The Patron Reviews Are Rolling In (we've got one!)...

The Call by Yannick Murphy explores the emotions and actions of a father who is caring for a son in a coma after a hunting accident.  In balancing the demands of his veterinary practice, caring for his injured son, and meeting the needs of his family the main character struggles to keep up.  While searching for the person responsible for his son’s injuries the main character learns about himself and his family.  Aside from the plot, Murphy includes a lot of veterinary details.   This adds an element of interest as the solutions to various farm animal health complications are presented.

The most striking aspect of The Call is the format.  It is not presented in a traditional form with chapters.  Instead the novel is told in a structure that looks somewhat like field notes.  There are basic headings that are used for each call the veterinarian answers.  The responses, presented in paragraphs, tell the story about the main character and his family.  While at first I found this distracting, after adjusting to this storytelling method this structure that added interest to the novel.  Overall, this is a memorable novel that stands out from others both in regard to plot and the storytelling method used.

Kristin W.

Submit a Review, Win a Prize!

The Spotlight is eager to hear about the books, movies, and music that you have been enjoying lately.  So much so, we want to offer you this swell deal:  you send us a 200-400 word review, and we’ll give you some awesome LPL branded library swag.  Plus, your efforts will be posted on the internet!

You can make your submissions here or email them to: rjabara@lawrencepubliclibrary.org

Player's Playlist

In Ready Player One, Ernest Cline imagines a grim future where many people live in poverty with out basic necessities such as food and heat. Almost everyone, however, has access to the OASIS, which is a simulated environment where users can learn, work, play, and pretty much live their lives. It provides people an escape from reality. The creator of OASIS died some time ago, and he left a "magic egg" hidden somewhere inside the game. Whoever finds the egg will inherit a vast fortune, and become the owner of the company that controls OASIS.

The book focuses on Wade, a poor young man whose entire life revolves around OASIS and the search for the egg. Not only would the money help Wade create a better life for himself, but he is also determined to stop an evil corporation from finding the egg and shutting down free public access to the OASIS.

Strangely enough, although the book is set in the future, it also manages to make a lot of references to 80's pop culture, movies, and music. Throughout the book, Wade's knowledge of 80's trivia proves to be very valuable. It also made me want to go back and listen to some of my favorite 80's songs and watch some 80's movies.

We have included a few songs that the author, Ernest Cline, mentions on his website. If you are interested in listening to the full "Official Ready Player One Soundtrack" you can visit www.ernestcline.com.

Also, if you, like myself, now feel like watching some of the movies mentioned in the book, we do have a lot of them in our collection!

Jenny R - Reference

Time's a Goon

This past April, Jennifer Egan was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in fiction for her fourth novel, A Visit from the Goon Squad.  It’d be easy to fill this post by rattling off the accolades the book garnered (National Book Critics Circle Award, PEN/Faulkner finalist, Best of 2010 list in every newspaper and magazine), but actually describing the story is a bit of a challenge. It’s a nonlinear narrative with clear contempt for the forward march of chronological order.  It hops between times and narrators at each successive chapter.  The characters themselves are loosely connected to one another, in the Kevin Bacon sense of connected, their commonality being a close proximity to rock-and-roll. The story is a knotted acknowledgment of the consequence of time and place.  Or if that wasn’t abstruse enough for you – maybe think of it like a guitar shaped piece of origami, each character and timeframe folded and overlapping, with the two main characters, Bennie, a former punk rocker turned record exec, and his assistant, Sasha, a former prostitute and lifelong klepto, as the first bisecting folds.

When the book came out, there was some discussion about if it should be classified as a novel or collection of short stories.  Each chapter stands on its own, creating a dramatic arc that unfolds in a disjointed way.  The only real issue with this technique is that the writing is so well crafted that it’s tough not to get engaged with any one character or storyline - and once their chapter is up, they may not return in any substantive way.  Like my favorite chapter was from the perspective of a fallen-from-grace publicist who was rebuilding her career by representing a genocidal dictator - but I should have known better than to get attached, because she receives scant mention throughout the rest of the book.

As the chapters progress, so does the growing cast of characters, each adding to what feels like an incongruous patchwork of story-lines – that is until enough characters have piled on and the web of interrelatedness tightens, forming a coherent system.  It’s a very cool effect, although exhausting to keep track of.  It’s like attending a bizarre rock-and-roll family reunion and trying to map out who is second cousins with whom ("So, that girl's mom used to work for that guy whose ex-wife used to be the girl's mother's assistant?).  I've read other multiple voice narratives, but this was the only one where I found it a little distracting. Still, the book (and soon to be HBO series) is smart, expertly written and completely enjoyable.  It is a superior example of literary fiction.  But did it Rock?  Almost.

Ransom - Reference 

Pearl's Picks

Nancy Pearl - NPR book reviewer, bestselling author of the BookLust series of reading guides, the American Library Association’s 2011 Librarian of the Year, and the inspiration for the awesome “Librarian Action Figure” – stopped by the library last week.  She was the featured speaker at the Library Foundation’s fall fundraiser.  She delighted the audience with a talk about “The Pleasures and Perils of a Lifetime of Reading” and brought along ten book suggestions just for Lawrence readers.  If you couldn’t make it to the event, KPR recorded her presentation for an upcoming episode of KPRPresents, so listen for it on a Sunday night in the near future.  And if you are looking for a good read for yourself or others, check out these “Pearl’s Picks”:

The Room and the Chair by Lorraine Adams

The Penderwicks series by Jeanne Bridsall

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

To be Sung Underwater by Tom McNeal

Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard

Skippy Dies by Paul Murray

The Tragedy of Arthur by Arthur Phillips

The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli

Stone Arabia by Dana Spiotta

The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson

Susan - Marketing