News!

After many years of "bloggering", the RPL Staff Picks Blog will be moving to the RVAlibrary.org website during #NationalLibraryWeek (April 9th-15th). We'll be on break this week while we make the switch so go ask Mayor Stoney what he recommends you read next when he visits Broad Rock this Sunday to kick off our week-long celebration!

And then the murders began.

Game time! The internet is always up to no good and we are not above jumping into the fray when it comes to literary nonsense. Lately there have been a lot of posts swirling about online with folks adding "And then the murders began." as the second line to famous books. In some cases, this is an improvement to the original texts. We couldn't resist, and thought we'd share a few of our favorites here.

 "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. And then the murders began." —George Orwell, 1984

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. And then the murders began." —Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities 

"The Miss Lonelyhearts of the New York Post-Dispatch (Are you in trouble?—Do-you-need-advice?—Write-to-Miss-Lonelyhearts-and-she-will-help-you) sat at his desk and stared at a piece of white cardboard. And then the murders began." —Nathanael West, Miss Lonelyhearts 

"Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was arrested. And then the murders began." —Franz Kafka, The Trial

"Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo.  And then the murders began."—James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 

"Mother died today.  And then the murders began." —Albert Camus, The Stranger 

"Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself. And then the murders began."—Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway 

"For a long time, I went to bed early. And then the murders began."—Marcel Proust, Swann's Way

"He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. And then the murders began."—Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea

Children's lit works too!

"Where's Papa going with that axe?" said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast. And then the murders began" --E.B. White, Charlotte's Web

"The sun did not shine, it was too wet to play, so we sat in the house all that cold, cold wet day.  And then the murders began." -- Dr. Seuss, The Cat in the Hat

"In an old house in Paris that was covered with vines lived twelve little girls in two straight lines. And then the murders began." --Ludwig Bemelmans, Madeline

"The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home.And then the murders began."-- Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

"When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen. And then the murders began."-- Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

"'Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents,' grumbled Jo, lying on the rug. And then the murders began."-- Louisa May Alcott,  Little Women

"The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind and another his mother called him 'WILD THING!' and Max said 'I'LL EAT YOU UP!' so he was sent to bed without eating anything.And then the murders began."-- Maurice Sendak, Where The Wild Things Are

We made it!

The 25^th Annual Richmond French Film Festival, co-sponsored by VCU and UR, is upon us and promises to be the best yet!  Not only is the festival occurring over a full week at both the Byrd Theatre and the University of Richmond but there are also special events scattered throughout, such as a live concert by Henry Padovani, one of the founding members of The Police (following a documentary about him) and a special poetry recitation by one of France’s preeminent actors, Philippe Torreton, which closes the festival.  

Padovani pictured center

Jacques Perrin

Other special guests include composer Bruno Coulais and director-producer-actor Jacques Perrin.  They will be presenting symposium lectures as well as introducing and moderating q-and-a sessions for both films they have worked on together and separately. One of these, the Coulais-scored Coraline, was a popular American release in 2010.

Winged Migration, a joint hit for both, was widely shown in the United States (I saw it at the much-missed Westhampton Theatre) but on Friday afternoon it will be shown in its original French release, Le Peuple Migrateur.  As the Festival poster proudly proclaims, 700 films have been screened and 850 members of the French film industry have come to share their experiences with us since the first festival in 1993.  This year’s program includes 8 features, 6 documentaries (3 by Perrin) and 11 short films, plus the first North American showing of the Magic Lantern show from the Cinematheque Francaise.

There are several past Festival selections currently available in our DVD collection, including last year’s The Clearstream Affair.  My favorite drama of all those I have seen is Claude Miller’s (the Honorary Godfather of the Festival who passed away in 2012) Un Secret/A Secret (2008) and my favorite comedy is Le Prenom/What’s in a Name? (2013).  Other notable selections include the children’s film Belle and Sebastian, Gemma Bovery, The Hedgehog (adapted from the Muriel Barbery novel The Elegance of the Hedgehog), Pour une Femme (For a Woman), Renoir, Le nom des gens (The Names of Love), Hors la loi (Outside the Law) and the extraordinary documentary Oceans, yet another outstanding cinematic work by Jacques Perrin!

(Many thanks to Robert Hickman of Westover Hills, our resident French film expert, for this annual update!)

