Community Picks

Any librarian or bookseller will tell you, if a book is marked as a "Staff Pick" it will get snatched off the shelves immediately. I'm sure somewhere a sociologist has written a dissertation about why this is so. I'd like to turn the tables a bit and see what happens when the community picks the books for display. We will have a display shelf at the Main library starting early January that shows off books that are loved by various community members.

Let It Snow

Ah, the holidays. This is the time of year when families come together in perfect harmony, cheerful parties go off exactly as planned, and we all just sort of float blissfully from one stack of attractively-wrapped gifts to the next while bells jingle and Yule logs crackle somewhere in the distance. Or that's how we always imagine it, anyway. But sometimes the idyllic holiday we picture falls by the wayside when the cookies burn, the dog eats all the pigs-in-a-blanket when nobody's looking, and the car breaks down on the way to Grandma's house. Sometimes real life gets in the way. But that's when the magic happens--at least, according to John Green, Maureen Johnson, and Lauren Myracle.

In Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances, three interlinked stories feature a circle of friends in a small Southern town who find love and laughter while making their way through one night where nothing goes as planned--a record snowstorm, travel delays, unrequited crushes, dead cellphone batteries, a Waffle House full of stranded cheerleaders, and a search for a pet pig (it’s a long story). A pinch of holiday magic turns these less-than-ideal circumstances into a night full of friendship, romance, hilarity, and the kind of stuff that holidays are really about--the kind of interesting, real-life enchantment that happens when plans go awry. The best gifts, after all, are the most unexpected ones.

Fans of the authors especially won’t want to miss out on this special and offbeat treat.

Pizza Dough by Gabi Moskowitz

It's December and I know, you are making Christmas cookies. You have dough up to your ears (maybe in your ears) and your rolling pin has become an extension of your arm. But before you pack away the flour, browse through Pizza Dough: 100 Delicious, Unexpected Recipes by Gabi Moskowitz. The cover alone is enough to make my mouth water. There are breadsticks, pizza, pretzels, tartlets, and cinnamon rolls. Basically, it provides the opportunity and reasoning to eat bread for breakfast (Caramel Pecan Monkey Bread), lunch (Bean and Cheese Empanadas), dinner (Green Pizza), and dessert (Sopapillas).  One of my favorite parts of the book is Moskowitz's understanding of the Fear of Dough. I know I am not the only one who feels an inevitable sense of doom when faced with kneading. She reassures the reader by providing simple recipes and easy instructions, as well as tips for using store bought dough.

My first attempts were the Artichoke Pocket Squares and Apple-Onion Tartlets with Cheddar and...perfection was not achieved. There was no problem with the recipes, more that this chef needs some practice. It might be a good time to take a step back and try pretzels. Who knew pizza dough could be used for so many things?

-Elizabeth

The Black House

Thomas Wolfe wrote, "You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood,...back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame." Fin Macleod should have heeded this advice.

In Peter May's book, The Black House, Edinburgh Detective Fin Macleod is sent to the Isle of Lewis, a remote island off the northwestern coast of Scotland, to investigate a grisly murder. The murder resembles an unsolved Edinburgh case. This is an assignment Fin does not want. He is still mourning the death of his young son, Robbie. He and his wife, Mona, have recently come to realize that their son was the glue holding their marriage together. Mona will not be home when Fin returns.  

Fin has spent the last eighteen years trying to forget his boyhood on the Isle of Lewis. However,

The 2013 List of Best Books Lists

If you're like us, you like to give books for the holidays, especially ones for those nieces and nephews who love to read. But which ones? I confess I love love love the "best books of the year" lists that I find all over the internet.

In case you enjoy them too, here is a collection for your perusal. P.S. Unlike the other titles we talk about here, these books aren't necessarily in the library's catalog.

First on the list is our own Southwest Books of the Year! This year there are 7 Top Picks and 27 Panelist Picks. Southwest Books of the Year considers titles published during the current year that are about Southwest subjects, or that are set in the Southwest.

Enjoy!

All Ages
PCPL's Southwest Books of the Year
Best Books of 2013 (NPR)
Goodreads Choice Awards 2013
National Book Awards (and finalists)
The 13 Best Biographies, Memoirs, and History Books of 2013 (Brain Pickings)

Antarctica

In my opinion, one of Tucson's greatest perks is its practically perfect (that is to say, WARM) weather. I absolutely despise being cold, so the rain and chill over the last few days have left me huddling under a blanket and dreaming of triple digits. I think it's safe to say that I will probably never actually make it to Antarctica, the coldest place on Earth, and yet I am fascinated with the continent. Gabrielle Walker's book Antarctica: An Intimate Portrait of a Mysterious Continent presents an absorbing blend of human interest, history, and science to describe a place that few of us will ever get to see for ourselves. We discover how penguins thrive and why Antarctica is such a perfect place to study astronomy. We learn about the astounding feats and determination of Antartica's earliest explorers, and we meet present-day scientists who brave temperatures of 100 degrees below 0 to spend their winters at the South Pole. Walker's writing is detailed and precise, and her descriptions  of Antarctica's frozen beauty, brilliant scientists, and adorable penguins are almost enough to make me consider taking a journey south...someday.

PS: If you'd like to read a novel that's partially set in Antarctica, I highly recommend Where'd You Go, Bernadette. It's a hysterically weird novel full of quirky characters, entirely composed of emails, memos, and letters.

Happy reading!

~Queen of Books

Zoobiquity

The word "zoobiquity" isn't in the dictionary, but it will be soon. Zoobiquity is the title of a popular science book by Dr. Barbara Natterson-Horowitz, M.D. and Kathryn Bowers. The term refers to a new species-spanning approach to health and medicine. Dr. Natterson-Horowitz is a cardiologist at the UCLA Medical Center and a cardiac consultant for the Los Angeles Zoo. While working at the zoo, she realized how humans and monkeys suffer from many of the exact same diseases and conditions. She wanted to explore other animal species and see what can be learned from combining veterinary knowledge and human medicine.

The book is packed full of interesting scientific anecdotes. You'll be able to pepper your conversations with amusing and sometimes startling facts. Wallabies can become addicted to opium. Koalas suffer from chlamydia. Dinosaurs got cancer. Humans and other animal species have eating disorders and sexual dysfunction. Adolescents of many species display risky behaviors. While the book is entertaining, it also raises a serious issue about human beings as part of the wider animal kingdom. We could improve our health by viewing the world from a broader perspective. This is especially important as diseases cross species.

Dr. Natterson-Horowitz and Kathryn Bowers spoke at the Tucson Festival Books in March of 2013. You can watch the taped presentation online at BookTV.

~Susannah