more book buying

So, I went to the Strand today. It was just a quick visit, which is probably just as well because I could spend lots of time (and money) there.

I only bought two books. I picked these two because (1) they caught my eye, (2) I hadn't heard of them before, and (3) they were on sale. I may have also bought a tote bag and coffee mug, but those are destined to be gifts (and this neat bookmark for Russell; he loves it).

The Dream of Perpetual Motion by Dexter Palmer

Imprisoned for life aboard a zeppelin that floats high above a fantastic metropolis, greeting-card writer Harold Winslow pens his memoirs. His only companions are the disembodied voice of Miranda Taligent, the only woman he has ever loved, and the cryogenically frozen body of her father, Prospero, the genius and industrial magnate who drove her insane. As Harold heads toward a last desperate confrontation with Prospero to save Mirandas life, he finds himself an unwitting participant in the creation of the greatest invention of them all: the perpetual motion machine. Beautifully written, stunningly imagined, and wickedly funny, The Dream of Perpetual Motion is a heartfelt meditation on the place of love in a world dominated by technology.

The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart

Dozens of children respond to this peculiar ad in the newspaper and are then put through a series of mind-bending tests, which readers take along with them. Only four children-two boys and two girls-succeed. Their challenge: to go on a secret mission that only the most intelligent and inventive children could complete. To accomplish it they will have to go undercover at the Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened, where the only rule is that there are no rules. But what they'll find in the hidden underground tunnels of the school is more than your average school supplies. So, if you're gifted, creative, or happen to know Morse Code, they could probably use your help.

a juicy find

This week as I was browsing the State University of New York Press catalogs, I came across a particularly juicy title from their Excelsior Editions¹ and I just had to share.

Arsenic and Clam Chowder by James D. Livingston

Arsenic and Clam Chowder recounts the sensational 1896 murder trial of Mary Alice Livingston, a member of one of the most prestigious families in New York, who was accused of murdering her own mother, Evelina Bliss. The bizarre instrument of death, an arsenic-laced pail of clam chowder, had been delivered to the victim by her ten-year-old granddaughter, and Livingston was arrested in her mourning clothes immediately after attending her mother’s funeral. In addition to being the mother of four out-of-wedlock children, the last born in prison while she was awaiting trial, Livingston faced the possibility of being the first woman to be executed in New York’s new-fangled electric chair, and all these lurid details made her arrest and trial the central focus of an all-out circulation war then underway between Joseph Pulitzer’s World and Randolph Hearst’s Journal.
The story is set against the electric backdrop of Gilded Age Manhattan. The arrival of skyscrapers, automobiles, motion pictures, and other modern marvels in the 1890s was transforming urban life with breathtaking speed, just as the battles of reformers against vice, police corruption, and Tammany Hall were transforming the city’s political life. The aspiring politician Teddy Roosevelt, the prolific inventor Thomas Edison, bon vivant Diamond Jim Brady, and his companion Lillian Russell were among Gotham’s larger-than-life personalities, and they all played cameo roles in the dramatic story of Mary Alice Livingston and her arsenic-laced clam chowder. In addition to telling a ripping good story, the book addresses a number of social and legal issues, among them capital punishment, equal rights for women, societal sexual standards, inheritance laws in regard to murder, gender bias of juries, and the meaning of “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Arsenic and Clam Chowder doesn't seem like typical university-press fare, but it is written by a member of the academy (albeit a physist and engineer who happens to be an amateur historian). And it fits into the Excelsior imprint since the Livingstons are a prominent New York family.

I'm not particularly keen on the cover art (though I'll allow that it may look better in person that it does online), but the story is quite compelling, is it not?

1. Excelsior Editions is an imprint devoted to the history, culture, society, and environment of New York and its surrounding states.
   On a side note: excelsior is the motto of New York state (featured on the state seal and all); it means "ever higher."

gorgeous cover art

I saw this once and lost track of it before I got around to posting about it, but then I saw it again today.

Per this Atlantic article, three titles set to come out as Penguin Classics Deluxe editions this fall will be part of a new Penguin Threads series.

Penguin commissioned Jillian Tamaki to design (and stitch!) the cover art for Black Beauty, Emma, and The Secret Garden.

Of course I have to have these editions even though I'm sure I already have copies of each of these novels. What I particularly like is that apparently the covers are going to be printed in such a way to lend texture and emphasize the stitchwork.

