BPL Blog
Posted by JGranatino on Wed, May 17
A sweet story that you might expect to see on the Lifetime Channel, The Ladies’ Room features our heroine, Trudy who learns of her husband’s infidelity in the bathroom of a funeral parlor. Married for 20 years, Trudy finally musters her self-respect and courage and gets a divorce. Now she is determined to change her life and starts with renovating a home left to her by her newly deceased aunt. It is there that she finds a new love, Billy Lee. Of course, nothing is as simple as that, and she...
Posted by JGranatino on Tue, May 16
You know you’re in for something remarkable when a patron asks you if you have read The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto by Mitch Albom and exclaims, horrified, when you have not. This is one of those titles best listened to, as the voice of Music tells Frankie’s story intermingled with the voices of people whose lives he touched. Frankie was orphaned while still a baby, rescued by a man he always thought of as his father. Baffo Rubio took Frankie for guitar lessons as a young boy, and Music...
Posted by JGranatino on Sat, May 13
This book was about three women during the time of World War II. One of the women was in Manhattan, and the other two were in Germany and Poland. As Hitler invades France, this is in turn affects Caroline in New York as she volunteers and does charity work at the French consulate. Kasia, in Poland, joins the underground resistance, and gets herself and her mother and sister arrested and put into Ravensbruck, the women’s only concentration camp. Herta, a doctor, gets assigned to work at...
Posted by JGranatino on Fri, Apr 28
In the late 1800s, Chinese immigrants who were no longer welcome for their service building the railroads and cities of the northwest coast were persecuted and deported back to China. Liu Mei Lien was born in Seattle, and after her mother died, her father supported the family with a small grocery store in a largely Chinese district. Mei Lien and hr grandmother created elaborately embroidered purses and cloth as well. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and Geary Act of 1992 resulted in hundreds...
Posted by JGranatino on Sun, Apr 02
A Life in Parts is a vulnerable and hilarious memoir and a real life coming-of-age story by Bryan Cranston. People may know him from Breaking Bad and Malcolm in the Middle but his talent Cranston discusses his childhood, teenage years, one life changing road trip with his brother, and an inside look into the acting world. His determination, drive, and passion especially come through in the audiobook as he narrates it himself. A Life in Parts is an inside...
Posted by BHanley on Sat, Apr 01
The story takes place in two countries, France and UK, and centers around two families. It begins with a bombing of a British student tour bus in Calais, France. A suspended cop’s daughter is on the bus and survives. The cop reunites with her and quickly discovers that his detective skills are required when the bombing rapidly becomes an international incident. A student, related to a family involved in a London bombing some years prior, has gone missing shortly after the attack. The story...
Posted by BHanley on Fri, Mar 31
Paulette Jiles' new novel News of the World will please readers who enjoy a good old-fashioned Western. 71-year-old Jefferson Kyle Kidd makes his living in 1870 Texas by reading newspapers to paying audiences in the various small towns along the road. He is asked to take a young girl back to her family in San Antonio, hundreds of miles to the south. She had been kidnapped by Kiowa several years earlier, was 'rescued' by white soldiers, had forgotten English, and seriously wanted to go...
Posted by BHanley on Mon, Mar 27
Don’t let the unusual title fool you. This is the warm, humorous, and transformational story of Mr. Fikry, an island bookstore owner who has lost his reason for being. You’ll initially get to know him as a middle-aged curmudgeon. His wife died, his store is not doing well, and he rages against people and any books that he dislikes. Various people, including, but not limited to, the police chief, a publishing company’s sales rep and an abandoned baby who is left in his store, gradually help him...
Posted by JGranatino on Fri, Mar 10
Mention the name of a familiar Golden Book – The Pokey Little Puppy, Scuffy the Tugboat or Five Little Firemen – to a Baby Boomer and it may evoke surprisingly misty-eyed and sentimental reminiscences of a particular favorite. Author Marcus notes that these inexpensive books, which were often sold in supermarkets for as little as twenty-five cents, brought children’s literature to the masses. The publisher assembled some of the finest illustrators of the time, making...
Posted by JGranatino on Fri, Mar 10
There was a flurry of excitement in the literary world when a handful of unpublished poems by the Chilean Nobel Laureate, Pablo Neruda, were unexpectedly discovered in 2014 at the Pablo Neruda Foundation in Chile. Often described as “Whitmanesque,” Neruda is one of the greatest poets of the 20thcentury. His poems convey his deep passion for his wife Matilde and his gift for close observation of nature, objects, and people. They demonstrate his skill in choosing arresting and highly original...
