By Lou Pray
Library Director at Lopez Island Library
There was such a wealth of great new items at the library this year it is really hard to pick but I’ll give it a shot! A caveat: these are my favorites. You will find more on the staff picks display area in the library. I’m sure many of you have your own favorites from 2013.
The Adult Winter Reading Program starts Feb. 1. We’d love to hear all about them! Write it up and perhaps win a prize….
Top Five Books of 2013
•“Life After Life” by Kate Atkinson. I’ve always loved Atkinson’s mysteries with wry but big-hearted Jackson Brody hero but this skyrocketed to the top of the list this year and it is clearly in a whole another class. This is actually my favorite book and audiobook of the year. Ursula has a destiny and during her many “start overs” as she dies and is reborn again in an attempt to reach this “destiny” we the readers get inside the skin of the whole household, not just Ursula as the most subtle changes bring alternate pathsto Ursula’s life and that of others. This is one to be savored and discussed.
• “Death at SeaWorld: Shamu and the dark side of whales in captivity” by David Kirby. If you are like me, you hold our resident Orca pods in awe, as magical and powerful in our minds as our northern neighbors regard the polar bear, but less likely to hunt and kill you if you enter their domain. Of course, they are apex predators, as this book reminds us. Also highly intelligent and socially-complex, perhaps more so than us, some speculate. So what happens when these “hard-wired for family” mammals are stolen from their beloved pod members and vast aquatic playgrounds and forced to live in relative “bathtub” for decades as outsiders? The catchphrase sums it up: “Don’t capture what you can’t control.” The actual day-to-day lives (severely shortened from free-range whales) are detailed as are the numerous deaths of trainers and others by orcas in captivity. A real-eye opener of “Shamu” stars and the actual way orcas live in the wild. The best book I’ve read about killer whale social networks and family groups. For more on the subject, watch Blackfish, a major motion picture from Magnolia Pictures and CNN Films available at the library.
•“The Woman Upstairs” by Claire Messud. An electric read, this book roars as it’s heroine, a artist by night, teacher by day develops ties to “celebrated” Italian artist and her family. This has a lot to say about the ethics of friendship as well as the modern art and academic world. A read pulse was pounding when I finished this one. Blistering!
•“Ocean at the End of the Lane” by Neil Gaimen. Can you go home again? Okay, maybe yes but if you couldn’t quite remember why you couldn’t remember And what if the beloved neighbors you remembered in an oddly vague way were way more odd and unearthly than you or anyone could imagine. A fantasy with humanity and love to spare. Also, a real thrill ride! A tied with my other favorite fantasy of the year: The Humans by Matt Haig. Imagine the narrator as voiced by Hugh Laurie as an alien assigned to put paid the human race but has a curious change of heart. A hilarious poison-valentine to the foibles of us Earthlings.
•“Book of Ages: the Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin” by Jill Lepore. Historian Lepore gives some equal time to another Franklin of historical note: his younger sister Jane. Witty, well-read, a mother of 12(!) and a shrewd writer and observer of the highly-charged political world she found herself in and yet Jane Franklin remains a largely unknown figure in the American Revolution. Start 2014 with discovering her!
All these are free at your Lopez Island Library. Don’t forget to check out our new Books and DVDs weblinks at lopezlibrary.org.