Check out Tamaki's blog post about the project. It has some great in-progress shots.

PSA: book giveway

Presenting Lenore (a great book blog!) is currently hosting a giveaway for a fantastic-sounding new YA novel.

I've shared the publisher's book description below, but please rush over to Presenting Lenore to read Lenore's review of Bumped (in honor of Dystopian February she's using zombie chickens instead of stars, who cool is that?) and her interview with the author Megan McCafferty. Then sign up for the giveaway. You know you want this book.

Bumped by Megan Mccafferty

When a virus makes everyone over the age of eighteen infertile, would-be parents pay teen girls to conceive and give birth to their children, making teens the most prized members of society. Girls sport fake baby bumps and the school cafeteria stocks folic-acid-infused food.

Sixteen-year-old identical twins Melody and Harmony were separated at birth and have never met until the day Harmony shows up on Melody’s doorstep. Up to now, the twins have followed completely opposite paths. Melody has scored an enviable conception contract with a couple called the Jaydens. While they are searching for the perfect partner for Melody to bump with, she is fighting her attraction to her best friend, Zen, who is way too short for the job.

Harmony has spent her whole life in Goodside, a religious community, preparing to be a wife and mother. She believes her calling is to convince Melody that pregging for profit is a sin. But Harmony has secrets of her own that she is running from.

When Melody is finally matched with the world-famous, genetically flawless Jondoe, both girls’ lives are changed forever. A case of mistaken identity takes them on a journey neither could have ever imagined, one that makes Melody and Harmony realize they have so much more than just DNA in common.

From New York Times bestselling author Megan McCafferty comes a strikingly original look at friendship, love, and sisterhood—in a future that is eerily believable.

20 december

A stocking suffer suggestion.

Olive Editions

Harper Perennial puts out limited-edition, pocket-sized editions of classics and contemporary classics as Olive Editions (list price $10). The cover art is minimal, but quite nice (check out this blog post to see the spines). I'm a bit of a sucker for series and having sets that match. If I'd known about these when Olive Editions debuted I'd probably have started collecting them all, but having only come across them this year, I don't think I'll both since they are limited and I assume that tracking down copies of some of the early ones would be a case in frustration.*

This year's Olive Editions are Bel Canto by Ann Patchett (great book - I should reread it), Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (I can't remember if I've read this one, which means I should get a copy from the library tout de suite), and Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (this was our book club selection for September, but apparently I never got around to posting about it).

* but if anyone has an Olive Edition of The Unbearable Lightness of Being (2008) they want to rehome, I'm your (wo)man.

7 december

My father had a friend and business associate named Phil who used to give the best holiday gifts. Rather than desk trinkets or gourmet goodies he'd find interesting and unique books, which he'd present with an attached ribbon bookmark that had his name on it. Books like Politically Correct Bedtime Stories. I always looked forward to seeing what gem he'd find for us. While I (obviously) was not the intended recipient of his business gifts, I treasured them. In fact I actually have one of his books (The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy by E D Hirsch) here in our apartment.

This fall, I saw the following book in a catalog. I was intrigued by it right away, but it took me a bit to realize why. It's the kind of book I think Phil might have chosen for his holiday gifting. Maybe he did...

An Incomplete Education: 3,684 Things You Should Have Learned but Probably Didn't by William Wilson

When it was originally published in 1987, An Incomplete Education became a surprise bestseller. Now this instant classic has been completely updated, outfitted with a whole new arsenal of indispensable knowledge on global affairs, popular culture, economic trends, scientific principles, and modern arts. Here's your chance to brush up on all those subjects you slept through in school, reacquaint yourself with all the facts you once knew (then promptly forgot), catch up on major developments in the world today, and become the Renaissance man or woman you always knew you could be!

As delightful as it is illuminating, An Incomplete Education packs ten thousand years of culture into a single superbly readable volume. This is a book to celebrate, to share, to give and receive, to pore over and browse through, and to return to again and again. (this is just the first and last paragraphs of the very long publisher's blurb)

3 december

Last month I heard the author being interviewed about this book on NPR (Morning Edition interview). While cancer usually isn't a topic I'd enjoy reading about I thought the book sounded fascinating and I immediately thought of two people I'd recommend it to.

The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer
by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Physician, researcher, and award-winning science writer, Siddhartha Mukherjee examines cancer with a cellular biologist's precision, a historian's perspective, and a biographer's passion. The result is an astonishingly lucid and eloquent chronicle of a disease humans have lived with — and perished from — for more than five thousand years. The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance, but also of hubris, paternalism, and misperception.

