David W.

  • Books + Beer = Booktoberfest!

    Some things are just meant to go together. Strawberries & Shortcake. Peaches & Herb. Pumpkin Spice & Everything. To these time honored pairings we add what could well become our new favorite: Books & Beer. This October you’ll find librarians visiting pubs and bars all across this great city, for Seattle Public Library’s inaugural Booktoberfest. Continue reading

  • Fantasy Checklist Challenge: Slipstream & Surreal

         – posted by David W. Oh no, they’ll tell you, they don’t read fantasy. They have no idea where the fantasy section is at the library, let alone where to find Westeros or Xanth, or how to get into Mordor – doesn’t one simply walk? Oh sure, they read the Harry Potter books, but when… Continue reading

  • James Joyce at the Library!

    ~posted by David W. There are some books that should be heard and not seen. Well, perhaps that’s a little extreme. Let me say instead that there are authors whom you haven’t really experienced until you have read them aloud, or had them read to you. Most poets fit that category, and certainly Shakespeare. And for both myself… Continue reading

  • Suddenly, My Lunch Hour Became a Thrill!

    Illicit passion, spine-tingling chills, pulse-pounding action on your lunch hour? Sound unlikely? If you work or live near downtown, come join scores of happy and thrilled listeners who have discovered just how fun lunch hour can be, at Thrilling Tales: Seattle Public Library’s Story Time for Grown Ups! Continue reading

  • Kids Agree: Books are no longer cool

                     ~ Posted by David W. To many it came as a shock. Just as conventional wisdom chorused that in our increasingly plugged-in society print books were destined to get left behind, a series of studies and articles from such sources as Nielsen, Publishing Technology, Hewlett Packard, The Pew Research Center,… Continue reading

  • Mystery Challenge: Noir

    ~ by David W. If you’ve been taking our Mystery Challenge, you’ve tried many different types of whodunits across a spectrum from cute to bleak, but all these stories have had one thing in common: justice has prevailed in the end. But what happens when there is no justice, or when even justice seems unjust?… Continue reading

  • Mystery Challenge: Professionals – The Police

    ~by David W. Someone’s been murdered: who are you going to call? A haughty genius and his devoted doctor sidekick? A persnickety little Belgian whose egg-shaped head is punctuated by a tiny moustache? A wisecracking shamus in a dingy office, drinking rotgut and polishing his gat? Of course not: YOU CALL THE COPS! Continue reading

  • Mystery Challenge: Professionals — Private Eyes

    ~by David W. So far in our mystery challenge, we’ve invited you to cozy up with some amateur sleuths, explore the world, and travel back in time to enjoy great puzzlers from the Queen of Mystery and the World’s Greatest Detective. Now it’s time to get some professional help, as we turn up our collars,… Continue reading

  • Mysteries for non-mystery readers

    “Oh, I would never read a mystery!” If you love crime fiction, you almost certainly have at least one of these in your life. They don’t mean to be snobs or anything, but mysteries? Um, no thanks. Life’s too short, they’ll say, to waste it on such frivolities. In the library, they don’t even know… Continue reading

  • Crime: Inside Korea, North and South with James Church and Martin Limón.

    Last year Adam Johnson, author of the tremendous novel The Orphan Master’s Son wrote us a great post on his experiences in North Korea, including a peek at what passes for a library there. If you’re among the growing number of people watching the startling developments with this mysterious nation with concerned fascination, you owe it… Continue reading

  • Crime Out of Africa: beyond Precious Ramotswe.

    Is Africa becoming the next Scandinavia? Making up a fifth of the world’s landmass, the continent has accounted for only a tiny fraction of crime publishing, but that seems to be changing. Perhaps under cover of Alexander McCall-Smith’s hugely popular and immensely charming Precious Ramotswe books set in Botswana, and certainly thanks to a growing interest by mystery… Continue reading

  • Pulit-Surprise! Pulitzer Prize winners leaked.

    Just when you thought things couldn’t get any stranger with the Pulitzer Prize, a list of this year’s award winners and finalists has been leaked a full two weeks before their scheduled announcement on April 15. Continue reading

  • Crime: Papal Intrigue!

    I confess: I miss the papal conclave. I miss the pomp and the costumes, but most of all I miss the accents. My favorite part of pope season is how all these men in vestments or Armani suits suddenly appear on the news giving color commentary in these just terrific Roman accents, kind of like Father Guido Sarducci used to… Continue reading

  • Too much excitement for the library!?

    Generally in the public library setting we don’t really go in for thrills, chills and spills. A warm, well-lit space with people quietly reading, kids doing homework (or goofing around), strangers and friends discussing books: that’s about our speed. Except on the first and third Monday of each month at the Central Library, when we turn… Continue reading

  • Thrillers for every taste, part 2.

    In last week’s post featuring ninety diverse suspense writers, I made the point that there are many different kinds of thrillers out there. Here are eighty more of today’s best and most thrilling writers grouped for various tastes, and still we’ve only scratched the surface: Sophie Hannah writes contemporary British crime stories suffused with taut psychological suspense and a haunting mood. Also try:… Continue reading

  • Thrillers for every taste, part 1

    A thriller’s a thriller, right? Wrong! Very different things set each reader’s pulse racing. Here are some of our favorite writers in a wide array of suspenseful fiction, with suggestions for further reading; tune in next week for part 2. Jeff Abbott writes relentless, high octane intrigue with action on every page. Also try: Robert Ludlum, James Patterson, Thomas… Continue reading

  • Richard III, part deux: Return of the Return of the King!

    My friends and colleagues will tell you I’m a bit of a bone nut – osteophile? – witness the lifelike replica of a Roman Gladiator’s skull that grins on my desk. Plus I’m a Shakespeare fan, so I was totally jazzed over the recent revelation that a skeleton found under a Leicester car park had… Continue reading

  • Library Love Fest, this Monday at the Central Library

    We love librarians here at ShelfTalk (psst: many of us are librarians), and our readers do too, judging from some of our most popular posts on Librarian Fantasies and Librarians in Fiction. This Monday, January 28 at noon, that love will be on full display during a special “Library Edition” of SPL’s regular story time… Continue reading