Dublin International Literary Award 2018

...yet so little time.

I couldn't pass on the opportunity to blog about our Dublin picks on St. Patrick's Day, could I?
Every year, the RPL Dubliners read literally hundreds of new books and keep notes on our favorites to nominate for the Dublin Literary Award, then get together in the dead of winter and fight to the death over who has the best list. 

Just kidding! We are usually pretty civilized about it. This year we are thrilled to have voted on our obsessive lists of fantastic fiction (published in English for the first time in 2016) and proudly endorse these three picks for the 2018 prize!

Drumroll please:

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

A must-read for absolutely everyone, Homegoing is compulsively readable, a finely crafted story of two families separated by oceans, centuries, and slavery. It is an American epic with roots in 18th century Ghana, a sweeping multi-generational family saga that will get into your soul and stay with you forever.

The Nix by Nathan Hill

The Nix presents a political history of Chicago politics from the 1940s to current day with both humor and appropriate darkness. A loaded novel in terms of both plots and characters, The Nix follows Samuel Anderson, an English professor who prefers playing a specific video game, from a time when he is told his mother, Faye, who deserted him as a child,has been arrested for throwing rocks at an extremely conservative presidential candidate. Faye's life, and eventually Samuel's, become intertwined in flashbacks, before the reader views certain parallel circumstances between mother and son, reality and fantasy, and politics and daily life. 

Nathan Hill manages to weave historical and cultural details together in The Nix to present an accurate portrait of not only U.S. politics, but a global study of what makes politicians and their non- followers tick and compete.

Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue

Set in New York City in 2007 on the eve of the global financial crisis, a young family from Cameroon  find their immigration status tenuous after Lehman Brothers collapses and Jende loses his job. His heart pulled in two directions, back to his home in Limbe or to stay in New York with his wife and children, Jende and Neni must decide where they belong. Behold the Dreamers is a poignant love letter to home.

Now on to those 2017 books...

Thanks, Dubliners, for your contributions to this wonderfully never-ending process. Keep reading!

High five, Dublin Award committee

DIY 4 LIFE

It's not all fantastic fiction here in blogland, sometimes we like to get a little dirty out in the garden (and listen to an audiobook!), make our own clothes (while listening to an audiobook!), do some repairs around the house (while listening to an...you get the idea), and even make our own darn shoes (audiobooooook!).

BOOOOOOOOOK

Well, have I got some DIY handbooks for YOU! Now, I know what you're thinking, internet friends, "isn't it easier to just YouTube that?" Sure, there's an instructional video online for just about anything--from A-Z (surviving an atomic apocalypse to surving a zombie apocalypse)! It's OK, I feel you. I successfully changed my own headlights last year in the Auto Zone parking lot with just my phone and a YouTube video.

#hero

But there's just something about having a handy how-to guide in your hot little hands to get you motivated to take on a project, or inspire you to create and do cool things with your wits and bare hands.You know what won't happen while you spend hours sitting on the couch, scrolling through smoothie recipes on Pinterest? You won't bump into a neighbor doing the same thing. A neighbor, IRL, you can look at and talk to about your mutual affection for smoothie making! It's a wonderful feeling. So, crawl out of your bunker and browse the many DIY offerings on hand at your neighborly neighborhood library.

/PSA

Week-by-Week Vegetable Gardener's Notebook

I have never gardened before this year, and now I want to plant all of the things. The potential for failure is high!  But this book is giving me life.
The organization of the book is fantastic, and while I don't love spiral bindings on the shelf, it makes it easy to lay the book flat near your pots and dirt for hands-free planning. Frankly, the cover has so much information on it, you hardly even need to open it.

Salad Days: Recipes for delicious organic salads and dressings for every season

Now that I have my garden all planned out, I need to have a plan for all those little leafy greens I'll be harvesting. This book is basically all about tasty dressings because "salad recipe" is usually "take pile of leafy things, add dressing". But where does dressing come from if not a bottle? Fear not, this book solves that age-old mystery. These are some crazy, year-round, all season salads too. I mean, "Sauteed Fiddlehead Fern and mâche salad"? STOP. Eating ferns? I thought ferns were just for looking!

Finally, an end to the tyranny of dressing in bottles!

