Tag Archives: hoboken public library

Great Reads from the Land Down Under: Kim Wilkins, Kerry Greenwood, and Graeme Base

6 Apr

One of my favorite trips I have ever taken was to Australia where I was able to see the Sydney Opera House, the Great Barrier Reef, and Uluru (Ayers Rock).  But for all the wonders down under, the best part of Australia was all the kind and friendly people I encountered.  I’ve just started reading the quirky period comedy The Mystery of the Venus Island Fetish, about the misadventures of a young anthropologist by Australian author, Tim Flannery.  My enjoyment of the work got me thinking about Australia and some of my other favorite Australian authors and their works.  I hope you’ll check out some of their books and if you are thinking of taking your own trip there, you can borrow Frommer’s Easyguide to Australia from HPL and start planning your own adventure.

Kim Wilkins

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I first fell in love with Kim Wilkins’s Europa Suite, a set of three books which although each with unique plots and characters are connected by their basis in the folklore of different parts of Northern Europe.  You can borrow from BCCLS libraries the third work of this “trilogy,” The Veil of Gold where creatures from Russian myth and legend transform the lives of three modern individuals.  The Europa Suite would be best categorized as romantic urban fantasy and would appeal to fans of mythpunk like Catherynne M. Valente.

Wilkins’s earlier work such as her first novel The Infernal tend more towards supernatural thriller and horror in the vein of Anne Rice and Poppy Z. Brite.  Unfortunately many of her early works have not yet been published in the US.  If you like your work more grounded in reality you may want to check out some of her most recent fiction works which are written under the pen name Kimberly Freeman including Evergreen Falls which was inspired by her own grandmother’s life.  What runs through all of her writing is despite often being set in our modern world there is a fascination and some type of connection with different time periods such as the 1920s in Evergreen Falls.  Wilkins also has written a children’s series, The Sunken Kingdom (available from BCCLS libraries).

Kerry Greenwood

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Kerry Greenwood is probably my favorite mystery writer.  Rosary wrote about her Phryne Fisher series in an early blog post and I also mentioned the excellent TV adaptation of that series.  Both the Phryne Fisher book series and the first three seasons of the television series, Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries are available from the Hoboken Public Library.  But besides Phryne you should also check out Greenwood’s terrific six book Corinna Chapman Mysteries which star a zaftig baker who lives and works in a quirky apartment building with her charming feline companion.  Unlike the Phryne Fisher series, the Corinna Chapman series is set in modern times, but like Phryne there are a lot of delightful characters in Corinna’s life.  You will want to eat this series up! Greenwood’s Delphic Woman trilogy was also recently published in the United States for the first time (they are actually some of her older works written back in the 90s) which are based on the stories of women from Ancient Myths including Cassandra, Medea, and Electra.

Graeme Base

eleventh-hour
Graeme Base is one of my favorite picture book authors and illustrators.  My Grandma Lived in Gooligulch will introduce you and the little explorer in your life to the native wildlife of his adopted homeland (he moved from England to Australia as a child).  My top pick of his would be The Eleventh Hour, a mystery book for the younger set about an elephant’s birthday feast that disappears before the assorted animal guests can enjoy it.  The gorgeous bright detailed illustrations, clever rhymes, and fun puzzle of who-dun-it will have your little ones enthralled.  If your kids have fun looking for the hidden images in the book they can also check out other of Base’s works such as The Legend of a Golden Snail, The Last King of Angkor Wat, and Enigma: A Magical Mystery.  Tykes learning their ABC’s will find Animalia to be one of the most beautiful alphabet books to enjoy and they’ll giggle at the tongue twisting alliteration.  BCCLS libraries also have the TV adaptation of Animalia available.  For older children there is Base’s first novel, TruckDogs, about truck/dog hybrids living in an outback like setting.

-Written by Aimee Harris, Head of Reference

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Selections from the Hoboken Public Library’s Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Club Part 5: Rosemary’s Baby, Slaughterhouse-Five, and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

6 Jan

This was the second year of the library’s Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Club and we’ve read a great and diverse collection of books.  We already have a few books planned for next year.  In January we will ring in the New Year with the dystopian classic 1984 by George Orwell.  Then in February we will read one of my favorites, Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass (I’ll even be bringing my replica alethiometer to show off).  I hope you will join us and help plan the books we will be reading for the rest of the year.  Email hplwriters AT gmail  DOT com to be added to our mailing list for the group.  You can see previous book club posts here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

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Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby

Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby was our October read in honor of Halloween.  This classic horror novel builds suspense as Rosemary wonders if the nice old neighbors next door might not have diabolical plans for her unborn baby.  Beforehand we watched the Roman Polanski 1968 movie adaptation that was very faithful to the novel and even used some of the original dialogue.  The group was impressed by Sharon Tate’s performance as Rosemary and Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer’s portrayal of the Castevets.  The group felt that the novel depicted some of the limitations and frustration women felt in the traditional role of mother and housekeeper they have often been allotted.  The novel and movie are perfect for those that prefer their horror to be more psychological than gory.

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Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five
In November we read Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five.  I had first read the novel when I was in college and remember being a fan of Vonnegut’s work at the time.  I was interested to reread his most famous novel and see if it still captured my imagination.  The group on the whole enjoyed the book and the movie.  They felt that the movie was visually stunning though sometimes lost some of the dialogue in translation.  The book is told in a very nonlinear fashion since the main character has become “unstuck” from time, but the movie was able to do a good job of handling the transitions.  The book even years later still resonates with its themes dealing with war and whether life is a predetermined path or something we can choose to change.

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C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

In December, both the family book discussion group and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Discussion group for adults, discussed C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.  The book is a charming tale for children, but it is notable that although written for a younger audience, we still found a lot of topics to discuss within the book including its use of religious symbolism and depiction of childhood during times of war.  The group enjoyed the movie.  The special effects are holding up well and the group was impressed by Tilda Swinton’s malevolent portrayal of the White Witch.

I hope you’ll check out these great science fiction and fantasy works, which are all are available in print from the Hoboken Public Library or as an eBook on one our eReaders for loan at the reference desk.  The movies are all available from BCCLS libraries on DVD.  You can borrow The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe as an eBook from Hoopla, eLibraryNJ, and eBCCLS.  eLibaryNJ and eBCCLS also have it available as a digital audiobook.  Slaughterhouse-Five is available as an eBook from 3M Cloud Library, a digital audiobook from eLibraryNJ and the movie version can be borrowed from Hoopla.

Hope to see you for our discussion of 1984 on Monday January 25 at 6 PM!  There will be a special movie screening beforehand starting at 4 PM (email hplwriters AT gmail DOT com for more details).  The Family Book Discussion will be meeting on Thursday January 7, 6:00 PM to discuss The Bad Beginning (the first from A Series of Unfortunate Events) by Lemony Snicket (Daniel Handler).  The Mile Square City Readers Book Club, will meet on Thursday January 28 at 7:30 PM to discuss the classic Walden by Henry David.  You can get a copy of Walden or 1984 from the Reference Desk or stop by the Children’s Desk for a copy of The Bad Beginning.

-Written by Aimee Harris, Head of Reference

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