Ages 18+.
Blog Post
Robert Chew, beloved bad guy on The Wire, has died
by sernabad
Actor Robert Chew, who infused complicated humanity into the character Prop(osition) Joe on The Wire, has died.
Chew had strong ties to Baltimore, where he was born. His first love was music, which he studied at his hometown university, Morgan State.
HIs love for Baltimore translated into three high-profile roles that defined his career. In addition to Prop Joe, the verbally gassy, somewhat sympathetic drug dealer on The Wire, Chew also played Wilkie Collins, a drug supplier in the sixth season (1997-1998) of Homicide: Life on the Streets in a three-part episode, Blood Ties. He also brought to life a shoe salesman in the the TV mini-drama The Corner, based on the book, The corner : A year in the life of an inner-city neighborhood by David Simon and Ed Burns, writers and producers for both The Corner and The Wire.
Chew (52), who suffered from cardiovascular disease, died from a heart attack at his home in Baltimore.
Blog Post
Cinema Night Special: Discover Something Different
by mariah
Looking to discover something unusual in the world of film? Start your weekend off with something different!
From 7-9pm on Friday, January 18, at the Downtown Library, Cinema Night Special offers you a chance to catch a 70-minute feature, a shorter experimental film, and live music in between, along with free popcorn!
The evening will start with the area premiere of the suspense-filled 2012 German short film Pro Kopf (The Maid). Ann Arbor's No Excuses Band then take the stage to play a set of originals and covers ranging from classic rock to folk and pop.
2008's critically-acclaimed Somers Town, a Best Film nominee at the British Independent Film Awards, will round out the night. This warmhearted portrait of an unlikely friendship between two boys which Empire Magazine called "beautifully modulated" with an "improvised feel, sparky comedy and interest in the truth of youth (that) services a story that's both winning and winsome."
Don't miss this special evening of experimental film and live music!
Blog Post
The 2013 Edgar Allan Poe Awards nominees have been announced
by sernabad
The nominees for the 2013 Edgars, honoring all things mystery -- novels, non-fiction, and television -- that first appeared in 2012, have been announced.
Named after Edgar Allan Poe, considered the grandfather of the genre, the Edgar is enjoying its 67th year.
Some of the nominees are:
Best novel category:
Gone Girl, Gillain Flynn. In this twisted, double-triple-quadruple backstabbing epic, the reader falls into an ever-changing quagmire between one of literature's most twisted couples. Haven't heard yet of a reader who read the whole thing and DIDN'T fling it across the room.
Live by Night, by Dennis Lehane is set in the Prohibition Era and stars Joe Coughlin, son of a Boston cop who eschews his father's line of work and strives to be a gentleman gangster. Since this is a Lehane novel, you know that's not going to happen.
Best first novel category:
The Expats, by Chris Pavone -- CIA spy Kate Moore falls in love, marries has two sons, and willingly gives up her career to move to Luxembourg with Dexter, her nerdy banker husband. They are befriended by a couple who raise warning flags for Kate. Soon she becomes in clandestine efforts to unravel the threads that make less and less sense, not the least upsetting is the growing suspicion that even Dexter is not who he seems.
Best paperback original:
Louis Berney produces a sequel to Gunshot Straight (2010) with Whiplash River. In another fast-paced thriller, Shake Bouchon buys a restaurant on Ambergris Gray, an island off Belize. But things don't work out so well -- not only does he dodge three hitmen's bullets, but someone burns down his restaurant.
Another sequel is in contention in this category. Malla Nunn brings back her popular character, Det. Emmanuel Cooper, first seen in A Beautiful Place to Die (2009), in Bleassed are the Dead who is investigating the death of a beautiful Zulu housemaid.
For a complete list of nominees, check out this link.
The winners will be announced on May 2nd in New York.
Blog Post
Pauline Phillips, a.k.a. beloved advice columnist Dear Abby, has died
by sernabad
Pauline Phillips who, for decades, enchanted readers with her snappy advice-column answers under the moniker Dear Abby, died yesterday in Minneapolis, MN.
