Fiction

  • Demons Are a Ghouls Best Friend by Victoria Laurie

    When professional medium MJ Holliday hears that a boarding school in Upstate New York is being haunted by a terrifying phantom, she and her business partners rush out to banish the bad guy. With the help of the Lake Placid townsfolk and a friendly specter named Eric, MJ attempts to learn the truth about the… Continue reading

  • Cherry blossoms bloom herald the spring

    The appearance of cherry blossoms marks the arrival of spring in Japan, sending revelers of all ages outdoors to enjoy wine and picnic lunches under flowery pink canopies in the nation’s parks and orchards. One cannot delay cherry blossom viewing, or “hanami,” because the cherry blossom is like life: beautiful and tragically fleeting. In Seattle,… Continue reading

  • The Slaves of Solitude by Patrick Hamilton

    Hamilton’s best-known title is Hangover Square, but I think that the recently re-printed The Slaves of Solitude may be a better introduction to his genius to most readers, with its more measured, benevolent view of human folly and its sympathetic heroine — the sober, bewildered Miss Roach. Having fled the bombings, Roach returns from London each night to a boarding house in a quiet suburb where she… Continue reading

  • Tesla in the air!

    Every so often, someone will approach me at the library and ask for information about Nikola Tesla, often in the kind of knowing way that people ask about Bigfoot or aliens, rather than a scientist and inventor. Occasionally they’ll bend close and add in hushed tones that they want the straight dope about his death… Continue reading

  • Magical Realism, beyond Latin America.

    Authors such as Isabel Allende and Gabriel García Márquez are well known for their wonderful stories rich in metaphor and infused with a sense of magic. The titles below are similar in style, but are written by authors from cultures other than those of Central and South America. The Cloud Atlas by Liam Callanan. Louis… 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

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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

  • Book review: Dreamers of the Day by Mary Doria Russell

    Mary Doria Russell visits The Seattle Public Library this Thursday (March 20) to introduce her new book, Dreamers of the Day, to the delight of her many Seattle fans. Mary’s first book, The Sparrow, won the James Tiptree award in 1996 and the Arthur C. Clarke award in 1998, and still is in constant demand… Continue reading

  • Wisconsin on my mind

    Maybe it’s the dark cold winters and the subsequently long hours spent indoors but a whole lot of writing is going on in the state of Wisconsin. And a lot of it is quality fiction. Two authors new to me live in Wisconsin − Jesse Lee Kercheval author of The Alice Stories, (connected stories poignantly… Continue reading

  • The New Gothics: less romance, more horror

    Popular in the 1970s, gothic romance was defined by Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca: dark and stormy night, castle or manor house with frightened fleeing maiden in a nightgown on the book cover. Other popular authors in this genre included Anya Seton, Phyllis Whitney, Dorothy Eden and Victoria Holt. For the past two decades, fewer gothics have… Continue reading

  • What are your sure-fire hits when it comes to books?

    If you’re looking in on Shelf Talk, chances are good you are a “book person,” and as such, are probably the go-to person for friends and family when it comes to what books they should read. This task requires much thought. What do they normally like to read? What mood have they been in recently?… Continue reading

  • Sleuthing for a good mystery?

    I don’t know why, but somehow reading a good mystery has a soothing effect on me. Go figure. The Library has lots of mysteries, but how to know which ones you will like? Librarians are always happy to talk to you and try to match up your tastes with the “right” book. There are also… Continue reading

  • The Wire finale: now what? (A reading list).

    Okay, so it is over.  Case closed. After five captivating years, HBO’s lauded series The Wire calls it a wrap. Now what do we do? Aside from chain-watching DVDs of the series (and its excellent Baltimore precursor, Homicide: Life on the Street), we’re seeing a lot of Wire fans in withdrawal are turning to books to prolong the feeling. This… Continue reading