Crucible of Gold by Naomi Novik

This is the seventh of the Temeraire series, set in the time of the Napoleonic Wars. Novik has made some changes in the events of that time, and also determined that those mythical creatures, dragons, are a strategic component of many countries’ military might. Western nations have Aerial Corps, using dragons instead of planes for battles both on land and at sea. A captain in the Aerial Corps forms a bond with a dragon when it is hatched from the egg, but each dragon also has a crew that rides it by locking onto a web of harnesses, dropping bombs and firing weapons. While the concept sounds a bit whimsical, Novik’s detailed knowledge of that historical era, coupled with her ability to spin an exciting narrative, makes the series a success.

The dragons are fully capable of thought, speech and action when they are hatched, although they are able to mature with experience, like humans. They are characters in their own right and Temeraire, who the series is named after, is both noble and yet touching in his desire to help his own captain, Will Lawrence be successful and be looked up to both in the Corps and in society at large.

What has stymied Temeraire’s goal is the corruption and treachery that is part of human endeavor, so that Will and Temeraire both have found themselves outside the Corps and even banished from England. In this novel they have been asked to join the Corps again to help fight against Napoleon’s latest venture in Brazil. Many African dragons closely bound with village communities in their native country suffered the depredation of the slave trade, losing men, women, and children taken by the Europeans to the New World. (In an earlier book, Empire of Ivory, we met one of those dragons.) Napoleon has enlisted the African dragons to attack and lay waste to Brazilian colonies, giving them the inducement of finding and recovering their lost villagers.

In South America we see a culture permeated with dragons, like China, but with a different slant. Novik is not content to leave dragons (or people, for that matter) in one state of development, but keeps devising historical scenarios that allow for new characteristics to emerge. Because so many native peoples were stricken and died by disease brought to them by Europeans, the dragons set great store on those that remain, and care for those in their community like brooding hens, eager to have them raise descendents to continue their close companionship.

All of this makes for some complicated plots and subplots, yet the careful reader is rewarded with a panorama of political intrigue and simple soldiering that rings true. We can feel how long it takes to sail at these latitudes, in those ships, and how long it takes to struggle through mountainous passes. The series is rumored to be drawing to a close, and I will not be the only reader sorry to have it end.

Click here for catalog listing.

The Lariat List

Looking for something to read? Maybe something on the 2011 Lariat Reading List, a list of recommended adult fiction from the Texas Library Association, will rope your interest.

Have you read any of these books already? What'd you think?

