A Series Of (Un)Fortunate Reviews

I came to Bosco for the quiet. That's what it's famous for. The silence reigns each day between the hours of nine and five by order of a hundred-year-old decree made by a woman who lies dead beneath the rosebushes--a silence guarded by four hundred acres of wind sifting through white pines with a sound like a mother saying hush. --opening lines of The Ghost Orchid by Carol Goodman This is the second novel by Carol Goodman that I've read; the first that I read was her debut novel, The Lake Of Dead Languages . Both novels are good, and I have decided that I'm going to read more Carol Goodman once I get through the four or five books I already have lined up after this one. The Ghost Orchid is part ghost story, part mystery, part historical novel, and, on a very subtle level, part romance. The story is narrated by Ellis Brooks, a first time novelist, who has come to Bosco, a residential writer's retreat in New York state, to write her first novel. Brooks...

Before I start the official review, I just really need to get something off my chest. Sometimes I really hate computers and the mysterious things called "cookies" that most websites need enabled in order for you to be able to log in. I don't know what happened with the computer at the circulation desk here at the library, but tonight I could not log in to this account no matter what I tried... blogger says "User Account Doesn't Exist," and I have to move everything over to a google account (which I thought was moot because I did that with the original registration process when this blog was created) at which point I will have access to new and improved features! Whoa. But I can't sign in to the google account because the dear computer won't eat cookies even though I have told it that it is allowed to do so. Then I try to log in to blogger on the computer back in the office and, lo and behold, I can log in! AND there is NO mention of "migra...

This is a collection of poems by various contemporary poets (some well known, some not so much) based on the fairy tales collected by the brothers Grimm in the early 1800's in Germany. The fairy tales the poems are based upon range from well known tales, such as those of Snow White and Cinderella to lesser known tales, such as "The White Snake" or "The Girl Without Hands." Some poems offer a meditation on the tale itself or a look at the tale from an entirely new and unexpected perspective. This is probably one of my favorite poetry collections and holds a special place in my heart because not only do I love poetry, but I also love fairy tales. In fact, in college I did two independent studies that focused on the fairy tale genre and a thesis case study of the tale of Snow White. I collected 30-50 versions of the tale, including Greek and Armenian versions. There is even supposed to be an Appalachian version of Snow White, though I've been unable to find a...

I'm a little late with this link, but we have posted a new video on our YouTube channel. It asks for comments and video responses to get a discussion going about our favorite books! It stars our fearless leader here at the library, Ms. Sheila! You can view the video at our channel at http://www.youtube.com/matthewslibrary . We already have a couple comments and a few video responses. We'd love to hear from you, too! So exciting!

I've been a longtime reader and fan of Kathy Reichs' Temperance Brennan series, and so I'm now submitting a review of the latest installment for the series called Bones To Ashes , which was released a couple months ago. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the series, it follows a forensic anthropologist named Temperance Brennan. She splits her time between North Carolina where she teaches on the faculty of the state university and consults with medical examiners when they need a forensic anthropologist and Montreal, Quebec, Canada where she is on the staff of the province's medical-legal lab (she works for the office of the medical examiner). A forensic anthropologist works on murder cases in which there isn't much left of the victim... for example, if all that's left is bones or the victim was burned beyond recognition, Brennan is called in to examine the bones to determine cause of death and in some cases to determine identity as well. In Bones To Ash...