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by Jane Easterly

Book Review | The Road to Roswell by Connie Willis

Published on by Emily DuGranrut

From the publisher: A delightful novel about alien invasions, conspiracies, and the incredibly silly things people are willing to believe—some of which may actually be true. Part alien-abduction adventure, part road trip saga, part romantic comedy, The Road to Roswell is packed full of Men in Black, Elvis impersonators, tourist traps, rattlesnakes, chemtrails, and Close Encounters of the Third, Fourth, and Fifth kind.

The Road to Roswell is a screwball science fiction romantic comedy. A woman travels to Roswell to be her best friend’s Maid of Honor and is kidnapped by a tumbleweed alien while she is wearing a neon green, glow-in-the-dark bridesmaid outfit. The tumbleweed takes her on the run, then kidnaps a con man, a true believer of alien conspiracies, a professional gambler, and the driver of a large mobile home.

There’s nothing particularly original here, but the story is a lot of fun (if a little long). The author works in a lot of pop culture references that add to the story, and I enjoyed the southwestern setting. This book would probably be especially fun to listen to on a long road trip.

This is science fiction that doesn’t take itself – or humanity – very seriously. There is a lot of sly, subtle humor, and even the unlikable characters are likable. The many references to western movie tropes were especially fun, and there are a lot of nods to “kidnapped by an alien” tropes as well. There are some plot twists – not very well hidden plot twists – and commentary on the gullibility of humans who Want to Believe in whatever conspiracy theory they’ve latched on to. I found the ending a bit flat.

The Road to Roswell reminded me of the author’s book Crosstalk but also Men in Black, Little Miss Sunshine, the funny episodes of the X-Files, and Project Hail Mary.

The Galesburg Public Library owns The Road to Roswell and other books by author Connie Willis in multiple formats.

Book Review | The Death of Us by Lori Rader-Day

Published on by Emily DuGranrut

From the publisher: The discovery of a submerged car in a murky pond reveals betrayals and family secrets that will tear a small town apart.

The Death of Us has a great premise. A man cheats on his young wife, and the woman he slept with has a baby. One night, his wife answers the door, and the other woman hands the wife the baby and promptly disappears. Although fifteen years pass for the characters, the mystery of her disappearance is solved quickly in the book. A submerged car is found in an old flooded quarry on the family property. Inside is a baby carrier and some bones.

The husband and wife are now separated, as his ability to stay faithful hasn’t improved. They’ve been raising the child that was left behind together. Liss, the wife, loves her stepson fiercely. Because of the unknown status of his birth mother, Liss has never formally adopted Callan, but she IS his mother. Her husband Link is a man-child, spoiled by his mother, but Liss has broken things off with a man who loves her to try to salvage her damaged marriage.

The Death of Us is a great, fast read. The character development is good – I liked and sympathized with Liss and felt sorry for the teenager who is not quite sure how to handle his emotions when his missing mother is discovered. The marshal investigating the discovery is Liss’s recent lover; the man he replaced is the husband Link’s father. It’s a small town where everyone knows everyone’s business.

I guessed one of the big bads early on, but that did not affect my enjoyment of the book. The author still had to spin out her plot, and I liked watching it unravel. There’s a bit of Hollywood blockbuster nonsense at the end, but the author paints some great pictures. Surprisingly, this is my first book by Rader-Day, but it won’t be my last.

I read an advance reader copy of The Death of Us. It is scheduled to be published on October 3, and the Galesburg Public Library will own the book in print, as an ebook, and in audio. The library owns Rader-Day’s previous six books, if you want to try one now. 

Book Review | A Light in the Dark: Surviving More Than Ted Bundy by Kathy Kleiner Rubin and Emilie Le Beau Lucchesi

Published on by Emily DuGranrut

From the publisher: The first book by a confirmed survivor of Ted Bundy, and the only memoir to challenge the popular narrative of Bundy as a handsome killer who charmed his victims into trusting him.

I haven’t read that much true crime. I’ve read a lot about John Wayne Gacy because I was in high school in the Chicago area when his horrors were discovered, but I didn’t know much about Ted Bundy going into this memoir. I held the popular beliefs that he was charming and intelligent in addition to being a serial killer. Kathy Kleiner Rubin was one of the young women he attacked when she was sleeping in her sorority bedroom, and she has a lot to say about how Bundy is viewed in popular culture.

The author makes the case that what we believe about Bundy is wrong. He was not charming; most women he approached found him creepy. Most of his victims were not lured into his car by a sad tale that he spun but were attacked in their beds or from behind by Bundy. He was not intelligent or learned; he was a poor student who had no aptitude for the law or anything except killing.