Fierce Radiance by Lauren Belfer
On the eve of World War II, when Life photojournalist Claire Shipley files a story about the development of penicillin, she stumbles upon corporate espionage and murder. An enlightening look at life before antibiotics.
Holy Rollers by ReShonda Tate Billingsley
Frustrated in their searches for Mr. Right, three women turn to the pulpit looking for love. Self reflection follows as the women realize that loving and living is serious business. Readers ride through the highs and lows of rejection, respect and relationships.
House of Tomorrow by Peter Bognanni
Teenager Sebastian Prendergast is thrown from the sheltered world of his eccentric, Buckminster-Fuller-worshiping Nana into the life of a family struggling with monumental issues. An off-beat, humorous read.
Book of Fires by Jane Borodale
London, 1752. Seventeen year-old Agnes Trussel becomes an assistant to a master fireworks maker. What will happen when her pregnancy becomes known? Captivating and colorful historical fiction.
Glass Rainbow by James Lee Burke
Detective Dave Robicheaux is on the hunt for a serial killer in his own backyard of southern Louisiana. His daughter's boyfriend might be one of the suspects. Strong, colorful characters drive this hard-boiled thriller.
The Name Partner by Carlos Cisneros
Ambitious South Texas attorney Guillermo "Billy" Bravo struggles with ethics when a complex pharmaceutical case becomes personal. Fast-paced suspense with lots of twists and turns.
Claude and Camille: A Novel of Monet by Stephanie Cowell
Step into the world of French Impressionist painter Claude Monet and his wife/muse Camille. Amidst the colorful stories of their circle of struggling artists, their unruly love story unfolds. A deeply felt, vividly told tale of art history.
Room by Emma Donoghue
Five-year-old Jack and his mother live as resourceful prisoners in the small room that is their universe. Will they escape? A harrowing emotional drama you will never forget.
City of Veils by Zoe Ferraris Saudi desert guide Nayir and forensic technician Katya link disparate events leading to kidnapping and murder. A thought provoking mystery revealing women's lives beneath the veil. A fascinating read.
Juliet by Anne Fortier
American Julie Jacobs is shocked to learn she is a descendant of Guiletta Tolomei immortalized by Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet. As she traces her ancestry she begins to fear that old curse, "A plague on both your houses!" is still at work — and she is the next target. An unusual premise in a beautiful setting.
Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin
Small town Mississippi Constable Silas Jones investigates the disappearance of a local girl. His former childhood friend Larry Ott is the main suspect. Racial tensions and family secrets abound in this tight psychological thriller.
Live To Tell by Lisa Gardner
Detective D. D. Warren's investigation of a family annihilation leads her to a juvenile psychiatric ward where personal demons come back to haunt her. An intense and fast-paced thriller.
Dog Boy by Eva Hornung
Abandoned and alone, four-year-old Romochka, finds both home and family with feral dogs in post-apocalyptic Moscow. Gritty, not for the faint of heart.
They're Watching by Gregg Andrew Hurwitz
Patrick Davis is failing in his career and marriage; who would want to stalk him? But incoming mysterious DVDs and phone calls show someone is doing just that. Plot twists keep the reader guessing until the very end.
So Cold the River by Michael Koryta
Washed-up filmmaker Eric Shaw arrives in West Baden, Indiana to research the life of a reclusive billionaire. After sampling the town’s famous "Pluto Water” his nightmares begin. A gothic chiller.
Breaking Out of Bedlam by Leslie Larson
After her children put her in assisted living, feisty octogenarian Cora Sledge records her life story in a journal and plots her escape. Hilarious and heartwarming.
Last Days of Ptolemy Grey by Walter Mosley
During a reprieve from his dementia, Ptolemy Grey puts his life in order and darn near adopts a homeless girl. Great realistic dialog drives this novel about an unexpected relationship and the power of memory.
Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer
A young Hungarian man moves to Paris to study architecture and falls in love with a ballet teacher nine years older. Both Jewish, their lives as well as their families are torn apart by World War II. A top-notch historical epic.
Scent of Rain and Lightning by Nancy Pickard
The man who went to prison for killing her father 23 years ago is back on the streets. Should Jody Linder believe new rumors of his innocence? Surprise and suspense electrify a small town in Kansas.
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson
Major Pettigrew, a widower in a small English village, faces racism and resistance to change when he falls in love with a Pakistani shopkeeper. A sweet, leisurely paced comedy of manners.
Still Missing by Chevy Stevens
Realtor Annie Sullivan is kidnapped and held captive in a secluded mountain cabin. Will she survive? A suspenseful debut novel with unpredictable elements.
The Tower, the Zoo and the Tortoise by Julia Stuart
Living in the Tower of London with The Royal Menagerie and a cast of eccentric characters, Beefeater Balthazar Jones finds his life at a crossroads as he deals with the death of his son, his crumbling marriage and his 180-year-old runaway tortoise. Funny, touching and quirky.
Heretic's Wife by Brenda Rickman Vantrease
Kate Gough smuggles Lutheran bibles into Henry VIII's England. To be caught by Thomas More would mean death at the stake. Tense and compelling historical fiction.
Think of a Number by John Verdon
A retired detective is drawn into a complex puzzle laid out by a killer who asks his victims to "think of a number." This cunning perpetrator knows when your number is up. A brainy thriller.
Lone Star Legend by Gwendolyn Zepeda
When Austin journalist Sandy Saavedra is reluctantly transformed into a successful gossip blogger, the resultant celebrity spillover into her real life leads to surprising outcomes. Laugh your way through a novel well seasoned with blog posts, emails and the advice column "Just ask the Chupacabra."

End of an era? Encyclopedia Britannica stops printing

CNN reports on the very last print version of the Encyclopedia Britannica. The nearly legendary tome that has represented the best of collected knowledge for generations is going fully digital. 


So is this really the end of an era, or is it just a new format? Brittanica says that their print era ended years ago and the print sales were less than 1% of revenues.  Will you still read reference books online,  or has the internet truly made these types of texts outdated?  Let us know in the comments.

Slightly off topic: My absolutely favorite part of the article is where Britannica president Jorge Cauz says,"We're going to have a cake in the shape of a print set to celebrate, Is that morbid?"  I think I'd have to vote 'yes' on that one.

Women at War with America: Private Lives in a Patriotic Era by D’Ann Campbell

Dr Campbell, a historian and currently a faculty member at Culver-Stockton College in Missouri, has a special interest in the history of women in the military services. Her book offers some food for reflection concerning how women’s lives in the United States were affected by World War II. For its background, she relied heavily on surveys taken by government and organizations at the time, and cites studies which quantify the percentages of women and their status before, throughout and after the war years.

