Meet the Author of Jacobson's: I miss it so!

Historian and author Bruce Allen Kopytek is coming to the Carnegie Branch of the Jackson District Library on Saturday, June 23, 2012 at 2:00 pm to talk about his recently published book Jacobson's: I miss it so!

An expert on the vanishing department store, Bruce writes a blog called The Department Store Museum.

Last night he was honored along with others in Lansing for having a book selected as one of the twenty chosen for the Michigan Notable Books list.

Call the Reference Department to make a reservation today! Space is limited. Call 517-788-4087, ext. 1339.

Go On. You Know You Want To Do This!

Afternoon Project: Declutter Your Bookshelves

Houzz- Kitchen Remodel, Bathroom Remodel and More»

Browse Kitchen Products on Houzz- For Example:

Bar Stools And Counter Stools · Cookware And Bakeware · Kitchen Faucets · Kitchen Tile · Microwave · Ovens · Pot Racks · Blenders And Food Processors ·

Wire to Wire by Scott Sparling

Scott Sparling riding the rails

"If you were strong enough to walk the solitary path, you could hear the world turn. Once you did that it was easy to see the future." (WIRE TO WIRE)

Wire to Wire (2011)

Wire to Wire by Scott Sparling
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Scott Sparling's WIRE TO WIRE further clarified for me a couple of the things that draw me into a book. The first I've known for a long time. I crave surprise. It's here in spades. But I also have noticed lately that awareness of the beauty or specificity of language has become more important to me as well. Sparling's descriptions seem new, unique, and perfectly crafted.

"He came to rest against a 1981 Pontiac Grand Am, so new he could smell the General Motors plant outside Detroit." or "You could always count on the past to be there when you needed it, and even when you didn't. Especially then." or "When your belongings don't really belong to you, he thought, it's time to go."

Michael Slater's life changed the day he took a power line to the head while riding atop a railroad car. He survived but with altered perceptions of his world.  With MEMENTO-like flashbacks in time, we wander willingly into Michael Slater's sometimes horrific lifeline following him until we think we know the answer.

Intriguing, disturbing, and perfectly balanced, WIRE TO WIRE may change the way you look at the world and your place in it. Read it. 

WIRE TO WIRE was chosen as one of the 20 Michigan Notable Books  published in 2011. "The selections are reflective of Michigan's diverse ethnic, historical, literary, and cultural experience."

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You Are Not Your Bookshelf (a poem by Jeff O'Neal)

Jeff O'Neal is the editor of Book Riot. Follow him on Twitter: @readingape

You are not the books on your shelf.
You are not the books you have read.
You are not the books you haven’t read.
You are not what books people think you have read.
You are not the books you are supposed to have read.
You are not the books you always meant to read.
You are not the books you hate.
You are not the books you dismiss.

(Click this link to read the entire poem)

AbeBooks Explains How to Identify a First Edition Book

The Books We Give Away

If, like me, you have been moved to do some 'spring cleaning' this time of year, do you include weeding your shelves of books? Some people love books and never let any of them go.

I, on the other hand, feel a need to send my books off into the world to find new homes. Part of my delight in that process is in choosing just the right place or person to receive my gift.

And time is finite. As one ages, it should become easier to calculate the books that may still be enjoyed. The number dwindles.

Of course, there are those titles that want a second reading (or third or fourth, etc.) that I would not dare to part with. In that category are children's books written and illustrated by Marguerite de Angeli, mysteries by Josephine Tey, Ellen Raskin's The Westing Game, Randy Pausch's The Last Lecture, among many others.

The author of the article The Books We Give Away is also a reviewer making his job all the more difficult.

Amy Einhorn Books Perpetual Challenge and A New Title!

I am once again tempted to succumb to the Amy Einhorn Books Perpetual Challenge. After all there is no time limit and time is the biggest problem I have to accomplishing anything. Check out Beth Fish Reads Blog for wonderful information about books.

The latest title in Amy's imprint is Let's Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir) by Jenny Lawson. I will be ordering it on my Kindle Fire today so I have it on April 17, 2012 when it is finally available. The author apparently is an known Internet entity as a blogger and tweeter (The Bloggess) if you want to do a bit more research before committing to her book.

"Like laughing at a funeral, this book is both irreverent and impossible to hold back once you get started". (from the publisher) Beth assures her readers that this is a true statement.

Did you know it's D.E.A.R. Day?

I didn't until I saw a post on Facebook from a friend. Check it out HERE. 

P.S. It stands for Drop Everything and Read, a fabulous idea!

T-Shirt Sayings

Signals (Personalized I Became Shirts)You know you want one!

Mirror Image (2010)

Mirror Image by Dennis Palumbo

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Years ago I discovered that I love thrillers and the better written and circuitously plotted, the faster I consume the story. I don't even attempt to solve the mystery. I'm just along for the ride and what a ride "Mirror Image" is! The last book I read, a memoir, took me a month; this book barely lasted three days!

Author Dennis Palumbo has come up with an angle that will keep me hooked. Besides being set in Pittsburgh, where I lived at one time, his narrator Dr. Daniel Rinaldi is a psychologist who consults with the Police on difficult cases. Surrounded by interesting characters who don't always behave normally, Dr. Rinaldi ends up in all kinds of trouble.

With great dialogue, fascinating characters, and sense of place, you won't have any trouble seeing this as a movie.

And although there is the requisite violence and sex, Palumbo knows when to back off and let the reader's imagination take over.

Luckily Palumbo has already followed up his debut title with a second Rinaldi tale called "Fever Dream". Find them. Read them. Then join me in awaiting the third installment.


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My Red Blood (2009)

My Red Blood: A Memoir of Growing Up Communist, Coming Onto the Greenwich Village Folk Scene, and Coming Out in the Feminist Movement by Alix Dobkin

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I like to come up with one word reviews for plays I see and thought perhaps I could translate that to the books I read. Unfortunately the first word I thought of for this book was 'pedestrian'.

On the other hand, the author and I shared a generation and community. It's not the first time I've realized that others (Patti Smith's Just Kids) made braver, more interesting choices.

Although it felt like a slog sometimes, I finished the book and actually came to vicariously enjoy Alix Dobkin's tale of growing up communist and becoming a lesbian. Not knowing her music put me at a disadvantage, but I greatly enjoyed remembering the folksong scene, the beginning of the women's movement, civil rights, the special places in Philadelphia she mentions, and other relics of the time period as well as the famous people she met and knew.

Perhaps I should change the one word review to 'transformative'.

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