Celebrate Audio Book month with a Golden Voice.

AudioFile Magazine and website has a Hall of Fame of audiobook narrators that they call the Golden Voices.

“AudioFile editors celebrate the Golden Voices of audiobooks. This Hall of Fame showcases top narrators for their exceptional audiobook work. We celebrate these actors for their commitment to the craft of audiobook narration and for their achievements in spoken-word recordings.”

Here is a linkable list of the Golden Voice award winners so you can find your own favorites.  Also check out Audiofile’s search tool to find readers by accents and genres.

• Alyssa Bresnahan
• Scott Brick
• Barbara Caruso
• David Case
• Jim Dale
• Grover Gardner
• George Guidall
• Edward Herrmann
• Dick Hill
• Derek Jacobi
• Martin Jarvis
• Simon Jones
• Garrison Keillor
• John Lee
• Miriam Margolyes
• Wanda McCaddon
• John McDonough
• Frank Muller
• Davina Porter
• Simon Prebble
• Christian Rodska
• Barbara Rosenblat
• Jay O. Sanders
• Lynne Thigpen
• Simon Vance

Two more mysteries I loved

I will probably recommend The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo at our June Book Pot Luck. Stieg Larsson’s Swedish mystery was very hard to put down. The title character, Lisbeth Salander, is a damaged young woman with a photographic memory, incredible hacker skills and warped moral values. She first researches a journalist for her part-time boss and later works for and becomes involved with the journalist, Mikael Blomkvist. Most of the book is about Mikael’s search for a girl who disappeared forty years previously. In the process he unearths serial killers and industrial corruption.

The 2nd book I finished this weekend — I love Patriot’s Day! — is Grave Goods by Ariana Franklin. This is the 3rd in the series featuring Dr. Adelia Aguilar, the medieval mistress of the art of death. While the actual mystery is fairly easy to figure out, the historical background is fascinating. King Henry II is trying to bring peace to the British Isles and justice by introducing a jury system. King Arthur and Glastonbury Abbey are at the heart of the mystery this time round. If you like historical mysteries and haven’t tried this series, you are in for a treat when you do.

The Soloist wrap-up

We had a very successful Books Open Doors town-wide read this year. The books were checked out over 165 times! The programs were well received — thank you to Prof. Gary Hylander and music teacher Kim Holster. Both the trial series and the Mozart/child prodigies talk have sent people scurrying to the shelves to find out more information. See below for links to recommended books about Mozart, intelligences, and prodigies.

For those of you who missed the showing from Inspired by Bach, you can check out the whole series from the library. It truly is inspired!

We are taking suggestions for next year’s Books Open Doors. What books might you like to read that would stimulate discussion and suggest different programs? Bring your ideas to the reference desk or leave a comment here.

Suggested Mozart Books

Clarke, Bruce Cooper.  The Mozart Starter Exploring the Universe of Mozart’s Music

Eisen, Cliff and Stanley, Sadie. The New Grove Mozart.

Glover, Jane. Mozart’s Women.

Gutman, Robert W. Mozart a Cultural Biography.

Melograni, Piero. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart a Biography

Spaethling, Robert. Mozart’s Letters, Mozart’s Life.

Books on Multiple Intelligences and Creativity

Armstrong, Thomas. 7 Kinds of Smart.

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Creativity Flow and Psychology of Discovery and Invention.

Gardner, Howard. Extraordinary Minds

Gardner, Howard. Frames of Mind

Goleman, Daniel. Emotional Intelligence.

Great new mystery series

Did you read Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe series? Stout created a great sidekick in Archie Goodwin, the legs and muscle for the brainy but eccentric Nero Wolfe. Because Archie narrated the stories we would know what he knew, but Wolfe was the one who could make sense of all the clues.  Well, there’s a new sidekick in town that takes Archie’s limitations and makes a leap forward: Chet, a nearly trained police dog (if only that rabbit hadn’t showed up, ) the narrator of Spencer Quinn’s Dog On It.

Chet is partner with Bernie Little, a divorced father who works as a private eye. Chet rides “shotgun” as they explore Arizona looking for a missing teenage girl. Chet is easily distracted — a ball, a cat, a roadrunner, the wind, a donut, people scratching his head — and so misses some of the dialogue which adds to the mystery.