Custom-Make Your Own Shoes and Handbags

This book is BANANAS, you guys. It shows you how to use an old pair of shoes to create a plaster last (shoemaker term for foot shaped plaster thing), and shows how cast a last from your foot. Those shoes will be custom fitted to your exact foot. Imagine! I almost can't. Then as if that isn't enough information, this book shows you how to make handbags. Of course you could do what the author does and make shoes and a bag to match every dress, or not, because that's a little insane.

MIND-BLOWINGLY BANANAS

Brew better beer : learn (and break) the rules for making IPAs, sours, pilsners, stouts, and more 

If you want to brew your own beer, but you want to break all the rules in doing so, this is your guide. Beer brewing is serious business. When those things explode you'll know what I'm talking about. Your viral GIF recipes aren't going to tell you what to do if your pilsner's popping in the wrong way.

You can't spell PAIN without I.P.A

And finally, Roughing it Easy


With quite possibly the greatest title ever it isn't hard to imagine why this classic remains on the shelf. It's chock-full of the most useful tips (with illustrations!) one could ever need should they find themselves in the unfortunate situation of having to scramble eggs on a rock. You should really, really check this book out.

Everybody loves a flowchart!

Sometimes you just don't know what you want to read so we came up with a flowchart to help.

Or do you prefer GIF-advisory?

I want a book that makes me...

Check out Moranifesto by Caitlin Moran to feel like laughing with your bestie, until something embarrassing happens.

I want a book that makes me...

Check out Little Heaven by Nick Cutter (the new king of horror, IMHO). Also, The Natural Way of Things by Charlotte Wood to feel all the mortal terror.

I want a book that makes me...

Check out Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin, Suite for Barbara Loden by Nathalie Leger, and Normal by Warren Ellis to think all the thinks.

Art in the Richmond Planet

This image appeared at the top of the Richmond Planet, the country’s longest-running weekly black newspaper, beginning in 1895. Its artist, John Mitchell, Jr., was the paper’s editor and first editorial cartoonist, as well as being, over the course of a life that began in slavery in 1863, a teacher, an alderman, an activist, and a bank president. 

Writing about Mitchell’s reputation in the years after his death in 1929, his biographer, Ann Field Alexander, noted, “His story was too complex to lend itself well to presentations during Negro History Week, and even his most solid achievements—his editing of the Planet, his crusade against lynching, his work on the city council, his fight for black officers during the Spanish-American War, his leadership of the streetcar boycott—did not fit in well with a celebratory view of Virginia’s past.”

Now 87 years after his death and 21 years after the newspaper he devoted his life to ceased publication in Black History Month, 1996, Mitchell’s achievements occupy a much firmer place in the celebration of Virginia’s past, thanks in part to Alexander’s biography, Race Man: the Rise and Fall of the “Fighting Editor” John Mitchell Jr., and efforts to digitize and preserve copies of the Richmond Planet at the Library of Virginia and the Library of Congress. 

Issues from 1889 to 1922 are online, and what can’t be seen online may be available in microfilm at the Main branch downtown. Reading the Planet in any format is an excellent way to learn about black businesses in Richmond, the history of the black community and the police, even the art of editorial cartooning.

A few scrolls through the microfilm or the website, for instance, reveal Mitchell’s clenched-fist symbol used in advertisements as early as four years before it appeared on the cover. The flexed arm amid bolts of lightning retakes strength and power from the oppressors of black Americans, the same way the "We Can Do It!" poster came to retake strength and power from the oppressors of women. When Mitchell moved the Planet out of the Swan Tavern on East Broad in 1897, his new offices bore a large sign presenting the Planet’s arm and fist to Jackson Ward. 

 

Beneath the paper’s logo, the Planet regularly included Mitchell’s simple but effective cartoons, the first known cartoons published in a black, Southern paper. In 1918, however, Mitchell stepped down as editorial cartoonist and hired George H. Ben Johnson in his place. Despite Johnson’s talent and the fierceness of his approach, he remains a mysterious figure in Richmond history and the history of black art. In their exhibit on the Richmond Planet the Library of Virginia noted that “almost nothing is known about Johnson aside from his name and the legacy of his cartoons.” 

