LibraryPoint Blog

Stafford County was the southernmost part of the Union occupation of Virginia for much of the Civil War and as such it drew all sorts of characters to its farmlands and creeksides. General Daniel Sickles--described by his contemporaries and historians as a scoundrel, murderer, rapscallion, rogue, and adulterer--took charge of the 2nd Brigade of Hooker's Division, Army of the Potomac. He enjoyed scouting the enemy by hot air balloon and held extravagant parties for his officers while in Stafford.

    Thanksgiving disasters usually take the form of dried-out turkey or not enough mashed potatoes.  But for the Peterkin family, proper Victorians all, Thanksgiving disaster strikes when their dinner simply disappears.  In “The Peterkins’ Thanksgiving,” Elizabeth Spurr has adapted one of Lucretia Hale’s charming stories about this hapless family into a picture book edition illustrated with cheerful whimsy by Wendy Anderson Halperin.

Though as a librarian I'm constantly reading new books and other materials, I, like most people, have those books to which I turn time and again.  I know exactly how they're going to end, I know most of the plot details, and I feel I have a close, personal connection with the protagonists.  Some of these I have read to the point that the cover has torn away, but I keep them anyway. Why?  Because I love them dearly.  

Most of my favorite novels are science fiction or cyberpunk.  Probably my favorite of all these books is Accelerando by Charles Stross, in which the transition of mankind from biological lifeform to almost purely informational and back again is deeply influenced by three generations of the same family across several centuries.  Its follow-up, Glasshouse, is set in the same universe, but rather than focusing on the future of humanity, this book sets its main characters in a far-future simulation of what twentieth century life was like; its extrapolation of modern life as viewed by our long-removed descendents is endlessly fascinating. 

The 2009 National Book Awards have been announced. The winners are:

Fiction

Winner: Colum McCann, Let the Great World Spin

Finalists: Bonnie Jo Campbell, American Salvage
Daniyal Mueenuddin, In Other Rooms, Other Wonders
Jayne Anne Phillips, Lark and Termite
Marcel Theroux, Far North