Book Review: Lessons in Chemistry
Lessons in Chemistry has the book world buzzing. Published in March 2022, the book has spent time on the New York Times Bestseller list, was selected as a Good Morning America Book Club Pick, and will be released as a tv series based later this year. Here at the library Lessons in Chemistry is in high demand, with copies flying off the shelves as soon as they are brought back to the library.
Summary
Elizabeth Zott isn’t your average homemaker. She’s a trained chemist whose attention to detail and scientific methods could have had her working at the best of the best research institutions. Instead, she’s at the Hastings Research Institute, where gender outweighs brilliance and her research isn’t credited under her name. Her 1960s feminist ideals aren’t welcome in her field, and Elizabeth faces discrimination at every turn. When her career as a researcher is abruptly cut short, she ends up hosting her very own cooking show for a local TV station. But instead of asking you to add a pinch of salt, she tells you to sprinkle on the sodium chloride. Because for Elizabeth, cooking is chemistry. It’s a science, not to be trifled with. Her kitchen is unlike any other, filled with beakers and bunson burners. But despite her dry sense of humor, Elizabeth appeals to the masses.
Told in the era of Mad Men, this story tells the untold of early women in STEM, unconventional families, and limiting beliefs of traditional gender roles. It’s a fun read and great for book clubs.
Put yourself on hold for Lessons in Chemistry here.
Already read Lessons in Chemistry? Try one of these readalikes!
Happy reading!
-Melinda
Garden Month
Apparently, April is Garden Month! That seems fitting, as we are finally seeing some sunny, warm days in Rocky River. As you plot out your backyards, balconies, or windowsills, check out some of these helpful gardening books. Whether you’re a beginner or ready for a challenge, we’ve got a book for you.
Indoor Edible Garden by Zia Allaway
How to Window Box: Small-Space Plants to Grow Indoors or Out by Chantal Aida Gordon
The Container Victory Garden: A Beginner’s Guide to Growing Your Own Groceries by Maggie Stuckey
Gardening for Everyone: Growing Vegetables, Herbs, and More at Home by Julia Watkins
The Herb Garden Specialist by David Squire
Down & Dirty: 43 Fun & Funky First-Time Projects & Activities to Get You Gardening by Ellen Zachos
Midwest Fruit & Vegetable Gardening: Plant, Grow, and Harvest the Best Edibles by Katie Elzer-Peters
I hope these books spark some plant inspiration! And remember, the Library has partnered with the Cleveland Seed Bank to provide seed packets for “check out”! It’s a great way to get started with a range of choices, from peppers to basil to zucchini. Please visit here for more information.
-Linnea
New Books Tuesday @ RRPL
There are tons of new releases that come to our shelves every week. Here are some books we picked out for you!
Things I Wish I Told My Mother
When Laurie, a nomadic artist, surprises her mother, an elegant perfectionist, with a dream vacation to Paris, which brings an unexpected sparkle to her eyes, mother and daughter unpack a lifetime of secrets and hopes in the City of Light.
Dark Angel
Letty Davenport and her reluctant partner from the NSA infiltrate a hacker group called Ordinary People and discover someone within their circle has betrayed them and put them in danger, in the second novel of the series following The Investigator.
My Heart Will Find You
While caring for an elderly man during the pandemic, Etta Wilmont, every time she falls asleep, passes through the past and the present, discovering she has the power to make the lives of others better – and the chance to find a love to last a lifetime.
The Only Survivors
When a group of classmates reunite to mark the tenth anniversary of a terrible accident, one of the survivors disappears, casting fear and suspicion on the remaining individuals, and on the original tragedy itself.
The Trackers
Commissioned to create a mural representing Dawes, Wyoming, for their new Post Office, Val Welch, a painter in Depression-era America, stays with a wealthy art lover, his wife and a mysterious elder cowboy where he turns up secrets that could spark formidable changes for all of them.
The Fourth Enemy
While trying to prove Malcolm Vayne, a beloved philanthropist, is guilty of fraud, prosecutor Daniel Pitt must rescue his wife, a forensic scientist who has been kidnapped by one of Vayne’s crazed supporters, putting their lives and the case in danger.
The Seaside Library
Returning to touristy beach town where they grew up together, Ivy and Ariana, when a woman goes missing, find the circumstances similar to a crime from their childhood, placing them in a terrible situation since the person that may be responsible is the same one they lied for years ago.
Standing in the Shadows
In 1980, Nick Hartley, the prime suspect in the murder of his ex-girlfriend, sets out to find the truth, leading him down a dangerous path, while in 2019, Detective Superintendent Alan Banks and his team are called in to investigate skeletal remains and must hunt down a killer.
