This Alex Award winning story is about June, an awkward, intelligent fourteen-year-old girl who adored her uncle Finn. The story is told from June’s point of view. June is a loner who likes to walk in the woods and pretend she’s living in the Middle Ages. The novel explores her relationships with Finn, her often difficult older sister, and Finn’s boyfriend Toby whom she gets to know and secretly befriends after Finn dies of AIDS. I don’t think I will ever forget this wonderfully unique novel. A friend told me it was the best book she read last year, and I wonder if I will discover one I like more this year. I kind of doubt it.

In the midst of a blustery Minnesota winter, reading indoors where it's warm and cozy is hard to beat. Consider creating a book list of your favorite titles (or limit your list to a theme or category) on Bookspace -- it's so easy. Here's a list entitled Books Way Too Good to Miss. Avid readers will enjoy your suggestions during Winter Jackets.

In 2002 one hundred authors from 54 countries were asked to name their top 10 works of fiction of all time. The result is this compilation of the 100 Best Books of All Time. I have read only 23 of these titles so I have some catching up to do. I was surprised to see Pippi Longstocking on this list but Norwegian Book Clubs came up with the idea to do the compilation so perhaps I shouldn't be too surprised. Take a look and see how many you have read (so far). By the way, if you click on the Print icon, you can see the 100 titles at one time.

Edina native Todd M. Johnson will read from his accomplished debut novel The Deposit Slip tomorrow night (January 8) at 7:00 p.m. at the Ridgedale Library. Publisher's Weekly says, "With an irresistible set-up, suspense, a subtle love triangle, strong dialogue, characters, and a focused plot, Johnson makes a strong first literary case." Books will be available for purchase and signing.

A book is always a thoughtful gift. But it's sometimes confusing to wander around a bookstore. The New York Times can help. They have compiled a Holiday Gift Guide of this year's notable fiction, poetry and nonfiction, selected by the editors of the New York Times Book Review. Still unsure what to buy? Librarians have great suggestions for you. Just ask... we're happy to help. Also check out Bookspace's What We're Reading for even more book ideas.

Hilary Mantel made history yesterday. She was the first woman and the only Briton to win the Booker Prize twice. Ms. Mantel won her second Booker for Bring Up the Bodies. She won her first in 2009 for Wolf Hall.

Acclaimed author Larry Watson will speak at the Ridgedale Library on Saturday, October 6th at 1:00. I read and very much enjoyed two of his novels Montana, 1948 and his latest American Boy. Mr. Watson creates characters and stories that are impossible to forget. So begins David Hayden's story of what happened in Montana in 1948: "From the summer of my twelfth year I carry a series of images more vivid and lasting than any others of my boyhood and indelible beyond all attempts the years make to erase or fade them...."

Please join us on October 6th to meet Larry Watson.

I'm a big fan of Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins mysteries (most famously, Devil in a Blue Dress) and so I was nervous picking up a novel that is not one his Noir detective stories. But Mosley can tell just about any story and keep you engaged and he succeeds with The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey. Ptolemy Grey is 91, in the early stages of dementia and in need of settling some very important business. Enter seventeen year old Robyn, and young woman taken in by Ptolemy's extended family who enters into a helpful and challenging relationship with the old man. As always, Mosley's characters are incredibly interesting with all the flaws and beauties of real people. This is not a shoot 'em up edge-of-your-seat novel, but there is some shooting and you'll care enough for Ptolemy to remain on the edge of your seat till the last page. Another great one from a great African-American novelist.

"The Women's National Book Association has announced
Ann Patchett as the winner of the 2012-2013 WNBA Award. The award is presented by WNBA to a living American woman who derives part or all of her income from books or the allied arts and has done meritorious work in the world of books beyond the duties or responsibilities of her profession or occupation. Patchett, in addition to authoring a number of bestselling books, opened Parnassus Books in Nashville in 2011." - Publishers Weekly. Read more about Ann Patchett and her award.

Beloved Irish author Maeve Binchy died today at age 72. Her first novel Light a Penny Candle was published in 1982. Read more here. Fans may want to watch this video on Maeve's philosophy of life.

