A few more books about books to prolong your enjoyment of
the current community read.
The 2015 One Book One Community program began October 1.
Programming continues through October 20. Our 10th anniversary
selection is Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour
Bookstore by Robin Sloan. Print and audio copies of this book can be
checked out of your library, inter-loaned from other libraries or purchased at
local bookstores.
The beautifully illustrated History of the Book in 100 Books by Roderick Cave and Sara Ayad traces
book technology from Egyptian times to the e-book. Readers discover that the
history of the book and the printed word has undergone constant change since
the first inscriptions made on cave walls. The author and visual artist have
chosen 100 works from around the world to explain the role each has played in
the development of books and writing and the expansion of literacy and
knowledge. They start with cave paintings from 16,000 BCE, move through Apicus,
"the earliest serious cookbook surviving," that was transcribed in
Germany in 830 CE, and conclude with e-books (which are thought, by many, to
have been prototyped by a school teacher in Spain in 1949), manga, and crowd-
(and cloud-) sourced fiction.
Sitting on a milk crate in her grandfather’s butcher shop,
reading voraciously, Cara Nicoletti realized how good books and good food make
people happy. In Voracious: A Hungry
Reader Cooks her way Through Great Books, readers are introduced to
Nicoletti and her family, her reflections on a number of classic works and
fifty recipes inspired by her favorite stories. Try brown butter crepes (Gone
Girl) for breakfast, clam chowder (Moby-Dick, of course) for lunch, and
gingerbread cake with blood orange syrup for an evening snack (Hansel and
Gretel). All are charmingly presented by this essayist who is also a butcher
and a cook.
Gutenberg’s Apprentice
by Alix Christie is so enthralling that my husband and I listened to it during
two car trips downstate this summer. The characters, the demanding efforts of
the printers, and 15th-century Mainz society are so well depicted in
this work of historical fiction that we felt we were in Gutenberg’s workshop,
watching eagerly as a font was designed, molded and poured, as lines and pages
of text were meticulously laid out, as page after page of Gutenberg’s Bible was
finished in a race against church greed, jealous guilds, Elder politics,
superstition, plague and the fall of Constantinople. (It’s a long book.) The
story is anchored by Peter Schoeffer whose foster father, Johann Fust,
apprenticed the young Paris scribe to the demanding Gutenberg to be his eyes in
the workshop which he supported financially and to hurry along the evolving
technology which Fust believed would revolutionize the publishing world.
Jasper Fforde’s The
Eyre Affair is a fun, jumbled, comic, fantasy, mystery tied in with time
travel and romance. Set in a 1985 alternative England where people take their
literature very seriously, Special Operative literary agent Thursday Next sets
out to thwart the evil schemes of Acheron Hades, the world’s third most wanted villain.
Hades steals a prose portal device that allows people to enter works of
literature and begins kidnapping characters from their books. After Jane Eyre
is taken, Thursday is assisted by Mr. Rochester in recovering Jane, catching
Hades, destroying the portal and providing a satisfying end to the story.
Simon Watson is a librarian who lives alone in the family’s
crumbling house above Long Island Sound. An antiquarian bookseller finds
Simon’s grandmother’s name inside an old log kept by the owner of an 18th-century
traveling circus and sends him the diary. Inside the log may be the clues Simon
needs to solve the family curse. The women in his family, including his mother,
were excellent swimmers and circus mermaids who all drown on July 24. Simon
fears for his sister Enola, who returns home in June after running away to join
a traveling show. Simon’s story alternates with those of the members of the 18th-centry
troupe in Erika Swyler’s Book of
Speculation.
Moored on the Seine, we discover Monsieur Perdu, the
literary apothecary who runs a floating bookstore on a barge in Nina George’s The Little Paris Bookshop. Perdu
dispenses books that mend the hearts and souls of his customers. Perdu’s own
heart, however, remains broken ever since Manon, the love of his life, abruptly
disappeared 21 years ago. Perdu has steadfastly refused to read the letter
Manon mailed shortly after her departure.
When empty-handed Catherine moves into his apartment building she finds
the letter in the drawer of a table Perdu gives her. At Catherine’s urging
Perdu reads Manon’s letter then pulls up anchor to travel upriver to the south
of France hoping to find forgiveness and healing. Perdu is joined on his journey by Max, a
young author running away from his fame, a woman they save when she falls in to
the stormy river, and an Italian chef searching for his long-lost love.
--Cathy Seblonka, Collection Development/Reference Librarian
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