2013-05-22T10:45:00Z No Author Copyright 2013, No Author SPHPBLOG Up Front
By THE EDITORS
Pico Iyer was born in England to Indian parents, and when he was 9 years old began commuting — alone, six times a year — between 1960s California and ancient British boarding schools.

“Globalism has seemed my destiny,” he said in a recent e-mail from rural Japan, where he has lived for 20 years. “Perhaps the most exciting development in my reading life has been to see even the starchiest and grayest literatures suddenly open up into rainbows of possibility. When I was studying English literature in Britain in the 1970s, it involved reading ‘Beowulf,’ Chaucer, Shakespeare and Johnson (even American literature was considered a little beyond the pale in England, and our main course stopped in 1832). Five years later, British literature was being blown open by writers whose names we couldn’t even pronounce — Rushdie and Ondaatje and Ishiguro and Coetzee. It was as if all the doors and windows of a stuffy Havisham house had suddenly been thrown open, to admit new sounds, strange spices, tropical colors, new histories and even new ways of telling history: new writers emerging for a new world and a new kind of reader.

A generation later, it seems we’re witnessing the same thing in American literature. So ‘world fiction’ has joined world music and fusion cuisine as a radically new and liberating feature of our all-over-the-place age of movement and cross-cultural collision and collusion. And these writers from everywhere are not just chronicling, but actively charting, the America of tomorrow.”

A version of this article appeared in print on July 22, 2012, on page BR4 of the Sunday Book Review with the headline: Up Front. ]]> http://www.lfpl.org/booktalk/index.php?entry=entry120724-081913 2012-07-24T00:00:00Z 2012-07-24T00:00:00Z
Jul. 18: "At Home: A Short History of Private Life" by Bill Bryson.

Aug. 15: “In the Time of the Butterflies,” a historical novel by Julia Alvarez set in the Dominican Republic.

Sep. 19: “The Tiger's Wife,” by Belgrade-born Téa Obreht, a novel about two friends on a medical mission - a National Book Award finalist.

Oct. 17: “Cleopatra,” the bestselling biography by Stacy Schiff.

Nov. 14: “The Girl in the Blue Beret,” a novel set in France by Kentucky author Bobbie Ann Mason.

Dec. 12: “White Tiger,” a first novel by Arvind Adiga, an Indian writer and journalist and winner of the 2008 Man Booker Prize.

Jan. 16: “Bel Canto” by Ann Patchett, another award-winning novel set in an unnamed country.

Feb. 20: “The Buddha in the Attic” by Julie Otsuka, winner of the 2012 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and a National Book Award finalist, which tells the story of a group of young women brought from Japan to San Francisco as “picture brides” nearly a century ago.

March 20: “White Teeth,” a novel by the British author Zadie Smith. It focuses on the later lives of two wartime friends—a Bangladeshi and an Englishman.

The group meets at the Main Library on the third Wednesday of the month, from noon – 1 p.m. and brown-bag lunches are welcome. Hope you can join us!]]> http://www.lfpl.org/booktalk/index.php?entry=entry120717-160808 2012-07-17T00:00:00Z 2012-07-17T00:00:00Z “At Home: A Short History of Private Life” is the next book to be discussed by the Mayor’s Book Group as we continue to encourage folks to Read Your Way Around the World.

The author, Bill Bryson, a lively writer of non-fiction, uses his 1851-vintage home in England – a rectory in the Norfolk countryside – to take people on a room-by-room tour one reviewer called “a history of the world without leaving home.

“The bathroom provides the occasion for a history of hygiene; the bedroom, sex, death, and sleep; the kitchen, nutrition and the spice trade; and so on…. Whatever happens in the world, he demonstrates, ends up in our house, in the paint and the pipes and the pillows and every item of furniture.”

The hour-long brown bag discussion will be at noon, July 18 at the Main Library, 301 York St.

Up next:
Aug. 15: “In the Time of the Butterflies,” a historical novel by Julia Alvarez set in the Dominican Republic, inspired by the true story of three sisters who were murdered in 1960 for their part in an underground plot to overthrow the government.

