March 2008

  • Gentrification and the Arts

    If you have picked up this year’s Seattle Reads novel, The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu you’ve had a chance to get one novelist’s take on some of the issues and pressures that can fracture a community changing in the face of gentrification and immigration. Facing similar issues, particularly those of gentrification… Continue reading

  • Book review: Phryne Fisher mysteries by Kerry Greenwood

    I’ve never encountered a detective quite like Phryne (rhymes with “briny”) Fisher before – but now I’m totally smitten. Divinely elegant and stylish, this smart, confident woman turned her back on 1928 aristocracy to live independently in Australia. In one of my favorites, Murder in Montparnasse, Phryne steps in to help her friends Bert and… Continue reading

  • Cool women, hot mysteries

    The one thing these mysteries have in common: smart, independent, funny and resourceful women. These are today’s detectives — a little younger and a lot hipper than many of the sleuths you’ve met in long-running mystery series (you know, those series that have initials or numbers in their titles). If you’re looking for romantic suspense,… Continue reading

  • A conversation with Daniel Schorr

    It’s been more than a week since he came to Town Hall, but our conversation with Daniel Schorr is still on my mind. Mr. Schorr shuffled out on fragile limbs but, at nearly 92, his wit and mental clarity are razor sharp and  “the voice”- – pure gravitas.  His relationship with us seemed almost intimate.  We offered a standing ovation when… Continue reading

  • Calling all Parents! Homework Help to the Rescue

    Is your kid’s homework getting YOU down? How’s that “new math” working out at your house? Fortunately for you and your children, The Seattle Public Library offers free homework help in-person on-line. Trained volunteers at some of our Branch Libraries are on hand to assist your children and teens with their homework.  Student who work with our Homework Help volunteers consistently report getting… Continue reading

  • La Suma de los Días de Isabel Allende

    Our library serves people speaking many languages. Here is one of them. El último libro de Isabel Allende La Suma de los días es la continuación de Paula, el libro que Allende escribió después de la muerte de su hija Paula. La suma de los días nos transporta a California, lugar donde reside Allende. Así… Continue reading

  • Pirates in Polite Society: Wharton’s Buccaneers

    An unfinished book by a favorite writer always raises questions: How would it have ended? How would the story have changed as the author developed the characters and explored their lives? If the author started out with a plan, would that have changed as the book progressed? Stories inspired by real people and events also… Continue reading

  • Plush You!

    I love crafting.  However–and it pains me to admit this–I’m not very good at coming up with top notch project ideas.  I usually steal ideas from craft books.  So I get really excited when I find a great book like Plush You! Loveable Misfit Toys to Sew and Stuff, by Seattle artist and Schmancy owner Kristen Rask.   This book has dozens of full-color photos of cute,… Continue reading

  • Medieval Mysteries of Britain.

    If you find secret corridors and hemlock poison more interesting than gunfire, you may enjoy this collection of mysteries set in medieval England, Scotland and Ireland. Each of the books listed below is one of a series that revolves around a particularly engaging sleuth for whom the plagues, politics, and superstitions of the medieval world… Continue reading

  • Got Back Pain?

    Many people suffer from back pain. According to MedlinePlus, a free service offered by the National Library of Medicine, “Back pain is one of the most common medical problems, affecting eight out of 10 people at some point during their lives.” It is also the second leading reason that people visit their physicians. A lot of time and… Continue reading

  • Flower Frenzy

    It’s flower season here in the great northwest!  If you want to get up close to fields and fields of colorful tulips, don’t miss the 25th Annual Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. If you’d like to explore some of the fascinating history of these blooms, here is a bouquet of books exploring the appeal of flowers… Continue reading

  • The War in Fiction, part 3: The Pacific

    A war is not one story, but many. Here are some novels that view the war through many eyes, reflecting the diverse experiences of civilians and soldiers around the world whose lives were drawn into the Second World War. The Cloud Atlas by Liam Callanan When Louis Belk is deployed to Alaska to head off and diffuse… Continue reading

  • Why I love ‘I Love You, Beth Cooper’

    I Love You, Beth Cooper by Larry Doyle is seriously the funniest book I’ve read in the last two years. During his graduation night speech, Denis Cooverman, valedictorian at Buffalo Grove High School, urges his fellow classmates to leave with no regrets for the things they wanted to say but could not. Our hero pauses… Continue reading

  • Cool Site: Overbooked

    Websites aimed at readers are often labors of love created by people who would really rather be reading, and so even the most promising sites come and go with unsettling rapidity.  So when a site like Overbooked.org sticks around for a dozen years, it is something to celebrate.  Years before metacritic or bookmarks magazine began summarizing critical consensus from the vast array of book… Continue reading

  • Four Books for a Desert Island

    If I’m ever really stranded on a desert island, the books I want to have with me must have titles like Raft Building for Dummies, 500 Ways to Cook Coconuts, Getting Along with Your Invisible Friends, and of course, How to Escape a Desert Island. For that desert island visit with a small working sailboat, I… Continue reading

  • Book review: The Sound of Us by Sarah Willis

    In The Sound of Us (by Sarah Willis), Alice Marlowe, an interpreter for the deaf, receives a phone call in the middle of the night that is clearly a wrong number. On the other end of the line is a six-year-old girl who is all alone and trying to reach her aunt. Alice knows she shouldn’t… Continue reading

  • Arthur C. Clarke’s best books

    When I was in third grade, in the early 1970s, I encountered Arthur C. Clarke on a classroom book spinner.  I was intrigued by the cover and the title and promptly took the book home and devoured it, thus beginning a lifelong love of hard science fiction.  My tastes have broadened considerable since, but most… Continue reading

  • Comedy from Canada

    Are you constantly annoyed by what’s on commercial television and find you have watched all the hot HBO series from beginning to end? Try Slings & Arrows, a three season comedy from Canada available on DVD. The story takes place behind the scenes of the fictional New Burbage Festival, a theatre troupe modeled loosely on… Continue reading