Because of the nature of her data, the book at times seemed dry, full of statistics, which were not always easily translated (for me) into living and breathing scenarios. However, a good part of these “facts” did give me a detailed picture of what life must have been like in those days. Some of the general themes could be anticipated, i.e., how reluctant our armed forces was to admit women to their ranks. There were ups and downs for women in the military, with some branches more welcoming than others (the Navy was the best, evidently) and it was interesting to note that women’s salaries overall were improved by entering the service; while men on the whole were paid less in the military compared to their salaries before the war. Campbell is at pains to dissemble the idea that women weren’t working before the war – actually a good part were, at least until they got married. Unlike other countries, the United States government was firmly against the idea of women seeing combat. Even nurses in the military, who were more accepted by the public in general, did not tend to the wounded in the field.

While “Rosie the Riveter” is a popular image, Campbell informs us that there were some negative aspects of women’s venture onto the assembly line. With virtual segregation still in effect, African-American women, for the most part, were not hired in factories. Job segregation still existed, with many companies determining which fields a woman could work in. Unions were likely to be leery of women joining their ranks, since the implication was that women’s first priority was their family, and they would not be long-term employees.

Campbell takes pains to illustrate her thesis – that the government at war had its objectives that it wanted women to help with, yet at the same time not wanting to endanger their primary status as the keeper of hearth and home. There was a serious backlash to women’s military enrollment which England experienced as well: around 1943 a substantial number of enlisted soldiers began calling all female military sexually promiscuous. This discouraged many women from enlisting, and discouraged their families from giving them support or permission to enlist.

The book gives you a lot to absorb and with so many ideological tussles going on, it’s no wonder that it’s hard to decide how women’s status improved during war time, if at all. One thing at least is certain, is that it decidedly changed.

Click here for the catalog listing.

Downton Abbey

By now, you may have heard of the PBS (yes, you heard me right) show that's been attracting an impressive following: "Downton Abbey," a British import that chronicles the lives of an aristocratic family and their servants in the years leading up to World War I and during it. Here's a quick trailer for Season 1:

Season 2 just finished airing on PBS last month. In case you missed the show, the library has both seasons on DVD. You can find them on the DVD shelves that house our TV shows under DVD TV DOWNTON. We've also got the book on the show, The World of Downton Abbey.

I recently started watching "Downton" out of curiosity. Now I'm hooked. You come to care greatly for all the characters and the few villainous characters there are, you love to hate. Even then, you can grudgingly see where their bad attitudes come from. Upstairs, benevolent patriarch Lord Grantham (played by Hugh Bonneville) oversees his brood, which includes his mother, wife and three daughters. Downstairs, the dignified Mr. Carson does the same with his small army of staff.

In Season 1, the ill-fated Titanic has taken with it the heir to Downton Abbey. The rules of inheritance shift Downton's fate into the hands of a unknown third cousin, Matthew Crawley, a lawyer working in Manchester. The fact that he is unlanded and employed (gasp!) is cause for great consternation.

The show examines, among other things, issues of class and gender at the time. Be prepared; the first episode starts out slow and it takes a while to warm up to the show but by the end of Episode 1, you'll be flipping over to Episode 2 and pushing "Play." It may be a period piece, but it's written in a way that feels thoroughly modern and relevant. No stodgy, boring portrayals here; just well-written, absorbing fun. There is drama, romance, and humor — all PG-rated, of course (this is PBS) — but engrossing nevertheless.

The Stoning of Soraya M (2008) A film by Cyrus Nowrasteh, starring Shohreh Aghdashloo, Mozhan Marnò, and Jim Caviezel

Since I have lived in Turkey, I was attracted by the movie’s Middle Eastern setting (it was filmed somewhere in Iran) and by the fact that it was a runner-up for the “audience choice award” at the Toronto Film Festival in 2009. I also remembered Shohreh Aghdashloo (the actress playing Zahra, Soraya’s aunt in the film) from Catherine Hardwicke’s film, The Nativity Story, in which she played the role of Elizabeth, Mary’s older cousin.

It was only after I started watching the movie that I realized what I had gotten myself into. The acting was good, but the events that I was viewing were so wearying – men playing out their desire for homage and revenge, and the women just trying to keep going, to manage in impossible situations. I felt drained and wanted to stop watching. But the relationships among the villagers were solid and felt human. The way that the women effortlessly let their veils fall inside their houses, yet had them always ready to use as covering, made me marvel at how adaptable people are in retaining personality, regardless of custom.

The film has been held up as an indictment of the Sharia law that is actively practiced in some Islamic countries today. It is based on a book written in 1994 by a French journalist of Iranian descent, who learned of Soraya’s story when passing through an Iranian village in 1986. Zahra’s niece’s husband, wanting to divorce her and take a young child bride, connived with the local mullah to bring charges of infidelity against Soraya. He took this measure because Soraya refused divorce on the grounds that she and her daughters would be left penniless.

