -- Drama', I see in the catalog that we have a British TV series called 'One Foot in the Grave' and a movie 'Is Anyone There?' both involving retirement or retirement homes. I have not yet taken either of those out, but I am really sensing this is a big trend in movies at least in the U.K.

Related subject headings to use in our catalog are...

Older people.

Eccentrics and eccentricities.

Retirement communities.

Television comedies -- Great Britain.

Video recordings for the hearing impaired.

DVDs.

England.

Retirees -- Drama.
Musicians -- Drama.

My Family and Other Animals

In My Family and Other Animals, naturalist Gerald Durrell writes about his family's years between the wars on the island of Corfu. At the impulsive suggestion of her son Lawrence, 23, his mother moved her eccentric family from rainy England to a sunnier climate where Gerry, the youngest at ten, ran wild with his dog Roger, collecting bugs and animals of all sorts and bringing them back to the rented villa to create havoc, upsetting Larry in particular, the future author who comes off as rather priggish and arrogant. Sister Margo concerned only with fashion and boyfriends; brother Leslie who likes to shoot game; Spiro, a helpful Greek-American; assorted tutors for Gerry, and various islanders populate the book, all odd and quirky individuals. The book concludes with a party at their villa which is disrupted when Gerry's collection of curious and destructive magpies, a belligerant Albanian seagull, the mother's female dog in heat pursued by a pack of neighborhood dogs, and assorted other critters escape and scare the guests. Mrs. Durrell does her best to pretend nothing is amiss while the family scurries around trying to round up the animals and finally the guests have another drink or three and the party goes on successfully until late at night. All par for the course in the Durrell family.
My Family and Other Animals is a funny memoir that makes the reader want to escape in time and space to Corfu of the 1930's, live with a family like the Durrells, swim in the phosphorscent sea at night, wander thhrough the olive groves with a dog, like the young Gerry. Tourists trying to recreate that experience will find Corfu still picturesque but much built up since those times, so I plan to watch BHPL's copy of the PBS version of the book and put Gerald Durrell's other Corfu books as well as his brother Lawrence's book Bitter Lemons, which is about his stay on Cyprus, on my list of books to read.

Related websites:

Bellapais Journal

The Corfu Trilogy

Corfu Travel


Vintage Travel Posters Greece (image right)

Books for Book Clubs

This month's reading room book display, Books for Book Clubs, combines fiction and non-fiction titles which have been popular with book discussion groups and were recommended in the following titles:

More Book Lust, 1,000 reading recommendations for every mood, moment, and reason by uber-reader's advisor/librarian, Nancy Pearl.

Between the Covers, the book babes' guide to a woman's reading pleasures by Margo Hammond and Ellen Heltzel.

A Year of Reading, a month-by-month guide to classics and crowd-pleasers for you or your book group by Elisabeth Ellington and Jane Freimiller

Read It and Eat, a Month-by-month guide to scintillating book club selections and mouthwatering menus by Sarah Gardner. Book discussions can make you hungry.

Books currently on display are:

I am Charlotte Simmons, a rollicking tale of undergraduate life (at UNC?) by Tom Wolfe, original master of the snarky turn-of-phrase.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, a memoir by Dave Eggers.

Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser, you won't eat fast food for a while after reading this; factory-farmed, feces-laden beef patty your way? Om-nom nom...

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro, an English butler's view of a wartime household. Emotions stifled? check. Nazi sympathizer? check. Good movie? check. Even better book? yes!

The Abstinence Teacher by Summit, New Jersey's own Tom Perrotta treats hot-button issue.

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, wife of time-traveling librarian has unique marital issues...husband randomly disappears and reappears - naked. Better than movie.

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks, rare book dealer traces the history of the Sarajevo Haggadeh.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen, a sure bet for book groups, travel with Depression-era circus veterinarian on animal- and clown-laden train.

My Sister's Keeper, Jodi Picoult's thought-provoking, ripped-from-the-headlines story of a sister conceived to save her ailing sibling. Her formula works for most groups.

One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus, what if the U.S. had traded institutionalized white women for horses in a swap with Native Americans?

