Book Annotation - Western

   High Lonesome by: Louis L’Amour

Genre: Western

Publication Date: 1962

Number of pages: 183

Geographic Setting: Arizona territory

Time Period: Historic

Plot Summary: Considine is considered one of the best gunmen in the West.  He and a group of 3 men were headed toward Obaro to break into the bank and settle an old score.  On the way to Obaro, they run into a man and his daughter who are headed to California.  To get to California, you have to travel through Apache land.  Considine must decide to either go to Obaro to settle a long-held grudge or to go with the man to help keep him and his daughter safe.

Subject Headings: Apache Indians, Courage in men, Outlaws, Regret in men, Revenge, Thieves

Appeal: Descriptive, historical, realistic

Frame/Setting:

Landscape dominates Westerns.  Readers are taken back to a time and place in which life is set against a dangerous, but beautiful backdrop.

Characterization:

The classic hero is a loner, who rides throughout the land, never to settle down to start a family.

Story Line:

Common themes include redemptive power of the West, the difficulties surviving in a harsh landscape, revenge, and lack of law along with the necessity of creating just laws.

Pacing:

The creation of mythic elements in character, description, and plot may slow the pacing, while action certainly increases the speed at which we read the novels.

3 Read A Likes:
Cotton, R.W. (2011). Lawman from Nogales. Berkley
Champlin, T. (1985). Shadow Catcher. Ballatine Books.
McMurtry, L. (1993). Streets of Laredo. Simon & Schuster.

Book Club Observation

The Reading Circle meets at Kennedy Library in Muncie, Indiana, the second Tuesday of every month from 12 to 1 PM.  You can bring your lunch and something to drink.  I was told that there is someone there who always brings something to share and today someone had brought in chili and cookies to share with everyone.  They sit around tables that are in a square shape so that everyone is able to see each other.  There were 15 people in attendance.  

The book that they were taking about this month is Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult.  To start off the conversation the leader, an adult service librarian, asked the question: How do you feel about the change in Turk from joining the White Supremist to in the end of the book getting out of the White Supremist?  From this time on, the leader only had to speak once or twice more during this time.  This group of people where talking about the book nonstop.  They would bring in personal experiences into some of the comments they were making.  There were several participants who came with note they had from the book or questions they wanted to ask the rest of the group.  Everyone participated.   The one item they wished for this club meeting was they wish that there would have been a variety of races there to share about the book since one theme of the book is about race relations.  This meeting was ran smoothly even when the participants would disagree with each other, they all remained civil.  I think that this group could have ran itself even with out having a ‘leader’.  To end the meeting, the library handed out the book for the next reading circle meeting.

This book is not normally a book that I would choose to read for myself.  I had only read ¾ of the book before I had arrived at the meeting.  I felt like I could return the book to the library without finishing it and not caring about not have finished reading.  After leaving the meeting I felt like, great, now I need to finish the rest of the book, so I can see what’s going to happen.

Special Paper- Book Awards

BOOK AWARDS! 
There are A LOT of book awards out there. However there is not a lot written about the book awards.  There is no general history about book awards so I can't tell you when all of the award craze first started as I had planned.  What I did write about were different awards.  I know when they started, what they were given for, what the prize is, and more- if that information was available.  I searched about 45 awards and settled on the following 13 awards.  Here are their names and what they are given for:

• Agatha Award - traditional mystery
• Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction - any book that guides adults to select quality reading material.
• Anisfield-Wolf Book Award - Books with focus on racism and diversity
• Bram Stoker Award - Horror
• The Center for Fiction: First Novel Prize - fiction
• Edgar Award - mystery, crime, suspense, and intrigue fiction
• Goodread's Choice Award - readers' choice in 20 categories
• National Book Award - fiction, nonfiction, poetry, YA
• Neustadt Prize - International award -poetry, fiction, drama
• Nobel Prize in Literature - Outstanding lifetime Work in Literature
• PEN/Hemingway Award - debut novel or book of short stories
• Pulitzer Prize - journalism, letters and drama, education, poetry, music, photography
• RITA Awards - romance

(To read more about these awards go to the following blog:

http://maryshafer.doodlekit.com/blog)

Week 7 Prompt Response

For our prompt this week, I want you to think about fake memoirs, author mills (James Patterons), and celebrity inspired book clubs. Basically write a readers' response to one of the articles you are reading for this week (see syllabus or links in this post for readings) - or talk about a time when a book or author that made headlines affected you personally or your work 