The movie is working on several assumptions at once: first showing us how Islamic law makes it easier to manipulate women. Yet the type of bondage that Soraya finds herself in also plays out in our Western cultures- when your children’s father may turn violent, becoming your adversary. There is more help and outreach in the West, but not everyone is able to access it.

In this true story, Soraya is innocent. The husband and the imam are transgressors of the law. In other stonings, the woman may not be innocent, but this brutal execution method is still horrifying, and Nowrasteh wants to educate us on this point. Recently the Taliban in Afghanistan stoned both a woman and her lover to death. The man was allowed to be upright and have his eyes covered, while the woman had to be in a hole and could only gaze at her executioners.

Because of the acting and the characters catching my interest, I was committed to finish the movie, even as it worked towards its fatal conclusion. What the filmmaker Nowrasteh wanted to do was show a real stoning. Other movies traditionally show stoning as happening quickly – we see the first cuts on the cheek, then a torrent of stones cascading over a prostrate body. Nowrasteh learned that the speediness of the event was not accurate – that stonings can take some time. Some critics have decried the film for the relentless portrayal of Soraya’s execution, drawn out in excruciating detail with innumerable pauses. However, this is evidently how it happens.

What I found interesting was how some men and women reported uncontrollable weeping after watching this movie. I experienced the same, and wondered at this. It was a movie, after all. But the physicality of the experience is what works on you, and makes the film unique. As the director said, when pressed, “This movie is not for everyone.” However, the film is not exploitative; it just takes you step by step through the event. And this is still part of our human history - of how, as the character of Zahra relates, “The evil one was here.”

Click here for the DVD listing in our catalog.

But you don't have to take my word for it

For many of us, just the first few beats of the Reading Rainbow out is enough to bring back fond memories of the long-running PBS children's' show that fostered a love of learning and reading.

For Reading Rainbow's entire run from 1983 to 2009, it boasted the same host, the imminently likable LeVar Burton. The world may know Burton as the actor who played the slave Kunta Kinte in the blockbuster TV miniseries Roots and Trekkers (or Trekkies) may know him as Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge in the Star Trek: The Next Generation TV series, but Reading Rainbow fans know him as the guy who always always said, "But you don't have to take my word for it," before segueing to book reviews from kids like ourselves.

(Want to revisit some of those Reading Rainbow book picks? We've got a fair number in our collection.)

The show may have gone off the air three years ago, but Burton's stayed busy with other TV-related projects. He also made an especially memorable cameo on the quirky NBC show "Community" last year, playing himself — much to the distress of a hilariously shell-shocked Troy Barnes, a character who has long adored Burton from afar.

Chatter around Burton has picked up in recent weeks due to news he's bringing Reading Rainbow back to the masses, only this time reconfigured for the digital age. As part of the effort, last month Burton successfully nabbed the @readingrainbow Twitter handle. On Burton's website RR Kidz, he reports that the show will be reincarnated as a book-related mobile app, ensuring that Reading Rainbow continues its mission of teaching kids that, just as the song says, they can go anywhere and be anything.

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand / by Helen Simonson

Major Ernest Pettigrew (ret.) would prefer not to participate too much in the modern world and its new methods of daily life. A staunch traditionalist, honor-bound by his sense of duty and stoic chivalry, he's not too fond of new inventions which have made things move faster and people on the whole, as he sees it, less agreeable. Cell phones he particularly abhors; the Internet, forget about it. There's also the institution of marriage which seems to be falling apart. His own son, Roger, himself apart of that wheeling-dealing world as a real estate broker, has a relationship with an American woman who sees marriage as an outdated concept, perceiving cohabitation as the new norm. Now that his brother Bertie has died, the Major sees little hope for a confirmation of the old life and its familiar ways which at least strived towards a more honorable code of conduct. By way of his daily routine, Major Pettigrew forms a friendship with the widowed owner of his local tea shop, Mrs. Ali, a woman of Pakistani descent who shares his love of literature and seems to have an especially discerning air about her which the Major finds charming. The woman certainly shows more class than any of the women in the Major's own circle, namely his newly widowed sister-in-law who now wants to sell off portions of the family estate and the women involved in his local civic club who shamelessly parade around their ignorant ideas and notions about other cultures. It's not long before the Major and Mrs. Ali, while not would either would call a couple, are seen together in public. Now it's the Major's family and extended set of peers who take notice of his 'new' ways, even if the Major himself sees nothing new about it, only two people, two Britons--Mrs. Ali was born in Cambridge and has never been outside of England--who still find comfort in the 'old' ways of doing things.