~Semanur
Reads for the Roaring ’20s 2.0
In honor of the Roaring ’20s, let’s take a look back at what was happening one hundred years ago.
In 1923:
- Calvin Coolidge was President of the United States
- King Tut’s tomb was opened
- Insulin was produced as a treatment for diabetes
- Time magazine was launched
And books were being borrowed, discussed, and recommended. In 2023 we are still enjoying recently published books and old favorites. In case you’d like to celebrate in centennial style, here are a few recommendations for books set in the 1920s and published in the 1920s.
Books Set in the 1920s:
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery.
Circling the Sun by Paula McLain
Brought to Kenya from England by pioneering parents dreaming of a new life on an African farm, Beryl is raised unconventionally, developing a fierce will and a love of all things wild. But after everything she knows and trusts dissolves, headstrong young Beryl is flung into a string of disastrous relationships, then becomes caught up in a passionate love triangle with the irresistible safari hunter Denys Finch Hatton and the writer Baroness Karen Blixen.
The Mercy of Thin Air by Ronlyn Domingue
In 1920s New Orleans, Raziela Nolan is in the throes of a magnificent love affair when she dies in a tragic accident. She narrates the story of her lost love, as well as the relationship of the couple whose house she haunts more than 75 years later. The couple’s trials compel Razi to slowly unravel the mystery of what happened to her first and only love, and to confront a long-hidden secret.
The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey
Bombay, 1921: Perveen Mistry, the daughter of a respected Zoroastrian family, has just joined her father’s law firm, becoming one of the first female lawyers in India. Armed with a law degree from Oxford, Perveen also has a tragic personal history that makes her especially devoted to championing and protecting women’s legal rights. Inspired in part by a real woman who made history by becoming India’s first female lawyer, The Widows of Malabar Hill is a richly wrought story of multicultural 1920s Bombay as well as the debut of a sharp and promising new sleuth, Perveen Mistry.
The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty
Only a few years before becoming a famous silent-film star and an icon of her generation, a fifteen-year-old Louise Brooks leaves Wichita, Kansas, to study with the prestigious Denishawn School of Dancing in New York. Much to her annoyance, she is accompanied by a thirty-six-year-old chaperone, who is neither mother nor friend. Cora Carlisle, a complicated but traditional woman with her own reasons for making the trip, has no idea what she’s in for. Young Louise, already stunningly beautiful and sporting her famous black bob with blunt bangs, is known for her arrogance and her lack of respect for convention. Ultimately, the five weeks they spend together will transform their lives forever.
Books Released in the 1920s:
Cane by Jean Toomer
Cane is a collection of short stories, poems, and dramas, written by Harlem Renaissance author Jean Toomer in 1923. The stories focus around African-American culture in both the North and the South during times when racism and Jim Crow laws still abounded. Vignettes of the lives of various African-American characters tell what it was like to live both in the rural areas of Georgia and the urban streets of the northern cities.
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Observed across the years at their vacation house facing the gales of the North Atlantic, Mrs. Ramsay and her family seek to recapture meaning from the flux of things and the passage of time. Though it is the death of Mrs. Ramsay on which the novel turns, her presence pervades every page in a poetic evocation of loss and memory that is also a celebration of domestic life and its most intimate details. Virginia Woolf’s great book enacts a powerful allegory of the creative consciousness and its momentary triumphs over fleeting material life.
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
The story follows the flamboyant Brett and the hapless Jake as they journey from the wild nightlife of 1920s Paris to the brutal bullfighting rings of Spain with a motley group of expatriates. It is an age of moral bankruptcy, spiritual dissolution, unrealized love, and vanishing illusions.
Passing by Nella Larsen
Light-skinned Clare Kendry married a racist white man unaware of her African American heritage after deciding to ‘pass’ as a white woman. Clare’s childhood friend, Irene Redfield, just as light-skinned, chose to remain within the African American community, and is both allured and repelled by Clare’s racial masquerade. Clare’s own interest in Irene turns into a homoerotic longing for the identity she abandoned and can never regain, and forces her to grapple with her decisions in a way that is both tragic and telling.
The Professor’s House by Willa Cather
Professor Godfrey St. Peter is a man in his fifties who has devoted his life to his work, his wife, his garden, and his daughters, and achieved success with all of them. But when St. Peter is called on to move to a new, more comfortable house, something in him rebels. And although at first that rebellion consists of nothing more than mild resistance to his family’s wishes, it imperceptibly comes to encompass the entire order of his life.
Happy reading!
