Escape by Carolyn Jessop

Escape provides a look into the households of the families who live a polygamous lifestyle.

Choosing freedom from polygamy over fear, Carolyn Jessop flees her life within the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and now tells her harrowing story. Not only did she manage a daring escape from a brutal environment, she became the first woman ever granted full custody of her children in a contested suit involving the FLDS. The library's copy of Escape can be found by clicking on this link.

New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2007

Looking for a good book to help you chase away the January blues? Well, you are in luck because The New York Times has just released its list of 100 notable books published in the past 12 months. The complete New York Times notable books list includes links to their book reviews, (which provides you with good reading right there); we also have many of the titles in our collection, which will provide you with hours of reading enjoyment on these cold winter nights. The following highlights some of the Times notable books we have at the Adrian Public Library (along with the thumbnail sketch provided by the Times):

Fiction

The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta. In this new novel by the author of "Little Children," a sex-ed teacher faces off against a church bent on ridding her town of "moral decay".

The Maytrees by Annie Dillard. A married couple find their way back to each other under unusual circumstances.


Nonfiction

The Father of All Things: A Marine, His Son, and the Legacy of Vietnam by Tom Bissell. Bissell mixes rigorous narrative accounts of the war and emotionally powerful scenes of the distress it brought his own family. (Also a Michigan Notable Book)

Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography by David Michaelis. Actual "Peanuts" cartoons movingly illustrate this portrait of the strip's creator, presented here as a profoundly lonely and unhappy man.

Again, these are just a few of the Times notable books we have at the Adrian Public Library; visit our on-line catalog or stop in to check out the rest.

Loving Frank by Nancy Horan

We have all heard about the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright but few of us know much about the women in his life. This novel by first time author Nancy Horan combines fact and fiction to "recreate" the romance of Mamah Borthwick Cheney and Frank Lloyd Wright in the early 20th century. While scholars have relegated Mamah to a footnote in the life of America's most famous architect this novel brings her to life and shows us just how influential she was on his work and life. Loving Frank is a timeless love story with an explosive ending.

The holiday season is here and Christmas is just around the corner. It’s a busy time of year, but we don’t want to give up our reading. The Library has a lot of Christmas stories that are quick reads and very enjoyable. Authors such as Janet Evanovich, Mary Higgins Clark, and others, include their standard characters in stories with a holiday theme or setting. John Grishams’ Skipping Christmas was a successful departure for the “legal suspense” novelist. A favorite story of mine is A Stranger for Christmas by Carol Pearson. In this story, Myrna, a resident in a California nursing home, hopes to restore a friend’s faith in mankind by proving that any one of her children would take in a stranger for the holidays. However, when she calls to ask, they all seem to have a reason why it would not be convenient and Myrna too becomes despondent until a miracle occurs.
Stop in and take a look at what the Library has to offer. Read and relax during this joyous and festive season.

Home to Big Stone Gap

Have you read Home to Big Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani? This novel is set in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, but the story of Ave Maria MacChesney and her close knit circle of family and friends could have been set in any small town or big city. Faced with life's problems, such as her husband's declining health, his association with a mining company that threatens the beauty of the nearby mountains, her daughter marriage and move to Italy, etc. makes for a story of love, heartbreak and adjustments to the uncertainties of life. Click on this link to find the book at the library. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Great Hemingway Reads

This year the Great Michigan Read is focusing on Ernest Hemingway's The Nick Adams Stories, Hemingway's semi-autobiographical short stories set in Northern Michigan. Hemingway is considered to be a master of the short story form, and the Nick Adams series of short stories, although among the first works Hemingway ever published, certainly prove this point. So after you've enjoyed some of the best short fiction around (and joined us in our discussion of The Nick Adams Stories on December 13, 2007 at 6:30pm in the lower level of the library, 143 E. Maumee St., Adrian, Michigan), I know you'll be hungry for more of Hemingway's works.

Hemingway was a member of the "Lost Generation", the group of expatriate artists living in Paris in the 1920's (in fact, many of the Nick Adams stories, although set in Northern Michigan, were written while Hemingway was living in Paris). A Moveable Feast is his memoir about this time in his life, and is filled with anecdotes about F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, and other fellow artists--just a fascinating picture of this time in history. Hemingway is also well known for his sense of adventure: read Green Hills of Africa for his descriptions of big game hunting and Death in the Afternoon for the excitement of bullfighting. Combining Hemingway's sense of adventure with his mastery of the novel, turn to The Sun Also Rises for bullfighting and the "Lost Generation" or A Farewell to Arms for ambulance driving and love in World War I.

Have I convinced you to read more of Hemingway yet? Because if I haven't, do I have a movie for you! On November 1st at 7:00pm in the lower level of the library, we will be showing Spencer Tracy in The Old Man and the Sea, the movie based on Hemingway's short novel by the same name. Published in 1952, the same year Hemingway won the Nobel Prize for Literature, The Old Man and the Sea is a novel--and a movie--that is not to be missed.

While The Great Michigan Read wants you to get to know Nick Adams this fall, don't stop there: come to the Adrian Public Library and get involved with a great Hemingway read.

Are you looking for a good book to read? Do you need some suggestions for your "Books to Read" list? Check out the Adrian Public Library website. On our home page, look for the link to "The Bookies", the book club that meets in the library and is open to the public. It has a list of upcoming titles along with a list of all of the books the "Bookies" have read. Or, click on the "Internet Sites" link and scroll down to "Reading Group Guides". Check these sites out for suggestions of books to read.
A new book on the library shelves is "The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Ultimate Reading List". Fiction titles are broken down by genre and it even includes non-fiction titles broken down by subject. The library has many other bibliographies to help you find books of interest to you.