If It Sounds Too Good To Be True...

  In a rural community where hard work is a way of life, an uninvited guest arrives with promises of attainable wealth.  The stranger claims that his motive is solely to help his people, and he has glowing testimonies from others.  Can the villagers afford to second-guess this opportunity?  Selected by an international jury as one of Africa's best books of the twentieth century, The Rich Man of Pietermaritzburg is the third and final novel of Sibusiso Nyembezi, a Zulu novelist, poet, and scholar.  Set in a time when apartheid was a looming reality, this newly translated narrative preserves the cadence and humor of the African voice.  The visitor’s insistence on his own importance and the ease with which he tickles the itching ears of the village set up a delightful farce.  It is up to the youth to question whether the man can be trusted, but no one wants to listen.  A light story full of local color, The Rich Man of Pietermaritzburg is a cautionary tale of big talk too easily overshadowing better judgment. 

Do Dreams Come True?

Made-for-television movies are not always associated with quality or excellence, but the 2008 production of A Raisin in the Sun is an exception.  Adapted from the award-winning play revival and with most of the lead cast intact, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment gives new gloss to Lorraine Hansberry’s classic story of a struggling family in 1959 Chicago.  Sean “Diddy” Combs stars as Walter Lee Younger, a man who wants better things for his family and who hopes that his father's life insurance settlement might provide the chance of a lifetime.  However, first he must convince his mother, expertly portrayed by Phylicia Rashad, his conflicted wife (Audra McDonald), and his headstrong sister (Sanaa Lathan) that his is a dream worth pursuing.  It is the women who shine brilliantly, energizing each scene they play, especially when with each other.  Both Rashad and McDonald earned Tony Awards for their stage performances, and this is your chance to taste a bit of that Broadway greatness.
      

Books That Will Speak to You

Even for those of us who cherish the feel of a book in our hands, there are wonderful advantages to be enjoyed through audiobooks.  Whether you take a great story along on a summer walk, road trip, daily commute, or during household chores, you’ll find the time flies in the midst of expert narration and character nuances.  June is Audiobook Month, and what better way to join in the fun than to check out recent winners of the 2008 Audies, awards given for the best audiobooks of the year?

Fiction: Tallgrass (Sandra Dallas) - read by Lorelei King
Literary Fiction: Tree of Smoke (Denis Johnson) - read by Will Patton
Thriller/Suspense: Heart-Shaped Box (Joe Hill) - read by Stephen Lang
Mystery: The Tin Roof Blowdown (James Lee Burke) - read by Will Patton
Romance: Natural Born Charmer (Susan Elizabeth Phillips) - read by Anna Fields
Narration by the Author: Pontoon - written and read by Garrison Keillor
Nonfiction: Roots (Alex Haley) - read by Avery Brooks
Biography and Memoir: Einstein (Walter Isaacson) - read by Edward Herrmann

Standouts Among the Fantastic

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America recently announced the 2008 Nebula Awards, and your library has the winning selections!  The much-celebrated best novel is Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union, an unusual and creative story of alternate history.  Ted Chiang earned his fourth Nebula for the novelette The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate.  In the category of best script, Pan's Labyrinth by Guillermo del Toro was honored.  J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows won the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy.  Veteran science fiction writer Michael Moorcock was named the Grand Master, and Ardath Mayhar was singled out as the year's Author Emeritus.  Each year the SFWA publishes an anthology of the year's best science fiction and fantasy writing, including the winning pieces of short fiction and several runners-up.  What better way to sample imaginative writing that is simply out-of-this-world?

Heavyweight Prize Writing -- the 2008 Pulitzers

   Congratulations to the 2008 Pulitzer Prize winners!  The honor in fiction was awarded to Junot Diaz for The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, a novel that has continued to amass both critical and popular acclaim since its debut last fall.  In the history category, Daniel Walker Howe took the Prize for What God Hath Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815 - 1848.  Biographer John Matteson has been named a winner for Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father, as has Saul Friedlander for The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945.  Also newsworthy is the awarding of a special music citation to Bob Dylan, which lauded his "profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power."   

Cry, the Beloved Country

First published in 1948, Cry, the Beloved Country remains one of the most beautiful and stirring books of the 20th century.  The story of a divided and hurting South Africa, Alan Paton’s narrative focuses on two fathers:  a rural priest and a wealthy landowner.  Reverend Stephen Kumalo must journey from his native district to search for his sister and his son, but what he discovers is agony and catastrophe.  Meanwhile, James Jarvis grapples with the senseless death of a son he never fully understood.  In Paton's own words, Cry, the Beloved Country “is a song of love for one's far distant country...it is a story of the beauty and terror of human life."  Both simple and poetic, it is ultimately a story of hope.

Book Smart

    If you have an interest in becoming well-read but are uncertain of how to go about it, then Book Smart is a great place to begin.  Subtitled “Your Essential Reading List for Becoming a Literary Genius in 365 Days”, Book Smart is more than a collection of suggested titles.  Focusing on one theme for each month, author Jane Mallison offers a concise overview and ten books to whet your appetite in such categories as “Lighten Up:  Smiles at the Human Condition” and “Stranger in a Strange Land:  Unaccustomed Places, Real and Fancied”.  Classics are mixed with more recent works, and the author’s engaging style invites you to join in journeys of new experiences.  Even if you do not accept the year challenge, just browsing the suggestions will inspire you to add to your personal reading list.

