End of an Era

This will be our last entry for the Book Lover’s Blog on WordPress. The Greensboro Public Library has decided to migrate this blog into the library’s website, and good news – we are still contributing content. You can access the blog here.

We would like to express our gratitude to all you readers that stumbled upon, commented on, and followed the Book Lover’s Blog for all these years, from 2005 to the present.

Women We Buried, Women We Burned by Rachel Louise Snyder

The author recounts her difficult childhood as the daughter of devout evangelicals, her homeless time as a teen, and her struggles to find direction in a life that seemed pointless, but wound up being anything but.

The author was eight when her mother died of breast cancer. Afterward, her father remarried, uprooted his family to a Chicago suburb, and gravitated toward a conservative Christian church that dictated much of their lives – rigorous church attendance, and a home devoid of the trappings of popular culture. For a few years, Snyder went to a school run by the church.

This upbringing was stifling to a teenager all too quick to break the rules, and she did, turning into the proverbial wild child, partying and experimenting with drugs and alcohol. Once she started high school, Snyder barely went. When she was finally expelled from school, her grade point average was negligible. And then her parents, in a fit of anger and determination, kicked her, her brother, and their two step-siblings out at the same time.

The next few years were a regimen of sleeping in her car and couch surfing, and making connections. To her credit, the author had an approachable way with people, and wasn’t afraid of work, which made way more sense to her than school.

It was her unlikely stint at a Barbizon school in Chicago that got Snyder jumpstarted in a better direction. She made friends with one of her teachers, and in a chance encounter in a bar in Indiana, proposed to the owners the talents of a metal band that she knew. Before she knew it, the author was learning the ropes of music promotion. It was a scramble, but something she enjoyed. With her gift for congeniality, Snyder met the types of people who encouraged her to do more – to attend college and travel unconventionally, and eventually to write for a living, penning human interest stories for a variety of publications. Her work took Snyder all over the world.

Women We Buried, Women We Burned is a whirlwind of a book, an account of a rough childhood and adolescence, and then the aftermath, which got harder and better at the same time. The book is a highly readable mix of hope and sadness, and there were definitely places where I cried. The final chapters about her stepmother are particularly poignant.

(William Hicks, Information Services)

Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

If you’re on TikTok or accustomed to browsing bestsellers lists, you might have heard of Fourth Wing, the immensely popular fantasy novel by Rebecca Yarros. This book has been creating a ton of buzz since its publication last April, and the highly anticipated sequel is scheduled to follow this November. However, this book might not be for everyone. Despite similarities to vastly popular Young Adult series such as The Hunger Games, this is not a book that is appropriate for teens due to the graphic nature of some scenes. With that disclaimer out of the way, let’s look at Fourth Wing as its own entity without drawing too many parallels to other works.

Fourth Wing follows a young woman who, despite her physical frailty and prior dedication to a future among the academic caste, is forced by her mother to undergo the brutal trial and deadly training it takes to be chosen as a dragon rider. Violet’s society is one dominated by a war that has been going on for hundreds of years, and her mother is an important general in charge of the training academy. Though she is forced into an environment that she is unprepared for, Violet decides to put her considerable will towards succeeding through the brutal training, in hopes that she can survive long enough to be selected by a dragon and serve her country.

Within the military academy, she meets and is reunited with friends, both old and new, as well as enemies. Violet is forced to see that not everything in her society is operating in line with the ideals she was raised with. Those who she thought were her allies might not have her best interests at heart, and those who she’s been taught to distrust may just be what she needs to survive.

This book works to explore themes surrounding military service and sacrifice. It also shows the cost of judging an individual by the choices and allegiances of their parents, as well as the importance of examining the status quo when it doesn’t seem to align with your own values. This book would function very well as a Young Adult or coming of age novel, but there are scenes of violence and sexual content that are graphically described and may not be enjoyed by all readers.

Check out this one and other great fantasy novels at the Greensboro Public Library.

