Happy New Year!

Well, it's a new year and a new beginning for Reader's Advisory services at Burlington Public Library. Thank you to those of you who have been faithfully checking in with the Good Book Psychic to read our staff reviews. With a new interactive catalogue, Burlington Public Library staff will now be adding reviews directly to the catalogue. One stop book browsing for all!

If you would like to continue following our staff reviews, please visit our staff profile page: BPLNextBestAdults  Click on the green Follow link in the middle of the page, log in and you'll be set! When you log in the next time, you'll see reviews and booklists that have been recently shared by staff.

If you're on Twitter, we'll also be tweeting about books, reading, and more. Follow us at @bplnextbest 

Happy New Year and Happy Reading! 

Friday at the Branches: The Lotus Eaters

The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli 2010

A debut novel with three main characters whose lives are affected by the Vietnam War. Helen, a photographer, who lost her brother in the conflict, comes to Vietnam hoping to find out what really happened to him.  She quickly falls into an affair with another war photographer, Sam Darrow.  Being the first female photographer to be sent to a combat area, Sam assigns his Vietnamese assistant, Linh, to escort her when she goes to combat areas. Linh wants nothing more than to escape the war, while Sam and Helen are drawn to it and are unable to escape until tragedy strikes. For readers of the One Book One Burlington title.

Non-Fiction Pick of the Week: Married to Bhutan

Married to Bhutan: how one woman got lost, said "I do", and found bliss by Linda Leaming 2011

How far would you go to be happy? For writer Linda Leaming, it was to Bhutan, the tiny Himalayan kingdom of which it’s said the most important thing is their Gross National Happiness.  In her late 30s, she went on a short side trip to Bhutan, fell in love with the country and spent the next two years trying to find a way to get back.  The result? She sold everything, uprooted herself, gave up her career, moved away from family and friends and began a new life, found love and a lasting relationship, and now, twenty years later, is still blissfully happy in Bhutan.  A thoroughly charming memoir, full of humour, pithy observation and interesting commentary on the choices we make in life.

Fiction Pick of the Week: Breed

Breed by Chase Novak 2012

Well-to-do Alex and Leslie Twisden met in front of his four-story Manhattan townhouse which had been in his family for decades.  Anxious to produce an heir, yet inexplicably infertile, the Twisdens head to Slovenia for a “fertility enhancement” treatment.  The excitement regarding their pregnancy is eclipsed by the animalistic side-effects experienced by both.  Fast forward ten years… that same brownstone is now hiding Alex and Leslie’s secret.  Their twins, Adam and Alice, fear for their lives and run away.  What exactly goes on behind their parents’ door? 

Spencer’s creepy debut novel writing as Novak elevates the subject of infertility treatments.  The concept of this story, while not original, tells of the disturbing nature of human experimentation in medicine.  At times disjointed, this gruesome story loses its’ fast pace when telling the twins’ story.  It should, however, appeal to fans of Justin Evans’ A Good and Happy Child, Bentley Little’s His Father’s Son and Stephen King.

Little Red Riding Hood meets Flowers in the Attic! 

Friday at the Branches: The Hypnotist's Love Story

The Hypnotist’s Love Story by Liane Moriarty

Ellen and Patrick meet through an online dating site. Ellen is a 35 year-old hypnotherapist, never married but with a couple of failed relationships in her past. She lives and works in a beach front house left to her by her grandparents. Patrick is a surveyor with his own business, a widower with an 8-year-old son and a monthly habit of visiting his wife’s gravesite and her parents. The one relationship he has had since the death of his wife did not end well. In fact Patrick is now being stalked by his ex-girlfriend. Ellen is curiously fascinated by the stalker, who turns out to be a new client (now stalking Patrick and Ellen). After three months Patrick proposes, Ellen is pregnant, and Saskia/Deborah is furious! Saskia is a menace, but is she dangerous-- is her behaviour escalating? Patrick is a likeable fellow but is he still in love with his dead wife? Is he comparing Ellen to a ghost? Ellen is helping Patrick sleep, but is she crossing an ethical line when she hypnotizes him? Interestingly, the narrative alternates between Saskia’s voice and Ellen’s voice.

Also available in large print!