Mukherjee recounts centuries of discoveries, setbacks, victories, and deaths, told through the eyes of his predecessors and peers, training their wits against an infinitely resourceful adversary that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-out war against cancer. The book reads like a literary thriller with cancer as the protagonist.

From the Persian Queen Atossa, whose Greek slave cut off her malignant breast, to the nineteenth-century recipients of primitive radiation and chemotherapy to Mukherjee's own leukemia patient, Carla, The Emperor of All Maladies is about the people who have soldiered through fiercely demanding regimens in order to survive — and to increase our understanding of this iconic disease. Riveting, urgent, and surprising, The Emperor of All Maladies provides a fascinating glimpse into the future of cancer treatments. It is an illuminating book that provides hope and clarity to those seeking to demystify cancer.

2 december

I'm a huge fan of Etsy, a site where users can sell handmade and vintage items.

Artist Lisa Snellings has an etsy shop named Strangestudios, where she sells (among other things) collectible statuettes called "poppets."

Pictured is one of her custom (reading) poppets. Right now she also has a set of poppets inspired by Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book (which I haven't yet read) and a poppet reading Dr. Suess (One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, which I have read).

My personal favorites (of those available right now) are not reading-related. They are Bah Humbug (perfect for the grinch on your list!), Clouds get in my way, and Winter play.

1 december

I think a Nook would be a great gift. In fact it is one of the items on my wishlist this year.

The Nook is Barnes and Noble's ebook reader. From my perspective it's better than Amazon's Kindle because it's library ebook-friendly. The Nook is compatible with various ebook formats including EPUB, PDB, and PDF. Being able to get library ebooks is important to me because I'm resistant to buying ebooks. At this point in my life, I'm only buying books (for myself) that I know that I'll want to read again. Because I'm an archivist I'm especially sensitive to concerns about the lifespan of electronic files (will the Nook or any of the other readers be around 20 years from now? will these file formats be supported on whatever new technology we have at that point? etc).

I have to admit that I hadn't seriously considered getting an ebook reader until this year. I like reading books. I like the experience of reading books, the feel of the paper, the weight and heft of the monograph. When reading PDFs, I prefer to print them out so I can underline the text and make notes in the margins. I have, however, slowly come around to the idea of an ebook reader. I see the benefits--great for travel, easier to read when cats are harassing you, etc--and I've gotten to see a few different readers in person.

The Nook also has this wonderful Alice in Wonderland case.

Loneliness

I'll admit that historically I have not always read my Chicago alumni magazine regularly, but lately I have been. The most recent issue included an article about professor John Cacioppo, a social neuroscientist whose research has lately been focused on loneliness.

So often the research being done at universities seems disconnected from everyday life (at least to those not involved in the research or knowledgeable about the field), Cacioppo's research on loneliness is not.

Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection by John Cacioppo

University of Chicago social neuroscientist John T. Cacioppo unveils his pioneering research on the startling effects of loneliness: a sense of isolation or social rejection disrupts not only our thinking abilities and will power but also our immune systems, and can be as damaging as obesity or smoking. A blend of biological and social science, this book demonstrates that, as individuals and as a society, we have everything to gain, and everything to lose, in how well or how poorly we manage our need for social bonds.

hiding in the bookshelves #5

When looking through one of our partially-obscured bedroom bookshelves I came across Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson. With it I found Mama Day by Gloria Naylor. Not paying much attention to the cover of Mama Day, I assumed it was one of Hopkinson's novels since I remember trying to get my hands on more than one of them after reading The New Moon's Arms (see post). I simply read the synopses from the back covers of both books to decide which one I'd post about. It wasn't until I was at the computer looking up the book's online to create links for this post that I realized that Mama Day was by a different author.

I don't doubt that those who read the book descriptions posted below will wonder how I could possibly confuse the authorship, assuming these two very different novels were written by the same person. The answer is quite simple. While Hopkinson's early work is very much in the realm of science fiction, her more recent novels feel different, like southern fiction with a dash of magical realism (like, if I may be so bold, Gloria Naylor's novel). Both women have had their work described as being in the tradition of Toni Morrison and Alice Walker. So, now that I've explained that, I feel a little less silly about my mistake.

Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson

The Caribbean-colonized planet of Toussaint celebrates Carnival in traditional fashion, and Tan-Tan, a young reveler, is masked as the Midnight Robber, Trinidad's answer to Robin Hood. But after her father commits a deadly crime, he flees with her to the brutal New Half Way Tree, a planet inhabited by violent human outcasts and monstrous creatures known only through folklore. Here, Tan-Tan is forced to reach into the heart of myth and become the legendary heroine herself, for only the Robber Queen's powers can save Tan-Tan from such a savage world.

Mama Day by Gloria Naylor

The bestselling new novel from the American Book Award-winning author is set in a world that is timeless yet indelibly authentic - the Georgia sea island of Willow Springs, where people still practice herbal medicine and honor ancestors who came over as slaves. On Willow Springs lives Mama Day, a matriarch who can call up lightning storms and see secrets in her dreams. But all of Mama Day’s powers are tested by her great-niece, Cocoa, a stubbornly emancipated woman whose life and very soul are now in danger from the island’s darker forces. Mama Day is a powerful generational saga at once tender and suspenseful, overflowing with magic and common sense.

Friday Find #13

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Katniss is a 16-year-old girl living with her mother and younger sister in the poorest district of Panem, the remains of what used be the United States. Long ago the districts waged war on the Capitol and were defeated. As part of the surrender terms, each district agreed to send one boy and one girl to appear in an annual televised event called, "The Hunger Games." The terrain, rules, and level of audience participation may change but one thing is constant: kill or be killed. When Kat's sister is chosen by lottery, Kat steps up to go in her place.

A friend of mine has been talking up The Hunger Games for a while. It sounded like something I'd like so I put it on my mental to-check-out list. Yesterday a book club member posted to Twitter and Facebook that there was a free download of The Hunger Games available through Audiobook Community's Sync Link so I had a perfect excuse to start listening to the novel right away. I really know nothing about the site, but it looks like they are going to have two free YA books available for download each week this summer and I can report that I downloaded the book and the Overdrive software with no problems.

The Hunger Games is the first in a trilogy (the final installment of which is set to appear on August 24th). I'm not all that far along yet, but so far it is absolutely fantastic. I definitely want to get a hold of paper copies of the books.

another reason I love Powell's

Here's another fantastic-sounding book I've discovered through the Powell's Review a Day mailings:

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender

The wondrous Aimee Bender conjures the lush and moving story of a girl whose magical gift is really a devastating curse.
On the eve of her ninth birthday, unassuming Rose Edelstein, a girl at the periphery of schoolyard games and her distracted parents’ attention, bites into her mother's homemade lemon-chocolate cake and discovers she has a magical gift: she can taste her mother's emotions in the cake. She discovers this gift to her horror, for her mother — her cheerful, good-with-crafts, can-do mother — tastes of despair and desperation. Suddenly, and for the rest of her life, food becomes a peril and a threat to Rose.
The curse her gift has bestowed is the secret knowledge all families keep hidden — her mother's life outside the home, her father's detachment, her brother's clash with the world. Yet as Rose grows up she learns to harness her gift and becomes aware that there are secrets even her taste buds cannot discern.
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake is a luminous tale about the enormous difficulty of loving someone fully when you know too much about them. It is heartbreaking and funny, wise and sad, and confirms Aimee Bender's place as "a writer who makes you grateful for the very existence of language." (San Francisco Chronicle).

Here's a link to the Review-a-Day post.
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake is definitely going to my to-read list.

watching Book TV

Russell is a big fan of Book TV (a program that airs on C-SPAN2 on the weekends). I don't always watch with him as the series focus is almost always non-fiction (and more often than not concerned by politics and/or history). Sometimes, though, I do watch.

This morning one of the topics is what sounds like a really interesting book:
The World Turned Upside Down: The Global Battle Over God, Truth and Power by Melanie Phillips.

Here's the program blurb:
London's Daily Mail columnist explains how she believes the Western world has fallen into a soft totalitarianism by distorting truths, renewing hatred of Jews, and allowing rationality and science to dominate over spirituality and faith. The cult of Barack Obama, she says, is the greatest example of soft totalitarianism in the U.S. The event is at American Enterprise Institute in Washington.

The blurb makes it sound like Phillips is essentially polemical, but listening to her speak, she's not.
Her main concern seems to be with objective truth and with the fact that the collective opinion in the West on the topics she addresses in the book (among them global warming) is not based on provable facts. More significantly her concern is that debate on any of these topics is suppressed, that any difference of opinion ends in name-calling and demonization.

