The World's Strongest Librarian

Finished June 8
The World's Strongest Librarian: a Memoir of Tourette's, Faith, Strength and the Power of Family by Josh Hanagarne

Josh has struggled with his Tourette's for most of his life, and is still figuring out what he can do to minimize the tics that manifest the condition. He has had the support of his family behind him all the way, and found a career that encompasses his love of books, his dedication to helping others, and his curious nature. He is not afraid to ask for help, and take it when it is offered to him. He belongs to the Mormon faith and while he sometimes questions things within that, he believes in the tenets of LDS strongly and lives his life following them. One of the ways he has addressed his Tourette's over the years is weight-lifting. It helped for a while and then it didn't and he looked for help from others, and discovered that thinking about movement was a big help. The book moves nicely back and forth from memoir and life at the library. The memoir part starts at the beginning and moves forward. The library part uses experiences to connect with the memoir. He uses DDC (Dewey Decimal Classification) as chapter headings to indicate the contents of each chapter. Josh sounds like a really interesting guy and while our taste in books may not always coincide, I think we approach librarianship in similar ways. I found this memoir enlightening, intriguing, and entertaining.

The Underwater Welder

Finished June 7
The Underwater Welder by Jeff Lemire

This graphic novel tells the story of Jack. Jack is a young man whose partner Susan is a month away from giving birth to their first child. They live in Tigg's Bay and Jack works as an underwater welder on a nearby rig. This is where Jack grew up and came back to after university. But he is still haunted by his father's disappearance on Halloween when he was just a child. But does his obsession with the past mean that he has lost sight of his present life and the future it holds? This novel follows Jack as he looks back and finds that the answers he really seeks are in the life he now lives with Susan.

Train I Ride

Finished June 7
Train I Ride by Kit Robinson

This collection of poetry was one I picked up at Word in the Street some time back. The poetry is full of images, images of what is happening in the author's head. Some of it describes his writing process and how he feels when he writes. Some of it is images from what he is writing about. The images come alive and flow into each other. Nicely done.

Tillie the Terrible Swede

Finished June 7
Tillie the Terrible Swede: How One Woman, a Sewing Needle, and a Bicycle Changed History by Sue Stauffacher, illustrated by Sarah McMenemy

This picture book is about an immigrant girl who came to the United States with a dream. When she arrived she found a job in a tailor shop and waited. One day, she saw a man ride past the shop on a bicycle and knew she wanted to ride one too. But women didn't ride bikes back then (the 1890s), it wasn't considered a ladylike thing to do. She persisted and began racing, and winning races too.
This is the story of the sudden expansion in popularity of bicycling at the time, and of women's rights, and of the history-making behaviour of Tillie. The drawing are simple, colourful and fun and fit the story well. A good one.

Montaro Caine

Finished June 4
Montaro Caine by Sidney Poitier

Well, I was intrigued enough that Poitier had written a novel to want to read it, especially as I had really enjoyed both his memoirs. I found the novel interesting enough, but not at the same level as the memoirs. Here we have the title character as the CEO of a multinational mining/chemical company, although you get little sense of just what the company does. When Montaro was a child his father travelled to Washington, D.C. to work on a research project about into autistic people. On the return trip, the plane crashed and his father was killed. But someone involved in the research project had given him an object for Montaro and that object and his research notes survived the crash.
Montaro seems to be in jeopardy of being replaced as leader of his company through some internal politicking. When he is approached by two strangers and asked to look at a coin, he is immediately brought back to his university days when he analyzed a similar coin. The story of the two coins is at the heart of this book, their origins and the people who have held them along the way.
There is a moralizing heart to this book about the need for peace, scientific discovery and forward-looking people working for the good of the planet rather than their own wealth. So it has got a bit of science fiction to it, along with an underlying commentary on doing good. However, I didn't really connect with any of the characters, finding that they seemed a bit flat to me. The story was interesting as was the underlying premise.