-Melinda
National Poetry Month
In April showers
We celebrate poetry
In all of its forms
As you can probably tell based on my haiku attempt, I am not a poet nor am I well-versed in poetry! However, I recognize how important poetry is to literature, to culture, and to individuals. Poetry helps us understand new things, connects us to one another, and allows us to express our emotions. Poets new and old have a special place in our world and for National Poetry Month, here are some poets, familiar or maybe unknown, to celebrate this April.
Hanif Abdurraqib
A Fortune for your Disaster: Poems
“There’s no doubt that Abdurraqib has a lot to be serious about, but it’s also refreshing to see the majestic illusionist draw the audience in with a little bit of close-up magic. He reminds us, with self-deprecating irony, that trust is important to both poetry and magic, and that if this trust is broken, it should be to dazzle, not to harm.” (Bracken, 2019)
Emily Dickinson
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
“Poetry to her was the expression of vital meanings, the transfer of passionate feeling and of deep conviction. Her work is essentially lyric; it lacks the slow, retreating harmonies of epic measures, it does not seek to present leisurely details of any sort; its purpose is to objectify the swiftly-passing moments and to give them poignant expression.” (Shackford, 1913)
Robert Frost
“He writes in classic metres in a way to set the teeth of all the poets of the older schools on edge; and he writes in classic metres, and uses inversions and cliches whenever he pleases, those devices so abhorred by the newest generation. He goes his own way, regardless of anyone else’s rules, and the result is a book of unusual power and sincerity.” (Poetry Foundation)
Saeed Jones
Alive at the End of the World: Poems
“The beauty of Jones’s poems lies in the way they approach death through the pleasures of being alive, deploying a redemptive levity or an acerbic conviviality to lend shape to catastrophe.” (Woo, 2022)
Ocean Vuong
“In this book, Vuong grieves the loss of his mother, but he also celebrates her existence. His strategy is to focus on the small moments in life that give our closest relationships their meaning.” (Chandonnet, 2022)
I hope you find some peace, healing, beauty, hope, or whatever it is you need from one of these poets or from any poet that catches your eye. And if you’re in the area, stop by the Library to see our wonderful National Poetry Month display where you can take a poem to support what you need.
-Linnea
Book Review: Someone Else’s Shoes
Londoner Samantha “Sam” Kemp is juggling a depressed and unemployed husband, aging parents, and a teenage daughter. She is also stressed about the day of important business meetings ahead of her. So, it is no surprise when she accidentally grabs the wrong gym bag after working out.
Inside the bag are a pair of extremely high-heeled red shoes – Christian Louboutins – that Sam is forced to wear instead of her own missing sensible shoes. As it turns out, the sexy shoes give Sam confidence enough to close three big deals that she hopes will protect her fragile position at a printing company. The next day, when Sam tries to exchange the bag and shoes for her own, the gym has gone out of business.
Meanwhile, American Nisha Cantor, the pampered wife of wealthy Carl and owner of the infamous shoes, finishes her own workout to find a knock-off designer bag in the spot she left her own. To make matters worse, Nisha’s husband decides to end their relationship that same morning. Nisha leaves the gym in flip flops only to learn that she has been locked out of their hotel’s penthouse suite without a penny to her name, and without her designer clothes, a place to stay, or a friend in London.
Determined to get her life (and shoes) back, Nisha becomes a cleaner in the hotel. Now that she must work for a living, will Nisha learn how to be a better person? And what kind of havoc will walking in someone else’s shoes wreck on Sam’s life and career?
Someone Else’s Shoes by Jojo Moyes is a compelling story and fast paced romp about two hugely different 40-something women who slowly find themselves becoming invisible in their lives. This novel about love, friendship and second chances also deals with serious issues, like mental health and discrimination but with plenty of humor and some madcap moments, it is a hopeful and cleverly plotted read. Place your hold today.
-Carol
Inspirations From Anne
By Alyssa Nicole
There are certain characters from literature that I’d love to befriend if they existed in real life. I found a “kindred spirit” in Anne Shirley, the optimistic, life-loving protagonist of the Green Gables series. Her enthusiasm is contagious, and her joy radiates like the rays of the sun. How I would love to picnic with her beside the “Lake of Shining Waters,” explore the beauties of “Violet Vale, ”or go strolling beneath the blossomed trees in “The White Way of Delight.” Alas, the closest I can get is through the pages of L.M Montgomery’s heartwarming series. It is fitting that Anne eventually becomes a teacher, for I have learned many lessons and have discovered a treasure trove of inspiration through her musings and words. Here are many of my favorites:
“Life’s is worth living as long as there’s a laugh in it!”
