The Little Stranger, by Sarah Waters

A recipe for a good old-fashioned yummy ghost story: One large, imposing and grand yet decaying English manor house Three eccentric family members A dash of old family tragedy Generous dollop of post-war angst One stolid, sensible outsider Stir in some extra-heavy atmosphere. Marinate until everyday objects start moving by themselves. An English country doctor [...]

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In the Shadow of the Glacier, by Vicki Delany

This is the first in Vicki Delany‘s series of police procedural/cozy mysteries set in the small Kootenay mountain town of Trafalgar, British Columbia. Molly Smith is a young, inexperienced beat cop on her first murder investigation. She is paired with a former big city cop recently relocated from Vancouver. Jonathan Winters is none too happy [...]

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The Unscratchables, by Cornelius Kane

Cornelius Kane’s crime story is animal noir at its best. No humans live in the metropolis of San Bernardo; the two main populations are cats and dogs, forever at odds. Cats exist in the upper echelons of society, residing in tony Kathattan. The working-class dogs, stuck in their pack mentality, toil down in the squalid [...]

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The Good Humor Man, by Andrew Fox

Cross Fahrenheit 451 with Soylent Green and you’ve got The Good Humor Man. Although a futuristic tale, the reality of the premise may not be that far off. In the year 2041, America is trying to recover from GD2 (The Second Great Depression). For the protection of the public, food is strictly regulated by the [...]

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Blue Highways: a Journey into America, by William Least Heat-Moon

As 2009 winds down, here’s the tale of someone who had a really lousy year thirty years ago, but in the process found motivation to turn things around. In 1978, William Least Heat-Moon lost his teaching job at the University of Missouri and was left by his first wife. At a loss for what to do [...]

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The Way of Shadows, by Brent Weeks

A note before I get into today’s review. It should be apparent by now that I’m not observing the holidays in this week’s posts. If you’re like me, by this time in the season, you’re ready to undeck the halls and find some jollies that aren’t seasonal. If you’re still in search of Christmas spirit, I [...]

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Stitches: A Memoir, by David Small

I’m not an enormous fan of graphic novels. I’ve got no problems with the idea of them, I’m just not very visually oriented. So I hope you’ll know how much I liked Stitches when I say that it may be my favorite book of 2009. David Small’s memoir of his harrowing childhood is a terrifying [...]

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Makers, by Cory Doctorow

Librarians are in a torment over the future of work. We want to embrace the future, make use of rising technologies as we’ve done in the past, but we’re also beginning to wonder if digital downloads, electronic books, and misconceptions about the quality and extent of information on the Internet are going to swallow our [...]

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An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943, by Rick Atkinson

We’re losing the generation of American men who fought in World War II. Time rolls forward with less mercy than a tank, and a man who was twenty in 1942 (as my father, a veteran of both the European and Asian campaigns, was) would now be 87 years old. If you’re at all interested in military or American history, now might be the [...]

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Beat the Reaper, by Josh Bazell

Thrillers are supposed to thrill. Suspense novels are supposed to cause suspense. Read too many of them, though, and they begin to lose their oomph.  You can only read so many fiction books about serial killers, terrorist plots, and evil genius criminal masterminds before everything starts to blend together. Then along comes debut novelist Josh [...]

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The Restless Sleep, by Stacy Horn

In New York City, 8,894 homicides have gone unsolved between 1985 and 2005, the year that Stacy Horn published her book. It’s nearly 2010 now, so that’s what, ten thousand or so murderers walking around free? A few will have died, a few others will have been locked up for unrelated reasons, but that’s still [...]

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Under the Dome, by Stephen King

Two dogs die in this story. Also people — the human body count starts a few pages in and becomes astronomical by the end — but on top of the graphic depictions of murder, rape, suicide, police brutality, angry mobs, and riots, a German Shepherd and a Golden Retriever come to bad ends. Killing off [...]

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The Book of Genesis, illustrated by R. Crumb

For decades R. Crumb has been a major presence in the world of comics, but there’s a good chance you’ve never read his material. Unless you’ve caught his frequent contributions to The New Yorker, you may have never encountered Crumb, even if you’re an avid fan of comics and graphic novels. This is because R. [...]

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New features for 2010

You will see some new features in Blogging for a Good Book coming in 2010. Beginning on January 2nd we will offer a weekly post called The List. Each Saturday one of our editors will post a brief list of titles that are related to each by subject, appeal, or some other strand. We hope [...]

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Last Night in Twisted River, by John Irving

Normally I avoid Literary Fiction. Not only do I prefer the conventions of genre fiction (vampires, apocalyptic futures, whodunnits), but I dislike the overblown language that plagues so many Literary books. Don’t get me wrong, I love to read finely-crafted prose — it’s just that I get tired of authors who try too hard to [...]

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La Vida Vampire, by Nancy Haddock (2008)

Yesterday I noted the great number of fantasy books on the shelves.  This one was misfiled in nonfiction and one of my colleagues jokingly handed it to me and said this looked like one I’d enjoy.  Well, ha! I did enjoy it. Francesca Marinelli is a vampire princess who has been buried in a crypt [...]

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Rosemary and Rue, by Seanan McGuire (2009)

We finish out the week with two posts from Circulation Services Director Melissa Simpson. There seem to be a lot of fantasy novels on the shelves — vampires, werewolves,  and faeries abound!  It’s refreshing to run across a new author that offers some inventive takes on the genre. Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire introduces [...]

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Hands of My Father: A Hearing Boy, His Deaf Parents, and the Language of Love, by Myron Uhlberg (2009)

And a second post from Connie in Outreach Services. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this little gem of a memoir. It reminded me of Rick Bragg’s or James Mc Bride’s  beautiful tribute (or what I like to think of as a love letter) to their parent. In this case, Myron Uhlberg describes the unique position of [...]

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