Related websites:
Reading Group Guides
Random House Reading Group Center
Penguin Book Clubs
Amazon Book Clubs

Library Databases for literary criticism and reviews, available from website:

NextReads: sign up for book newsletters by genre
Contemporary Authors: the reference series online
Literary Reference Center: reference books online
Online Book Clubs: get book chapters by email
Next Good Book: browse booklists by subject

Two More Mystery Recommendations

Lately I seem to have hit a winning streak for choosing good mysteries to read. (See the post from last week for the first two in this lucky run.) I just finished New Tricks by David Rosenfelt and Donald Westlake's latest Dortmunder mystery Get Real - both fun, entertaining, quick reads for fans of those authors and fans-to-be. If you are not a fan or a fan-to-be, it's possible you are a humorless-mystery-avoider and there is no hope for you. You can stop reading this post now.
Mr. Rosenfelt who grew up in Paterson, N.J., brings back Paterson attorney and dog lover, Andy Carpenter whose client Waggy is a Bernese Mountain puppy, the center of a doggie custody dispute initially and a murder investigation later. Carpenter's patter with his team of eccentric investigators and hypochondriac legal partner is sharp and sarcastic and the courtroom scenes and prosecutor/defense attorney tactics, as explained by Carpenter, are presented clearly to the laymen and seem plausible. For example, Carpenter hopes for a "Perry Mason" moment to save his case, that is, one where the witness breaks down and confesses everything, but it doesn't happen in the real world, only on TV, he adds.
Recommended for readers who like legal mysteries, love dogs, New Jersey, fast Jersey dialogue, believable characters and satisfying plots. Addie gives it 4 bones out of five.

Mystery author Robert Crais in his L.A. Times review of Get Real, the 14th Dortmunder criminal caper cuts to the chase, so to speak:
'Here's the premise: Reality TV producer Doug Fairkeep of Get Real Productions wants to film Dortmunder and his crew planning and committing a major crime. Fairkeep doesn't care so much what this professional burglary crew does; he just wants them to commit a crime -- preferably a felony -- and he wants to broadcast it on national television as his latest reality show. (Working title: "The Gang's All Here." Canyoudigit?)'

The obvious problem, how not to end up in jail, is one that Dortmunder and his gang work around because the TV show money is too good to pass up. Read Mr. Crais' review for more on Get Real and the late, greatly funny Donald Westlake.
For fans of crime capers, humorous mysteries and the many movies made from Westlake's books, like the Hot Rock.

Two Mystery Recommendations

Two mysteries in a row from the towering pile on my bedside table have turned out to be fun, readable, entertaining and above all, finishable. Not all books in the T.P. are finishable; one just never knows when cracking open a book whether it will entertain, educate or bore you to tears. I recommend the following books for fans of light, humorous, "cozy" mysteries.
A Slice of Murder by Chris Cavender in which N.C. pizza parlor owner, Eleanor Swift delivers a pizza only to find the customer dead on the floor of his house. The police consider her a suspect and so she investigates to clear her name, but not before she uncovers a lot of dirty secrets in her little mountain town.

The Baker Street Letters by Michael Robertson in which a lawyer whose offices are at 221b Baker Street in London receives mail addressed to former fictional tenant, Sherlock Holmes, and by wording of his lease, must answer all correspondence. A twenty year old letter from an eight year old girl in L.A. leads the lawyer and his eccentric brother to the U.S. to solve the mystery of her father's disappearance.

Related websites: Read North Carolina Novels from the UNC Libraries
221B Baker Street
Lesa's Book Critiques

Hard-boiled Detective Novels

Last month, the Tuesday night book group read Agatha Christie, the premier author of "cozy" or English village mysteries. Across the Atlantic, the mystery took on a very different form: that of the hard-boiled detective story which first appeared in such pulp fiction magazines as the Black Mask whose contributors included Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. The tough-guy detective operates in an entirely urban environment, rather than in the cozy village settings of Miss Marple and M. Poirot. Hammett’s Sam Spade and Chandler’s Philip Marlowe and other such gumshoes do not ratiocinate successfully to solve the crimes, but rather they blunder through their books being bopped, “packing heat”, meeting shady dames, drinking too much hootch, with or without a Mickey Finn, and all that hooey. The plots are not as logical as in the British mysteries; the language is colorful, the action violent.
The Tuesday Night Book Group members will each read a book or story by Hammett or Chandler to discuss at the November 10th meeting at 7:30 pm in the Library Meeting Room.
Suggested titles: Hammett’s most famous book was the Maltese Falcon, his best, the Glass Key and his most successful – the Thin Man.
Chandler’s first four Philip Marlowe books were among his best (The Big Sleep, Farewell My Lovely, The High Window, The Lady in the Lake); his successes were The Big Sleep, The Lady in the Lake and the Long Goodbye.
For a list of the authors’ books in chronological and series order, go to www.fantasticfiction.co.uk
The Black Mask lives on at www.blackmaskmagazine.com with newly published stories by contemporary hard boiled authors like Ed Lynskey and also featuring some archived material.
Recommended contemporary hard-boiled authors are John D. MacDonald (1916 – 1986) who wrote the Travis McGee series and Robert B. Parker (1932 - ) who writes the Spenser series. Parker also wrote two sequels to the Philip Marlowe books called Poodle Springs and Perchance to Dream.

