BPL Blog
Posted by BHanley on Wed, Aug 09
What happens when your love of chemistry is more hypothesis than reality? Weike Wang’s debut effort is a humorous, honest, and painful portrait of a young Chinese-American woman at a crossroads in life and love. She is faced with failed research, a loss of focus in her future, demanding parents, and a boyfriend who has been patiently waiting to pop the marriage question. Eventually, she’s forced to decide life’s ultimate question: what do I really want? Wang’s assured prose and characters make...
Posted by JGranatino on Mon, Aug 07
Much more than a city guide, this book describes the quartiers of La Ville-Lumière with an emphasis on obscure and unanticipated pleasures. It delves into the rich history of particular streets and landmarks from Île de la Cité to the Left Bank and the famous – and sometimes infamous – citizens associated with them. In the words of Richard Cobb, “Paris should be both walkable and walked, if the limitless variety, the unexpectedness, the provincialism, the rusticity, the...
Posted by JGranatino on Mon, Aug 07
How does it begin, this passion for reading, this intoxication with the endless beauty and variety of the written word? How often this love of books springs up spontaneously, unexpected, in the most unlikely settings. In this slender autobiographical account, best-selling Providence-based author Ann Hood recounts her earliest encounters with books that engaged her deeply, sparked her imagination, and broadened her horizons, making her want “to live inside a book.” She mentions the books and...
Posted by JGranatino on Thu, Aug 03
If you just cannot resist browsing the local independent bookstores when you travel, this book is for you! Eckstein’s lovely illustrations and charming anecdotes about seventy-five venerable bookstores from Boston to Bucharest cannot fail to fascinate. His tales of eccentric customers, romantic encounters, celebrity visitors, and creative locations and décor will capture the attention of any dedicated bibliophile -- and perhaps even inspire a field trip.
Posted by JGranatino on Fri, Jul 28
An excavation in a gentrified section of London has uncovered the skeletal remains of a newborn baby. The local paper has relegated the story to a small blurb buried on a back page but veteran reporter Kate Waters feels this could be a blockbuster story, linked to the disappearance of a baby from a maternity hospital decades before. Risking the ire of the Editor, she contacts old acquaintances from the police department to try to uncover the truth. What she finds is much more sinister than she...
Posted by BHanley on Wed, Jul 26
The only survivor. This is what it means to be a Final Girl. Quincy was the only survivor from a college weekend party at Pine Cottage after witnessing the brutal death of her friends, and coming close to death herself. She was rescued by a lone cop who shot to death the alleged killer. As both a blessing and a curse, Quincy can only remember up to the bloodshed and then her rescue afterward. On a national interest level, Quincy joined Lisa and Samantha as Final Girls, lone survivors of...
Posted by JGranatino on Fri, Jul 21
Winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction, 2012 (now known as the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction) and the Stonewall Barbara Gittings Literature Award, 2013, The Song of Achilles is a beautifully-crafted novel based on Homer’s timeless tale of the Trojan War, The Illiad. Author Madeline Miller, a Classics graduate of Brown University, focuses upon the doomed relationship between the Greek warrior Achilles, son of Thetis, and his devoted companion and lover, Patroclus. Narrator...
Posted by JGranatino on Thu, Jul 20
Tomasina Daulaire has spent most of her life as assistant to legendary childrens' book author Mort Lear. She met him as a young girl watching her brother at the local playground. Morty struck up a conversation with her, asking if he could sketch Dani. Deciding this was harmless, she agreed and a few years later realized the character of Evo in Lear's new book, now a bestseller, was her brother. Running into Lear once again after college, he offered her a job and Tommy eventually moved into his...
Posted by JGranatino on Mon, Jul 10
Lydia Smith lives a quiet existence as a clerk at the Bright Ideas bookstore, full of quirky characters including the BookFrogs, the regulars who frequent odd corners of the store. The job suits her, as her father was a former librarian and Lydia and best friend Raj spent hours after school browsing the library shelves after stopping for a snack and Raj’s parents truck stop, the Gas ‘n’ Doughnuts. Everything changed after a sleepover at her friend Carol O’Toole’s house when, during a sleepover...
Posted by JGranatino on Tue, Jun 27
After you discover how to pronounce hygge (some say “hoogah,” others “hue-gah”), take the time to learn why hygge has made Denmark one of the happiest countries in the world. Hygge signifies an attitude of relaxed well-being, cozyness, and fellowship and the lifestyle that promotes it: comfort foods, candlelight, a fireplace, comfortable clothing and furnishings, good books, and harmony with nature, all enjoyed in the good company of family and friends. If you would...