I'm choosing to talk about celebrity book clubs: "Numerous celebrities have decided to encourage reading by becoming bookstagrammers or launching their own online book club."  I say if it calls for a certain celebrity to start a book club to get people involved and interested in reading then let's get them involved.  Reading is an important life long skill people need.  I believe that celebrities are in an unique place of being a role model  and their reading and book clubs have the opportunity to reach a lot of people who may otherwise not e interested in books and reading.  These celebrities maybe getting some kind of 'payment' (more followers to their book clubs, money, etc.) for sharing their reading, however I think if they didn't enjoy reading they wouldn't be out there promoting it. So, I say, bring on the celebrities who want to start book clubs and promote reading, I'll let them do it all day long.

• Liao, Angela. (2017) Celebrity Book Clubs Create Virtual Reading Community. Retrieved from https://www.bookstr.com/celebrity-book-clubs-create-virtual-reading-community

Mystery Book Annotation

 In the Bleak Midwinter by: Julia Spencer-Fleming
Genre: Mystery
Publication Date: 2002
Number of Pages: 556
Geographical Settings: Millers Kill, New York, Adirondack Mountains
Time Period: Contemporary
Series: Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne Novels

Plot Summary: Clare Fergusson is at he new priest at St. Alban when a new baby is left on the steps of the church.  Clare and the police chief, Russ Van Alstyne, search for the baby's mother.  During the search, town secrets keep coming to light.  Some of the secrets lead to murders and attempted murders.  Is this the work of one person or different people? Is the baby's mother ever found? As Clare's and Russ's friendship grows so does the urgency to find the murder(s).

Subject Heading: Adirondack Mountains (N.Y.) - Fiction
New York (State) - Fiction
Police chiefs - fiction
Episcopalians - fiction
Women clergy - fiction

Appeal - believable, captivating, engaging

Characteristics of Mysteries:
Story Line: The solving of a crime, usually murder drives the plot.  Detective and reader understand "whodunit" and why by the book's conclusion.
Characterization: Investigator or investigative team is the focus.  In this book, Priest Clare and Chief Russ are the team.
Frame/Setting: The frame in which the story is set play a crucial role in its appeal.   Here we are in Millers Kill, NY., a small city, and also in the Adirondack Mountains.
Tone/Mood: Ranges from dark and gritty to lighthearted and witty.  Spencer-Fleming is offering a thoughtful side to this gritty, edgy book.
Pacing: is relentless and compelling, sometimes slowed by details of time and places but always moving towards a solution.

3 Read a likes:
The Crossing Place by Elly Griffiths - suspenseful, mystery, compelling writing
All Through the Night by Mary Higgins Clark - suspenseful, abandoned baby, mystery
Crooked Heart by Cristina Summers: Mystery, suspenseful, compelling, Police chief, clergy woman.

Integrated Advisory - Horror

I'd like to set up a passive program for patrons to vote for their favorite Horror book(s).  On a rectangle table in the adult section of the library, have about 8 books (with their audio books or DVDs) sitting out with a small box in front of them.  At the head of the table have the Title sign read "Which stories scared your socks off?".  In front of the sign have a box with chips (round colored of pieced of paper) that patrons can take and put in the box(es) of the books that they would like to vote for.  Leave the voting up for about a week and on the second week display the books in order of the winning votes.

Kirkus Review

     Dare  Macintosh rescues Molly Alexander and tries to help her figure out who had her kidnapped and why.  All the while they're fighting their feelings for each other.

Mercenary Dare Macintosh rescues Molly Alexander while rescuing the sister of his est friend from human traffickers.  However, Molly is there for another reason.  Molly decides not to go to the police, she decides to hire Dare to help her find out who had her taken and why.  While at Walmart there is another attempt to capture her, but Dare is there to keep her safe.  Dare has just decided this assignment has just become personal.  He takes Molly to the safety of his house where he and/or his assistant Chris can keep an eye on her.  Molly starts writing her next best seller while Dare looks into her father's where abouts. Dare and Molly decide to go back to Molly's house to find more clues, where everything began. While at her house, Molly's sister and boyfriend meet up with them.  Dare rules them out as suspects.  Dare and  Molly make a meeting with Molly's dad and mother-in-law to get more questions answered.  Dare and Molly make it back to Dare's house in time to have a show down with some unsavory characters and find the answers to the questions they've been asking.

Dare and Molly are both believable characters that draw you into their world of romance and suspense.