Sep. 19: “The Tiger's Wife,” by young Belgrade-born Téa Obreht, a novel about two friends on a medical mission in a Balkan country that was a National Book Award finalist.

As we plan books to read this fall and beyond, we’d welcome your ideas for good titles that have roots in other cultures.

Feel free to consult our international-themed booklist - click here. Or recommend books you’ve liked - email here. ]]> http://www.lfpl.org/booktalk/index.php?entry=entry120627-135539 2012-06-27T00:00:00Z 2012-06-27T00:00:00Z
But if you have book ideas for this international reading group to consider down the road, we’d like to hear them.

The current lineup:

Dec. 16 “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens

Jan.18, 2012 “The Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind the Veil” by Deborah Rodriguez with Kristin Ohlson

Feb. 15 “The World is Flat” by Thomas Friedman and “That Used to be Us,” by Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum

March 21 “The Elegance of the Hedgehog” by Muriel Barberry

April 18 “The Devil's Highway” by Luis Umberto Urrea

May 16 “You Have Given Me a Country” by Neela Vaswani

June 20 “Things Fall Apart,” by Chinua Achebe

The group meets from noon to 1 at the Main Library. Brown-bag lunches are welcome. Anyone can attend any session.
]]> http://www.lfpl.org/booktalk/index.php?entry=entry111123-144356 2011-11-23T00:00:00Z 2011-11-23T00:00:00Z
Its story was a great picture of friendship – and the magic of story-telling.

And it offered a vivid look at the social and political history of China. To compare this picture of China to the China of today… was amazing.

Have you read it? Share your thoughts here.
]]> http://www.lfpl.org/booktalk/index.php?entry=entry111123-143929 2011-11-23T00:00:00Z 2011-11-23T00:00:00Z
The term “graphic novel” was coined by Will Eisner who is considered to be one of the most important creators in the realm of sequential art -- which essentially is what graphic novels are. Today the most prestigious award that can be won by a graphic novel the Eisner Award.

Graphic novels are no longer simply comics about super-heroes and the battle over good and evil. Today they cover all the literary genres including comedy, tragedy, romance, mystery, thrillers, science fiction, horror, fantasy and realistic fiction.

They have become a very powerful medium for storytelling and they are a great tool for reluctant readers, students learning English and those with reading challenges. They can also make historical events more accessible to people by having dramatic visuals accompanying the text.

In recent years graphic novels have become a popular medium for autobiographical stories. Blankets, by Craig Thompson, is an example of a young man’s coming of age and this month’s selection Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi is a memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. Many find the combination of image and text to be very powerful. Not only biographies, but social issues, health issues and powerful stories about loss are all addressed through this medium. One of the latest trends: adapting novels into the graphic format. “The Kite Runner” and Ayn Rand’s “Anthem” are two examples.
]]> http://www.lfpl.org/booktalk/index.php?entry=entry110930-143034 2011-09-30T00:00:00Z 2011-09-30T00:00:00Z Cutting for Stone , a novel by Abraham Verghese, a book they generally liked… especially its vivid picture of life in Ethiopia and a doctor’s world.

Put the next meeting on your calendar Octtober 19 and get ready to imagine life in the middle of a political revolution, from the experience of a child. The next selection is Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, who grew up in Iran. The format is black and white comic strips – a graphic novel.

]]> http://www.lfpl.org/booktalk/index.php?entry=entry110923-115106 2011-09-23T00:00:00Z 2011-09-23T00:00:00Z http://www.lfpl.org/booktalk/index.php?entry=entry110907-140650 2011-09-07T00:00:00Z 2011-09-07T00:00:00Z http://www.lfpl.org/international/booklist.htm.

Whether you are part of a book club or reading solo for fun, jump in and share your responses to international books you are reading. Tell us what books you like? What sparked the best conversations – or made you think? Have you had personal experiences that gave you a special perspective on a book you read?

Write a comment and we will post it.
]]> http://www.lfpl.org/booktalk/index.php?entry=entry110907-101343 2011-09-07T00:00:00Z 2011-09-07T00:00:00Z