The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Patron recommendation:
This book features strong women, each voice is pitch perfect.

Book review:
What perfect timing for this optimistic, uplifting debut novel (and maiden publication of Amy Einhorn's new imprint) set during the nascent civil rights movement in Jackson, Miss., where black women were trusted to raise white children but not to polish the household silver. Eugenia Skeeter Phelan is just home from college in 1962, and, anxious to become a writer, is advised to hone her chops by writing about what disturbs you. The budding social activist begins to collect the stories of the black women on whom the country club sets relies and mistrusts enlisting the help of Aibileen, a maid who's raised 17 children, and Aibileen's best friend Minny, who's found herself unemployed more than a few times after mouthing off to her white employers. The book Skeeter puts together based on their stories is scathing and shocking, bringing pride and hope to the black community, while giving Skeeter the courage to break down her personal boundaries and pursue her dreams. Assured and layered, full of heart and history, this one has bestseller written all over it.
~Starred Review from Publishers Weekly

Note from Jan:
I'm sorry to say that I haven't read this book yet but it's on my list.  This recommendation was given to me by a patron who took the time to write out a note and place it in my box at the library.  For me, that's pretty special, and it tells me that this is a wonderful book.  If you've read it, I would love to hear your comments and reviews, either via email (my email link is in the right column of this blog) or with a comment at the end of this post.

Hope to see you in the library someday soon,
Jan     

Request The Help from the Bangor Public Library

Happy Holidays from the Bangor Public Library Bloggers!

I would like to thank you for all your wonderful emails, book suggestions, and comments!  I love every single one.  Also, I'm very pleased to announce a new staff blogger, Maggie, who is one of our fabulous reference librarians.  Where I tend to read popular fiction on the graphic side, Maggie prefers literary fiction and non-fiction, so we will have a good balance of books to discuss.

Hope to see you in our library someday soon,

Jan

Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz

A patron recommendation:
This is the first of a series of an unlikely hero with an unlikely life.  The book jacket gives a good intro.

Book description:
“The dead don't talk. I don't know why.”  But they do try to communicate, with a short-order cook in a small desert town serving as their reluctant confidant.  Odd Thomas thinks of himself as an ordinary guy, if possessed of a certain measure of talent at the Pico Mundo Grill and rapturously in love with the most beautiful girl in the world, Stormy Llewellyn.  Maybe he has a gift, maybe it’s a curse, Odd has never been sure, but he tries to do his best by the silent souls who seek him out. Sometimes they want justice, and Odd’s otherworldly tips to Pico Mundo's sympathetic police chief, Wyatt Porter, can solve a crime. Occasionally they can prevent one. But this time it's different.

A mysterious man comes to town with a voracious appetite, a filing cabinet stuffed with information on the world's worst killers, and a pack of hyena-like shades following him wherever he goes. Who the man is and what he wants, not even Odd’s deceased informants can tell him. His most ominous clue is a page ripped from a day-by-day calendar for August 15.

Today is August 14.

In less than twenty-four hours, Pico Mundo will awaken to a day of catastrophe. As evil coils under the searing desert sun, Odd travels through the shifting prisms of his world, struggling to avert a looming cataclysm with the aid of his soul mate and an unlikely community of allies that includes the King of Rock 'n' Roll. His account of two shattering days when past and present, fate and destiny converge is the stuff of our worst nightmares—and a testament by which to live: sanely if not safely, with courage, humor, and a full heart that even in the darkness must persevere.

Request Odd Thomas from the Bangor Public Library