It isn't hard to see why this book was absolutely devoured by readers upon its publication. It's the type of story that restores faith in humanity and inspires hope for the future, neither too delicate in approach nor too overblown on sentiment. Major Pettigrew shares many of the same characteristics as classic figures like Dickens' Mr. Pickwick, Bernard Cornwell's Richard Sharpe, even Mr. Darcy or George Knightley. He's a noble-born, honest man who's kind and considerate with few vices other than occasional stubbornness toward change, not altogether a bad thing anyway when it comes to who he has to deal with. He's obligated by his principles to speak the truth no matter what, to uphold propriety and ensure that justice is had for all. And while you couldn't say he's an altogether affectionate man, he's certainly knows when to offer tenderness and when to withhold judgement. Simonson unfolds the book in a brilliantly patient manner, leading the reader into what initially may be misconstrued as a cozy mystery type of story and then building things into a wonderfully satisfying work of both substance and characterization. (FIC SIMONSON)

The Woman In White / by Wilkie Collins

Wilkie Collins was never quite as widely respected as his contemporaries in Victorian England. Despite the fact that his numerous novels and story collections sold exceptionally well and his fan base always held him in high regard, his work never carried the same intellectual distinction as, say, a George Eliot or Charles Dickens. He may have been ahead of his time. Suspense, as a genre, wasn't really en vogue in the 19th century and despite the fact that the Gothic and Romanticist movements paved the way for more intrigue and mystery in fiction, literature remained a relatively more even-paced medium with stories involving more sensational themes relegated to second tier status. The fact that Collins' books outsold many of those same authors wasn't altogether missed by the reading public though critics seemed to diminish the effect that public affection for his work garnered. Nevertheless, in real life, Collins got on well with his peers, Dickens in particular co-authored and edited several serial literary publications with him, and it never seemed to bother him in the slightest that his writing achieved more mainstream success than critical acclaim. Among his two most famous works are The Moonstone (1868), about a mysterious diamond brought from India to England, and The Woman in White (1860), a story of intrigue surrounding a mysterious lady of the night. Of the two, The Woman in White was undeniably Collins favorite.

On his travels one night, young drawing master Walter Hartright meets a mysterious woman dressed all in white, disheveled and apparently in deep distress, whom he helps find the road to London only to discover later that she's escaped from an asylum, not for the first time evidently. Thinking little of it, Hartright sets out for a job he's undertaken at Limmeridge House, an estate in the northern part of the country where he's been commissioned to teach two young wards of a Mr. Frederick Fairlie, an elderly, ailing man who seldom leaves his room. Laura Fairlie, Mr. Fairlie's niece, and Marian Holcombe, Laura's half-sister, are nothing like their reclusive uncle and Mr. Hartright takes great pleasure in their company, discovering them to be fond of art and amiable. And in what initially seems to be an alarming coincidence, Mr. Hartright finds that Laura bears an astonishing resemblance to the woman in white, so much so that he engages the topic in conversation only to find that the woman he met that night on the road is known by his pupil.

The mentally disadvantaged lady is called Anne Catherick and had lived for a time as a child at Limmeridge. She'd been devoted to Laura's mother, a lady who'd also dressed in all white, and had been taken away from the family under somewhat mysterious circumstances after the matron's death. Walter meanwhile has fallen in love with Laura despite the fact that she's already betrothed to a bullish member of the nobility named Sir Percival Glyde, whose engagement to Laura is more a matter of course owing to an agreement between Laura and her uncle. Upon meeting Glyde, Hartright becomes convinced through a series of conversations and correspondences that he was responsible for shutting up Anne Catherick, "the woman in white," inside the asylum, unjustly as it were, to keep her from revealing secrets concerning Glyde's own dubious past and ill-conceived plans for marrying Laura and inheriting Limmeridge House.

With as many plot twists as mysteries involved in the story, Collins weaves one of the more spellbinding novels of the 19th century. It's not all that easy to follow in places and characters like Marian Holcombe and the conniving Count Fosco (appearing later on in the narrative), both of whom can seem marginalized at first, can't be discounted as they end up holding key elements to the plot's development. Keeping track of the various settings--Limmeridge House, Glyde's own estate, Hartright's travels in Honduras, Italy, London and the English countryside--can get confusing as well. But the overall intrigue of the opening sequences, the dramatic conflict escalating with each chapter, the serious undertones of tragedy and impending doom as well as the climactic conclusion are rewarding enough to supersede any of the book's many plotboilers and accommodate its complex structure. (FIC COLLINS)