Book Review by Laurie Schut

I finished the 400+ pages of The Plague Child in three days. My previous record has been two days for the Stieg Larsson books; head down, hanging off sofa to relieve pressure on my bottom, lying down, legs crossed, legs stretched, a coffee break then back at it...it was work!

This is a page turner is set in mid-seventeenth century England; a time of the plague and the civil war. Author Peter Ransley has the character Matthew Neave, the plague cart driver, make a critical decision. He keeps the child he was sent to throw on the plague pit and takes him home. Tom Neave is then raised as his own until he is sent off to be apprenticed to a printer in London. Some unknown benefactor has decided to spend money on Tom's education and he becomes learned like a gentleman, but because he is at the bottom of the social heap, he is also beaten, tormented and miserable.

Does this sound slightly like another author, perhaps Dickens? It has a lot of the same themes, poor boy makes good, discovers his true identity, and is hopelessly in love with the wrong girl. But Ransley is no Dickens. We wander through the streets of a very real London, the poverty and the dirt, the disease and the splendor, with Tom as our guide. Not the gentle soul of David Copperfield, but the coarse, ruminating, self-doubting and self-loathing soul of Tom Neave. He is torn between grasping for his rightful inheritance and a place in society and the girl he loves. Often he comes out on the right side of the equation, but there are times…

Amidst his personal angst, Tom also copes with the outbreak of civil war and finds himself smack in the middle of intrigues of power in Parliament. This is the time of Roundheads and Royalists, the king against the parliament. He is a message runner and his messages to and from Mr. Pym and his lover, the Countess, change history. n warned of Mr. Pym immanent arrest, Tom runs through the streets with his pamphlets of Mr. Pym’s speeches, sure the world is going to change for the better. It is reminiscent of other times, when a new technology (pamphleteering is the precursor of the modern newspaper) changed history (think tweets and the devastation that followed that).

I liked this novel because I like to be fed my history with plenty of fun and interest. Tom’s life is both; he wins the girl, he finds his father, he triumphs over the worst part of his nature. Unsure of what side he should be on, but sure of his own interests, Tom muddles through the war.

This is the first of three books in the trilogy, and I am looking forward to finding out more about Tom Neave.

"Privilege, privilege, privilege!" (Shouted in Parliament after the King invades to arrest Mr. Pym).

So... I don't usually do the whole 'New Year's Resolution' thing but I decided that this year I really wanted to focus on making and giving handmade gifts. I'm trying for everything from 'thank you' cards to the gift wrapping and twenty three days into the year and counting - I've already crocheted three birthday presents and a couple other random projects! Hopefully I can keep up the pace! Thankfully I've got a great selection of super cute and creative crochet books at the library to help fill me full of projects ideas and inspirations - I'm super excited for my hold on 75 Seashells, coral & colorful marine life to come in!

Once you get into it crochet is pretty easy, fun and inexpensive. Thanks to some really well written visual guides that the library has I've been able to start making my own patterns - I just finished this cupcake coffee cozy after having a flip through Amigurumi World - Seriously Cute Crochet for a bit of inspiration.

I find crochet is definately something fun to do while visiting, watching a movie or travelling on a bus (having only one hook makes it really portable!) so it's great being able to borrow DVDs and Book CDs to help pass the time, or download an e-audiobook straight to my iphone from the library website if I'm on the go and can't make it in.

Also, if you think that crochet is just for girls, think again! For something serious have a look at The crochet's dude's designs for guys : 30 projects men will love, and for something super fun, read Otomen a manga all about men who enjoy sewing, crafting, cooking, and caramel macchiatos and have a hard time hiding their creative souls from a world that expects and accepts only 'manly men'. The series is out up to number 12 and just keeps getting better!

I'm always happy to talk crafts and books so stop by and say "Hi!"

We found a great new craft book for those who love books: The Repurposed Library: 33 Craft Projects That Give Old Books New Life by Lisa Occhipinti. After you read it, we'll expect to see you poking through our book sale shelves for some promising supplies!

