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 SCPL Staff Picks...           

Monday, January 23, 2012
A font of fonts

Title: Just My Type
By: Simon Garfield

Delectable. For those who relish font variety but cringe at typographic promiscuity, here's a tonic. Garfield has a gift for pedagogy without pedantry; his book conveys a great deal of information without bogging down. The book's design supports his text admirably. The illustrations are crisp, and detailed discussions of a font are preceded or followed by paragraphs or pages set in that font. NB: When I went to write this review, I was careful to do my first draft in my choice of font, only to realize that I had no control over the way it would appear here. I feel revolution brewing…

Monday, December 5, 2011
Think Local, Read Local!

Title: Surf.com
By: Fred Reiss

Funniest book I've read in a long time, and it takes place in Santa Cruz! You'll recognize many of the character types within our beach town: surfing locals, college students, Silicon Valley transplants, and the people who hang out around the Pacific Garden Mall. Enough zingers to make you laugh out loud at two o'clock in the morning, and then in an attempt to quote a few of them the next day to a colleague, wind up saying "I'm no good at paraphrasing… you'll just have to read it for yourself!" Mr. Reiss, who lives in Santa Cruz, has published a new book, "Aliens! Surf! Santa Cruz!" which is soon to be found on the library shelves. Be sure and put it, as well as his other hilarious books ("Gidget Must Die" and "Blind Guys Break 80") in your "bookbag"!

Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Shanghai and Back Again

Title: Dreams of Joy
By: Lisa See

This sequel to Shanghai Girls is every bit as gripping as the original. It picks up right where Shanghai Girls ended in Los Angeles and the reader is quickly transported back to Shanghai along with sisters Pearl and May's daughter Joy who is on a search for her birth father and her real home. While May holds down the family fort in Los Angeles, Pearl follows Joy back to Shanghai. See explores the relationships between sisters and the complicated mother-daughter relationships which were revealed to Joy at the end of Shanghai Girls. Both Joy and Pearl are thrown into the New Society of Red China. They discover the true meaning of home and their own family history, along with discoveries about love and romance.

This is a book I didn't want to put down. Nor did I want it to end. See is a brilliant storyteller.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Homecoming, Family, and Miracles

Title: The Homecoming of Samuel Lake
By: Jenny Wingfield

The Homecoming of Samuel Lake is a remarkable first novel.
I was swept into the Moses family reunion and the fabric of their shared lives in 1950's Arkansas from the very first page. I wanted to know all the characters as they shared their everyday lives and their dreams, their tragedies and their triumphs.
Samuel Lake, a young charismatic preacher, brings his wife, Willadee, and their 3 children home every year for the Moses family reunion. This year tragedy strikes with the untimely death of of Willadee's father and Samuel's lost parish. The family stays on and their lives unfold in expected and unexpected ways.
I highly recommend this engrossing book and hope that it is only the first of many novels by Jenny Wingfield.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Old Friends and Terrorists

Title: The Weekend
By: Bernhard Schlink

On the face, The Weekend is a novel about a reunion at an isolated German estate of old friends who haven't seen each other for years. They are brought together to greet Jorg who has been in prison for 24 years for unspecified acts of terror. Each guest has a different view of terrorism, freedom, and friendship. They discuss the past and the acts of political terrorism that led to Jorg's imprisonment as well a acts of terror (particularly 9/11) that occurred more recently. The deeper you get into the novel, you realize that it is more about the philosophy of terror and how it affects people - the terrorists, the terrorized, and the bystanders. The narrator of this audiobook brings great nuance and understanding to all the characters. The book is translated from the original German and I found the parts about 9/11 particularly compelling.

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