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Best Reads of 2007
It's the end of the year, almost. Now is the time for reflection, a difficult task given the frenzied nature of the month of December. So we’ve culled a best books list covering our favorites to help readers connect to great reads more quickly, especially during this hectic holiday season. So what captured the hearts and minds of our reviewers this year? From fiction and biography, to young adult and graphic novels, here are the highlights from 2007.
Laughing Through the Elections
Mid-term elections got you down? Check out some of these titles and get some laughter therapy. From politicians making us laugh, to laughing at politicians to laughing at the absurdities of modern culture, its all here.
American Classics
No matter how many times you read them, there is always something new to discover in these timeless American Classics.
Featured Review:
 Bad Girl by Mario Vargas Llosa
Just as the mambo works its magic in the souls of Lima’s young during the summer of 1950, so the Chilean girl, Lucy, wraps hersself around Ricardo’s heart. When the Chilean disguise falls apart, Lucy disappears. This is the beginning of a rather one-sided love affair that spans the last half of the 20th century, and the globe from Lima, to Paris, to London, to Tokyo, to Madrid. Using different names and different men, the bad girl constantly chases after the money and power she so craves. Ricardo, though devastated every time, seems content with the scraps she tosses his way. The novel explores the costs of obsession Ricardo’s for the bad girl and hers for money and power.
- Reviewed by Mark B., Main Library Regional
 Appalachian Storyteller, Anndrena Belcher's review of Fair and Tender Ladiesby Lee Smith:
Reading keeps me alive! It is like food for my imagination. One of my absolute favorite books is Fair and Tender Ladies, by Lee Smith. Ivy Rowe reminds me so much of parts of myself, and of my mother's generation of people in the coal camps of eastern Kentucky. Lee Smith writes the story from Ivy's point of view, starting when Ivy is 8 years old. She uses the letter form to tell Ivy's life story. We see Ivy's language change, and her tone change, as she matures. Ivy's language and dialect are like mine. Appalachian English is proudly my first language, and any mainstream, standardized, textbook English I use, is my second language. So, Ivey Rowe, and her people, her story, speak a lot for me and my culture.
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 Paul Watkins was educated at the Dragon School, Oxford (on which the famous Hogwarts of Harry Potter books was based), as well as at Eton College and Yale University. He studied under Tobias Wolff at the Syracuse University Writing Program and published his first novel when he was 23. He has since published 12 books, including Night Over Day Over Night, which was nominated for the Booker Prize, Calm at Sunset, which won Britain’s Astor-Foundation Encore Prize and was made into a TV mini-series by Hallmark Hall of Fame. He won The Royal Society of Literature Prize for his novel Archangel, which is now being produced for film by HBO. To research his novels, Watkins has worked on deep sea fishing boats, hiked on the tundra of Norway and traveled across the Moroccan Sahara desert. Watkins has taught fiction and history at the Peddie School for over 15 years. For 8 of those years, he also lectured at Lawrenceville Academy. He has held the Bergeron lecturing fellowship at The American School in London, as well as the Keables fellowship at the Iolani School in Honolulu. In addition, he has lectured at University College in Ohio, the John Adams Institute in Amsterdam, the Woodrow Wilson Institute in Washington DC, and the Explorers Club in New York City.
Read our Paul Watkins Interview
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Reader’s Club honors Christine this month. She is co-captain of the Reader’s Club Team and manages the review database. Christine is a dedicated reviewer of novels for both adults and teens. Here is what she has to say about books, reading and reviewing:
I realize that it’s a cliché, but reading really has been an important part of my life since I was a kid. We always had books in my house, and what we didn’t have we could get at the library. My parents have always enjoyed reading, and they were certainly a big influence on me. I’m not sure that I would love reading as much as I do if I had not seen my parents with a book in hand every day.
I primarily read fiction because I enjoy stepping into someone else’s life, sharing a character’s experience, becoming part of their world. My friends would say that I read “fluff,” and they would be right. After years of being in school and reading various scholarly works, I’m looking for books that help me escape. Some of my favorite books are classics (Wuthering Heights is one that I read over and over and still manage to learn something new), but Nora Roberts, for example, is just as fun for me. Leo Lionni’s Frederick is a favorite picture book of mine, and I’ve found some great books written for teens, too. As long as it has an engaging story, then it’s the right book for me.
The Reader’s Club web site has given me an opportunity to share books that I’ve enjoyed with more people than I could ever possibly encounter at the library. Over time I’ve learned that if a book review is not coming easily to me, it may not be the right book for me to write about at that time. The easiest reviews to write are the ones for stories in which I fully became involved. I may not be writing for a professional journal, but I still find great satisfaction in getting my thoughts about a book down on paper. Reader’s Club has turned me on to books that I might not have picked up otherwise, and hopefully my reviews will do the same for someone else.
Read Book Reviews by our Featured Reviewer
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