(Blaine Henderson, Information Services)

Farrell Covington And The Limits Of Style by Paul Rudnick

Nate Reminger is drifting through his first few weeks at Yale, confused by the whole setup of college. He’s from a middle class Jewish family, and 1970s Yale, with its trappings of privilege and confidence, is a daunting place for a shy, closeted gay eighteen year old from New Jersey. There’s a tenuous connection with a theater group on campus, but freshman year for Nate is not shaping up in a coherent fashion.

Salvation comes from ultra-rich, ultra-gorgeous Farrell Covington. Farrell is a golden boy, the youngest son of a billionaire dynasty, and he pretty much flings himself at Nate. Nate is certainly flattered, but is incredulous as to the attraction. It could be that he, with his middle class ordinariness, is exotic to Farrell. Maybe Farrell, besides being addicted to the finer sides of wealth, sees Nate as an escape from his highly insular, conservative family, who would prefer to ignore Farrell’s sexuality. But apparently, their relationship is too visible to Farrell’s father; he quickly separates the two, and it’s assumed they’ll never see each other again.

Au contraire! We aren’t even through a third of the book yet…

It appears that Harwell Covington’s steely control is enough to enforce distance between the two, but no one is taking into account Nate and Farrell’s coterie of friends, certain of which are happy to finagle things to get the two reunited. Something domestic, maybe. Something to convince Mr. Covington and his cronies that Farrell is ready to toe the line and become a cog in the family business.

Sometimes fate is kind and removes the worst roadblocks, and our lovebirds are back together, but even though Farrell still maintains an immense wealth, there are other storms brewing that will challenge the relationship. There’s a sojourn to the Hollywood machine, where Nate’s playwriting skills are put to the test when a work of his is considered for the big screen. The specter of AIDS during the eighties, which takes away so many of their friends, also effects Farrell.

However, with wealth and influence, this means you get the right doctors and the best meds, and Farrell prevails, slowed down some by the disease, but he is bigger than life, and we find that not much of anything stops him. He indulges his passion for acquiring and restoring magnificent residences, and also donates a ton of his personal fortune.

But books end, and there has to be some kind of ending to our characters of Nate and Farrell. Needless to say, I won’t be telling you everything. Read Farrell Covington and the Limits of Style and find out for yourself.

(William Hicks, Information Services)

Two Wheels Good : The History And Mystery Of The Bicycle by Jody Rosen

In some format or another, the bicycle has been a means of transportation for two centuries. After some scary incarnations, including the Penny Farthing, the Rover safety bicycle came out in 1885, and is the standard on which most modern-day bicycles are based.

Once there was a format of bike that the average person would want to ride, the popularity of the bicycle exploded, but was eventually superseded by the automobile, and it seems that these two forms of transportation, at odds then, are still that way now.

But which really proliferates, and where? In some parts of the developing world, bicycles are far more practical to use – they’re cheaper and much more maneuverable than an automobile, and people put them to work, modifying them as rickshaws and haulers. Bicycles in all their incarnations are vital to local economies throughout the world.

In Two Wheels Good, the author presents a far-ranging survey of bicycle history and how the ubiquitous two wheeler has changed the world. For some, it’s a hobby, an enabler of transport that’s faster than walking but independent of the gasoline engine. For others, the bicycle is an integral part of the commute and the workday.

Rosen observes many aspects of the bicycle world. He meets bike-riding kings in Bhutan, rickshaw drivers making a paltry living in Bangladesh, and Scottish trial bike riders (see this video of Danny MacAskill, who Rosen discusses in Chapter six). He also interviews veterans who found love while participating in Bikecentennial, a cross-country trek in 1976.

Rosen recounts his own love affair with all things bicycling, including his first learning attempts, his many bikes (and in some cases, thefts of bikes), and the joys and dangers of riding in New York City.

If you are a rider, a reader, a bike gearhead, or a fan of history, then dig in to Two Wheels Good – assuming that you can make the time after that bike ride today.

(William Hicks, Information Services)

The Unmade World by Steve Yarbrough

It is a deadly car accident during the Christmas season in Poland that shatters a family man’s life, and haunts the perpetrator, who walks away from the crime scene.