“People laugh at me because I use big words. But if you have big ideas, you have to use big words to express them, haven’t you?”
“…because when you are imagining, you might as well imagine something worthwhile.”
“Oh, it’s delightful to have ambitions. I’m so glad I have such a lot. And there never seems to be any end to them– that’s the best of it. Just as soon as you attain to one ambition you see another one glittering higher up still. It does make life so interesting.”
“People laugh at me because I use big words. But if you have big ideas, you have to use big words to express them, haven’t you?”
“It’s been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind firmly that you will.”
“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”
“Tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it… yet.”
“The world calls them its singers and poets and artists and storytellers; but they are just people who have never forgotten the way to fairyland.”
“I read in a book once that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but I’ve never been able to believe it. I don’t believe a rose WOULD be as nice if it was called a thistle or a skunk cabbage.”
“Dear old world’, she murmured, ‘you are very lovely, and I am glad to be alive in you.”
What We’re Reading Now
Smart, funny, and deeply affecting, Jessica George’s Maame deals with the themes of our time with humor and poignancy: from familial duty and racism, to female pleasure, the complexity of love, and the life-saving power of friendship. Most important, it explores what it feels like to be torn between two homes and cultures―and it celebrates finally being able to find where you belong. Linnea
The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins
A strange, twisting novel that resists being pigeonholed into one genre. At its simplest, this is the tale of a girl and her adopted siblings trying to find their missing father. A little bit of horror, fantasy, and science fiction are mixed with metaphysical, philosophical ponderings for a truly excellent, one-of-a-kind reading experience. Shannon
Looking for the Hidden Folk by Nancy Brown
Part memoir, part travelog, part call for conservation, part investigation into the study of belief on a material, spiritual, and conceptual level, Looking for the Hidden Folk is a book that defies sitting in a single genre. Author Nancy Marie Brown share her decades long love of Iceland by giving a historical and literal background along with her own travels and multiple visits. All of this is centered around the belief in elves. Brown takes multiple approaches to this topic but doesn’t offer a solid answer to emerge. This becomes a strength for the book, allowing readers to make their own decision or to maintain a solid position of ambiguity. A great read for someone who has visited/will visit Iceland. Greg
Just Like Home by Sarah Gailey
Vera Crowder always loved the house her father built. But the Crowder house was created to hide the secret life of a serial killer. Vera just happened to call him Dad. When her estranged mother Daphne calls to tell her she’s dying, Vera ends up back at the house where it all began. Now a twisted tourist attraction, the house has two occupants: Daphne and Duvall, an artist capitalizing on the family’s dark history. As Daphne packs up the place she once called home, she revisits the haunting moments shared inside the walls. This twisty horror novel gives new meaning to the phrase “home is where the heart is.” Melinda
The Golden Spoon by Jessica Maxwell
It’s the 10th season of Bake Week and six new amateur bakers have been selected to compete for The Golden Spoon. As before, they’ll gather under a big white tent in the mountains of Vermont on the grounds of Grafton Manor, family estate of legendary baker and host of the competition, Betsy Martin. Surprised by the addition of a co-host, supposedly to bring in younger viewers, Betsy is unhappy with how the season is going long before murder is committed. Quirky characters, fun pop culture references, and a few surprising plot twists, keep the pages turning. Readers who enjoy The Great British Bake Off and classic closed room mysteries should pick this one up asap! Stacey
The London Seance Society by Sarah Penner
I loved Sarah Penner’s book The Lost Apothecary so I am eager to crack open her latest The London Séance Society. It opens in 1873, where the unlikely pair of Vaudeline D’Allaire, a renowned spiritualist, and Lenna Wickes, a woman investigating her sister’s death, team up with the powerful men of London’s exclusive Séance Society to solve a high-profile murder. It’s sure to be a spooky and suspenseful read. Carol
.
The Prettiest Star by Carter Sickels: In 1986, Brian, a gay man who has spent the last six years in NYC, comes home to Ohio. The story is about reconciliation, grief, acceptance, and home.
.
A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark: In 1912, Agent Fatma of the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Entities, along with her girlfriend, Siti, must solve the murders of a secret brotherhood. The suspected murderer is Al-Jahiz, who opened the veil between the mystical and earthly realms 50 years ago and is now vowing to destroy the world because of it’s social oppressions.
