Shelf Life Blog

A Year in Japan by Kate T. Williamson

A Year in Japan by Kate T. Williamson

Part graphic memoir, part travelogue, A Year in Japan offers a unique perspective on everyday life in Japan. In this charming, whimsical book, Kate T. Williamson adopts a counterintuitive approach to travel writing. Rather than striving to represent the grand, monumental aspects of Japanese culture and history, Williamson focuses on capturing the minutiae--fragmented memories, experiences, and revelations that emerged during the year she spent living in Kyoto. As a Westerner, Williamson has an outsider’s perspective on Japan. But because she had the opportunity to live there and become enmeshed in another way of life, Williamson was able to glean insights and perspectives that would be invisible to your run-of-the-mill tourist. Williamson’s artistic talent also helps concretize her observations, creating an enchanting combination of vivid, unexpected descriptions and beautifully rendered watercolor illustrations.

Ghostopolis by Doug TenNapel

Ghostopolis by Doug TenNapel

Frank Gallows has some explaining to do. The burned-out ghost wrangler has just sent an innocent child into the world of the dead. The kid's name is Garth Hale. In the regular world, he's just your average boy...who also happens to have a terminal illness. But Garth discovers that he has some quite extraordinary powers in Ghostopolis.

No living souls have ever made it back to the regular world, so Mr. Gallows is losing his job for this big-time screw up. The fact that Garth didn't have much time to live in the first place makes the situation even worse. Gallows has to hang up hunting those ghosts who wish to remain in the land of the living. He'll never have the pleasure of capturing repeater offender Benedict Arnold. No, Gallows has to right this wrong. Luckily, his ex-fiancée Claire Voyant has a machine that can take you back and forth between the worlds. Frank is going to have to play nice.

If you like The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

This readalike is in response to a customer's book-match request. If you would like personalized reading recommendations, fill out the book-match form and a librarian will email suggested titles to you. Available for adults, teens, and kids.  You can browse the book matches here.

The Woman in White: "Generally considered the first English sensation novel, The Woman in White features the remarkable heroine Marian Halcombe and her sleuthing partner, drawing master Walter Hartright, pitted against the diabolical team of Count Fosco and Sir Percival Glyde. A gripping tale of murder, intrigue, madness, and mistaken identity, Collins's psychological thriller has never been out of print in the 140 years since its publication."

If you like The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, a classic of psychological suspense generally considered to be the first English mystery novel, you may want to read: 

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 
Conan Doyle's first collection of 12 short stories, "published in the Strand magazine between 1891 and 1892, and then published as a collection in October 1892. It includes some of Conan Doyle's best tales of murder and mystery, such as "The Adventures of the Speckled Band," in which the strange last words of a dying woman "It was the band, the speckled band!" and an inexplicable whistling in the night are the only clues Sherlock Holmes has to prevent another murder; and "The Five Orange Pips," in which an untimely death and the discovery of the letter containing five orange pips lead to a cross-Atlantic conspiracy." (catalog summary) 

A Dangerous Mourning by Anne Perry 
"No breath of scandal has ever touched the aristocratic Moidore family-until Sir Basil's beautiful widowed daughter is stabbed to death in her own bed, a shocking, incomprehensible tragedy. Inspector William Monk is ordered to investigate in a manner that will give the least possible pain to the influential family. But Monk, brilliant and ambitious, is handicapped by lingering traces of amnesia and by the craven ineptitude of his supervisor, who would like nothing better than to see Monk fail. With the help of nurse Hester Latterly, a progressive young woman who served with Florence Nightingale in the Crimea, Monk gropes warily through the silence and shadows that obscure the case, knowing that with each step he comes closer to the appalling truth." (catalog summary) 

Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Eleanor Coerr

Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Eleanor Coerr

In Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, by Eleanor Coerr, Sadako is a sixth-grade girl who loves to run in school races and spend time with her friends and family. One day she begins to have dizzy spells, which worsen until she ends up in the hospital. She is diagnosed with leukemia, or the “atom bomb sickness.” Sadako grew up in the aftermath of the atom bomb, dropped on her hometown of Hiroshima when she was just a baby in 1945. Many people got sick in the years after the bomb from its radiation.

