Staff Recommendations – February 2024

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February 2024 Recommendations

The Third to Die
by Allison Brennan (Brennan)

In January 2024, the libraries’ Just Desserts mystery book group reading assignment was “any of the thriller/suspense novels by American author Allison Brennan. Since most of Brennan’s works fall into series, and I had jumping in the middle of a series, I managed to get my hands on a copy of The Third to Die, which is the first entry in Brennan’s “Quinn & Costa” series, released in 2020 (there have been four more in that series since then).

Kara Quinn is an L.A.P.D. detective specializing in deep undercover work. She’s got a checkered past, and is currently on an enforced leave/vacation to her old hometown in Washington state, to let a complicated situation in L.A. cool down. While jogging early one morning, she ends up discovering a murder victim at the side of a local lake. It turns out that this victim is the latest in a serial killer’s pattern of killing on March 3rd, 6th and 9th, every third year. This brings FBI Special Agent in Charge Matt Costa and his newly former (in fact, still-being-formed) rapid-response team to Liberty Lake, in hopes of preventing the killer from striking again.

The Third to Die is a solid, well-plotted thriller, dealing with police procedures, inter-agency squabbling, and psychological profiling. Chapters alternate being told from the points of view of Costa, Quinn and the killer themself. Pacing is brisk, and characterizations are well-done. Even if I thought there was a lot of coincidental stuff happening in the plot, I was still carried along by what was happening, and feel I can give this a fairly strong recommendation!.

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try the rest of Allison Brennan‘s body of work, especially the other four entries in the Quinn & Costa series.)

( official Allison Brennan web site )

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

Have I Told You That Already? Stories I Don’t Want to Forget to Remember
by Lauren Graham (Biography Graham)

This is a quick, feel-good read! Lauren’s little writing “quirks” make for funny, enjoyable essays geared toward those that are fans of Graham’s work (think Gilmore Girls and Parenthood). This book includes personal anecdotes from ranging from stories about attending various “health camps”, being an up-and-coming actor living in LA, and even stories about orange marmalade (read to find out!) and her dog.

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try more non-fiction by Lauren Graham, including Talking as Fast As I Can, In Conclusion, Don’t Worry About It, or Someday, Someday Maybe; or the TV series Gilmore Girls and Parenthood.)

( publisher’s official Lauren Graham web page ) | ( Wikipedia page for actress/author Lauren Graham )

Recommended by Amanda S.
Gere and South Branch Libraries

Dream On
by Angie Hockman (Hockman)

Using an intriguing premise, this romance is well written and layered. Waking up from a coma as the result of a car accident, law graduate Cassidy Walker is perplexed when no one in her family, nor her best friend, seems to know anything about her handsome, successful boyfriend and why he hasn’t made an appearance at her bedside. Then things become really interesting. And complicated. Hockman does a good job of constructing characters, places, and feelings as Cass navigates her life and relationships post-traumatic head injury.

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try The Bodyguard by Katherine Center)

( official Angie Hockman web site )

Recommended by Becky W.C.
Walt Branch Library

The Oxygen Farmer
by Colin Holmes (Holmes)

This is a new science fiction title by author Colin Holmes, author of the book Thunder Road, his debut novel. I was intrigued by the cover of this book when it arrived at the library, so I decided to give it a chance. The story is set in the future and mainly takes place on the moon where our main character works and lives. Farmer Millenium (Mil) Harrison produces oxygen which is used by anyone living on the moon or just visiting. Most of his life’s work has been to produce and store oxygen to prepare for Earth’s first mission to Mars. Early on in the story, Mil accidentally falls into an area that has restricted access and discovers a hidden facility that had been buried on the moon before Mil ever came there over 35 years ago. When Mil starts asking questions, attempts are made on his life as well as the lives of anyone he has shared this information with. This government conspiracy goes back to the days of the Reagan administration in the United States and it is possible that the Russians are involved too. So who can he trust? Certainly not the head of the Space Agency, who just happens to be his estranged daughter. This is an excellent book which I expect someone to make into a movie. Think of this book as a cross between The X-Files and The Martian with a little bit of Star Wars thrown in for good measure. I highly recommend this book.

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try The Martian by Andy Weir, the film adapation The Martian starring Matt Damon or the TV series The X-Files by Chris Carter.)

( official Colin Holmes web site )

Recommended by Kim J.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

The 12 Kittens of Christmas
by Amy Lane (Hoopla eBook only)

Meet Killian Thornton. Works as a bartender at night and enjoys his job, his friends, and his downtown community. Then a friend’s younger brother, Lewis Bernard, is in from out of town and needs a couch to sleep on as he gets back on his feet and considerate Killian offers his.

