Fiction

  • Today is National Bookmobile Day!

    Smack dab in the middle of National Library Week is the first annual National Bookmobile Day.  The Seattle Public Library is celebrating by bringing our oldest bookmobile in for the afternoon and parking it right outside our Central Library.  SPL’s Mobile Services provides access to library resources for people who cannot reach the library because… Continue reading

  • Brooklyn Stories: Part One

    I wanted to live in Brooklyn ever since I read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn when I was a teenager. I felt suffocated by the boredom of small town Wisconsin life and yearned for the big city, where there was a wide diversity of people, cultures, languages; tall buildings, ports, bridges, subways, trains. Brooklyn had… Continue reading

  • Still More Books Worth Talking About

    Here is another mixed batch of literary food for thought, and for discussion. The Condition, by Jennifer Haigh The McKotch family unravels during the summer of 1976 when 13-year-old Gwen is diagnosed with Turner’s syndrome, leaving her forever trapped in the body of a child. Twenty years later, the three siblings are still dealing with… Continue reading

  • Great writers born in 2010, so far.

    It seems as though we’ve lost an awful lot of writers in 2010, and the year’s still young. Many will remember where they were when they heard J.D. Salinger was gone, and the recent deaths of Robert B. Parker, Dick Francis, Kage Baker, Louis Auchincloss, Barry Hannah, Erich Segal, Howard Zinn and others have made this… Continue reading

  • Book Buzz with Nancy Pearl

    Who could resist going to a program called “Book Buzz with Nancy Pearl”? Certainly not the thousands of librarians here in Portland this week for the Public Library Association Conference. Your Shelf Talk team was there, scoping out upcoming novels and nonfiction titles. Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay (coming out soon; available to place… Continue reading

  • More Books Worth Talking About

    Good titles for book discussions come from all over the place, and provoke all kinds of responses. Here is a diverse international blend: The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery Nobody guesses at the unplumbed depths hidden behind the veiled eyes of the self-taught drudge Renée or the precociously suicidal 12-year-old Paloma, until one man… Continue reading

  • Touring Egypt via book or camel

    When I took a tour of Egypt earlier this year, I found myself exchanging book titles with my fellow travelers.  Historical fiction, mysteries, contemporary serious literature; some are fun reading for getting a feel for the country, the history, the landscape, the emotional qualities of Egypt.  Others are very heavy reading, intense, much like the… Continue reading

  • Ali Zaoua: Prince of the Streets movie

    Come to the Central Library this Sunday, March 21, from 2-4pm in the Microsoft Auditorium on Level 1 for a film screening of Ali Zaoua: Prince of the Streets. This film is a memorable and moving portrait of the lives of street kids living in Casablanca’s abandoned lots. Ali, Kouka, Omar and Boubker, four young… Continue reading

  • Not Just a Pretty Face

    It’s not the power of the curse – it’s the power you give the curse. Born with a pig snout for a nose due to her rich family’s curse Penelope, played by Christina Ricci,  must find one man to marry her from the world of high society blue blood to make that curse go away forever.… Continue reading

  • Allen Say’s Beautiful Children’s Books

    Allen Say was born in Yokohama, Japan in 1937. At age 16 he came to the United States. He first went to a military high school, and then to different colleges to study art. In 1989, he earned his fist Caldecott honor award for his illustrations for The Boy of Three-Year Nap written by Dianne… Continue reading

  • Books worth talking about.

    As sure as the Seattle Winter turns to Spring, and then back to Winter again, readers will come to the library looking for something new for their book group. Here are some of our suggestions for books that will inspire discussion, and even complement each other in interesting ways. Man in the Dark, by Paul Auster… Continue reading

  • Canadian Authors – Five Stars & a Maple Leaf

    The Olympics puts me in mind of Canada, which puts me in mind of some of my favorite fiction authors.  I know you can’t talk of “Canadian authors” in a monolithic sense, the same way you can’t treat  “U.S. authors” as a homogenous group, but I find that many of my favorite literary fiction novelists… Continue reading

  • Science Fiction for the Rest of Us

    I’ll admit it straight up: I’ve never really liked science fiction.  I’ve never seen a single episode of Star Trek or read a book by Robert Heinlein.  But I’m a librarian, and in order to recommend books to readers of every genre, I have to read outside my comfort zone.  Thanks to a coworker, patrons,… Continue reading

  • Cover art for Hunger Games #3 revealed — and here’s how you’ll know when you can put a hold on it

    Is it mean to tease you with the cover of a book that isn’t available yet? Maybe. But I thought you’d forgive me since now fans of Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games can ramp up the anticipation for the August 24 release of Mockingjay. Read all about the trilogy at the Scholastic blog. Now, you know… Continue reading

  • Seeing Ourselves in Chaucer’s Mirror.

    Can we really relate to people from 700 years ago? Thanks to Peter Ackroyd, it’s easier than ever. In our iPod, iPad, texting and tweeting world, you’d think there is not too much in common with the lives of 14th century pilgrims on their way to Canterbury, but, in fact, there is. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales… Continue reading

  • The movie made me love the book: Jane Austen

    We all have one (at least) of those books: a book that you had to read in school and weren’t that into, but is hailed throughout the English-speaking world as a masterpiece; a book that you wouldn’t read again because it’s now so fraught with memories and expectations. For me, that book was Pride and… Continue reading

  • Nightstand Reading: Newbery winner Rebecca Stead

    This month’s guest blogger is Rebecca Stead, author of When You Reach Me, a middle-grade novel that just won the Newbery Medal (the most distinguished honor in children’s literature). Rebecca is in Seattle today to visit schools, chat with Nancy Pearl for an upcoming episode of Book Lust on the Seattle Channel  and to read tonight… Continue reading

  • Transhumanism in the bleak midwinter

    At this time of year, when the cold, grey sameness of winter softly wraps us in the bitter knowledge of our own mortality, I find myself squarely in the mood for a little transhumanist science fiction.   What is that, you ask? It’s a highly philosophical body of literature dedicated to the rich question of… Continue reading