Ms. Phillips began her advice-giving career by helping her identical twin sister, Esther (Eppie) who had launched her own popular newspaper advice column in 1955 for The Chicago Sun-Times. Eppie, whose professional name was Ann Landers, was swamped with instant popularity so Pauline started helping out. When the latter saw how well-received her signature witty answers were, she launched her own syndicated column in The San Francisco Chronicle the following year.
Reader demand for the sisters' advice columns eventually created a rift between the two writers which caused a five-year estrangement followed by reconciliation in the 1960s.
Abby liked to claim that she was more popular than Ann Landers because the latter never mastered the art of the short zinger. In response to this question to Abby -- "Are birth control pill deductible?" -- she answered, "Only if they don't work."
Ms. Phillips' daughter, Jeanne Phillips, began helping her mother with her column in the late 1980s. By 2000, with Abby's health failing, Jeanne officially took on the column.
Pauline Phillips, who suffered from Alzheimer's for many years, was 94.
Blog Post
We're Not Broke and Other Free Streaming Films from Sundance
by mariah
Whether it's discussion of the Fiscal Cliff or debates over local governmental priorities, money matters are on the minds of many citizens.
The 2012 Sundance Film Festival documentary, "We're Not Broke" argues that multibillion-dollar American corporations like Exxon, Google and Bank of America are making record profits via "non-taxation through extraordinary representation."
Variety calls this film a "well-researched, brightly presented and provocative argument that the U.S. isn't overtaxed and profligate, but rather a paradise for corporate tax cheats," and now Sundance's Artist Services Program and Hulu have teamed up to make the film available for free online.
The Sundance Artist Services site keeps an updated list of this and other "Now Playing" titles accessible for free via various streaming platforms.
Blog Post
Fabulous Fiction Firsts #377
by muffy
The word is out about German author Nele Neuhaus' American debut Snow White Must Die * (translated by Steven T. Murray). This opener of a new contemporary police procedural series is already a huge international bestseller. (Available in the original German editions in our World Language Collections)
After serving a 10-year sentence for murdering two young girls (convicted solely on circumstantial evidence) , 30-year-old Tobias Sartorius returns home to Altenhain, a village near Frankfurt to find his parents divorced, and their lives in shambles. On a rainy November day police detectives Pia Kirchhoff and Oliver von Bodenstein are summoned to a mysterious traffic accident: A woman has fallen from a pedestrian bridge onto on-coming traffic, and witnesses are definite that she was pushed. It soon becomes clear to the detectives that the two cases might be connected.
When another young girl disappears, the investigation turns into a race against time as the villagers are determined to take matters into their own hands. "Again and again, Neuhaus inserts the old Grimm's fairy tale refrain: "White as snow, red as blood, black as ebony" that describes Snow White, the role of one of the original missing girls in a high school play 10 years earlier, to underscore the grimmest of human emotions: white for icily plotted revenge, red for raging jealousy, black for homicidal madness.
"An atmospheric, character-driven and suspenseful mystery set in a small town that could be anywhere, dealing with issues of gossip, power, and keeping up appearances".
This emotional page turner, fueled by unexpected plot twists will please fans of Tana French, Laura Lippman, Kate Atkinson, and Chevy Stevens.
* = starred review
Blog Post
2012 National Book Award winners have been announced
by sernabad
The 2012 The Story Prize has announced its finalists for short story collections that were written in English and published last year in the U.S.
The finalists are:
Stay Awake, by Dan Chaon. A two-headed baby, a child with a sleeping disorder, a near-fatal car accident -- these are just some of the themes around which Chaon builds twelve stories filled with unsettling tension and unexpected resolutions.
In Dominican author Junot Diaz's wildly popular This Is How You Lose Her, he brings back Yunior, the narrator of Drown (1996) and of his prize-winning The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007) who takes it upon himself to relate the "...important and necessary story of the inner lives of 'bad boys..." in nine riveting stories.
