Carol’s Comments June
2016
Hello Everyone! Welcome to another issue of Carol’s
Comments. After a rather hectic start to 2016, I definitely needed to
indulge in some escapist reading this spring and summer.
Despite treating myself to a Downton Abbey Season 6 mini
binge marathon over the Memorial Day weekend and faithfully watching Call
the Midwife, Grantchester and the final season of Mr. Selfridge on PBS
every Sunday, I still suffered from a profound case of Downton Abbey withdrawal.
I knew I needed to recapture my love for early 20th century England by finding a
novel with similar themes.
While desperately searching for the perfect remedy,
I discovered two positive reviews about The Summer Before the War, the new
bestseller by Helen Simonson. The first review was in the always reliable Entertainment
Weekly. But the second was in a most unexpectedly unusual source: Martha
Stewart Living’s March 2016 issue! The magazine featured Simonson’s second novel
as a recommended selection for National Reading Month.
Set primarily in Rye, East Sussex England during the
summer of 1914, Simonson’s novel focuses on Beatrice Nash, a very independent, progressive
young schoolteacher hired by aristocrat Agatha Kent to teach Latin at the local
school. When Beatrice arrives, she meets Mrs. Kent’s two nephews, Hugh Grange,
a young aspiring medical student/surgeon and his flamboyant younger cousin,
avant-garde poet Daniel Bookham.
At first, the townspeople have a difficult time
adjusting to Beatrice’s modern thinking, assertive personality and teaching
methods. However, with strong support from Agatha, her husband John (a British
Foreign Office official) and especially Hugh Grange, Rye’s conservative
education committee begrudgingly agrees to retain her.
When World War I finally erupts in August 1914, the
narrative vividly describes how the war’s brutalities directly and indirectly
affect the town. For instance, the citizens reluctantly welcome Belgian
refugees to their idyllic world when Rye forms the Belgian Relief Committee.
Then later when Hugh, Daniel and other local young men enlist, they and their
friends and relatives experience modern warfare’s horrors firsthand.
Despite the novel’s rather sentimental tone and
colorful and eccentric characters, the book also carefully explores important
themes concerning the realities of war, the refugee crisis, women’s rights and blatant
prejudice and discrimination within England’s rigid class system.
The
Summer Before the War seemed like a blend of Downton
Abbey and a modern Jane Austen novel. I found it very poignant ad
heartbreaking at times. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys historical novels
set in early 20th century England.
Next, I wanted to shift away from romantic historical
fiction and find a fun, quirky, fast-paced novel to lift my spirits. So one day
while scanning American Libraries online, I came across an article listing the
perfect guilty pleasure summer reads. The book that tantalized me the most was Mr.
Penumbra’s 24- Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan.
Sloan’s zany novel begins
in early 21st century San Francisco when young unemployed web
designer Clay Jannon accepts a nighttime clerk position at a weirdly mysterious
24 hour bookstore owned by the eccentric Mr. Penumbra.
Clay quickly notices that along with the infrequent
regular customer, several strange rather offbeat people come in and check out
creepy books filled with encrypted symbols located in the dark cavernous recesses
of the bookshop. Clay eventually
discovers that Penumbra’s store acts as camouflage for a secret book cult known
as the Fellowship of the Unbroken Spine. Founded in the 15th century
by Aldus Manutius, one of the first book publishers of Greek and Roman
classics, the Fellowship’s followers have attempted to decipher their founder’s
Codex Vitae hoping to unlock the secrets of eternal life for over 500 years!
Clay enlists his tech savvy friends: Matt, a special
effects designer for Industrial Light and Magic, Kat Potente, a perky Google
computer programmer/code breaker and Neel Shah, a young self-made Silicon
Valley entrepreneur to help him unravel the Founders Puzzle’s true meaning.
When Penumbra suddenly disappears after Clay steals
the Fellowship’s logbook, Clay, Neel and Kat discover that Penumbra has gone to
the Unbroken Spine’s New York headquarters safely hidden within the Festina
Lente Company ( a business owned by cult’s current leader) to be reinstated
back into the Fellowship. The trio hurriedly travel to New York City and intercept
Penumbra before he reaches his destination,
Succumbing to Penumbra’s relentless insistence, the group
reluctantly enters the Festina Lente Company where they find Manutius’ original
Codex Vitae. Kat is especially confident that Google can decode it in two
weeks. Clay and his friends soon realize it is nearly impossible to steal the
codex and take it to Google for scanning. They must bring the scanner to the
codex. To accomplish this task, they would need James Bond with a Library
Science degree! :-) When this effort fails, Clay uses human ingenuity and basic
Internet search techniques to successfully solve this complex puzzle.
Ultimately, this very imaginative digital age fairy
tale reminiscent of TNT’s The Librarian miniseries starring
Noah Wyle is a wild, rollicking adventure that will thoroughly delight almost
every reader. I highly recommend it –
especially to reference librarians!
I love the Beatles – especially Paul McCartney. I typically never review books over 500 pages
for this blog. But when I saw in The New York Times Book Review and
the St Joseph County Public Library’s
online column BUZZED About Nonfiction that Philip Norman had recently written
the mammoth 853 page biography Paul McCartney: the Life, I just
couldn’t resist!
Although Norman never personally interviewed
McCartney for this comprehensive book, Sir Paul gave him “tacit approval” to
discuss his personal and professional life with family, friends, music
colleagues and associates.
Filled with fabulous photographs, this extensive
biography chronicles McCartney’s fascinating life from his childhood, the
formation and subsequent breakup of the Beatles through his solo career and
beyond.
Since I already knew a lot about the Beatles and
Paul’s significant contribution to the group through The Beatles Anthology and
the authorized biography The Love You Make: An Insider’s Story of the
Beatles by Peter Brown and Steven Gaines, I took a nonlinear approach to
the book focusing on chapters concerning McCartney’s complicated relationship
with John Lennon, his post-Beatles
musical career and his marriages to Linda Eastman, Heather Mills and Nancy
Shevell.
Despite its rather provocative style and tabloid
format, Paul McCartney: the Life is an essential must-read for all Beatles
fans, Ironically, I finished reading this biography on June 18th,
Paul McCartney’s 74th birthday. Happy Birthday Sir Paul!
All the books reviewed in this blog can be found at
most local public libraries. My readers in St Joseph County, Indiana can visit
the St Joseph County Public Library’s web site at libraryforlife.org for more
information. Thanks for reading! See you all again next time.
