Staff Recommendations
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The Cabinets of Barnaby Mayne
by Hart, Elsa
Reviewed by: Daryl M., Librarian, West Valley Regional Branch LibraryJanuary 20, 2021
The year is 1704 and Lady Cecily Kay has returned to London from her husband’s posting as a consul in Smyrna. Upon learning of her imminent return to the British Isles, Cecily sent a letter to Sir Barnaby Mayne, a renowned collector in London with one of the most expansive collections in the country, possibly the world. Cecily is interested in identifying some plant samples she has collected while abroad and Sir Barnaby has agreed to her use of his collection for this purpose.
The day after her arrival, Sir Barnaby is to conduct a tour of his collection for... Read Full Review
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Hella
by Gerrold, David, 1944-
Reviewed by: Daryl M., Librarian, West Valley Regional Branch LibraryJanuary 11, 2021
David Gerrold is speculative fiction royalty. His career spans six decades, over which he has won the Hugo and the Nebula awards. He has written more than 50 novels, worked on numerous television series and created cultural touchstones like tribbles (from Star Trek) and the Sleestak (from The Land of the Lost). His latest novel is an adventure in every sense of the word.
Hella is Earth-like, but it is NOT Earth. Hella is 9% larger than Earth, but its iron/nickel core is smaller, resulting in only 91% of Earth’s gravity. The atmosphere is more... Read Full Review
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The Lost Book of Adana Moreau
by Zapata, Michael
Reviewed by: Daryl M., Librarian, West Valley Regional Branch LibraryJanuary 5, 2021
A pirate, a refugee, two pre-teen boys in love with speculative fiction stories, and two adult men who are friends and are each searching for what seems to be missing in their lives. Over the course of nearly a century, these disparate individuals will orbit the missing manuscript of a celebrated writer who died too young. And that manuscript will reach out to them over time and lead them through unimaginable danger to what they each, ultimately, need.
Adana Moreau, a young woman orphaned by political unrest, flees the Dominican Republic and finds herself living... Read Full Review
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The Last Stargazers: The Enduring Story of Astronomy's Vanishing Explorers
by Levesque, Emily
Reviewed by: Daryl M., Librarian, West Valley Regional Branch LibraryDecember 29, 2020
Call Number: 520 L662
Halley's Comet is quite possibly the most famous, and infamous, comet currently known. It is a “periodic” comet, coming close enough to the earth for viewing approximately every 75 years. Over the centuries, the appearance of Halley’s Comet has been erroneously blamed for earthquakes, illnesses (including the Black Plague in England), the births of two-headed animals and the assassination of Julius Caesar. The comet was last visible from earth in 1986. Early that year, a toddler named Emily Levesque looked through her older brother’s telescope at Halley’s Comet. It was her first... Read Full Review
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Life on a String: The Yale Puppeteers and the Turnabout Puppet Theatre
by Rice, Christina
Reviewed by: Sheryn Morris, Librarian, Literature & FictionDecember 21, 2020
Call Number: 793.18 R495
The story of the Turnabout Puppet Theatre, and the three men who created it, is a quintessential LA story. In the 1920s people came west for adventure and opportunity, for year-round good weather, for not being hampered by history, but instead find a place where they could make their own history. Los Angeles was a city that was starting to grow and prosper, and the setting was mostly hospitable, with affordable personal and professional rental spaces. When the theatre was in its permanent place, a part of fading history was incorporated, with the discarded seats from the Pacific... Read Full Review
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The man who ate too much : the life of James Beard
by Birdsall, John
Reviewed by: Sheryn Morris, Librarian, Literature & FictionDecember 15, 2020
Call Number: 641.092 B363Bi
In the preface to this biography there is a quotation from Gael Greene, food and restaurant critic, and it should whet the curiosity of every foodie:
"In the beginning, there was James Beard. Before Julia ..., before a wine closet in the life of every grape nut and the glorious coming of age of American wines, before the new American cooking, chefs as superstars, and our great irrepressible gourmania ... there was James Beard, our... Read Full Review -
Never turn back : a novel
by Swann, Christopher, 1970-
Reviewed by: Robert Anderson, Librarian, Literature & Fiction DepartmentDecember 7, 2020
Author and teacher Christopher Swann once heard from his parents about an unnerving incident that occurred late in the evening at their home. A young woman came to the door, on the run from a bad situation she’d found herself in, and begged them to let her in. Fortunately for all concerned, her pursuers did not track her down and eventually went away, but the story made Swann think about how he would have reacted if he’d been there and events had taken a more violent turn. He has put his speculations to good use in this novel--his second thriller.
Ethan Faulkner, the story’s... Read Full Review
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The Devil and the Dark Water
by Turton, Stuart
Reviewed by: Daryl M., Librarian, West Valley Regional Branch LibraryDecember 2, 2020
In a "locked-room" or "impossible crime" mystery, a crime, or series of crimes, is committed under circumstances that appear, at least initially, impossible for said crime to have been enacted. Those same conditions will also seem to preclude the criminal entering or exiting the crime scene.
The first “locked-room” mystery was Edgar Allan Poe’s “The... Read Full Review
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Scandinavian noir : in pursuit of a mystery
by Lesser, Wendy
Reviewed by: Robert Anderson, Librarian, Literature & Fiction DepartmentNovember 24, 2020
Call Number: 839.53 L638
In the course of the past thirty years, Scandinavian crime fiction has become an increasingly popular genre among English-speaking readers and television viewers, to the extent that a guidebook called Nordic Noir was published in 2013.
Wendy Lesser, editor of the journal Threepenny Review, author of numerous books about literature and art, and confirmed Nordic noir fan, has approached the topic from a different angle in her latest book.... Read Full Review
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The Eighth Detective
by Pavesi, Alex
Reviewed by: Daryl M., Librarian, West Valley Regional Branch LibraryNovember 16, 2020
Call Number: M
In the early 1940s, a Scottish professor of mathematics devises a mathematical definition of the murder mystery story and writes seven provocative stories as proof of his theory. He publishes a journal article regarding his ideas and then self-publishes his seven stories in a small volume, entitled The White Murders.
Decades later, the owner of a small publisher stumbles across one of the copies of The White Murders and... Read Full Review
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The escape artist
by Fremont, Helen
Reviewed by: Sheryn Morris, Librarian, Literature & FictionNovember 9, 2020
Call Number: 940.5315296 F8723
There are many factual accounts of people who have survived and lived through torture, terrorist attacks, wars, genocides. Many survivors go on to live productive, successful lives, but suffer residual emotional and psychological trauma that are not obvious to them or to others. In this sequel to After long silence: a memoir, Helen Fremont writes about those very effects that are not visible to... Read Full Review
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Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre
by Brooks, Max
Reviewed by: Daryl M., Librarian, West Valley Regional Branch LibraryNovember 2, 2020
What if Sasquatch is real? What if there actually is a large, hair-covered hominid that lives in the undeveloped areas of the Pacific Northwest and is occasionally sighted by unsuspecting humans? What if a natural disaster displaced these creatures and their prey, forcing them to move closer to human settlements? And what if a small group of humans, desiring to get back to nature created a community that allowed them to live a distance from more urban environments while maintaining and relying on the creature comforts... Read Full Review