In any case, it sounds like The World Turned Upside Down would be a fascinating, thought-provoking read. We'll try to get our hands on a copy.

hiding in the bookshelves #2

I found the following book in one of the book cases in the bedroom. (for an explanation of this hiding-in-the-bookshelves feature, see this post)

I really like Sarah Dunant. I first discovered her when I bought The Birth of Venus on a whim. I loved it and set out to pick up her other books. So far I've read In the Company of the Courtesan (another historical fiction, not as good as The Birth of Venus) and the Hannah Wolfe mysteries (Birth Marks, Fatlands, and Under My Skin).

Mapping the Edge by Sarah Dunant

People go missing every day. They walk out of their front doors and out of their lives into the silence of cold statistics. For those left behind it is the cruelest of long good-byes.
Anna, a self-sufficient and reliable single mother, packs her bags one day for a short vacation to Italy. She leaves her beloved six-year-old daughter, Lily, at home in London with good friends. But when Anna doesn't return, everyone begins to make excuses until the likelihood that she might not come back becomes chillingly clear. And the people who thought they knew Anna best realize they don't know her at all. How could she leave her daughter? Why doesn't she call? Is she enjoying a romantic tryst with a secret lover? Or has she been abducted or even killed by a disturbed stranger?
Did that person you loved so much and thought you knew so well did they simply choose to go and not come back? Or did someone do the choosing for them?
Dunant, a masterly British suspense writer, skillfully interweaves parallel narratives that are stretched taut with tension even as they raise difficult questions about motherhood, friendship, and accountability. In this compelling hybrid of sophisticated crime writing and modern women's fiction, Dunant challenges and unnerves us as she redefines the boundaries of the psychological thriller.

This one sounded intrigued so I started reading it this weekend. I have to admit that I was put off by the two possible storylines told simultaneously, but I decided to stick it out.

Here's a quote that struck me: "She had already begun to feel somewhat dissatisfied with her life, as if the inexorable march of feminism demanded that she always be better or braver than she was, not allowing her to rest or take pleasure from what had been achieved" (115).

hiding in the bookshelves #1

In lieu of the friday find feature I've been doing off and on I thought it might be interesting to instead feature books that we have collecting dust around the house. This could be useful on a number of different levels. It'll help me rediscover what I already have and it will hopefully inspire me to either read or release bookcrossing-style (or read and release) the books I feature right away.

So, without further ado, the first book I've selected, this one from a bookcase dedicated to bookcrossing books I've picked up...

The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter

A startling tale of the redemptive power of physical and emotional love.
One night Melanie walks through the garden in her mother's wedding dress. The next morning her world is shattered. Forced to leave the comfortable home of her childhood, she is sent to London to live with relatives she has never met: Aunt Margaret, beautiful and speechless, and her brothers, Francie, whose graceful music belies his clumsy nature, and the volatile Finn, who kisses Melanie in the ruins of the pleasure gardens. And brooding Unlce Philip loves only the life-sized wooden puppets he creates in his toyshop. This classic gothic novel established Angela Carter as one of our most imaginative writers and augurs the themes of her later creative work.

The novel's opening line:
"The summer she was fifteen, Melanie discovered she was made of flesh and blood."

Ok, I think this one is definitely worth a read especially considering that I remember it coming highly recommended.

Friday Find #12

I'd heard about this book last month, but was reminded about it again today.

After reading all the dire predictions* of Taiga (courtesy of a thread on the ExLibris listserv), I was cheered to see How Librarians Can Save The World (an an NPR review of This Book is Overdue) shared by one of my friends on FaceBook.

Below is the publisher's blurb, but there's also an excerpt from This Book is Overdue available on the NPR site underneath Heller McAlpin's review.