Non-Fiction Pick of the Week: Let's Take the Long Way Around

Let’s take the long way home: a memoir of friendship by Gail Caldwell

This memoir speaks to the depth that friendship can take: how a friend can be a partner in life as much as any romantic relationship. In this writing, the author takes a look at how her best friend has proven to be the key figure in her life, both while the friend was alive, and even after her tragic death. The memoir quickly moves through the life of the author – both prior to and after meeting her best friend, and gives us a view to the character development of both these women. The cement of the friendship is explored and an unexpected joy in the book is the added relationship between these women and their dogs. The heartbreaking end not only looks at how a friendship gets transformed through death, but also the enormous impact of the death of one’s pet companion.  

Read-alikes: A widow’s story by Joyce Carol Oates

Fiction Pick of the Week: Private Games

Private Games by James Patterson (with Mark Sullivan)

A fast-paced spin-off of the Private series, Private Games takes readers to England, just prior to the 30^th Olympiad.  With the opening ceremony just hours away, Private Investigator Nigel Steele is called to a murder scene.  The head of the Games’ organizing committee, also the fiancé of Steele’s mother, has been executed.  When Cronus claims responsibility for the murder, London is in a state of panic. 

Cronus’ executions are gruesome and public, and in his mind, the means to the end of restoring the Games to their ancient glory.  When Karen Pope, a newspaper reporter, begins to receive notes from Cronus detailing future murders, she partners with Steele to identify Cronus and, more importantly, to stop him.  With the medal and body count increasing, this action-packed novel may leave some readers wondering, “Could this really happen?”

Friday at the Branches: Calling Invisible Women

Calling Invisible Women by Jeanne Ray 2012

Fifty-four-year-old Clover Hobart knows that her pediatrician husband, unemployed son and self-centred daughter take her for granted. However, she is shocked when one day she looks in a mirror and discovers not only does she feel invisible – she is invisible. She’s even more shocked when no one in her family even notices! When she spots a notice in the local newspaper saying: "Calling Invisible Women. Downtown Sheraton Wednesday at 10AM. Bring a kleenex" she decides to investigate. She finds there are many other women of a certain age who are also invisible, and they set out to discover why. Along the way, Clover learns that being invisible can actually be a good thing! This witty, touching novel should captivate anyone who has felt invisible or taken for granted. Another charming story from Ray, who wrote her first novel after working as a nurse for 40 years. She’s also the mother of author Ann Patchett. 

Non-Fiction Pick of the Week: Imagining Canada

Imagining Canada: a century of photographs preserved by the New York Times edited by William Morassutti

Imagining Canada is an evocative, heartbreaking journey through Canada’s last 100 years as captured by the lenses of several  photographers working under the auspices of the NYT. This photographic archive was purchased by Canadian businessman Chris Bratty in 2009. Bratty and Morassutti first floated the collection in the online mag TORO.com. Interest was high, so the two commissioned a number of essays by well-known Canadians to accompany the photos.

The result is a soul searing, unflinching look at Canada’s social history, through the camera lens that doesn’t distort, but also doesn’t whitewash or explain. The photos of Canada’s indigenous peoples accompanied by Shawn Atleo’s essay First Nations brings the fascinated reader to tears. Tim Cook’s A Warrior Nation shows us that: “The very fabric of the country that was to become Canada was forged by war, conflict, and the struggle for survival”. Charlotte Gray’s The Changing Face of Society reveals who we really were, and who we may yet become. “Photojournalism was already in its infancy when the Dominion of Canada was born in 1867. So cameras have clicked as the nation matured – although the image and the reality have not always meshed.”

This gloriously fascinating book will break your heart and fill you with awe [and a little pride] all at the same time. Highly recommended.

Fiction Pick of the Week: The Beautiful Mystery

The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny 2012

Louise Penny is back with book eight in the Chief Inspector Gamache series (but a hint to readers, start at the beginning of this wonderful series with its recurring cast of characters).  In her appealing personalities and charming settings, she has created a unique and irresistible venue for a uniquely Canadian mystery series.  Add to that a sensitive exploration of our everyday strengths and failings, tempered by a sharp but affectionate sense of humour, and the world of Armand Gamache, Chief Inspector for the Surete du Quebec, becomes a sure-fire winner.   In this latest installment, a death at an isolated monastery takes Gamache out of his customary Montreal and into the backwoods of Quebec, where the monks have, for centuries, been custodians of the barely-surviving art of the Gregorian chant, known as The Beautiful Mystery.   But the tensions and controversies in this closed community make Gamache begin to wonder what really lies underneath the veneer of brotherhood, as long-buried secrets begin to emerge. In the process, Penny’s own fascination with plainchant has shed light on this little-known musical form, and she has done for Gregorian chant what Dorothy L. Sayers did for the art of English bell-ringing.