Fiction

  • Creative expansion: Movies based on short stories

    There’s always another movie coming that’s based on a novel (raising the eternal question, should you read the book or see the movie first?). I’m currently waiting for the December 11 release of the movie The Lovely Bones, based on the novel by Alice Sebold. But it’s also interesting to think about the process of… Continue reading

  • Books for Giving 2009 – Children’s Chapter Books

    Books are a wonderful gift any time of year. When asked what you have held on to from your childhood, it is likely that a favorite book will be included on your list. Holidays are a perfect time to connect young readers with books that make a lasting impression. Parents, grandparents, and others often ask… Continue reading

  • Nightstand Reads: Royce Buckingham

    Seattle writer Royce Buckingham is the author of Demonkeeper (“scary and laugh-out-loud funny” said a School Library Journal Review) and Goblins (“a riotously good adventure” said Kirkus Reviews) . We asked this imaginative writer of teen books what he’s been reading, but forgot to ask him where he got the t-shirt he’s sporting in the photo below.… Continue reading

  • Revolutionary Women

    I often judge a book by its cover, and usually it serves me well.  Case in point:  I was immediately drawn to Barbara Hamilton’s The Ninth Daughter because the quill pen and portrait of Abigail Adams on the cover quickly clued me in to the historical setting.  Also, there was a prominent blurb praising the… Continue reading

  • Get Lost (Part 3)

    (Third in a series) You look to the sky…                                 Set your course on into the night… You say good-bye…                                                             You hold your head high…     Wherever you’re goin it’s alright… Second stop was Cannon Beach and Salem: 1 day, 1 night We headed out early morning on a sunny Sunday from Portland to… Continue reading

  • Further down The Road: Dystopian Fiction

    If Cormac McCarthy’s book The Road – or the movie adaptation hitting theaters October 16 – piques your interest in fictional visions of a dystopian, post-apocalyptic world, here are some other books to check out. There’s been a massive flood and only one family, on an ark, has been saved.  Sound familiar?  The Island at the… Continue reading

  • Rabbits in myth and legend

    Thanks to its sweet face and impish nature, the rabbit has enchanted animal lovers, tormented farmers, and inspired legends and cautionary tales in cultures around the world since time immemorial. If you like rabbits, know someone who does, or are looking for a multicultural storytime idea, these traditional folktales available from The Seattle Public Library… Continue reading

  • The highly-charged world of medical research labs

    Recently, we have been reading about the tragic and chilling death of Yale graduate student Annie Le.  Her story is intricately tied in with its setting, a state-of-the-art research lab in the basement of a Yale building. The stakes are huge at this level of research; for example, normally a police investigation into such an… Continue reading

  • Through a child’s eyes

    If a child’s voice in an adult novel doesn’t ring true, it’s the worst sort of blasphemy: kids are about as real as it comes and it’s easy to spot a charlatan. But when I read a book that sounds like my inner child, or a childhood friend, I fall right in. For instance, the… Continue reading

  • The Moviegoer by Walker Percy

    Editor’s note: Susan Hildreth, our City Librarian, will be checking in with us from time to time to let us know what she’s been reading. I had never read this 1961 novel that won the National Book Award in 1962. It was being read by my book group so I was enthusiastic about reading an award… Continue reading

  • Music + Books = Delightful Synergy

    Music and reading are subjects that, separately, many people are passionately enthusiastic about.  But what about great music-book pairings for those of us who love them both?  A way to soundtrack our reading, if you will.  For my own personal love match, there is something about the Death Cab for Cutie album Transatlanticism that I… Continue reading

  • Short Stories – all the narrative you want, now condensed!

    There comes a point during summer – usually toward the end – when my reading momentum begins to flag and I find it difficult to muster the energy required to pick up the next 400 page book.  The answer, for me, is short stories.  Done well, a short story does everything a novel does: there’s… Continue reading

  • Cruising the Stacks

    One of my favorite things to do is to walk the stacks to remind myself of books I enjoyed — and to see what’s on the shelf and ready to go. On a recent journey through the Fiction Department at the Central Library, I came across these titles — they’re ready to go, no holds… Continue reading

  • School Days: These adult novels take you back

    Those of us who are finished with — but who keenly remember — pencils, books and teachers’ dirty looks, September always seems like the start of a new year.  We might not be buying back to school supplies this September, but we can reconnect with our past experiences —  good and bad — by delving… Continue reading

  • Magic in the Blood – still magic?

    Magic in the Blood is the second book in Devon Monk’s Allie Beckstrom series (after Magic to the Bone). This time around, there are ghosts causing trouble in Portland, OR and Allie keeps running into them as she tries to track down a couple missing girls for the police. Although this second installment in the series isn’t quite… Continue reading

  • Book review: ‘Admission’ brings novel insight to college admission process

    Michelle Obama, Sonia Sotomayor, Brooke Shields, activist Ralph Nader, Meg Whitman (CEO of E-Bay) and novelist Jodi Picoult — what do they all have in common? They all went to Princeton University. There’s something of a mystique surrounding the old Ivy League schools of the east coast, but now there’s a novel that gives some… Continue reading

  • Nightstand Reading: Seattle novelist Heather Barbieri’s late summer reading

    In Heather Barbieri’s newest book, The Lace Makers of Glenmara, 26-year-old fashion designer Kate Robinson heads to Ireland to change destructive patterns in her own life. In Glenmara, Kate finds inspiration in the local lace-making society. Fans of Maeve Binchy’s work and The Friday Night Knitting Club (Kate Jacobs) will find much to enjoy in Lace Makers.… Continue reading

  • Staff Favorites from Magnolia, Ballard and Central librarians

    Paradise by A.L. Kennedy This is one brutal book. You’ll either love it or hate it. Hannah is in her mid-30s and works in corrugated box sales. She’s a hardcore alcoholic in love with Robert, also an alcoholic. From Scotland to Montreal their story unfolds like a train wreck. The writing is what makes this… Continue reading