I finally found the time to read that most acclaimed novel by Canadian master Robertson Davies, 'Fifth Business'. It was a thoroughly engaging and deeply satisfying read. It is the story of the life of the narrator, Dunstan Ramsay, a retired school master who relates his experiences from early childhood to the present. We meet a host of wonderfully told characters engaged in any number of mild and intense encounters, and follow Dunstan’s development as an insightful but conflicted man. All of the story lines – from small town gossip and meanness, to the terror of World War I, to the intricacies of the magician’s craft, to unrequited love – draw you in with wonder and exquisite writing. I plan to read both sequels in this series, known as The Deptford Trilogy.

Nora Ephron died yesterday at age 71. I love her movies (When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, and Julie & Julia) and her 1983 novel Heartburn is a personal favorite. Nora Ephron's wit made this story delightful even though it's based on Nora's marriage and divorce from Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein. She will be missed tremendously. Read more about Nora Ephron here. And here are Nora's Must Reads.

“A fictional biography whose subject in the beginning is a sixteen-year-old boy in the Elizabethan era and in the end -- three hundred years later -- is a thirty-six-year-old woman.” Okay, so would you pick up a book based on this summary? I was actually intrigued by the summary of Orlando, especially by its being written by Virginia Woolf. This is a wonderfully fun novel and a wild ride through four centuries, exploring the roles of men and women at different eras and the social mores of those times. Woolf cleverly matches her prose style to the literary style of the period in which Orlando lives, creating always-changing moods and sheer delight for the reader. I have read that the novel is based in part on Woolf’s life with her lover Vita Sackville-West, and that may be. But most of all, this book is just plain fun to read. A great introduction to an incredibly talented author.

One of our greatest writers, Ray Bradbury, died yesterday at age 91. He wrote more than 27 novels and 600 short stories. “You must write every single day of your life... You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads... may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world.” ~ Ray Bradbury
And more on Ray Bradbury and libraries: http://nationalbook.tumblr.com/post/24555708196/remembering-ray-bradbury-1920-2012

The children's Carnegie Medal was established in 1936.  This June at the American Library Association's annual conference the first  winners of the Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction will be announced.

The three finalists for Fiction are The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright, Lost Memory of Skin by Russell Banks, and Swamplandia! by Karen Russell. Find the nonfiction finalists here. The selection committee includes chair Nancy Pearl of Book Lust fame. How exciting to have Carnegie Medals for both adult and children's literature!

Mexican novelist and essayist Carlos Fuentes died May 15 at the age of 83. In his obituary, The New York Times described him as "one of the most admired writers in the Spanish-speaking world." Fuentes wrote The Old Gringo in 1985, and his latest work Destiny and Desire was published in 2011. 

Book Tours at the MIA! These are "lively discussions of works of art related to popular books." Drop in Tuesday mornings at 11:30 or Thursday evenings at 6:30 for a free docent tour. Some of the fiction titles coming up for tours are Dreams of Joy (June), Luncheon of the Boating Party (August), Cutting for Stone (October) and Madonnas of Leningrad (December). Past titles also can be explored when you arrange a private tour with the MIA. For more information, please read here.

I’ve just now finished this book and want to write this before the experience subsides.  One reviewer of As God Commands, the award-winning novel by Italian author Niccolo Ammaniti, said “If the Coen brothers ever wanted to go Italian, this’d be prime adaptation material.”  Indeed.  This is a brutal, sometimes darkly humorous novel of three men and one man’s son from the underside of society, bleeding anger and scheming on ways to make something of their lives.  Ammaniti, also the author of the brilliant suspense novel I’m Not Scared, describes characters, places and circumstances with a sense of foreboding and reality that cannot be denied.  I stopped halfway through, horrified by an event in the story, and decided to return it unread the following morning.  But at the library I picked it up just to read to the end of that page and wound up ignoring my responsibilities and reading the whole damned book in one long sitting.  For better or for worse, this is what a great book can do.