The staff of the Louise Riley Library would like to wish all of our customers a happy year of the Dragon. Unlike in European mythology, where dragons are seen as evil creatures, the Chinese see the dragon as a symbol of potent power - particularly over the realms of water and weather.

On your next visit to the library, be sure to check out our Chinese New Year display, featuring books for every taste and age. Make the year of the dragon your year to increase the potent force of knowledge within you!

The lazy reader is having a hard time keeping up with the voracious book snob! It would probably help if she didn't try to read four novels simultaneously! But books are often about moods, and so there is the "funny" book and the "moving" book and the "I just have to turn my brain off and relax" book.

The book I reached for yesterday was Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson. Major Pettigrew is a retired widower in a small British town. He falls in love with Mrs. Ali, the Pakistani shopkeeper, who has also been widowed. Their fumbling romance is closely observed by the other inhabitants of the village. The characters are realistic and three dimensional and I've grown to love them. If I saw Major Pettigrew in the street I would rush over to shake his hand, much to his chagrin no doubt.

In high school I enjoyed books by Miss Read and Jane Austen. This has a similar tone. There's social criticism in them, but it's delivered in a light manner. So why not keep both a book snob and a lazy reader selection on your bedside table, so that you have something for any mood?

1985 was the worst year of my life. I was a deeply depressed eighteen year old. My parents tried their best to help me. For my mom this meant finding me the best counselling possible, and for my dad this meant showing me that the world itself was crazy and I was quite right to feel alienated from it. He opened up to me in a way he never had before. He confided to being depressed himself in his youth and even having to be hospitalized for his depression. One of the things I remember vividly is my father telling me how when he was my age he read the novel Catch-22 and that it deeply affected him. He talked about how it showed how absurd the world was and how one needed to see the humour in things to survive. The truth be told, I can't remember my dad ever mentioning having read another novel. As far as I know, Catch-22 might be the only novel he ever read - or maybe it was the only novel he needed to read.

So I read it, and it said everything I needed to hear. It said "you're not crazy, they are". It said "don't buy in to what you are told is right without thinking it through." It said "you are not alone."

Catch-22 was one of the books that got me through that terrible year. It convinced me that fiction itself was important and was a big reason why I changed from a chemistry major to an English major and went to work in bookstores and, finally, at the Calgary Public Library.

Thanks dad.

Book review by Laurie Schut

The Mark of the Golden Dragon, the new book in L.A. Meyer's Jacky Faber series, is a disappointment. The previous books always had Jacky at odds with a captor, but in this one she has to rescue Jaimy, the love of her life (or is he?). Jacky takes her own sweet time with the rescue as she dallies with and daydreams over Richard Allen and flirts with several others. All while she is ‘in love’ with Jaimy....Uh huh.

Jaimy, meanwhile, has morphed into the Highwayman from the poem by Alfred Noyes, and is sleeping with Bess, the landlord’s daughter. I don’t mind if one novel references another, but this is annoying. It seems as if L.A. Meyer just got tired of writing complicated plots and instead turned to a poem to supply one for him.

Judging from the blogs and websites about the Jacky Faber books, I am not alone in my annoyance. People were going so far as to say they would burn their entire collection of Jacky Faber novels because of their disgust over this one. The cause stems primarily from Jacky’s inability to stay true to Jaimy, and vice versa. We don’t really care anymore about these star-crossed lovers, Meyer; why not turn them loose and let them figure out their own minds?

Contrivance shows.

( Kari offers another book recommendation for those whose tastes are less high-falutin' than The Book Snob.)

Do you enjoy Cirque du Soleil shows?If so, you will want to read The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern.It tells the story of Celia and Marco, two magicians dueling with magic inside a travelling circus at the turn of the 20^th century. Although the love story follows well worn patterns, the aunique supporting characters and setting more than make up for that predictability. This novel is more about looking around and enjoying the circus experience instead of following a plot through to a conclusion. Now I’m done, what I remember are the imaginative descriptions of the circus itself.What remains vivid are the bonfire in the courtyard, the bright red scarves of the devoted fans the Reveurs, the hot chocolate with cinnamon, and the various tents with their magical offerings.