Scorched Grace by Margot Douaihy: Saint Sebastian’s School is targeted by a serial arson and it’s up to Sister Holiday, of the Sisters of the Sublime Blood, to solve the case. This punk rocker nun must do all of this while confronting her checkered past and not get caught smoking…. Christine
Emily, a jaded Instagram astrologer, becomes obsessed with a client after reading his “perfect” birth chart. She pursues him romantically, with terrible consequences. In a parallel narrative, Dawn’s decades of unhinged dating behavior turn into a reputation that increasingly precedes her. Nobody is who they want you to think they are in this dark satire about image, excuses, and taking all the bad advice we can get. Annelise
A Flicker in the Dark by Stacy Willingham
A psychological thriller about a desperate mother, Isabelle Drake, who’s son Mason has been missing for a year, taken from his crib while he was sleeping, and the case has never been solved. She hasn’t slept for more than minutes at a time since her son went missing, and she is beginning to lose her grip on reality and to wonder what really happened that night. Her marriage has fallen apart and a true-crime podcaster has come to town offering to interview her and help bring publicity to the case. However, Isabelle has secrets in her past that may not stand up to the scrutiny of a podcast. Isabelle is desperate to know what happened to Mason, but will her deepest fears be true? Sara
Public Radio Nerds: Book Edition
Photo by Fringer Cat on Unsplash
If you spend a lot of time listening to public radio, the voices of correspondents have likely become a part of your daily soundtrack. In fact, many National Public Radio (NPR) hosts are now household names. So if you’re like me and you see a new book coming out and the name seems vaguely familiar, you aren’t seeing things. Several NPR correspondents and hosts are also published authors, with books covering everything from politics to pop culture.
Here are a few Public Radio Nerd-approved reads!
The Best Strangers in the World by Ari Shapiro, host of All Things Considered
In his first book, broadcaster Ari Shapiro takes us around the globe to reveal the stories behind narratives that are sometimes heartwarming, sometimes heartbreaking, but always poignant. He details his time traveling on Air Force One with President Obama, or following the path of Syrian refugees fleeing war, or learning from those fighting for social justice both at home and abroad. As the self-reinforcing bubbles we live in become more impenetrable, Ari Shapiro keeps seeking ways to help people listen to one another; to find connection and commonality with those who may seem different; to remind us that, before religion, or nationality, or politics, we are all human.
It Goes So Fast by Mary Louise Kelly, host of All Things Considered
Ever since she became a parent, Mary Louise Kelly has said “next year.” Mary Louise is coming to grips with the reality every parent faces. Childhood has a definite expiration date. You have only so many years with your kids before they leave your house to build their own lives. It’s what every parent is supposed to want, what they raise their children to do. But it is bittersweet. Mary Louise is also dealing with the realities of having aging parents. This pivotal time brings with it the enormous questions of what you did right and what you did wrong.
Imperfect Union by Steve Innskeep, host of Morning Edition
The 1831, John Fremont was born a nobody. But with help from a series of mentors he rose from obscurity and married the daughter of influential senator Thomas Hart Benton. Jessie Benton Fremont had limited options for her own career, and threw herself into the promotion of her husband as John travelled thousands of miles on horseback to map the uncharted American West. Back home, Jessie skilfully shaped the letters he sent into dramatic reports and bestselling books. She became his political adviser, helping John secure a seat in the Senate and to ultimately become the first-ever presidential nominee Republican party.
Midnight in Siberia by David Greene, former host of Morning Edition
Far away from the trendy cafés, designer boutiques, and political protests and crackdowns in Moscow, the real Russia exists. Midnight in Siberia chronicles David Greene’s journey on the Trans-Siberian Railway, a 6,000-mile cross-country trip from Moscow to the Pacific port of Vladivostok. In quadruple-bunked cabins and stopover towns sprinkled across the country’s snowy landscape, Greene speaks with ordinary Russians about how their lives have changed in the post-Soviet years.
Unforgettable by Scott Simon, host of Weekend Edition
When NPR’s Scott Simon began tweeting from his mother’s hospital room in July 2013, he didn’t know that his missives would soon spread well beyond his 1.2 million Twitter followers. Squeezing the magnitude of his final days with her into 140-character updates, Simon’s evocative and moving meditations spread virally. Over the course of a few days, Simon chronicled his mother’s death and reminisced about her life, revealing her humor and strength, and celebrating familial love.
So We Read On by Maureen Corrigan, NPR Book Critic
Conceived nearly a century ago by a man who died believing himself a failure, it’s now a revered classic and a rite of passage in the reading lives of millions. But how well do we really know The Great Gatsby? As Maureen Corrigan, Gatsby lover extraordinaire, points out, while Fitzgerald’s masterpiece may be one of the most popular novels in America, many of us first read it when we were too young to fully comprehend its power.
Enjoy these radio-related reads!
-Melinda
Read it or Weep 