If only Richard Brennan had driven, his wife and daughter might still be alive, but he’d been drinking fairly steadily during their dinner date with his wife’s relatives, and thought that having her drive was a better idea. However, the road was slick, and that nice BMW seemed to appear out of nowhere.

When Richard recovers, he returns to California to eek out a pretend life for a few years. He is a journalist by trade, and he still tentatively maintains his craft. It is a call from a police contact that alerts Richard to possibly the biggest story he’s had in ages.

At this same time, he will have other kinds of challenges when his nephew from Poland, fresh from skimming money from his parents’ bank account for drugs, comes to stay for the following school year, and also when Richard meets the new reporter in town, who has already stepped on a few toes.

The other main storyline concerns Bogdan Baranowski, who caused the accident. He’s a failed businessman who was on his way back with his friend from a botched petty crime attempt. When Bogdan first checks the car they ran off the road, he perceives three dead bodies, panics, and then he and his accomplice flee the incident.

Bogdan’s further life past this point spirals downward and keeps on going. After he loses his business, he and his friend work questionable jobs. One lands him in prison.

Understandably, Bogdan’s life is a void – is it punishment for his transgression? What extent of wrong did he commit by not committing to help, or at least report the accident?

The Unmade World weaves together two disparate lives that have nothing to do with each other, other than being on a treacherous stretch of road at the same time. The book is a sprawling one, taking in a ten year time period within its roughly 370 pages, but what a ride. It came out in 2018, so there’s definitely commentary about the political situation here at the time and in Poland, how Poland changed during the post-communist era, and how journalism evolved and still does in our time of online everything, especially the news.

The author has an interesting background – he’s based out of the Boston area, but he’s originally from Mississippi. A good chunk of his output would put him in the Southern Writer category, but not this book. It was by chance that I saw his comment on an opinion piece in the New York Times, and was looking for another book to read – knocked this one back in less than a week, and I’m a slow reader. Yarbrough is definitely a worthy writer, and he has a newer one out from last year – Stay Gone Days. You can get them both at the Greensboro Public Library.

(William Hicks, Information Services)

The Appeal by Janice Hallett

An epistolary novel is, traditionally, a novel written as a series of letters between characters. The form has waxed and waned in popularity for over 300 years, and features a number of classic novels such as Dracula, and The Screwtape Letters, as well as “modern classic” works such as The Color Purple, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

The form has also evolved since its creation. Since the start of the 20^th Century, many epistolary novels have expanded to include fictionalized lab notes (Flowers for Algernon), cassette tape recordings (The Handmaid’s Tale) and newspaper articles (Carrie). In the modern context, what better way to present modern correspondence than by email and text messages?

The Appeal, by Janice Hallett does just that, presenting to the reader an interesting case of murder and deception outlined in the form of emails, texts, and phone call transcripts. These glimpses into the greater goings on of a small English village draw the reader into a suspenseful mystery filled with surprises.

Join Charlotte, and Femi, two law students who are asked to analyze the evidence presented in the recent case of their mentor. At the beginning of the novel we know very little about the circumstances of the case. Only that there was a murder, and that their mentor doesn’t believe that the courts have convicted the right person.

Within this nesting story we find the correspondence of a community theater group, who band together to raise money in support of a child who has recently been diagnosed with brain cancer. Almost immediately, the reader will notice that the money isn’t the only thing not adding up.  But is this a case of willful fraud, or merely incompetence? And what happens when members of the cast start asking the wrong questions?

Epistolary novels often lend themselves well to mystery, as the reader tries to form a complete picture out of the fragments made available to them. Janice Hallett’s The Appeal succeeds in casting just enough breadcrumbs to allow the careful reader to reach the correct, and satisfying, conclusion.

For more examples of epistolary novels available at the Greensboro Public Library, check out our list.

(Blaine Henderson, Information Services)

The Trackers by Charles Frazier

In 1937, Valentine Welch gets a much-needed job with the Works Progress Administration as a muralist for a post office in Wyoming. The Great Depression is on full swing and there’s a decided divide between the haves and have nots. Val falls into the former category, but barely, and it’s only through the recommendation of a college professor that he lands this position at all, a plum one compared to many, with a small but steady salary, and room and board at a local ranch.