I had no idea how many suspected victims Bundy had. I knew he was brutal but didn’t know his preferred technique was to bash his victims in the head first, before violating them. The author is only a few years older than me, and I found her passionate defense of Bundy’s victims very moving. The memoir very much gave me “there but for the grace of god go I” vibes.

Kathy Kleiner Rubin is very resilient and a true survivor. She has one son, Michael, and he didn’t find out until he was 37 years old that the attack she suffered in college was at the hands of the notorious Ted Bundy. When he found out, he called her in shock. Toward the end of her book, she writes, “Michael was a big part of my happiness in life. During that phone call, as he kept repeating ‘you were so normal’ he brought up the pool parties I hosted for his birthday and other things I did to make his life as ordinary as possible. To me, this was one of my great accomplishments in life. Bundy was on a sick and twisted journey and he dragged his victims down the path. After I survived the attack, I dug in my heels so that he could pull me no further.”

There is some information about the author and her husband surviving Katrina which felt like filler, but aside from that the narrative flowed. The author has a lot of encouraging words for others who are fighting battles. Her words and memories are very inspirational. Appendix A is a list of the women and girls who lost their lives to Bundy, which is very reverential and which I read with great care. As the author points out, none of them are to blame for being murdered by a monster. Appendix C has a helpful list of ways to replace his narrative with remembrances of his victims.

If you like memoirs of people who have overcome great obstacles, or if you’d like to know more about Ted Bundy’s victims, I recommend A Light in the Dark.

I read an advance reader copy of A Light in the Dark. It is scheduled to be published on October 3, and the Galesburg Public Library will own it.

Book Review | Murder at the Merton Library by Andrea Penrose

Published on by Emily DuGranrut

From the publisher: A perplexing murder in a renowned Oxford University library and a suspicious fire at a famous inventor’s London laboratory set Wrexford and Lady Charlotte on two separate investigations in this masterfully plotted, atmospheric Regency-set mystery.

Are you looking for a new historical mystery series? Check out Wrexford and Sloane by Andrea Penrose. Charlotte Sloane is a widowed lady of quality with a secret. She is a satirical cartoonist under a pen name. She uses her pen to cast light on injustices and misbehavior. Circumstances bring her together with two orphaned guttersnipes who she comes to love as her own, and with the intimidating Earl of Wrexford. This series has a nice mix of mystery, historical details, and found family. The relationships feature romantic love, parental love, family love, and deep friendships.

The book that introduces these characters and other series regulars is Murder on Black Swan Lane, and book seven in the series is due out in September. This is a great time to start reading, because if you like the first book, you can move right on to the next, but the number of books already published is not intimidating. Set in Regency London, the author likes to spotlight legitimate scientific innovation of the time period. Real scientists make occasional appearances in her stories.

Book seven, Murder at the Merton Library, starts with the murder of an Oxford librarian. It deals with fallout from the Napoleonic wars and intrigue around competition to create a marine propulsion system utilizing steam engines. (If that sounds boring, don’t worry – the author makes it interesting.) The Regency details seem perfect, and the author believably makes her female characters as important to the action as the male characters. I’ve found some of the other books in the series a bit draggy at times, but this one moved along briskly for me.

This series is a lot of fun for the serious historical mystery reader.

I read an advance reader copy of Murder at Merton Library from Netgalley. It is scheduled to be published on September 26. The Galesburg Public Library will own it in multiple formats, and we already own the first six books in the series.

Book Review | Starter Villain by John Scalzi

Published on by Emily DuGranrut

From the publisher: Inheriting your uncle’s supervillain business is more complicated than you might think. Particularly when you discover who’s running the place.

Charlie, the narrator of Starter Villain, is something of an affable idiot. Divorced and living in the childhood home he doesn’t even own due to complications with his siblings after his father’s death, he was laid off from his job as a journalist and is now working as a substitute teacher. He wants to buy a beloved local pub, but he has no money and no collateral. The best thing he has going for him is his relationship with his cats.

Then Charlie’s estranged Uncle Jake dies, and his lawyer shows up asking Charlie to attend his uncle’s memorial. Charlie is hesitant, and finds the request a little weird, but he agrees. And so his life as a starter villain begins. Yes, his uncle owned a large chain of parking structures, but he had other, bigger, more nefarious interests as well (mwa ha ha).

I enjoyed the Chicago area setting, and our narrator is an affable naïf who is fun to spend time with. Scalzi is clearly a cat lover and that certainly resonated with me. In the super villain business, it’s not dogs who spy for villains on other villains. (Yes, the cats are intelligent spies who can type on a computer using a special keyboard. Including Charlie’s cats.) I learned a new word – quisling! (“A traitor who collaborates with an enemy force occupying their country” according to the OED.) The narrative is pro-union, and against cats murdering birds. Intelligent talking dolphins also come into play, and I couldn’t stop myself from singing “So Long and Thanks for All the Fish” every time they made an appearance.

