I asked my colleagues at LJ/School Library Journal and Junior Library Guild about their favorite animal books last week, having discovered a reprint of British illustrator Lucy Dawson’s delightful 1936 title Dogs As I See Them (HarperDesign). The response on the pets front was, shall we say, muzzled (except for Henrietta Verma—thank you!), but as usual the “What We’re Reading” gang had some good books (or not-books, hi, Guy Gonzalez!) they wanted to share with you.
Mahnaz Dar, Associate Editor, SLJ Reviews
It’s hard to find truly original books about World War II; the subject has been done to death. But Tim Wynne-Jones’s recent The Emperor of Any Place (Candlewick, Oct.), a YA novel that should have plenty of appeal to adults, too, approaches the topic in a dynamic way. The story focuses on Evan, a teenager whose father has just died. Evan comes across a series of diary entries from two men who were soldiers on opposite sides of the war, who found themselves on a strange, eerie island. Evan must figure out why his father was in possession of the book—and what role his grandfather, a misanthropic old man whom Evan barely knows—has in the mystery. I couldn’t put it down!
Liz French, Senior Editor, LJ Reviews
I was all set to tell you about Michael Dibdin’s “Aurelio Zen” mysteries, the last of which (2007’s End Games) I discovered on my YMCA branch’s giveaway shelf, but then a thing of beauty arrived in the LJ bookroom. I’m calling it an early birthday present (October 5, ahem). Canadian publisher Firefly must have heard the notes of regret when I told them how hard it was to release Vogue: The Gown to my ace arts/fashion reviewer, Lindsay King. OK, I admit, I laid it on kinda thick (I also wrote lovingly about the book last year, right before I sent the book out). Anyway, my very own slipcased copy of Vogue: The Gown now occupies a place of honor on my bookshelf, for when I need a shot or two of glamour. That’s about twice a day, often more on Tuesdays, but who’s counting? (Lindsay’s review of the book is here, near the end of the page.)
Guy Gonzalez Director, Content Strategy & Development, LJS
I’m reading This Is Not a book by Tom Abba and Baldur Bjarnason, which, truth in advertising, is not a book (it doesn’t even have a cover; I made that image myself from a screenshot!) but an “an old-fashioned hypertext about writing for digital.” Reminiscent of the revelatory Cluetrain Manifesto (which also started out as not a book), Abba and Bjarnason’s “manifesto in flux” cuts through the nonsensical, short-sighted, and seemingly endless ebook debates to get to the heart of the matter:
Modern text, mashed around through fluid digital media, simply cannot remain a fixed object. If you want to, you can choose to make it a fixed object, but then you obscure its specific advantages. Within a digital environment if you want the text to adapt itself to computers, mobile phones, tablets, screen readers, websites, and that one guy who everybody knows who still prints out everything he reads, you have to let it be and let go of all the expectations that have been bred through the last few hundred years of the printed page. Something that manifests as a passion for craft, awareness of the art, a steadfast belief in the power of the medium in print, becomes obsessive-compulsive control freakery in digital.
It’s a compelling read (I’m only about one-fifth through it), not just for tech geeks but everyone in the business of creating or curating content in the 21st century. For the record, I’m reading the single page version via Instapaper, but I’m also looking forward to being able to hold a print copy.
Meredith Schwartz, Executive Editor, LJ
Having finished the complete Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) holdings of Patricia Wentworth mysteries (except for the couple of holds I’m still waiting for), I’ve now moved on to Christianna Brand, whom I’d never heard of before but found on a search for Dorothy Sayers read-alikes. I wouldn’t go that far, but her books are fun and set (and written) in much the same period as Sayers’s. The characterizations are less nuanced and compelling, particularly of the detective, but the period slang and attitudes toward sex and relationships is fascinating. The plot and character commonalities across ostensibly unrelated titles can be strange though—hard to tell if they were common tropes of the genre or the time or personal idées fixes of Brand.
Georgia Siegchrist, Assistant Editor, JLG
I’m reading Lawrence Wright’s Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, & the Prison of Belief (Vintage), not for its cover, though it does have a great one! I started the book already knowing quite a lot about Scientology, but there’s plenty that’s new to me, too. Even though the book is 450 pages, I wish it were longer, because some of the throwaway revelations are so bizarre that I really want to know more. For instance, one church member “was made to run around a pole in the searing desert heat for twelve hours a day, until his teeth fell out.” What?! Initially, I found myself resisting reading too much at a time because I was savoring all the details, and now I’m resisting reading too much at a time because I’m somewhat horrified.
Henrietta Verma, Editor, LJ Reviews
I’ve been flitting around a bit reading-wise this week. I love a good book pairing and I’m enjoying both Steve Silberman’s Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity (Avery, 2015)—a book I’ve been looking forward to for a couple of years that explores the history of autism and the benefits to society of minds of all kinds—and John Donvan and Caren Zucker’s In a Different Key: The Story of Autism (Crown, 2015), which is also a history of autism, one that starts with the first child diagnosed with the condition. By following Silberman on Twitter, I’ve also gotten interested in reading tweets under the #ActuallyAutistic hashtag, which discuss life as an autistic person.
On the pets note: I’m not reading it now, but I must mention the best book ever in any genre: Kaori Tsutaya’s Crafting with Cat Hair (Quirk, 2011). (Step one of each project is “Brush your cat.”) What I do often read to my son, related to my family’s own cat, is The Hello, Goodbye Window (Hyperion, 2005), with text by Norton Juster and illustrations by Chris Raschka. In it, a little girl recounts her visits to her grandparents’ house. She spends time in the garden, where there is a “tiger,” actually an orange tabby that looks just like our beloved moggy, Pumpkin.
Book Covers We Love, cont.
Barbara Genco, Collection Management Editor, LJ
The combo of the title and the cover art for Kimberly Brubaker Bradley’s The War That Saved My Life (Dial) was irresistible. Here’s what I said about the book on Goodreads:
One of the finest middle school novels I’ve read in quite a while. We are treated to an intense and involving reading experience guided by a strong narrator/heroine in the person of evacuee Ada Smith. Bradley does a particularly wonderful job of integrating vivid historic detail and emotionally believable situations. The characterizations (Jamie, Susan, Margaret, Mr Grimes, Mam, etc.) are complex and well drawn. So much so that I began to long for a second novel about these people and their lives as it became clear that this novel was drawing to an immensely satisfying close. This is a fine novel and reminiscent of another emotionally wrenching tale of another WWII evacuee, Michelle Magorian’s Goodnight, Mister Tom. It has the bittersweet, British home-front intensity of Mrs. Miniver and some of the drama of Foyle’s War. Put this #1 on your 2015 list of must-reads.