The ranch owner is John Long, flush with inherited money, immense acreage, and an art collection worthy of a museum. His much-younger wife Eve has a sense of sophistication, but her background is much more grittier. Before she married Long, Eve lived the itinerant life of rail riding and hobo camps, until she latched onto a singing gig with a western swing band.

Eve’s ability with working a crowd makes her a favorite with Long’s political cronies, and it’s soon apparent he is intent on public office. However, it also becomes evident that promoting her husband’s political future is tiring, even if Eve’s people skills are exceptional.

Eve disappears soon after with one of Long’s Renoir paintings, and Long hires Val to seek her out, whether it’s in her older haunts in Seattle, or her tenuous connection to the backwoods of Florida, where Eve’s first husband has family. It could be the first husband himself who needs finding, as there is the issue of their marriage status, if there ever was one, and the implications this might mean for Long’s political career.

Val’s activities get him beat up and threatened repeatedly. He survives the broiling heat of Florida’s back country and what passes for air travel during that time. He questions his whole purpose in the venture.

The Trackers is a welcome addition from Charles Frazier of Cold Mountain fame. In my belief, it does not stack up to the previous book, but, then again, there’s no comparison. The Trackers still has its merits as a page turner. The book ably covers the contrasts between the hardscrabble lives of the Great Depression and the moneyed ones calling the shots, or thinking they do, and Frazier can still tell a good yarn.

(William Hicks, Information Services)

Rules For Being Dead by Kim Powers

Creola Perkins dies one day – April Fools of 1966, to be exact. But she can’t leave for heaven just yet, assuming that she’s heading there. Something is tethering her to the earthly plain of small town McKinney, Texas, where her philandering husband and two young sons are still living their lives, and she’s seeing it all.

Creola wonders if she is stuck here, floating between the places she knows – home, the school where she taught – because she has no recollection of how she died. It takes about a year for her to piece together the last few days of her life and find out the cause.

During this period of time, she observes the painful grief of Clarke and Corey, her two kids, who are close but so different. She sees, with some resentment, her husband L.E.’s involvement with his love interest Rita, a town woman who runs a shoe repair shop.

Clarke is the oldest boy, an imaginative ten-year-old kid who idolizes the movies and is grateful for the refuge their aging theater provides. Film fires his imagination, takes his mind off the loss of his mother, and lets him forget a disintegrating home life, where he struggles to look after his little brother as they walk on egg shells around their alcoholic dad, whose erratic behavior worsens even after he marries Rita.

Strangely enough, Rita is a stabilizing influence on the kids, and Creola, from her aerial perches, decides that Rita, even though she is the dreaded other woman, doesn’t do too badly for mothering. Putting up with L.E. is also a full time job in itself.

There’s a few more brushes with danger, but the family emerges intact, and Creola finds out the truth about her death, which allows her to finally drift away to a better place.

Rules For Being Dead is a multi-narrative affair, told from both adult and child’s perspectives. At first a back and forth between Creola and Clarke, the storyline soon acquires other people’s points of view. The book goes back and forth in time often, so keep that in mind. Still, the author juxtaposes the sweetness and crazy parts of childhood well with family disfunction, and the pages fly by pretty quickly.

(William Hicks, Information Services)

The Modern Bestiary : A Curated Collection of Wondrous Wildlife by Joanna Bagniewska

This book quickly and concisely outlines a great number of fascinating outliers within the animal kingdom. From Banana Slugs to Sea Cucumbers to Vampire Finches, the author shines a light on some of the least understood and most fascinating members of our wider planetary family. Each entry is short, just two pages. Despite this limitation, the author highlights each species with humor and a sense of wonder that is refreshing. You’ll find yourself saying, “Just one more chapter” over and over again.

The Modern Bestiary was hard to put down, and the facts introduced are hard to forget. Fans of Mary Roach and Bill Bryson will appreciate this book.

(Blaine Henderson, Information Services)