Palmer Adult Evening Book Group -- October Discussion

Palmer Adult Evening Book Group

THE PABG meets on the 4th Tuesday of every month from 6:00pm to 7:30pm.  New members are always welcome!

October 28, 2014

THE LIGHT BETWEEN THE OCEANS
by M.L. Stedman

Join us as we discussion this New York Times bestseller, soon to be a major motion picture.

"An extraordinary and heart-rending book about good people, tragic decisions, and the beauty found in each of them."  - Marcus Zusak, author of The Book Thief.

After four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia and takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day’s journey from the coast. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes once a season, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby’s cries on the wind. A boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby. 

Tom, who keeps meticulous records and whose moral principles have withstood a horrific war, wants to report the man and infant immediately. But Isabel insists the baby is a “gift from God,” and against Tom’s judgment, they claim her as their own and name her Lucy. When she is two, Tom and Isabel return to the mainland and are reminded that there are other people in the world. Their choice has devastated one of them.

Contact Stephanie S. at Palmer Branch for more information about our book group: stephanies@eastonpl.org :: 610/258*7492 

Books available for request from Easton, Bethlehem, and Allentown libraries for $0.50.

Reblogged: Read Gone Girl? What to read next!

GONE GIRL Read-a-Likes

Now that you've read GONE GIRL by Gillian Flynn, what are you going to read next?  The following titles are similar to Flynn's bestseller.

DARE ME by Megan Abbott

Addy Hanlon has always been Beth Cassidy's best friend and trusted lieutenant. Beth calls the shots and Addy carries them out, a long-established order of things that has brought them to the pinnacle of their high-school careers. Now they're seniors who rule the intensely competitive cheer squad, feared and followed by the other girls -- until the young new coach arrives. 

Cool and commanding, an emissary from the adult world just beyond their reach, Coach Colette French draws Addy and the other cheerleaders into her life. Only Beth, unsettled by the new regime, remains outside Coach's golden circle, waging a subtle but vicious campaign to regain her position as "top girl" -- both with the team and with Addy herself.  

Then a suicide focuses a police investigation on Coach and her squad. After the first wave of shock and grief, Addy tries to uncover the truth behind the death -- and learns that the boundary between loyalty and love can be dangerous terrain.  

The raw passions of girlhood are brought to life in this taut, unflinching exploration of friendship, ambition, and power. Award-winning novelist Megan Abbott, writing with what Tom Perrotta has hailed as "total authority and an almost desperate intensity," provides a harrowing glimpse into the dark heart of the all-American girl.

CARTWHEEL by Jennifer DuBois

When Lily Hayes arrives in Buenos Aires for her semester abroad, she is enchanted by everything she encounters: the colorful buildings, the street food, the handsome, elusive man next door. Her studious roommate Katy is a bit of a bore, but Lily didn’t come to Argentina to hang out with other Americans. 

Five weeks later, Katy is found brutally murdered in their shared home, and Lily is the prime suspect. But who is Lily Hayes? It depends on who’s asking. As the case takes shape—revealing deceptions, secrets, and suspicious DNA—Lily appears alternately sinister and guileless through the eyes of those around her: the media, her family, the man who loves her and the man who seeks her conviction. With mordant wit and keen emotional insight, Cartwheel offers a prismatic investigation of the ways we decide what to see—and to believe—in one another and ourselves.

RECONSTRUCTING AMELIA by Kimberly McCreight

In Reconstructing Amelia, the stunning debut novel from Kimberly McCreight, Kate's in the middle of the biggest meeting of her career when she gets the telephone call from Grace Hall, her daughter’s exclusive private school in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Amelia has been suspended, effective immediately, and Kate must come get her daughter—now. But Kate’s stress over leaving work quickly turns to panic when she arrives at the school and finds it surrounded by police officers, fire trucks, and an ambulance. By then it’s already too late for Amelia. And for Kate. 

