Newbery Award Winner: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

This past weekend I visited one of my favorite bookstores, The Whistlestop in Carlisle.

I always enjoy asking the owner, Jeff Wood, what he is reading. He highly recommended Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book. The story is the tale of a baby who narrowly escapes being murdered along with the rest of his family. The child, Nobody Owens, somehow makes his way into a graveyard and is raised by the resident ghosts who protect him from an ancient league of assassins who are after him.

Jeff said that the story was a wonderful mix of fantasy, history and even humor. He also remarked that the author, Neil Gaiman, is one of the best writers around, and would appeal to all ages. Naturally, I bought a copy.

So, imagine my delight this morning when I learned that the American Library Association announced that its 2009 Newbery Medal winner is The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Dave McKean, and published by HarperCollins Children's Books.

Thanks for the great recommendation Jeff!

Best Books of 2008

What was your favorite book in 2008? I have three.

My favorite of the books published in 2008 was Lush Life by Richard Price. If you enjoy police procedurals with a literary bent, his book was wonderful. Price was a writer for the acclaimed television series The Wire. So, if you enjoyed the television series and haven't read Lush Life, you have a real treat ahead of you. I especially enjoyed the audio version narrated by Bobby Cannavale.

Also last year I loved two books that published a few years ago: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenidies (again I enjoyed the audio version) and Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen.

Both books have surprising topics. Middlesex is about several generations of a Greek-American family, and the surprising genetic twist that produces a hermaphrodite. Sounds odd, but it is wonderfully, and humorously told.

Water for Elephants is about running away to join the circus. Not something you read about everyday

I highly recommend all three books and look forward to hearing your recommendations.

Santa Brought a Kindle

Similar to my Father, I love gadgets. And, Santa brought me a humdinger this Christmas — an Amazon Kindle . (Actually, my husband gave it to me, but I promised that I would never write about him in my blog...so let's just call him Santa.)

Anyway, I had time off over the holidays to test it out, and I can report that I really had a lot of fun using it.

In case you don't know what a Kindle is, it's a portable reading device that wirelessly downloads books, blogs, magazines, and newspapers. It uses e-ink technology that is as crisp and clear as a newspaper. What's more, most of the books that you can download cost only $9.99. You can even subscribe to newspapers from around the world. (The New York Times is available for $13.99 a month).

Things I really liked about the Kindle are:

1. The text really is crisp and clear. Plus, you can adjust its size to suit your needs. For example, later in the day or without glasses, I prefer a bigger text.
2. You can look up word definitions with its built-in dictionary.
3. You can search for words in the book, or even look things up in Wikipedia or search the web. This was helpful when I couldn't remember who a character was in a book that I was reading...I just typed in her name and easily found the first occurrence of the name.
4. About the size of a trade paperback, it's lightweight and easy to hold.
   
5. It's especially nice when reading in bed. I like to lie on my side when I read in bed, but always was annoyed because you would have to hold a book at different angles depending upon whether you were reading the left or right page. The Kindle only has one side, so it's easy to position.
   

Thus far, there has only been one small problem. I discovered that I get a lot of satisfaction from knowing how far I am in a book. There's something about seeing those pages flipping by and knowing that you are a third, halfway, three quarters of the way, etc. through the book. The Kindle has an indicator that shows your progress; but somehow that's just not the same.

All in all, I give it a solid thumbs up!