If you enjoy being read to, I recommend listening to the book CD of this story, read by Jim Dale.He’s the versatile voice actor who read 146 different characters in the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows book CD.He creates a separate voice for each person, extending their characterization.It’s like the way an illustrator can develop characters in ways not outlined in the plot.And after all, I told you I was lazy, and what’s lazier than getting someone else to read to you?

An interesting sideline about this bestseller is that there is a Night Circus game on Twitter so that you can connect with other readers to extend the reading experience.The use of social media and online gaming is fascinating to watch.How will we take the solitary joy of reading and make it a social experience?I’m sticking with my friends in book club.But then, I’m all about the food.And now to put some cinnamon in my hot chocolate….

Sometimes fiction follows a logic of its own. Sometimes this fictional logic explains the world in clearer terms than a purely “realistic” story ever could. Sometimes an author subtly injects metaphor into a narrative to illustrate a point, but occasionally the entire narrative is itself metaphorical. Take, for example, The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka in which the protagonist wakes up one morning to discover he has been turn into a big cockroach. This is not realism. If we reject the story because we do not believe such a scenario could occur in the real world, we are missing the point.

Strangely, this concept is one that adults struggle with but children accept as natural. If, in a child’s book, a cat talks it is accepted without comment. A child is a perfect reader! A child knows full well that cats do not talk – but a child instinctively knows that this is irrelevant to the truth that the book is using the talking cat to illustrate.

Let’s look at Hop on Pop, by Dr. Seuss. There are several impossibilities that occur over the books’ sixty-four pages; A mouse carries a house on it’s back and fish laze about in a tree. Do we worry that this book is teaching our young incorrect facts about the nature of mice and fish? Do we furthermore fret that this book is teaching our children to jump on their elders? We do not. Children are smart enough to distinguish between what is real and what is not. They allow a fish in a tree to exist in order to learn the concept of “in” as it relates to the fish and the tree. The fish and the tree are entertaining distracters (red herrings, if you will) that allow the child to enter a playful state of mind where learning can be achieved.

Why, as adults, do we stop reading like children? Why do some of us demand our fiction to be “believable” – that is without a taint of implausibility? All books define their own rules of existence – if we limit ourselves to realism in the belief that truth is found only there, then we are like children who will not learn the difference between up and down because we know that dogs don’t drive cars.

By Laurie Schut

The first so-called "chick lit" book I read, Bridget Jones's Diary was good. This was also the book that gave the genre real importance in the publishing world. Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason followed three years later. I would like to think that those three years were primarily invested in writing this novel, but I doubt it. I think Ms. Fielding was too busy working through the film rights, etc. to the first blockbuster to worry overmuch on the quality of the follow-up. Certainly there was an eye to a second movie when she wrote this. These spectacular blockbusters spawned… more and more fatuous novels, intended to “address issues of modern womanhood, often in a humorous and lighthearted fashion.” Uh huh. Let’s see, shopping is a feature, (think Sex and the City), so is ahem, sex, often with the wrong partner. But hey, we’re modern; page after page of numbing detail is fun… to a point. The best friend is there, but often vicious. Marriage is often portrayed in fairy tale terms that would make a ten year old blush. "Issues of modern womanhood" were more often sensationalist trash: there was one unmemorable novel about a model written by, wow, an ex-model.

The problem I have with these novels is that they demolish feminism. Stereotype after stereotype abound: find the right man, worry endlessly about our thighs, think about snaring that date for the important event, use cunning, use deception, use your best friend. Heck, use the reader. But what is missing is life. Like your career. Usually the job is put on the back burner, as in Bridget Jones Diary , or is so exciting as to be unreal. Careers? Nope. What about real tricky female issues - depression, menopause, the unfunny issues? I'm afraid not.

Are we really as dumb as all that?