I am almost done listening to it, and I laugh out loud at Chet’s enthusiastic response to so many things. The action is non-stop, partly because Chet — I’m not sure what kind of dog he is — loves his life with Bernie. If you like dogs, if you like mysteries with humor and heart, catch this book!

No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency on HBO

Here’s a reason to get HBO: The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency is going to be a six episode series starting on March 29 with a 2 hour pilot. We’ll definitely get it for the library when it becomes available on DVD (unless the reviews are awful.) The show is filmed in Botswana.

The tenth book is coming out in April: Tea Time for the Traditionally Built.

Some libraries house these books in with mysteries. We have them in fiction. What do you think? Mystery or fiction? Why do you read this series?

Book Pot Luck Recommendations 2009

We had a nice — very talkative — time at our book pot luck this past Saturday. Here are the list of books that people recommended:

Nonfiction:

House at Sugar Beach by Helene Cooper

Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan

Realityland : true-life adventures at Walt Disney World by Koenig, David.

Tried by War by James McPherson

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson

Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat who Touched the World by Vicki Myron

Gang Leader for a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh

Man Who Loved China by Simon Winchester

Fiction:

Hope was Here and others by Joan Bauer

Apologizing to Dogs by Joe Coomer

Saffron Kitchen by Yasmin Crother

Red Tent by Anita Diamont

Pillars of the Earth and World without End by Ken Follett

Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

Dark Tower series by Stephen King

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

Company of Liars by Karen Maitland

Sound of Language by Amulya Malladi

Lamb by Christopher Moore

Three Girls and their Brother by Theresa Rebeck

Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson

The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

Street of a Thousand Blossoms and others by Gail Tsukiyama

Bread Givers by Anzia Yezierska

From January’s Open Mike

We had another successful open mike this past Sunday — 25 people attended and that’s with a number of our regulars absent! (Hope you all feel better.)

We had a young man who read his poetry for the first time. Good job, Aiden!

Members of The Speed of Thought Playhouse Cafe at 39 North Washington Street read some of their poetry. Quite intriguing. They have an open mike on Thursday evenings.

Richard Menoche, one of our regulars, wrote a poem in honor of our Open Mike:

The road to fame…is an open mike…

The hostess stands and calls your name,

this is your “chance”: on the road to fame…

the mike is on, it’s time to speak…

your words must flow with a balanced beat…

if you speak low, they will not hear…

annunciate, to please their ear…

play on your words like pantomine,

add metaphors of illusion and rhyme…

with confidence: you become a pro…

aware of how the show will go…

at your highest point, that clock may chime

and wash away your finest line…

even when you do it well

your fame may fade…into the dark…

if you don’t want to be forgot:

take off your clothes; and howl: and bark:

so thanks to us all, and circumstance,

this mike is live for rhyme and chant,

so I think it’s time that two should all thank…

our most gracious hosts…Maggie and Frank…

The next open mike is April 26.

New links added to Jobs and Medical

Both the Boston Globe and the Providence Journal had articles with good links to websites this weekend. I have added them to our website. I hope not too many people will need them, but the times are what the times are.

Boston Globe job search links

Providence Journal/Denver Post Weight Watch sites

Best Books of 2008

Best Books of the Year time again. Here is a compilation from several sources of what fiction books were the best this year.  You can read about the book and place a hold by clicking on the link. The code list of sources is at the end.

Join us on Jan 31 for our Book Pot Luck and recommend books you have particularly enjoyed this year (not necessarily new books.) Call or email me by Jan 22 so I can order the books to share with other participants. — Maggie

Atkinson, Kate When Will There Be Good News?