But everywhere Lewis goes, he stumbles across abandoned kittens who need homes. And all the shelters are full (the why of this is explained later in the book). Killian can’t refuse the ever-growing population of sweet kitten faces since the only other option is euthanasia. Soon his apartment looks like a pet shop.

Along the way he and Lewis are building a relationship.

We also have a short crossover with characters from Lane’s “Fish” series. You will be able to follow the crossover, but it will mean so much more if you are familiar with that series (if not, then begin with book 1, “Fish Out of Water,” Hoopla ebook).

Likeable characters with good friends, adorable pets needing homes before Christmas, and an HEA (Happily Ever After). Oh, yes – all the kittens find homes. A fun afternoon’s read.

( the official Amy Lane web site – https://greenhills.com – is blocked by the libraries’ security software )

See Charlotte M.’s review of Shortbread and Shadows by Amy Lane in the October 2021 Staff Recommendations here on BookGuide!
See Charlotte M.’s review of An Amy Lane Christmas Bundle in the December 2021 Staff Recommendations here on BookGuide!
See Charlotte M.’s review of The Mastermind by Amy Lane in the September 2023 Staff Recommendations here on BookGuide!

Recommended by Charlotte M.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

The Needle and the Lens: Pop Goes to the Movies: From Rock and Roll to Synthwave
by Nate Patrin (Music 781.542 Pat)

I think it’s safe to say that music and movies are like peanut butter and jelly — most folks like them both on their own, but they’re even better together! The history of film has always been linked to music, too: when movies were still silent movies, most theaters had an organist or pianist who played along with the films, adding another layer of dramatic or narrative interest to the otherwise quiet on-screen action. Once it was possible to reproduce sound with film, music remained an important part of film production, often simmering in the background to set the desired mood, or bursting into the foreground at dramatic peaks for emphasis.

There is a long tradition of scoring music for film, writing custom music that compliments the unique visuals, dialogue, and settings for each movie. But directors also turn to familiar music frequently, too. There are a variety of reasons for this: music familiar to the audience can be a shortcut to a particular kind of mood. Sometimes it helps to establish a scene as diegetic music, or music that’s being experienced by the actors on-film. Sometimes it’s both! Music writer Nate Patrin has a fascinating new book called The Needle and the Lens: Pop Goes to the Movies: From Rock and Roll to Synthwave which discusses some well-known uses of pop music in film, and also makes the argument that having such music in film has helped to legitimize the music itself as art to be appreciated on a serious level.

The ”needle” Patrin refers to in the title is a record player needle, of course, and in the film industry, the diegetic music I mentioned earlier is often referred to as a “needle drop,” when a character in the film would perhaps put on a record for their own listening, and we hear it with them, or they turn on the radio, or they go to a concert, etc. For the most part, these kinds of contexts are where pop music first started to appear in films, while conventionally scored soundtracks continued to underscore other parts of films. In his introduction, he points out how these pop music moments in film can add so much meaning to a scene, including establishment of a time period, revealing more about a character’s personality, or even adding another emotional cue for the audience, as so many of us have our own unique connections with songs. The idea became so important to the film industry that the role of “music supervisor” was created to help select music, organize it, and secure rights to use it.

The book focuses on 16 songs used in 16 films, selected as being particularly influential or memorable, or furthering the art of filmmaking. They’re arranged by the release date of each film, ranging from “Scorpio Rising” in 1964 to “Drive” in 2011. Considering that being influential is one of the criteria for inclusion, most of the films are older, from the 60s to the 90s, with one representative from the Oughts and the aforementioned “Drive” from the Teens. Jumping right into the 60s with “Scorpio Rising,” we find a film that was regarded as borderline obscene at the time of its release in the height of the Hays Code, but already somewhat quaint by the standards of the 1970s. As an early film in the “biker” genre, it arrived after the era of James Dean, but before the era of classic rock biker anthems, and the music choices reflect that fascinating interstitial moment when defining biker culture with rebellion was somewhat more open to interpretation. Patrin focuses on director Kenneth Anger’s choice of the song “He’s a Rebel” as performed by The Crystals as representative of this vaguely liminal space, in which his unique blend of a documentary approach with edits that represent his own interpretation of the culture are well represented in the music. It was also one of the earliest cinematic examples of contemporary pop music being placed in a film, which was influential for aspiring filmmakers like Martin Scorsese.

