Bio - Journeyman by Sean Pronger

Journeyman is the story of the ups and down of Sean Pronger’s hockey career. He bounced around from minor league to NHL so many times I lost count. Despite all the ups and downs, Pronger never seemed to lose the sense of humor that made this book so entertaining. Well, maybe he lost his sense of humor in Germany, but in his situation you can’t blame him. There were times when he was more serious, such as during the birth of his daughter. He also discussed the effect his many career moves had on his family, as well as the effect his family had on his career decisions. 

My only complaint, and it's a tiny one, is that he seems to downplay his hockey skills throughout the book. I've never seen him play, but if you make it to the NHL, you've got to be among the best. Sometimes his description made him seem mediocre, and I'm sure that wasn't the case. 

The accessible tone of this book made it read like a friend relating his experiences over a few beers. I loved it and am a little disappointed that this is the only book he’s written. 

Col Bio - PROVENCE, 1970: MFK Fisher, Julia Child, James Beard & the Reinvention of American Taste by Luke Barr

     The American Heartland in the 1950's & 60's.  Middle class families are sitting down to tuna casseroles, meatloaf, corn, TV dinners, Sunday-after-church local diner food.  No Mexican restaurants north of Texas. Italian food? Chef Boyardee spaghetti & meatballs.  No Indian, Asian, French cuisine outside of any metropolitan area. French onion soup? Tacos? Calamari? Caesar Salad? Basalmic vinegar? Unheard of.
     Into this culinary abyss step the giants of American cooking. By kismet, several famous foodies - chefs and food writers/critics - converge in Provence in the fall and winter of 1970. Times they are a'changin'. French cuisine is no longer the epitome of food nirvana. The counterculture has spawned an organic revolution. The age of "Mad Men" is in full swing (think "fondue"), and good food is becoming more accessible, indeed indispensable to the upwardly mobile.
     Taken from lost diaries, this is a rare insight into how these influential people grappled with their own ideas of what food should be, and ended up changing American eating habits.  With their prickly personalities, they cooked, shopped, discussed, argued, drank, made friends, and made enemies. But in the end, they all left France that winter of 1970 changed, with a sense that something important was happening in the culinary world to which they would contribute mightily, each in his own way.

Fict - The Dressmaker by Kate Alcott

It is apparent within a couple pages that the setting of the book is going to be the Titanic.  Historical drama - great!! Love it!!  Then 1/4 of the way into the book, everyone's already in the water.   Yikes - where's this going now?

Actually it goes to the New York fashion world.  Talented, but dirt poor seamstress escapes England to pursue her dream of working in the house of a famous fashion designer.  Coincidental acquaintences lead her into romance, intrigue, duplicity.     

Involving several real life historical figures who actually were on the Titanic - ie: Molly Brown - the story weaves some of their history into the narrative.   Rigid pretentious class system clashes with realistic working class morals.

YA - The Break-Up Artist by Philip Siegel

  The Break-Up Artist is the anti-romance.  Becca is so tired of all of the brainwashed couples at her school; so tired of hearing all of the girls start their sentences with "my boyfriend", and she's tired of being single shamed.   Her ex-best friend Huxley dumped her as soon as she started dating Steve - now they're the high school's star couple.  To make things worse, her new best friend Val is sinking to all-time lows to land the "sensitive artist" Ezra.  But what no one knows - Becca is the Break-Up Artist.  For a $100 PayPal payment Becca will plant evidence, start rumors, scheme and sabotage until the couples in question are no longer an item.
  The trouble begins when Becca is contacted by a grown man (her clients are usually the jilted friends of one member of the couple) to break-up Huxley and Steve.  Becca has to dig deep into her bag of tricks to pull this one off, and in the process she risks being outed as The Break-Up Artist.
Philip Siegel does a great job of keeping this from being a cliche.  Our main character Becca is real and flawed.  She's been hurt and in turn has no problem hurting others (though she doesn't see it that way).  Bottom line - this book is a fun way to spend the day - your classic "beach read".
  **I was given an advance copy of this title through Netgalley for review.  The publication date is April 29, 2014.

YA - Blur by Steven James

  Daniel Byers is a typical teenaged boy living in a typical small town.  He's worried about college and how to act around girls.  Then, a nearly invisible underclassmen named Emily Jackson is found floating in Lake Algonquin.  Daniel attends her funeral along with his sheriff father and the rest of their small town.  While there Daniel has a terrifying vision, Emily is reaching out to him from beyond the grave, and she's telling him her death was no accident.  As Daniel begins to investigate her death he realizes that he may be losing his grasp on reality.
  Blur was a great book and I'm anticipating the second volume in this trilogy.  YA mysteries are often formulaic and I find myself skimming through only to find that I was right about the "who dunnit" all along.  Blur is different.  As a reader I found myself questioning whether or not Daniel was crazy, just as he was questioning himself.  Many parts are quite endearing.  While Daniel is typical, he is the kind of jock to stand up for those being bullied, acts awkwardly around girls, and admires his best friend's aptitude for creative writing.  This is a must read book for any fan of YA mysteries!
  **I was given an advanced copy of Blur by Netgalley for review.  This title is due out on May 27, 2014.