Born in Richmond in 1888, Mitchell studied at Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, the Landon School of Illustration and Cartooning, and Columbia University. In 1917 Mitchell published a small book of Johnson’s work, Souvenir Cartoons. The typically one-panel cartoons featured realistically rendered black men and women against starkly blank backgrounds, as well as African imagery—the pyramids and the Sphinx—used to remind the Planet’s readers that black history is ancient. In a cartoon titled "American Ideals," the Statue of Liberty holds a sign reading, "Liberty, protection, opportunity, happiness for all white men. Humiliation, segregation, lynching, etc. for all black men. All are welcome."

 

After working at the Planet Johnson continued to draw and paint. In 1926 he wrote a letter to W.E.B. Du Bois while in New York asking if Du Bois would like to view his cartoons for possible publication in Du Bois’s magazine The Crisis. The next year he exhibited at the Richmond Public Library, and in 1945, he won a prize from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. His painting Idyll of Virginia Mountains remains in the VMFA’s collection.

For now, Johnson's name appears in only a few encyclopedias and collections. As Mitchell makes his way further into our view of Virginia’s past, hopefully Johnson will follow and more of his life and work will be known and shared. 

Gettin' nostalgic for...

The 2008 financial crisis?
The Futures by Anna Pitoniak is the ticket back to the financial crisis of '08 that nobody asked for. If you get misty for the days of fallen hedge fund heroes this should satisfy your inexplicable craving for that dismal period of recent memory. Meet Julia and Evan (*eyeroll*), young Yale graduates on the edge of the future. Scrappy small town Canadian Evan gets the privileged and perfect girl of his dreams / Julia is living a privileged and perfect life with her hedge fund manager boyfriend but she just can't figure herself out and *tiny violins* for real. It's a he said, she said-style narrative so of course there's gonna be cheating, which always makes for a good read, and I for one can't resist a good ol' marriage in crisis story. Read it if you're in the mood for a crumbling relationship with a side of crumbling economy!

BTW, Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue was the NYC-set book to read about this particular period, also with a marriage at the center, should you feel the sudden need to reminisce about that time when everybody lost their pensions.

Geeking out in the 80s?
Let's hear it for the nerds, am I right? The Impossible Fortress features kids that remind one of the beloved pack of misfits from Stranger Things. What's better than coming of age stories featuring great friendships? And set in the 80s too? The 80s had the best friends.
This book has it all: a geeky trio of misfit guy pals; an impossible quest for a much coveted issue of Playboy; lots of nerding out over programming video games on a Commodore 64; young love. It's funny, and clever, and lovable, and I want to read it again.

Speaking of great 80s kids and formative friendships, half of Swing Time by Zadie Smith is spot on! The other half a little less so--[spoiler alert] when the narrator grows up and goes to work for someone who seems an awful lot like Madonna, but after several eye-rolling chapters of asking yourself "and why do I care?" you'll be nostalgic for the beginning of the book when it was a pitch perfect tale of awesome 80s girlhood and best friends, and when you finish it you'll be nostalgic for On Beauty.

Read Harder 2017: One book to rule them all?

How's your challenge going? Struggling to find the time to read? (ME TOO.) So, looking to check off a few list items with just one book? We've got you covered!

Check out Lucky Boy by Shanthi Sekaran for four challenges in one book!
Those challenges are:
#2: Read a debut novel. (Sekaran's first!)
#4: Read a book set in Central or South America, written by a Central or South American author. (This is a bit of a stretch but a good portion of the narrative takes place in Oaxaca.)
#5: Read a book by an immigrant or with a central immigration narrative.
#24: Read a book wherein all point-of-view characters are people of color.

While admittedly it gets a teensy bit too sentimental for my liking (heart of stone over here), I think readers will totally fall in love with Sekaran's wonderfully real, flawed, and relatable characters, and the compelling narrative that springs from their (sometimes dubious) life choices.

Solimar, barely 18 and pregnant, has journeyed from rural Oaxaca to California to work for her aunt as a housekeeper. Her situation is tenuous and after a snowballing series of small disasters, seriously in peril. Meanwhile Kavya, a chef in Berkeley, is in her 30s and unable to get pregnant but desperately wants a child. Can you kind of guess where this is going? Their lives and families intersect after a surprising turn of events.

New's Year resolutions are tough. Here's what I'm reading right now:

The Gustav Sonata by Rose Tremain
Selection Day by Aravind Adiga
Guapa by Saleem Haddad
...Because I have to read multiple books at once.

What are YOU reading?