Charlie does better handling the various super villains that he meets than one might expect, and as he doesn’t take things seriously it was hard for me as the reader to take things seriously either. I perhaps did not enjoy Starter Villain as much as I enjoyed The Kaiju Preservation Society; the whole thing came off as a little less original, and the “starter villain” idea began to wear a little thin. Still, Starter Villain was a fun read with some genuine laughs for me.

 I read an advance reader copy of Starter Villain from Netgalley. It is scheduled to be released on September 19 and will be available at the Galesburg Public Library.

Book Review | Disneyland on the Mountain: Walt, the Environmentalists, and the Ski Resort That Never Was by Greg Glasgow and Kathryn Mayer

Published on by Emily DuGranrut

From the publisher: A fascinating look at Walt Disney’s last, unfinished project and the controversy that surrounded it, including the budding environmental movement that made sure the resort never saw the light of day.

I’m a huge fan of Disneyland, Disney World, Disney movies, and their creator, Walt Disney. Walt Disney revolutionized animated films and theme parks. He truly was an American genius. (And I think he’d be appalled at some of the things being done in his name today.) When I saw a book was coming out about his attempts to build a Disney ski resort destination, I wanted to read it.

I’m afraid to say I did not find the entire book to be “fascinating,” no matter what the blurb says. Parts of the book I did indeed find fascinating, but I think this book could have been a great essay. The book appears to have been exhaustively researched. There are 18 pages of footnotes, a 2 page bibliography, and a 7 page index. There is no doubt that the authors did indeed find the subject fascinating.

The book opens just three months before Walt Disney’s death from lung cancer in December 1966. Right up until the end of his life, he was excited about goals he had for the Disney company. If he had managed to turn California’s Mineral King valley into a Disney resort, it would probably have been amazing. This book tells the story of the environmentalists who were determined to stop the resort from being built. (I got a definite sense that some of the people who already lived in the valley wanted to keep it pristine for themselves. It reminded me of a quote, attributed to Dennis Miller, that I heard my environmentalist brother-in-law repeat more than once: “A developer is someone who wants to build a house in the woods. An environmentalist is someone who already has a house in the woods.”)

I did find parts of the book interesting, and I learned things that I did not know. It’s only about 200 pages (not counting the footnotes and index). If you are attracted to all things Disney, you may want to read Disneyland on the Mountain.

I read an advance reader copy of Disneyland on the Mountain from Netgalley. It is scheduled to be published on September 13, and the Galesburg Public Library will own it.

Book Review | The Great Transition by Nick Fuller Googins

Published on by Emily DuGranrut

From the publisher: What happens after we save the world? In the near future, humanity hasn’t avoided the worst of climate change—wildfires, rising oceans, mass migration, and skyrocketing inequality have become the daily reality. But just when it seems that it can’t get any worse, remarkably, a movement of workers, migrants, and refugees inspires the world to band together, save the planet, and rebuild a society for all. This is The Great Transition. This astonishing debut is a remarkable story of struggle, change, and hope.

Parts of The Great Transition are some of the best climate fiction I have read. In this book, climate change happened. Fires, floods. Massive numbers of climate refugees. Massive extinctions. All the terrible things that we know are coming came. Then a movement took back the planet from the climate deniers and criminals and humanity reached net zero emissions.

This is a remarkable debut novel. The writing is assured. The author clearly did his research on climate change. The planet reached the brink but was pulled back, but only at incredible cost in lives and species. There is one section where the author describes the effort to save the last stand of giant sequoias that moved me to tears. What are we doing to the only planet that we have?

No mistaking, this book has an agenda. The author wants us to look in the mirror and confront what’s coming, make some changes so the worst is changed to not quite the worst. Hold accountable the people who are responsible for the climate damage. But the book also has at its center a family. Mom and dad were heroes in the effort to save the planet. Both lost their parents and families to climate change. Their daughter Emi suffers from anxiety and an eating disorder. Her mom despairs that Emi doesn’t appreciate how good she has it.

The author is a teacher and I feel like the book really shows that he knows young people today. Emi feels very believable. Her mother is still fighting the climate fight; her father has moved on and wants to appreciate the good things. This conflict causes a lot of family drama. The author uses a homework device to tell parts of the backstory; Emi is writing a report on the Great Transition. I didn’t find this wholly effective. Parts 1-3 are the best part of the book. I was wholly immersed. I did not find Parts 4-6 as effective. The family drama gets to be a bit much and the plot turns a little too Hollywood. Also, I thought the book had ended two times before it finally did. It might have been more effective to leave some things unsaid.