BG, CL, CSM, KCS, NYT, PW, STLT, Time, WP

Auster, Paul Man in the Dark

CST, STLT, WP

Bayard, Louis The Black Tower

AM, BL, CSM, WP

Bolaño, Roberto 2666

AM, CT, H, LAT, NPR, NYT, PW, Sal, Sea, SF, Time, VV

Canin, Ethan America, America

CSM, CT, WP

Carey, Peter His Illegal Self

NYTP, STLT, WP

Coetzee, J.M. Diary of a Bad Year

NYT, SF, WP

Enger, Leif So Brave, Young and Handsome

AM, CSM, STLT, WP

Erdrich, Louise A Plague of Doves

BL, CSM, CT, KCS, PW, STLT, WP

French, Tana The Likeness

AM, BR, CL, CSM, KC, LAT, PW, Sal

Ghosh, Amitav Sea of Poppies

AM, BG, CT, CSM, PW, SF, WP

Hemon, Aleksandar The Lazarus Project

AM, H, NYT, PW

Jian, Ma. Beijing Coma

NYT, SF, WP

Kunzru, Hari My Revolutions

LAT, NYT, PW

Kushner, Rachel Telex from Cuba

CL, CSM, NYT, SF, WP

Lamb, Wally The Hour I First Believed

CST, H, STLT

Larsson, Steig The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

AM, KCS, LAT, LJ, NPR, PPG

Lazar, Zachary Sway

LAT, PW, STLT

Le, Nam. The Boat.

LAT, LJ, NYT, PW

Le Carrè, John A Most Wanted Man

CL, CSM, NYT, SF, STLT

Lehane, Dennis A Given Day

BL, CL, CSM, CST, CT, H, KC, LJ, PPG

Morrison, Toni A Mercy

BL, CL, CSM, CT, LJ, H, KCS, LAT, NYT, PJ, PPG, Sea, SF, STLT, VV

O’Nan, Stewart Songs for the Missing

CST, LAT, SF, WP

O’Neill, Joseph Netherland

AM, CL, CSM, CST, CT, KC, KCS, NPR, PW, Sea

Price, Richard Lush Life

AM, BL, CST, H, KC, NYT, PW, Sea, SF, STLT, Time, WP

Rash, Ron Serena

AM, CT, SF, WP

Robinson, Marilynne Home

AM, CL, CSM, KC, KCS, LAT, LJ, NYT, PPG, Sea, SF, TT, WP

Roth, Philip Indignation

BL, LJ, NYT, PJ, SF, STLT, TT

Shaffer, Mary Ann & Annie Barrows

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

CL, CSM, CST, FL, KC, LJ, SF, Time, WP

Sittenfeld, Curtis. American Wife

BL, CT, NYT, STLT, Time

Stephenson, Neal Anathem

AM, KC, LAT, Time

Strout, Elizabeth Olive Kitteridge

CL, CT. KC, LJ, SF

Tinti, Hannah The Good Thief

KR, NYT, SF, WP

Updike, John The Widows of Eastwick

BL, KCS, NYT, STLT, Time

Winton, Tim. Breath

NYT, PW, WP

Wroblewski, David The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

AM, CL, CSM, CST, CT, FL, H, KC, PPG, PW

Jhumpa Lahiri’s book of short stories, Unaccustomed Earth, was on almost all of the lists.

Code:

AM Amazon

BG Boston Globe

BL Booklist

BR Bookreporter.com

CL Cleveland Plain Dealer

CSM Christian Science Monitor

CST Chicago Sun Times

CT Chicago Tribune

FL Fiction List

H Hudson Book Sellers

KC King’s County, WA

KCS Kansas City Star

KR Kirkus Review

LAT LA Times

LJ Library Journal

NPR National Public Radio

NYT NY Times

PPG Pittsburg Post Gazette

PW Publishers Weekly

Sal Salon

Sea Seattle Times

SF San Francisco Chronicle

STLT St Louis Today

Time Time.com

TT The Times (British)

Boston Globe Article on Chick Lit

Meredith Goldstein wrote an article about a Chick Lit Book Club in the Boston Globe on Dec. 10, 2008. It is very thought-provoking. Many people dismiss the genre — as they do many genres such as mysteries and romance — without trying it. Our book group at the library has read a romance (Susan Elizabeth Phillips’ Ain’t She Sweet) which was a good discussion. And we really enjoyed Jeanne Ray’s Eat Cake which is a middle-aged chick lit, I suppose.

Here are links to the books the Cambridge Chick Lit Book Club has read. Maybe you’d like to read them and talk about them too.

Tuccillo, Liz    How to be Single

Giffin, Emily   Baby Proof

Bushnell, Candace   Sex and the City (which is nonfiction because it is her columns)

Stewart, Leah   The Myth of You & Me

McElhatton, Heather   Pretty Little Mistakes.