The 2012 Pulitzer Prizes were announced this week, but alas, no prize was awarded for Fiction. This has not happened since 1977. The jurors read some 300 books but none was chosen for the coveted prize. A few came close: read more about it.

BookSpace has a list of the Pulitzer Prize winners in fiction, nonfiction and poetry for the past ten years.

Dora Saint, known to millions of readers as Miss Read, died April 7 at the age of 98. The first Miss Read novel, Village School, was published in 1955. "In the world of Miss Read, almost no problem was so great that it couldn’t be solved by a glass of milk, a good cup of tea and the passage of time," says the Washington Post.

Even though spy thrillers are not my cup of tea, I took a chance with The Expats by Chris Pavone. Kate Moore is a CIA agent and her husband Dexter does not know that little tidbit about his wife. Dexter, a banking security consultant, announces they must move to Luxembourg. Kate is happy to leave behind her undercover job and devote herself to their two young sons. However, she begins to suspiciously view their new friends in Luxembourg and soon she even questions her husband's actions. Kate investigates and the plot becomes more complicated. She enjoys being back in spy mode but things come to a feverish climax as Kate and Dexter manage so many deceptions. Do they even know each other?  Pavone's debut novel is a very entertaining page-turner.

If you’re one of the many adults who are hooked on The Hunger Games, you’ll find some similar reading ideas on our new If You Liked...The Hunger Games book list.

Or maybe you have a reader too young for this dark story? KidLinks provides great suggestions with If You Like The Hunger Games for the under 12 set.

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union and The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay are two of my favorite novels by one of my favorite authors, Michael Chabon.  My latest foray was into Gentlemen of the Road, a rollicking, old-style adventure that kept me both amused and engaged.  I am blown away by Chabon's breadth of style and creativity.  This novel reads like those childhood adventures (Arabian Nights, Adventures of Tin-Tin) you read late into the night with a flashlight.  Travel with Zelikman, a cranky physician with a strange taste in hats, and ex-soldier Amram, a beast of a man responsible for most of the clever (often hilarious) quips, as they make their rootless way through the Caucasus Mountains, circa A.D. 950.  Historical fiction?  More like hysterical fiction!

It’s hard to believe that it’s been 20 years since I read Gloria Naylor's wonderful novel, “The Women of Brewster Place.”  Now I’ve had the hard pleasure of reading an equally powerful story by an author deserving of more recognition, Stewart O'Nan .  "Everyday People” is the story of an African-American neighborhood in Pittsburg, one that has lost its center and suffers the urban decay plaguing too many of our minority-intensive communities.  The story follows the lives of a half dozen characters ranging from a wheelchair-bound graffiti artist to an elderly woman who’s lost children to violence, to a young woman struggling to balance motherhood with college to an Italian ice-cream van driver who has served the neighborhood for decades.  O’Nan has an uncanny ability to lend reality to the characters he invents.  I missed them all for a week after finishing the book.  The last line of this book, by the way, is one of the best I’ve read in years.    

USA Today recently reported that Minneapolis is the third most literate city in the country (Washington D.C. and Seattle are #1 and #2).  Our wonderful libraries and bookstores must take some credit! http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-01-10-literary10_ST_N.htm  Let's see Minneapolis take the #1 spot next time!

John Barron of the Chicago Sunday Sun-Times says of Chad Harbach's novel The Art of Fielding, "It's hard to figure who wouldn't take to this captivating, breezy debut... it has it all: love, the search for identity, redemption, a superbly drawn setting, engaging characters...and baseball." It's been compared to John Irving's The World According to Garp (which piqued my interest as Garp remains one of my all-time favorite novels). Ten years in the writing, The Art of Fielding brought Harbach a whopping $665,000 advance. It's a character-driven novel set at a fictional Wisconsin college. I loved the first half.  Then Harbach lost his way and my interest waned. Where was this book going, I wondered?  I wasn't emotionally engaged at its dramatic and tear-jerking ending. Tighter editing was sorely needed (the book goes on much too long at 512 pages).   Harbach's talent is evident but I hope he finds a new editor.