Still, I found this book easy to read and very thought provoking, both hopeful and terrified for our common future on planet Earth. I highly recommend it for fans of climate fiction and dystopia.

I read an advance reader copy of The Great Transition. It is scheduled to be published on August 15, and the Galesburg Public Library will own the book in print, as an ebook, and in audio.

Book Review | The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece by Tom Hanks

Published on by Emily DuGranrut

From the publisher: From the Academy Award-winning actor and best-selling author: a novel about the making of a star-studded, multimillion-dollar superhero action film . . . and the humble comic books that inspired it.

I admit it – I love Tom Hanks as an actor. I enjoy him in every part that he plays. His new novel however started out as a bit of a snooze fest. I had trouble getting into it, as Hanks introduces lots of characters and lots of backstory, meandering off into the past whenever he feels like it. Eventually I got in tune with the book’s rhythm and I really enjoyed it.

This is a master class in the movie business, told by a master and presented as fiction. There are a lot of details, including a lot of little details, about how movies are made. The story moves very slowly. It takes its time. The narrative contains stuff that could have been left out, but all those little interesting bits really made me feel like I was a part of the movie-making process.

I know there’s stuff in here that is true. I know there are things that happen that really happened. I’m sure some of the characters are inspired by people Tom Hanks knows. He’s been around the business so long; what he writes is so plausible. Hanks has a lot of fun not telling us the names of real movies and actors, writing things like NAME OF ACTOR HERE and THAT MOVIE WE MADE. He makes you wonder – who is BOLDFACE NAME #4 who made everyone’s life a living nightmare on NAME OF SUCCESSFUL FILM HERE?!? I want to know!

Once I got into The Making of, I was thoroughly engrossed. I also appreciated that a man’s love for his damaged uncle is important to the plot. The three sets of comic book pages are an eccentric touch.

A final note to authors everywhere: more chapter breaks! Please!

 The Galesburg Public Library owns the book in Large Print, regular print, and downloadable audio.

Book Review | Better Living Through Birding by Christian Cooper

Published on by admingale

From the publisher: Central Park birder Christian Cooper takes us beyond the viral video that shocked a nation and into a world of avian adventures, global excursions, and the unexpected lessons you can learn from a life spent looking up.

This is a compelling memoir of an ordinary person thrust into the limelight after an encounter in New York City’s Central Park with an unleashed dog and its owner.

Christian Cooper is a regular guy who found fame when he asked Amy Cooper to leash her dog in an area of Central Park known as the Ramble during bird migration. She reacted by calling the police on him, and his video of her behavior went viral. I don’t know whether Christian Cooper was asked to write a memoir or it was his idea, but he’s a good writer and I enjoyed it a lot. He’s funny, and thoughtful about his word choices.

I suspect some readers who pick up this memoir will be disappointed because there’s too much about birds. I suspect some birders who pick up this memoir will be disappointed because there isn’t enough about birds. Cooper takes us through his years before and after the video, documenting his life as a Black, male, gay, birdwatching nerd and sprinkling in birding tips as he goes.

I might not seem to have a lot in common with Cooper – I’m a white straight woman – but I am a birdwatcher and a nerd who loves Star Trek, and I’m about the same age as Cooper. Our shared pop culture experiences resonate! Reading Better Living Through Birding was like sitting down with a friend for coffee. Christian Cooper is a confident guy who stands up for what he believes in. His birding by ear skills sound legendary. He’d be fun to bird with.

I liked that the memoir covered a lot of ground and a lot of normal issues. Awkwardness with dad. Frustration with mom. Pushing the boundaries at work. Spending free time obsessed with a hobby. Modeling behavior after a character from pop culture. Dealing with coming out as gay. Encountering casual racism. This may or may not be the memoir for you, but if it intrigues you at all I recommend giving it a chance.

I read an advance reader copy of Better Living Through Birding from Netgalley.

It is scheduled to be published on June 13, and it will be available at the Galesburg Public Library.

Book Review | Witch King by Martha Wells

Published on by admingale

From the publisher: After being murdered, his consciousness dormant and unaware of the passing of time while confined in an elaborate water trap, Kai wakes to find a lesser mage attempting to harness Kai’s magic to his own advantage. That was never going to go well. But why was Kai imprisoned in the first place? What has changed in the world since his assassination? And why does the Rising World Coalition appear to be growing in influence? Kai will need to pull his allies close and draw on all his pain magic if he is to answer even the least of these questions. He’s not going to like the answers. I love Martha Wells. It is not an exaggeration to say that her Murderbot Diaries series helped me get through the pandemic with my sanity intact. The Murderbot Diaries series is science fiction; Witch King is fantasy. But it is Read more »