Check out our "best sellers" from 2016!

Every year we like to share our "best sellers" list from the year before-- the top ten most checked out books in the city of Richmond from 2016. Last year's numbers were interesting for a variety of reasons, especially for the fact that two locations were closed for half the year.

If we look at check-outs at all the branches together, our top ten looks like this:

1. The girl on the train : a novel / Paula Hawkins
2. All the light we cannot see / Anthony Doerr
3. The nightingale / Kristin Hannah
4. No more Mr. Nice Guy : a family business novel / Carl Weber
5. The nest / Cynthia D'Aprix
6. The life-changing magic of tidying up / Marie Kondo
7. Carl Weber's Kingpins. Cleveland / Brandi Johnson
8. The last mile / David Baldacci
9. Go set a watchman / Harper Lee
10. Carl Weber's Kingpins. Philadelphia / Brittani Williams

However, each of our branches serves a community with their own distinct reading preferences. Click a pin on the map below to see how your neighborhood read last year:

Richmond is for readers!

In which we react to every book President Obama has recommended while in office

...with reaction GIFs, duh!

JUST KIDDING. That is a LOT of great books (86! 5 more GIFs than the law allows).
However you vote, you have to admit that the man is incredibly well read. We'll be reacting to some of the books he recommends, linking to past reviews of some as well. Enjoy this reading list to end all reading lists as we bid farewell to our Bookworm-In-Chief:

*List adapted from a post by Entertainment Weekly. (yeah, we read that too.)

The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer
One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
The Golden Notebook, Doris Lessing
The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston
Brown Girl Dreaming, Jacqueline Woodson
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
Nora Webster, Colm Toibin

The Laughing Monsters, Denis Johnson
Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth and Faith in the New China, Evan Osnos
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, Dr. Atul Gawande
Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms, Katherine Rundell
The Narrow Road to the Deep North, Richard Flanagan
Redwall series, Brian Jacques
Junie B. Jones series, Barbara Park
Nuts To You, Lynn Rae Perkins
Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life, William Finnegan
H Is for Hawk, Helen Macdonald
The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins
Seveneves, Neal Stephenson
The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead
All That Is, James Salter

The Sixth Extinction, Elizabeth Kolbert
The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri
Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates
Washington: A Life, Ron Chernow
All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr
Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak
Moby Dick, Herman Melville
Self-Reliance, Ralph Waldo Emerson
Song Of Solomon, Toni Morrison
Parting The Waters, Taylor Branch

Gilead, Marylinne Robinson
Best and the Brightest, David Halberstam
The Federalist, Alexander Hamilton
Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. Du Bois
The Power and the Glory, Graham Greene
The Quiet American, Graham Greene

YES! THE CANCER WARD IS AMAZING!

Cancer Ward, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Gandhi’s autobiography
Working, Studs Terkel
Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith
Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith
All the King’s Men, Robert Penn Warren
Cutting for Stone, Abraham Verghese
To the End of the Land, David Grossman
Purity, Jonathan Franzen
A Bend in the River, V. S. Naipaul
Fates and Furies, Lauren Groff
Lush Life, Richard Price
Netherland, Joseph O’Neill
Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights, Salman Rushdie
Redeployment, Phil Klay
Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
Plainsong, Kent Haruf
The Way Home, George Pelecanos

What Is the What, Dave Eggers
Philosophy & Literature, Peter S Thompson
Collected Poems, Derek Walcott
In Dubious Battle, John Steinbeck
Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn
The Three-Body Problem, Liu Cixin
Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling

The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, Edmund Morris
John Adams, David McCullough
Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer, Fred Kaplan
Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope, Jonathan Alte
FDR, Jean Edward Smith

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, Doris Kearns Goodwin
The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln
 Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution and How It Can Renew America, Thomas L Friedman
Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001, Steve Coll

Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age, Larry Bartels
The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, Robert A. Caro
Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Evan Osnos
Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman
Moral Man And Immoral Society, Reinhold Niebuhr
A Kind And Just Parent, William Ayers

The Post-American World, Fareed Zakaria
Lessons in Disaster, Gordon Goldstein
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Yuval Noah Harari
The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin
Andy Grove: The Life and Times of an American, Richard S Tedlow
Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity, Katherine Boo

Phew! That's a tough act to follow, sir. Enjoy your time off to read!