March by Geraldine Brooks

March by Geraldine Brooks

“If war can ever be said to be just, then this war is so; it is action for a moral cause, with the most rigorous of intellectual underpinnings. And yet everywhere I turn, I see injustice done in the waging of it. “ - March

In Louisa Alcott’s Little Women, Mr. March’s largest role in the narrative is that his daughters are perpetually waiting for his letters home. In March, Geraldine Brooks traces his story as he enlists to become a Union chaplain, experiences many horrors of war, and eventually finds himself tutoring freed slaves (“contraband”) on a destitute cotton plantation. His cheerful letters home to Marmee contrast with the terrible details he confides to the reader but does not write home about: the pervasive racism; cruelty; and suffering that he encounters in a number of different encounters.

Nocturnal by Scott Sigler

Nocturnal cover

My son and I were discussing books the other day, and he asked me, “Would you recommend a book in a blog that you didn’t completely love?”  I thought for a minute and said, “No”.  He asked why not, and I replied, “What if someone noticed the blog who didn’t love books?  What if they just wanted to try reading a book for the first time in a long while?  I couldn’t recommend a book that I thought maybe they would like or maybe not.  I have to feel strongly about the book. I want people to love books as much as I do.”

Nocturnal, by Scott Sigler, is a detective novel that involves the supernatural.  So if you love both genres as I do, this is a glorious combination.  The characters are so well-developed that several reviewers described this novel as Sigler’s attempt to write like Stephen King.  I don't know if that is true, but I just think that Sigler has always been known as a fast-paced horror writer. In Nocturnal he adds more character and depth to the plot. 

Friends with Boys by Faith Erin Hicks

Friends with Boys by Faith Erin Hicks

Friends With Boys is a teenage slice of life story.  Maggie is dealing with the first day of school. Not just the first day of the year, nor is it simply her first day of high school. This is Maggie's first day of school...ever. 

Once homeschooled, the freshman girl's mother and teacher has left home. Luckily, she has three already initiated older brothers to show her the ropes around Sandford High. But Maggie's going to have to get used to the crowds, the schedule, and the fact that her siblings can't always be looking out for her.

If you like The Girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Banks

The Girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing

This readalike is in response to a patron's book-match request. If you would like personalized reading recommendations, fill out the book-match form and a librarian will email suggested titles to you. Available for adults, teens, and kids.  You can browse the book matches here.

The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Banks: "Follows the life lessons of Jane, from defiant teenager to reluctant career girl, as she makes her way through love, sex, relationships, and workplace perils, prompted by dubious advice from a pop-psych guide to life."

If you liked The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing, you may like these titles:

Child of My Heart by Alice McDermott
"A teenage girl, raised on the east end of Long Island among the country estates of the rich, reflects on her understanding of human nature during a seemingly idyllic summer spent with her eight-year-old cousin Daisy."

 

 

For Matrimonial Purposes by Kavita Daswani
"Unable to find a husband despite the efforts of friends, fortune-tellers, and matchmakers, thirty-three year old Anju, confronted by her family's shame, obtains their permission to leave Bombay to look for a husband in the United States."

 

 

Balloons Over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy’s Parade by Melissa Sweet

Balloons Over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy’s Parade by Meli

Some of my fondest memories from holidays in my childhood are of watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade on television. The magic of the parade with its wonderful balloons signaled the beginning of one of my favorite times of year. But I never gave much thought to the history of the parade and its famous balloons. When I saw the book Balloons Over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy’s Parade, by Melissa Sweet, I couldn’t resist the chance to meet the man behind the magic.

Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan

Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan

I'd put off reading Altered Carbon for a few years, always reading something newer.  Shame on me.  This Philip K. Dick Award-winner is a brilliantly dark and gritty mixture of hardboiled detective fiction and cyberpunk that anyone looking for a story with a razor-sharp edge will love. 
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