I recently ran a book club devoted to the best books we’ve read in 2011.  I had not yet finished this 2010 Pulitzer Prize winner from Egan.  THIS is the best book I read in 2011.  A series of inter connected stories spanning the nation and the world over half a century from the early 80’s to 10 years from now.   This book is very much like a puzzle, with characters appearing and reappearing.  And by the end you are left with a large picture of where we have been …

While some readers struggle with finding a good book others have a different problem: Keeping track of all the books they want to read (commonly referred to on the Web and elsewhere as TBR, or “to be read” piles). Many of us, over the years, have resorted to keeping lists in notebooks or have envelopes spilling over with scraps of paper. Maybe you’ve even gotten organized and kept a list on your computer — and then your hard drive crashed.
Here’s a great thing about the library and our online catalog, commonly …

The Key West Literary Seminar is almost here — it runs Jan. 5-8 — and the lineup of writers is stunning: Margaret Atwood. William Gibson. Jennifer Egan. Jonathan Lethem. Gary Shteyngart. Colson Whitehead. To name a few.
The bad news: The Seminar is sold out, totally and completely, so there’s no way to buy a ticket at this point.
The good news: There are still several ways you can take part if you wish. (The even better news: Booker Prize-winner Atwood will open this year’s Friends of the Key West Library Lecture …

The new movie “Anonymous” claims that the guy we know as the Bard of Avon, William Shakespeare, didn’t write the plays and sonnets for which he is revered. This is not a new claim — the movie’s candidate, the Earl of Oxford, has been the leading alternate contender for most of the 20th century and his case took a big leap forward when the Internet allowed fellow believers to connect and publish outside of academia and commercial presses. The idea that William Shakespeare of Stratford was not the author of …

What a good book!  
It elicited a nice unnerved feeling that Stephen King sometimes gives me.  (And I did not want to listen to it once the sun had gone down.)  I was more thrilled with it at the beginning but it still left me with that nice satisfied–”wow, I just read a really good book”–feeling.  This is my second Bohjalian novel, after Double Bind.  I’m impressed with this author–both books have evoked physical reactions on numerous occasions as I read or listened.  I will also add that I’m not looking …

Contrary to any librarian stereotype, my home is not cluttered with stacks of musty books amid empty teacups. In fact, I’m rather protective of my sparse bookcase space and possess very few books. Granted, I’ve departed severely from my youthful oath, circa 1991, to contain all my belongings in a steam trunk. But books are not my undoing.
I’m especially choosy about cookbooks. To make the cut and retain position in my pantry, a cookbook must be inspirational and reliable, not fussy nor trite. (My one exception to the “fussy” rule …

Tom Perrotta’s books are deceptively easy going down — he writes in such an engaging, accessible style that you almost feel like you’re reading escapist fare … until you stop to think about what’s really happening in the novel.
Throughout his career, Perrotta has gotten more serious, from the outright satirical beginnings of “Joe College” and “Election” (basis for the fabulous Reese Witherspoon/Matthew Broderick movie) to more recent takes on contemporary adult life in “Little Children” and “The Abstinence Teacher.” Though the premise of this new novel might strike some as absurd or …

Reviews by readers are all the rage these days and for good reason — they often provide the sort of feedback you want most, the opinions of fellow readers. Now you can post your own reviews of books in our library catalog — and read reviews by fellow library patrons and members of the book site LibraryThing (which draws from 1.3 million members).
How do you do this? You go to our catalog and find a title you want to review — for example, The Help by Kathryn Stockett. Under the image of …

We are learning how to use OverDrive along with all of you!!  I downloaded my first audio to my Iphone for a recent trip to D.C.   It was great fun and a book that turned out to be from my favorite genre – supernatural!!

In the interests of full disclosure: Diana Abu-Jaber is a friend. So I was already inclined to like her new novel, Birds of Paradise. But even with all that, it blew me away. The novel is set in Miami in August 2005 just before Hurricane Katrina swept across South Florida. Brian and Avis Muir would appear to be doing well — nice house in Coral Gables, jobs they like and do well. Brian is corporate counsel to a development company; Avis is a pastry chef with a home-based business. But their …