War and Turpentine / Stefan Hertmans

I'm not sure how I stumbled across this title, but it is a real gem. Written by Flemish-Belgian writer Stefan Hertmans, the book-- part memoir, part scrapbook, part historical fiction, is cobbled together from the notebooks and reminiscences of the author's grandfather. His hard-knock upbringing in Ghent rivals anything that Dickens described in the poor districts of London. The central part of the book consists of his grandfather's harrowing accounts as a soldier describing the brutality of World War I. The scenes exceed even the shock-value of some of the montages in the recent movie 1917. The book ends with his marriage to the sister of his beloved, after the former succumbed to the flu of 1918.

This is a history of 20th century Europe, but at the same time it serves as a nuanced and multilayered glimpse into an intimate and personal family history.

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So Much for That / Lionel Shriver

This novel comes from the 2005 Orange Prize winning author of We Need to Talk About Kevin , a disturbing book in which a parent with ambivalent feelings towards motherhood deals with the aftermath of a Columbine-style school killing perpetrated by her son. Lionel Shriver has said that she prefers to create characters that are hard to love, and So Much for That certainly contains some flinty characters, who although they may be hard to love, are nevertheless very believable. The topic this time is healthcare in America. Shep is all ready to launch into an exotic early retirement on the island of Pemba off the eastern coast of Africa, but when his wife reveals a diagnosis of mesothelioma, he must hold on to his job to maintain family health coverage to see her through her devastating illness. His work colleague and friend, Jackson, experiences a medical dilemma completely of his own doing, which proves to be his un doing. Jackson's daughter suffers from an unusual genetic disorde...

This Book Is Overdue! : How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All / Marilyn Johnson Click here to check availability in AFPLS This book is an interesting collection of essays that offer glimpses into the brave new world of librarianship. It’s sort of the antithesis of Nicholson Baker’s grumpy dissing of librarians in his 2001 book Doublefold . If you thought that librarians are still the be-bunned shushing ladies in wool skirts with reading glasses dangling around their necks on slender gold chains, then this book certainly is overdue for you. The author shows how librarians are morphing and adapting to the new information landscape, meeting new challenges with fewer resources and a public that wants instant gratification in clicks-and-mortar libraries. Meet librarians who offer triage reference services in streets filled with protesters and others who assume alternate identities and inhabit virtual libraries in the cyber universe called Second Life. Learn about how the venerable N...

The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating / Elisabeth Tova Bailey

The snail is a lowly creature, and probably one that most of us have never truly contemplated. The snail was probably a creature to which the author hadn't given much thought before a debilitating disease kept her confined to bed, practically immobile, for months and months. One day a friend put a woodland snail in a pot of violets on her nightstand. After being transported from the woods, the snail had emerged from its shell into the alien territory of my room, with no clue as to where it was or how it had arrived; the lack of vegetation and the desertlike surroundings must have seemed strange. The snail and I were both living in altered landscapes not of our choosing; I figured we shared a sense of loss and displacement. p 20 The companionship of this tiny creature is what sees her through the darkest days of her imprisonment by her horrible disease. The snail, thriving in its slow-mo existence and life of undemanding simplicity, provides interest and comfort to the author. ...

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