This Book is Overdue: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All
by Marilyn Johnson

Buried in info? Cross-eyed over technology? From the bottom of a pile of paper and discs, books, e-books, and scattered thumb drives comes a cry of hope: Make way for the librarians They want to help. They're not selling a thing. And librarians know best how to beat a path through the googolplex sources of information available to us, writes Marilyn Johnson, whose previous book, The Dead Beat, breathed merry life into the obituary-writing profession.
This Book is Overdue is a romp through the ranks of information professionals and a revelation for readers burned out on the cliches and stereotyping of librarians. Blunt and obscenely funny bloggers spill their stories in these pages, as do a tattooed, hard-partying children's librarian; a fresh-scrubbed Catholic couple who teach missionaries to use computers; a blue-haired radical who uses her smartphone to help guide street protestors; a plethora of voluptuous avatars and cybrarians; the quiet, law-abiding librarians gagged by the FBI; and a boxing archivist. These are just a few of the visionaries Johnson captures here, pragmatic idealists who fuse the tools of the digital age with their love for the written word and the enduring values of free speech, open access, and scout-badge-quality assistance to anyone in need.
Those who predicted the death of libraries forgot to consider that in the automated maze of contemporary life, none of us--neither the experts nor the hopelessly baffled--can get along without human help. And not just any help--we need librarians, who won't charge us by the question or roll their eyes, no matter what we ask. Who are they? What do they know? And how quickly can they save us from being buried by the digital age?

* Taiga Forum Provocative Statements (2006) and Taiga 4 Forum Provocative Statements (2009)

Friday Find #11

Here's another interesting-sounding book I've discovered through the Powell's Review a Day mailings:

The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris

"He was going to lose the house and everything in it.
The rare pleasure of a bath, the copper pots hanging above the kitchen island, his family-again he would lose his family. He stood inside the house and took stock. Everything in it had been taken for granted. How had that happened again? He had promised himself not to take anything for granted and now he couldn't recall the moment that promise had given way to the everyday."

Tim Farnsworth is a handsome, healthy man, aging with the grace of a matinee idol. His wife Jane still loves him, and for all its quiet trials, their marriage is still stronger than most. Despite long hours at the office, he remains passionate about his work, and his partnership at a prestigious Manhattan law firm means that the work he does is important. And, even as his daughter Becka retreats behind her guitar, her dreadlocks and her puppy fat, he offers her every one of a father's honest lies about her being the most beautiful girl in the world.

He loves his wife, his family, his work, his home. He loves his kitchen. And then one day he stands up and walks out. And keeps walking.

The Unnamed is a dazzling novel about a marriage and a family and the unseen forces of nature and desire that seem to threaten them both. It is the heartbreaking story of a life taken for granted and what happens when that life is abruptly and irrevocably taken away.

Friday Find #10

Have I mentioned lately how much I like Powell's Review a Day?
Here's another fantastic-sounding book I've discovered through the Review a Day mailings:

The Kingdom of Ohio by Matthew Flaming

An incredibly original, intelligent novel — a love story set against New York City at the dawn of the mechanical age, featuring Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison, and J. P. Morgan.

After discovering an old photograph, an elderly antiques dealer living in present-day Los Angeles is forced to revisit the history he has struggled to deny. The photograph depicts a man and a woman. The man is Peter Force, a young frontier adventurer who comes to New York City in 1901 and quickly lands a job digging the first subway tunnels beneath the metropolis. The woman is Cheri-Anne Toledo, a beautiful mathematical prodigy whose memories appear to come from another world. They meet seemingly by chance, and initially Peter dismisses her as crazy. But as they are drawn into a tangle of overlapping intrigues, Peter must reexamine Cheri-Anne's fantastic story. Could it be that she is telling the truth and that she has stumbled onto the most dangerous secret imaginable: the key to traveling through time?

Set against the mazelike streets of New York at the dawn of the mechanical age, Peter and Cheri-Anne find themselves wrestling with the nature of history, technology, and the unfolding of time itself.

Friday Find #9

We discussed a graphic novel at our book club meeting on Wednesday (see post). One of our members listened to Nancy Pearl's September podcast on graphic novels prior to the meeting and brought with her a list of the books mentioned in the episode. One in particular jumped out at me...

Stitches by David Small

One day David Small awoke from a supposedly harmless operation to discover that he had been transformed into a virtual mute. A vocal cord removed, his throat slashed and stitched together like a bloody boot, the fourteen-year-old boy had not been told that he had throat cancer and was expected to die.

Small, a prize-winning children's author, re-creates a life story that might have been imagined by Kafka. Readers will be riveted by his journey from speechless victim, subjected to X-rays by his radiologist father and scolded by his withholding and tormented mother, to his decision to flee his home at sixteen with nothing more than dreams of becoming an artist. Recalling Running with Scissors with its ability to evoke the trauma of a childhood lost, Stitches will transform adolescent and adult readers alike with its deeply liberating vision.

Holy moly! this sounds both horrible and fascinating. I'm hoping our library's graphic novel collection has a copy so I can check it out.