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

Winifred Watson's charming 1938 novel Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day was reprinted by Persephone Press and made into a movie fifty years after it first appeared. Miss Pettigrew is a poor, middle-aged governess who mistakenly is sent to a zany, socialite's apartment for a new job post. There, prim Miss Pettigrew becomes fast friends with Miss Delysia La Fosse, nightclub singer and bon vivant. Appearing first as a fine example of "what not to wear," Miss P. is transformed, Cinderella-like, by Miss La F. into a glamourous vision in black velvet, sparkling jewelry and, for the first time in her life, a generous application of powder, rouge and eyebrow pencil. After that, Miss Pettigrew experiences a joie de vivre she has never before felt and, not to spoil the suspense, it isn't long before romance is on the horizon for our lonely spinster.

If you like E.F. Benson's Mapp and Lucia (1931) series or E.M. Delafield's Diary of a Country Lady (1931), you might enjoy this light period piece.

D-Day 65th Anniversary

Tomorrow is the 65th Anniversary of the D-Day landing. On June 6, 1944, 150,000 Allied soldiers landed in Normandy, France, 9,000 had died by that night. 800 planes flew paratroopers over that day. 5000 boats carried troops. To read about this huge military operation, search the library catalog using keywords D-Day, Normandy Campaign, Operation Overlord,or browse the stacks in Dewey # 940.54. Read Stephen Ambrose's D-Day, June 6, 1944; Russell Miller's oral history, Nothing Less than Victory; or Cornelius Ryan's The Longest Day.

Related Websites with video clips, maps, photographs, chronologies, statistics:

PBS: D-Day, the American Experience

National World War II Memorial

Encyclopaedia Britannica's Guide to Normandy 1944

The D-Day Museum in Portsmouth, UK features photos of veterans and the history of the Overlord Embroidery

Top right: Photograph of General Eisenhower from the National Archives

Book Group Reacts to the Witches of Eastwick

Seven people came to discuss the Witches of Eastwick at today's library book group, not including the librarian. No one loved it. As is customary in reacting to John Updike's books, the sexual content was a major distraction for at least one reader. Many felt it was entirely satirical - poking fun at the feminist movement in particular. One reader suggested that the joke was: look what happens when women become "liberated and empowered," they become witches. We noted that all three witches became supernaturally empowered only after they were widowed, as the book said this was the prerequisite for becoming a witch or "getting in touch" with one's essential female witchiness. There was disagreement over whether the witches were entirely as bad as critics suggested. Some felt that Alexandra was the most fully-developed and sympathetic character and that the author seemed fond of his witches in spite of their jealous and destructive tendencies. Several who had read other works of Updike felt it was not his best work. Not a one of the readers were particularly interested in witchcraft or Wicca. Most agreed the style was quite elaborate but this didn't bother anyone as much as it bothered the librarian, who likes a more straightforward narrative and descriptive style.
Would the group recommend this title for other book groups? Maybe, maybe not. Some readers felt the book was dated and has not stood the test of time (it was published in 1984 and takes place in the late 1960's.) It would probably be a better choice to read the Rabbit series by Updike if no one in the group has read those yet.
Rating for bookgroup reading: two out of five bookmarks.

The Namesake: movie opens this weekend

The Namesake, the movie based on Jhumpa Lahiri's novel about Indian immigrants opens this weekend. This was a terrific book that my bookgroup just finished and was universally enjoyed by all group members. BookReporter offers a review and a reading group guide of the book.

A Good Year: movie, based-on-the book, opens soon

Laura Bly writes in USA Today, "Nov. 10, the author's (Peter Mayle) pal and part-time neighbor Ridley Scott hits theaters with A Good Year, a film based on the 2004 Mayle novel about a London trader (played by Russell Crowe) who winds up inheriting his estranged uncle's Luberon château and vineyard."
USA Today's Travel section features an interview with Peter Mayle, author of A Year in Provence and other memoirs of this transplanted Brit. The article links to a review of wines of the region which are improving, it states, due to an influx of monied new vinyard owners, rich people retiring there for a second career as a vintner.
Take a look at the photo montage from Provence A - Z, Mayles new book or click around provenceguide.com for a taste of the scenery, including a guide to the famously beautiful hilltop villages of southern France.

Books into Movies

This month there are three movies out that are based on books: Where the Truth Lies, North Country and In Her Shoes. To read more about these books and others that have been made into feature films, go to Books into Movies which is a regular feature of the website BookReporter.