Murder in the Dark

Finished June 4
Murder in the Dark by Kerry Greenwood, read by Stephanie Daniel

This is the third mystery featuring Phryne [pronounced fry-knee] Fisher that I have read, but the 16th in the series. The first is Cocaine Blues, and I have also read the 14th, Queen of the Flowers. This book occurs at the end of 1928 near Melbourne, when Phryne is invited to a party billed as the Last Best Party. Even before she accepts the invitation to the party, she gets warned off, but of course that only makes her determined to go. An attempt is made on her life, which intrigues her further, and she sets off for the party with her driver and maid to see what the story is. She stays at the manor house the party is held at without her servants, having them come each day to replenish her wardrobe and bring anything else she requires. This gives her the requisite freedom to do what she likes, with whom she likes. And Phryne is no slouch. She befriends rough women who dare to ride in a polo team, upper class men with lovely horses, a lovely young man with his own secret agenda, the extremely competent housekeeper, a mint-loving goat, and renews her friendship with her hosts, a brother and sister from Europe who travel with a large entourage of sybarites and hangers-on. When her host confides that he has been sent threatening letters, Phryne is on the hunt for the culprit. And when some of the partygoers appear to be kidnapped, she goes looking for them as well.
As usual, the mood and scene are brought to life and one gets a real sense of a slice of the world in 1928, with the freedom of access to multiple mind-altering substances, jazz music, and, in this crowd at least, a certain openness of sexuality. Great fun.
I've had this on my shelf for a while, but only recently took possession of a car that can play MP3s, so got to listen on my commute.

Missed Periods and Other Grammar Scares

Finished June 4
Missed Periods and Other Grammar Scares: How to Avoid Unplanned and Unwanted Writing Errors by Jenny Baranick

OK, I admit it, I chose this book for the title. I've always been a big grammar fan and took a couple of editing courses a few years back too. The author teaches English and critical thinking classes and has a grammar blog by the same name as this book. With humour, pop culture references, and a flirty style, Baranick illustrates common grammar errors and gives tricks for avoiding them. Every chapter has an exercise or set of exercises to test the reader's learning for that section. A fun book about an important subject.

The Four Corners of the Sky

Finished June 3
The Four Corners of the Sky by Michael Malone

This novel tells the story of Annie Peregrine Goode, a young woman driven to fly. Annie was left at the home of her aunt in North Carolina by her con artists father when she was seven. He promised to come back, but only showed up a couple of times briefly in later years. Annie was raised by her aunt Sam and her housemate and friend Clark Goode, a pediatrician. But her father Jack had always told her she was a flyer, and from her first foray into the sky at the age of nine, she knew it was true. She took flying lessons and was accepted at Annapolis and became a pilot for the navy. This much we learn early in the novel as Annie is returning to the family home for her 26th birthday, trying to make it before a storm hits.
But this birthday has much more in store for her, setting Annie off on the journey of her life, on the trail of her father, and his latest escapade which involves danger, federal agents, a persistent Miami vice cop, and Cuban history. Annie only wants to know one thing, who was her mother, the one piece of information her father has consistently withheld from her. But the truth brings so much more for Annie, and changes the course of her life forever.
A story that will bring tears to your eyes, make you laugh out loud, and heave a sigh as the story closes. A story that has romance, thrill, and mystery. A story to thoroughly enjoy.

Léon & Louise

Finished June 2
Léon & Louise by Alex Capus, translated by John Brownjohn

This novel follows the two title characters from before the met during World War I to decades later. Léon is from Cherbourg and when he determines that he doesn't wish to continue his schooling, finds work in a small town on the Marne as a Morse code operator at a railway station. Certain quirks of his character are already set, like his love for odds and ends, developed in Cherbourg when scouring the beaches for flotsam and continued throughout his life. In this small town, Léon meets Louise, a young woman similar in age to himself and also a war worker. Louise works as an office girl for the mayor. Slowly the two develop a friendship, one that looks to endure. But one day, when they are bicycling back from an excursion they are caught in German shelling and air attack and both are injured. After being treated for his wounds, Léon tries to find her, but cannot. It is only a decade later when a chance encounter connects them again. But Léon is married and Louise will not intrude upon that situation. When World War II comes, Léon is forced to do work at the behest of his SS superiors despite his best efforts, and Louise is shipped off to Africa on secret duties. It is several years before she returns to Paris and the story of the two continues.
Told by one of the grandsons of Léon, as a look back following Léon's death, the story shows two good people, connected in a way few are, and determined to do the right thing. An absolutely charming novel.

Beautiful Whale

Finished June 2
Beautiful Whale by Bryant Austin, foreword by Sylvia A. Earle

This book contains amazing photographs of whales. Humpback whales in Tonga. Sperm whales in the Caribbean. Dwarf minke whales at the Great Barrier Reef. Following a close encounter with a whale Austin was driven to pursue the goal of taking life-size composite portraits of whales. So very few humans get to have an encounter with a whale that we don't get to see their beauty and intelligence and thus disregard how our actions affect their environment. To take these photographs Austin has to be very close to the whales, remaining as still as possible while they slowly moved past him. As he describes his experiences, you realize the gentleness and curiosity of these large creatures.
Austin sold his vehicles, house, and camera equipment to finance this project when fund-raising didn't provide enough. The exhibitions he was able to mount drew responses better than he had hoped and brought increased attention to these little known animals.