YA - Riot by Sarah Mussi

  This book felt timely as I sat down to read it and riots exploded all over the Ukraine.  In this fictionalized version however, the year is 2018 and the real problem, the problem at the root of all that is going wrong in the United Kingdom is overpopulation.  So, unless you are going to college or have a job lined up for after high school, you're going to be sterilized.  According to the government, the poor are eating up too many resources and must be weeded out.  Of course, they'll start in the prisons, because that's where this sort of thing always starts.
  Enter Tia aka Eve, an anonymous hacker on the underground web called DarkNet7.  She, along with her compatriot Adam, are staging protests to end the "snip bill".  While their intentions may have been peaceful it's only a matter of time until the populace reaches it's boiling point.  Then, it's time to riot.
  The book moved swiftly and feels so much different than the dystopian novels that are being released almost daily, it seems, in the YA publishing world.  The premise of this book felt possible.  There are DNA sensing robots and sci-fi type things that may not exist yet (or they might), but given some of the radical rhetoric in today's politics, this book felt frighteningly real.  I would recommend that you judge for yourself.  This book is scheduled for release on May 1, 2014, at which point you can find it on our shelves.

The 19th Wife, by David Ebershoff

A book about polygamy in the Mormon religion. How it started, how it died, and how it still lives on. Done in flashback form, the book is a bit of a struggle to navigate until you sort out all the characters.  You really have to be interested enough in the subject to get through the first 1/3 of the book. Combining historical fiction of a real 19th wife, with a modern day murder mystery it does pick up and everything ties up neatly at the end.

I found horrifying the effects on the children in this odd arrangement, and how many women were so isolated and so brain-washed. Very hard to believe this happened so recently and is very possibly occurring right now.

Firefly by Janette Jenkins

OK, not everyone is going to care about Noel Coward's last days on Firefly, his Jamaican estate. But if you do, this is a beautiful fictional account, complete with flashbacks, and enough name-dropping to delight the star-struck.

Attended only by his long-time and presumably long-suffering servants, he receives old friends as well as unwanted visitors while drifting in and out of consciousness between London & US in the 30's and 40's, and the present 70's on the island.  Jamaica has its independence, natives long to emigrate to England, culture has changed. His youth, beauty & glory days long-faded, the cantankerous wizened man of letters observes, judges, and strikes out with his famous razor sharp wit.
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My favorite scene: he was at a sweltering lunch with a movie star he did not remember & did not care to be with.  When presented with an elaborate tropical salad, he drifted out of the conversation to study the plate, wondering "how to attack this Jamaican still-life".  Needless to say, I loved the writing.

Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

This is my first Neil Gaiman book and I wasn't sure what to expect. It's an adult book on lots of reading lists, but if you're not a fan of fantasy, this won't be the book for you. Set in modern day England, it's a coming-of -age story done in flash-back that reads like a really scary fairy tale. 7 yr old bookish boy deals with preoccupied parents, transient boarders, and deeply mystifying neighbors who draw him into their weird world where things are not what they seem. Beautiful lyrical writing with thought-provoking quotes: "monsters are always scared, that's why they're monsters". 
The author started out to write a short story, which turned into a short novel, which could have been a longer novel. Ending too soon, it left me a bit dazed, wanting the characters and plot more deeply developed. But like a haunting dream that you can't quite totally recall, it left me ruminating on what exactly happened, or what I thought happened.

Paris Architect by Charles Balfoure

Holocaust book with a twist - it's not about a victim. Racist, shallow, thoroughly unlikeable French architect trying to survive the Paris occupation unnoticed and unscathed is approached with an extremely lucrative one-time job: design a hiding place for Jewish refugees while being moved out of the country.

Well-crafted story with many interesting & complex characters. Greedy, sadistic Nazis. Duplicitous women. Noble, patriotic women. 4th generation disenfranchised French Jews. Sympathetic German soldiers caught in the middle. Ordinary French citizens caught in a moral quandary; risk their lives for others with possibly fatal consequences, or turn their heads and live with shame while innocent people die.

Burgeoning consciousness is a beautiful thing to witness.

Redeployment by Phil Klay

Redeployment is a collection of stories by former Marine, Phil Klay. The stories are set in Iraq and Afghanistan and they are gritty, sometimes graphic, and believable. This is a great story collection that left me wanting to read more by this author and more about the characters in each of the stories.  The characters had different backgrounds, specialties and experiences, but each seemed real, well thought out and realistic. I'm looking forward to read what Phil Klay writes next.

Insanity by Susan Vaught

  Insanity begins with the story of Forest, a foster kid who just took a job at Lincoln Psychiatric Hospital.  While on duty one night she witnesses something otherworldly, as one recently deceased patient is trailed by something that can only be described as the devil's errand boy.  During her encounter Forest loses time and her true identity is slowly revealed.  As the book continues on we are introduced to two other characters whose fate become entwined with Forest and the other world.
  I felt like every time I was beginning to get into this book the author moved on to the story and perspective of another character.  Granted, each of the three are intertwined with one another, but because it jumped from perspective to perspective, I ended up not really caring about any of them.  I've read other books with alternating perspectives and I was good with it, but something about the way this was written just didn't do it for me.
  Bottom line: it's your average, run-of-the-mill, supernatural thriller.