Posted by Candice on Saturday, Feb 27, 2016
B.Y.O.Book, the Library's books-in-bars group, is ready to welcome the spring--it's time for a few good books, some good food and drink, and a lot of great conversation! In recognition of the 100th anniversary of the Pulitzer Prize awards, we've picked three past winners. We hope you can join us to read and discuss one, or all, of them.
March 22, 6-7 p.m., is our first meet-up; join us at Share Wine Lounge & Small Plate Bistro, in the Sheraton to discuss The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Díaz. Winner of the Pulitzer for Fiction in 2008, the book follows Oscar -- a Dominican American, an overweight, geeky teenage nerd--as he tries to navigate his everyday life, fulfill his dream of becoming a writer and, more important, finding love -- all in the face of a family curse that has haunted the Wao's for generations.. I think Michiko Kakutani said it best, in a review for The New York Times: "...a wondrous, not-so-brief first novel that is so original it can only be described as Mario Vargas Llosa meets “Star Trek” meets David Foster Wallace meets Kanye West." Readers, how can you resist?
You can register for the event, and check our catalog for a copy of the book--we've got print copies as well as CD, ebook and eaudio. We will also have a bookclub kit at the Info Desk soon, so give us a call to see if there are any available copies.
Future dates and titles are April 26 (Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner, at Northside Bistro) and May 24 (The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss, at the Mill). We hope to see you there!
This is the latest in Harper's Aaron Falk series, and I recommend all of them. Like the others, this novel is slow-burning, atmospheric, and thoughtful. Human relationships and emotions are often at the fore of the story, but the underlying mystery is always there, waiting to be teased out via the small details that Harper drops here and there. This book isn't loaded with red herrings, and there isn't a lot of suspense--it's much calmer, more real, and I appreciate that. Also, the Australian setting is always a bonus, another character in the story in some ways. You don't have to start with the first in the series (The Dry), but again, all of the books are worth a read. -Candice