An academic overachiever despondent over getting caught cheating has jumped to her death. At least that’s the story Grace Hall tells Kate. And clouded as she is by her guilt and grief, it is the one she forces herself to believe. Until she gets an anonymous text: She didn’t jump.

Reconstructing Amelia is about secret first loves, old friendships, and an all-girls club steeped in tradition. But, most of all, it’s the story of how far a mother will go to vindicate the memory of a daughter whose life she couldn’t save.

DARK PLACES by Gillian Flynn

Libby Day was seven when her mother and two sisters were murdered in “The Satan Sacrifice of Kinnakee, Kansas.” She survived—and famously testified that her fifteen-year-old brother, Ben, was the killer. Twenty-five years later, the Kill Club—a secret society obsessed with notorious crimes—locates Libby and pumps her for details. They hope to discover proof that may free Ben. Libby hopes to turn a profit off her tragic history: She’ll reconnect with the players from that night and report her findings to the club—for a fee. As Libby’s search takes her from shabby Missouri strip clubs to abandoned Oklahoma tourist towns, the unimaginable truth emerges, and Libby finds herself right back where she started—on the run from a killer.

Nonfiction for Thriller Lovers

If you like to read mysteries and crime fiction, this list is for you.  These three titles are real-life thrillers and mysteries.  And they aren't for the feint of heart.

Bryan Burrough's PUBLIC ENEMIES: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI

Crime can keep a nonfiction book moving just like fiction, but you need to make sure there’s actual action and not just talk. True crime books can be painfully slow (as real crime often is) but this is one book that has bad guys to spare, crime sprees galore, and the kind of big names that you’ll recognize immediately. Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, and many others make not only appearances but play starring roles. There’s much more to their stories than you’d expect: a wealth of crimes and chases and thrills. Criminals back in the day could get away with an awful lot just by leaving town, but this book follows the guys who finally started to chase them down from state to state. A really boring movie was made of this a few years ago- skip it.

Dave Cullen's COLUMBINE

Only a few years after its publication, Cullen’s book is already considered one of the seminal nonfiction works of the modern day. It deserves the accolades. One thing going for it is the vast differences between what was reported during that first year in the aftermath of the horrific shooting and what Cullen uncovers when he goes back to put the pieces together years later. We learn more about the killers than we ever did before. We also learn a lot more about the victims and just how many of their stories were mis-reported. Columbine was a big news story for the mass media, and if you’re at all worried about the evils of the 24-hour news takeover, this book is a must-read. It is constantly riveting no matter how much you think you know.

Michael Blanding's THE MAP THIEF

White-collar crime can be some of the most fascinating, and the subject of Blanding’s book is no exception. E. Forbes Smiley was a big player in the antique map dealer business- a small business, but one that deals with huge amounts of money for priceless items. And yet he stole dozens, possibly hundreds, of maps and got away with it for years. In our day of DNA and technology, it’s shocking to see the lack of a paper trail and just how easy it was to prey on map collections. If you like picking up trivia, it’s the kind of book that is full of tidbits you’ll be dying to read out loud to the person next to you. You may find yourself with a map addiction by the time it’s over.

Vincent Bugliosi's HELTER SKELTER: The True Story of the Manson Murders
   Only available from Allentown for reserve.

As a law student who started to find endless episodes of Law & Order boring and inaccurate, I decided to see what a real procedural looked like and couldn’t ignore all the positive reviews for this book. Helter Skelter is like nothing else, an intricate look at the Manson family, a methodical look at how the investigation unfolded, and a brilliantly done piece of courtroom drama as the killers go on trial. Bugliosi was the prosecutor in the case and he does an amazing job of telling this story and making the legal issues accessible for readers. It’s twice the length of any police novel, but also twice as good.

List courtesy of Book Riot.

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All books may be reserved for $0.50.  Titles are available in the Nonfiction collection at the Main Branch of the Easton Area Public Library.