As You Like It

      "All the world's a stage..." and this time that stage is set in exotic 19th century Japan.  As You Like It, the most recent Shakespeare adaptation from the ever-excellent Kenneth Branagh, spins a playful tale of romance, rivalry, and masquerade.  Bryce Dallas Howard is simply enchanting as Rosalind, the exiled maiden who escapes to the forest.  Disguised as a boy, she encounters the dashing Orlando and offers to help him win his lady, though he has no idea that the woman he loves is right before him.  Romola Garai, Brian Blessed, and Kevin Kline also star in this 2006 HBO Films presentation, distributed by Warner Home Video.

The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana

      Isabelle Flemming of Reference Services recommends The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana: an illustrated novel, written by Umberto Eco and translated by Geoffrey Brock:

The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana reads on several levels: an intriguing mystery, a cultural and social study, and a semiotician’s search for the attachment of meaning to words and symbols.  Yambo, a rare book-dealer, wakes from a coma.  Words, dates, books, history -- all information unconnected to the personal self -- remain accessible to Yambo post-coma.  Yet he does not recognize family members, nor does he remember his own personal history and identity.  As health returns, he retreats to the country home of his childhood to sort through personal belongings, especially books, in hopes of reconnecting with his former life.  Evocative images, words, and sounds are “mysterious flames” that light the fog of his present existence.  More than one surprise twist in the plot will leave you guessing about his complete recovery until the very end, while some revelations will surely give you pause for thought.

Michael Chabon

Michael Chabon is the author of many award wining books, including the Pulitzer Prize winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, the young adult novel Summerland, winner of the 2003 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award, and Wonderboys which was made into a critically acclaimed film.  Mr. Chabon (pronounced, in his words, "Shea as in Shea Stadium, Bon as in Bon Jovi"), believes that three things are required for success as a novelist: talent, luck, and discipline. As he says, “Discipline is the one element of those three things that you can control, and so that is the one that you have to focus on controlling, and you just have to hope and trust in the other two.” Michael Chabon’s most recent novel, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, is a hardboiled detective novel set in an alternate world where Israel failed to be born and millions of European Jewish refugees took shelter in Alaska, creating a miniature American Yiddishland. It became a New York Times bestseller immediately upon publication. In November 2007, his short swashbuckling adventure novel, Gentlemen of the Road, serialized in fifteen chapters in the New York Times Sunday Magazine, will be published by Del Rey.

Howards End

The Merchant Ivory classic Howards End was released in 1992 by Sony
Pictures Classics and stars Emma Thompson, Vanessa Redgrave, Helena Bonham
Carter and Anthony Hopkins.  An English drama based on the novel by E. M .
Forster, Howards End tells the story of three families in different social
classes, the upper-class Wilcoxes, the middle-class Schlegels and the
lower-class Basts, and shows how their lives intersect over the course of a
few years.  When the matriarch of the Wilcoxes leaves their beloved country
house, Howard’s End, to a member of the Schlegels, tempers flare and a fight
ensues over who is the rightful heir to the house.  A touching and
reflective view of a stratified society struggling to find a common
humanity.

Ian McEwan

Ian McEwan was born in 1948 in Aldershot, England, the son of an army
officer who spent much of his childhood in East Asia, Germany and North
Africa.  He received his BA in English from the University of Sussex and his
MA in English Literature from the University of East Anglia.  He won the
Somerset Maugham Award in 1976 for his first published collection of short
stories, First Love, Last Rites.  Writing literary fiction novels exploring
the human psyche, several of McEwan’s novels have garnered critical and
financial acclaim, including 1997’s Enduring Love, 2002’s Atonement and
2005’s Saturday.  His newest novel, On Chesil Beach was released on June 5,
2007.            

Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Johnson on April 4, 1928 in St. Louis Missouri.  Angelou suffered many tragedies in her early childhood forming the basis for much of her writing.  At the age of sixteen she gave birth to her son, author and poet Guy Raphael Johnson.  Angelou’s first work, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, was published in 1968.  This autobiography was based on her traumatic childhood and the strong resilience she found within herself to persevere and overcome her hardships.  In addition to Angelou’s numerous works of poetry and prose, she is also a singer, actress, director and playwright.  She is the first African-American woman admitted to the Directors Guild of America.  Angelou currently lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina where she is a professor at Wake Forest University.

Isabel Allende

Isabel Allende was a native of Chile who was forced into exile following the assassination of her uncle, President Salvador Allende.   While in Chile, she briefly had a job translating romance novels from English to Spanish.  She was fired, however, for making unauthorized changes to the dialogue of the heroines to make them sound more intelligent, as well as for changing the Cinderella endings to let the heroines find more independence.

Allende begins writing all her books on January 8th (after lighting candles and meditating) because that is the date in 1981 when she started writing House of the Spirits as a letter to her dying grandfather.  Her works chronicle the human condition in all its joy and beauty, pain and sorrow.

Her latest book is Ines of My Soul.  Have you read it?  What do you think of her writing style?  What is your favorite book by Isabel Allende?