Book of the Week #26

Live Free, Drive Fast: Behind the Scenes at the New Hampshire International Speedway by Allen Lessels (Concord, NH: Plaidswede Publishing, 2006) It is a sure sign of summer in New Hampshire when the local restaurants and bars start sporting "Welcome Race Fans!" signs and banners. I noticed quite a few of these messages as I drove down Route 3 this week, so it must be time for a book about the NH International Speedway. July 1 marks the first NASCAR race of the season at NHIS. The author of this behind the scenes look at the Speedway is a sports writer for the New Hampshire Union Leader and a resident of Contoocook, NH.

The Big Read: NH Reads Fahrenheit 451

Yesterday the National Endowment for the Arts announced the recipients of the latest round of Big Read grants and I am pleased to announce that New Hampshire Reads Fahrenheit 451 was among the funded projects.

Over the next few months I will be working with the New Hampshire Humanities Council, the NH Department of Cultural Resources, and over 40 libraries, schools, and bookstores around the state to put together discussions, programs, publications, and events all focusing on Bradbury's novel.
While this will be -- I hope -- a huge celebration of this novel and create a statewide conversation about what literature really means to a society, our project is really only a small part of a much bigger national event. This fall there will be Big Read programs focused on Fahrenheit 451 going on in Colorado, Massachusetts, Virginia, Illinois, Utah, California, Michigan, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Georgia, New York, Washington, North Carolina, Arizona, Maryland, and Wisconsin. There will Big Read programs centered on other great books going on as well -- The Northeast Cultural Coop in Amherst, NH will be hosting a Big Read project focused on Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club.
There will be lots of programs and discussions -- some live and some virtual -- going on here in the Granite State in October, I hope you will take the time to read (or re-read!) Fahrenheit 451 and then get out and discuss it with your friends, neighbors, co-workers, family -- anyone you happen to run into.
Great books lead to great conversations and that can only lead to even greater communities throughout our state and our nation.

Book of the Week #25

Secondhand World: A Novel by Katherine Min (Knopf, 2006)

I will be travelling over the next week or so and this book, which I discovered at NHWP's Writers' Day, is going in my bag for airplane reading. Katherine Min lives in Plymouth, NH and this, her debut novel, has gotten very positive press. I'm looking forward to it!

Isadora Myung Hee Sohn-Isa worships her mother, an exceptional beauty, born in Seoul and sheltered in a harem of sisters inside the wealthy family's compound. Isa's father, a scientist and professor, an orphan, is haunted by the war in which he served as a South Korean soldier and by a painful secret that he keeps from his wife. Still mourning the death of Isa's younger brother, Stephen,
her parents are traditional enough to prize their dead son over their living daughter; to them, Isa only half exists." "But unlike many Asian American daughters, Isa in either meek nor a quiet victim of tradition. Despite her parents' success and sophistication - they've achieved the American dream - she repudiates their values, embarks on her own sexual education, and runs away with an albino boy, Hero. At the same time, Isa suspects that despite her mother's strict adherence to Korean traditional values, she is involved with another man, and Isa determines to make the affair known. What begins as a child's unthinking fury at her mother soon leads to more deadly consequences." (from the book jacket)

Book of the Week #24

Motorcycle Man: Restless by Phil Englehardt (Kingston. NH: Gadsden Publishing, 2004)

Written by Phil Englehardt, this novel tells the story of Ian Payne, a New Hampshire man "on the verge of his mid-life crash and burn. He will take you on a ride through his history of drugs, depression, divorce, and two cross country motorcycle trips. He also has a plan for the future: one last ride before his middle class existence extinguishes his passion forever."

I chose this book in honor of Laconia Motorcycle Week which began June 9, 2007. At 84 years, it is the oldest of the motorcycle rallies which seems appropriate since the inventor of the first motorcycle was from Francestown, NH. The Madison Library blog recently posted an interesting list of bike-related reading that you might want to check out.

"The line of motorcycles grows with each and every mile that passes. There are digital construction signs cautioning motorists to watch for motorcycles. The police details are mostly on bikes looking for morning buzzers and speeders. For the most part the ride is slow and the bikes are two abreast as far as I can see by the time I hit Alton Bay at the tip of the lake. With fifteen miles still to go, the Harleys now rule the road. Fatboys, hogs, speedsters, and Road Kings are all tweaked by their equally diverse owners. There are fat guys, skinny guys, short ones and tall ones. Some are blond, some are bald. Some are shaven and others have long beards. They are from every state in the northeast and some drove even urther. The one common denominator in this melting pot of hell on wheels is attitude." (Restless, p. 122)

Got Books?

If not, it's the season for library book sales and the NH Center for the Book has compiled a list of all the library book sales around the state. Currently it lists sales from tomorrow through the end of July. Sales being held through the end of 2007 will be added next week.

Book of the Week #23

Curious George by H. A. & Margaret Rey (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1941)

This is the first book that Margaret and H. A. Rey wrote which starred the the lovable and mischevious monkey that so many of us grew up with.

George originally appeared (his name was Fifi then) in a book the Rey's published while living in Paris in 1939 and which was called Rafi et les 9 Singes. In June 1940 the Reys fled Paris on bicycles ahead of the approaching German army.

By February 1941 they had settled in New York City and had a contract to write four children's books for Houghton Mifflin of Boston. This was the first of those books. All of the Curious George books were a collaboration between the husband and wife team, but until Pretzel in 1944 Margret was not credited as an author on the published books.

In 1958, the Reys constructed a summer cottage in Waterville Valley, New Hampshire. That house is now the Curious George Cottage. Like so many others before and since, George summered here in New Hampshire.

Book of the Week #22

Peyton Place by Grace Metalious (Simon & Schuster, 1956)

Continuing on last week's theme of Franco-Americans in New Hampshire the book for this week is a novel that has sold over 10 million copies and inspired a film and a television series and generated a storm of controversy around a young woman of French heritage living in a small New Hampshire town.

There are newer editions of this book, including one from Gramercy Books (1999) that includes the sequel Return to Peyton Place, but the stark quality of the cover of this edition seems to me to suit the novel better than the more cheerful small town images that have been used on newer editions.

To learn more about the life of Grace Metalious check out the article on page 4 of the Fall 2006 issue of Book Notes and for a discussion of this book listen to NHPR's Granite State Stories on Friday, June 8.