New DVD and Hardcover Available: Ken Burns' "The Roosevelts: An Intimate History"

If you missed Ken Burns' seven-part PBS series on Theodore, Eleanor, and Franklin Roosevelt, we have copies at the Main Library and the Palmer Branch. The companion book is also available.

The 14 hour documentary is fascinating. Rich in content, still photographs, and film clips, the series brings the Roosevelts to life. Some credit for that has to go to Meryl Streep for her narration as Eleanor and Paul Giamatti as Theodore.

Yes, we learn a lot about the Roosevelts' role in American history - the creation of the National Park system and the Panama Canal, the passage of New Deal programs, and the defeat of Hitler - but we also come away knowing  their personalities, relationships, and personal struggles - TR's probable bipolar disorder, Eleanor's unhappy childhood, and FDR's polio among them.

One especially poignant moment occurs when the series' writer Geoffrey Ward chokes up while talking about FDR's struggle with polio. It's not mentioned in the documentary, but Ward had contracted polio as a child.

It's an extraordinary program, and it left me with the question: Where are today's leaders who care about ordinary people and the environment and who can fill us with confidence?

You too can have your own Dewey Decimal Number!

When I was growing up, I was told that William Shakespeare was the only individual author to have his own Dewey Decimal Number - that is, 822.33. I have since learned that this is not quite true. There are other authors with their own DDC numbers.

(Of course, you can also argue with that statement on the grounds that William Shakespeare was not the author of all plays attributed to him, or that he was not a real person at all but simply a ghostwriting pseudonym used by a series of different authors of that time; I will not get into that here; let it suffice to say that I myself am a Stratfordian.)

There are DDC numbers for several of the Greek Dramatists: 882.1 for Aeschylus, 882.2 for Sophocles, etc. Miguel de Cervantes pretty much wrote the first modern Spanish novel, so 863.3, which is Early Spanish Fiction,  mostly belongs to him. Most of 851.1 (Early Italian Poetry) is devoted to Dante.

And so on. The DDC number for 21st Century American Fiction is 813.6; it has not been cut into subsections yet, since we do not yet have the perspective to determine which authors have been the most influential of our time. But someday you, too, might have your own DDC number.

Tips on Writing and Publishing Books

Recently a patron asked me for information on how to publish some fiction he had recently written. Now, my first impulse was to take him to the 800s class - Literature and Rhetoric. "808" is instruction in writing, and "808.3" is for writing fiction (novels and/or short stories). However, it concentrates on the process of writing it; there is very little there on how to get fiction published.

http://www.librarything.com/mds/808.3

For the best results in a situation like this, I recommend skipping the 800s altogether and going to "070.5," which is the section on publishing. You might not find a whole lot there that is specifically on publishing fiction, but you will probably find more information there about how to publish a book.

http://www.librarything.com/mds/070.5

I hope this is helpful to anyone who works in a public library.

Matthew and Vlada Return on Saturday

 Anyone who attended the two earlier Masterwork Conversations concerts here at the Library is looking forward to Saturday's performance "The Imagination of the Folk" at 2:00 pm.

Masterwork Conversations is the husband-wife team of Matthew Harrison and Vlada Yaneyva. Matthew and Vlada perform in an interactive story-telling recital format. You'll learn about the composers' lives, their inspirations, and what to listen for as the music is played by these accomplished pianists.

More exciting news for their fans in the Lehigh Valley: Matthew and Vlada are recording their debut album. Funded through a Kickstarter project, the CD will be titled "The Imagination of the Folk."

If you'd like to learn a little more about the CD and the music in Saturday's concert, take a look at this video.


The October 4 concert features two exciting collections of piano duets - Brahms' Hungarian Dances and Dvorak's Slavonic Dances - along with works by Stoyanov, Ligetti, and Szymanowski.

The free program will be held in the Catherine Drake Room which is handicapped accessible from Church Street. Light refreshments will be provided by the Friends of the Library, the sponsors of the program.