Battleborn, by Claire Vaye Watkins is a collection of ten stories in which the rich Nevada landscape is as much a character as the individuals who populate these tales.
For the first time in the Story Prize's nine-year history, they are announcing a new award, The Spotlight Award, given to an author who may have slipped under the radar. This year's recipient is Krys Lee for her debut collection Drifting House. Ms. Lee's nine stories tackle the Korean immigrant experience.
The winner of The Story Prize will be announced at the New School's Tishman Auditorium in New York City on Wednesday, March 13th.
Blog Post
Experience life in the trenches of World War I with Charley's War
by K.C.
On a “Military History – What are you Reading Now” booklist, I came across the Charley’s War series, set in World War I. Having just completed the excellent historical non-fiction WWII graphic novel, Two Generals, I thought I would check out how "the war to end all wars" was covered in graphic novel fashion.
Wow, I was not disappointed. Charley’s War 2 June 1916 – 1 August 1916 is the first in a series of volumes following the life of Charley Bourne, who enlists in the British Army at the age of 16. In this volume you see Charley go from enlistment to the frontlines just in time for preparations for the Battle of the Somme. By the time the attack is launched, you’ll know just enough about his trench mates to be anxious of their fate as they ‘go over the top’.
This series is actually a compilation of a 3 to 4 page strip that ran in the British comic book "Battle Action" from 1979-85. Writer Pat Mills moves the action along at a brisk but smooth pace. Though a few of the characters may seem a bit stock/stereotypical, every one of them is compelling and pulls you in to learn their story. Joe Colquhoun’s artwork – fantastic. As long as you are not turned off by black and white, there is much to like here. The details in the panels and the way they are laid out works great.
The period history seems well researched, and the book includes not only a section where the writer gives current day commentary and he does address a few things that in hindsight may not have been too accurate or likely to have occurred, but also includes a brief independent essay on the Battle of the Somme itself.
You may not agree with the author’s preface, but I think you will agree the graphic novel itself is one grim and gripping yarn.
Blog Post
Fabulous Fiction Firsts #376
by muffy
Picked by the publisher to relaunch Mysterious Press is Michael Kardos's The Three-Day Affair * *. For Jeffrey, Nolan, Evan, and Will who met 13 years ago at Princeton as undergrads, what was supposed to be their annual gathering of golf, booze and guy-talk turned harrowing in a split second, when Jeff, the dot.com millionaire kidnapped the teenage cashier at a spur-of-the moment stop at a convenient store.
When Jeff yelled "Drive!", their lives would never be the same again. As Will narrates what happen in the next three days, their friendship and long-hidden animosities further complicate their nightmarish situation, making the final twist of an ending, a "vicious closing sting".
Award-winning short story writer Kardos' debut novel features "finely drawn characters, clever plotting, a fine surprise ending, and graceful and economical storytelling". He lives in Starkville, Mississippi, where he co-directs the creative writing program at Mississippi State University and edits the literary journal Jabberwock Review.
"A wonderful piece of literary suspense craftsmanship" ( ~Michael Koryta), sure to please fans of Scott Smith's A Simple Plan (adopted into a feature film), and Deliverance (in video format) by James Dickey. Readers might also enjoy Owen Laukkanen's The Professionals (2012).
* * = starred reviews
Blog Post
1 in 6 Adults Can't Read This Post
by Beth Manuel
Washtenaw Literacy hopes to put an end to adult illiteracy and could use your help by considering becoming a volunteer..
The first step to becoming a volunteer tutor with Washtenaw Literacy is to attend a one-hour informational session, the ABCs of Washtenaw Literacy. These engaging sessions provide interested folks with all the information they need to decide how they would like to become a tutor. You can help change the world, one word at a time.You must register by emailing info@washtenawliteracy.org or by clicking here.
The next session takes place at the Ypsilanti District Library 5577 Whittaker Road Ypsilanti, MI 48197 Tuesday January 8 from 6:00-7:00 PM.