Next, Patrin discusses the use of music by Simon & Garfunkel in the 1967 film “The Graduate,” and in particular “The Sounds of Silence,” which frames several important scenes. This music would have been very familiar to audiences at the time this film premiered, and it was unusual to have such familiar music used extensively in a film both as diegetic music and underscore. While the plan had been to have Simon & Garfunkel write original songs for the film, they were delayed in delivering them, and in the meantime, the director and producer fell in love with existing album cuts they had laid into the film as temporary tracks while editing the final cut. While it was an unorthodox move at the time to leave them in, it turned out to be a huge success: the film was extremely well-received, as was its soundtrack.

We’ll skip ahead a little to the film “American Graffiti” in 1973, which got to demonstrate another great use of pop music in film: nostalgia. Here we have a period piece, set roughly 10 years before the debut of the film, and director George Lucas opted to emphasize the time period in part through musical choices. As so much of the action revolves around driving, the music of the film is entirely diegetic, presented through the car radios of its characters, and the music they’re cruising to is mostly from the 50s. Ostensibly, Patrin focuses on the original 1958 Bobby Freeman version of “Do You Want to Dance?” here as the main song, but the whole soundtrack—41 songs that were already becoming vintage at the time of the film—work together to set the mood and the time. It turned out that lots of people were already nostalgic for the innocence and fun represented by the “jukebox” selected for the film, as the soundtrack went triple platinum, spent 41 weeks on the Billboard charts, and essentially launched the era of classic rock compilation albums.

Establishing a time period while evoking some nostalgia turned out to work beautifully in the war film genre, too. In 1979, “Apocalypse Now” opened with The Doors’ “The End,” powerfully evoking the Vietnam War era with a focus on the personal rather than the universal, something that would have been difficult to achieve with a more heavy-handed approach such as any of the many war protest songs of the time. It turns out that the whole opening scene of the film, which combines the Doors song with footage of a helicopter dropping napalm on a tree grove and then dissolves to the character Captain Willard suffering alone in a small room, was conceived of toward the end of production. While finding this footage and combining it with this music was essentially accidental, it became an important element of the film, changing its structure and setting its tone. Much like “American Graffiti” did for 50s nostalgia, “Apocalypse Now” marked the beginning of a Doors revival that carried on for several years.

These moments of collective reconsideration of familiar music are the basis for Patrin’s underlying thesis in the book, a notion that these pop music hits became more seriously regarded after their second lives through film. These songs contributed transformative moments on screen, and they were themselves transformed in the process. In some specific cases laid out in the book, I agree with this assessment. Take the use of Roy Orbison’s “In Dreams” for David Lynch’s “Blue Velvet” film, for example: the impact of the film on the song, the song on the film, and the subsequent Orbison reassessment that followed, did feel like an elevation of Orbison’s song and work more generally. And the appearance of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” in “Wayne’s World” definitely led to critical reassessment and a new generation of fans for that band. But in other examples, I didn’t find his case to be quite as strong, such as the Delfonics being featured in Quentin Tarantino’s “Jackie Brown,” or the several entries that featured songs contemporaneous with the films they were featured in. Even the “American Graffiti” soundtrack felt more like pure nostalgia than a subtle or nuanced reassessment. These relationships between song and screen are fascinating no matter how transcendent they may or may not be, though.

If you haven’t had enough by the time you reach the end of the 16 main chapters and their songs/films, there is an “outro” chapter that adds an additional 24 examples to the mix. These are covered with just a paragraph on each, but the additions definitely add to the richness of the book. Who can forget the song “Tequila” as featured in “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure,” for example, or the surprising juxtaposition of Huey Lewis and the News’ “Hip to be Square” in “American Psycho?” There are some great songs and great movies to think about here.

This book isn’t just for music fans, by the way. Describing these relationships between films and songs requires a lot of description of the films, and movie buffs will find lots to like here. In most cases, you’ll find more detailed analysis of the films than the songs! This makes sense, though, as the films in this context are the macro-structure art form at the heart of the discussion, and the songs are just playing a role within them. It’s interesting to note that the supermajority of the songs featured are considerably older than the films they’re featured in, by at least a decade. I think this speaks to the notion that we have complicated relationships with pop music in our culture: we hear it, internalize it as part of our memories, associate with a particular time and place, and then all of those associations come rushing outward when we hear it placed into a new context like a movie. Music is a powerful way to express and share emotions, and also a robust way to store those feelings in our memories for detailed recollection later.

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try The Music of Counterculture Cinema by Matthew J. Bartkowiak and Yuya Kiuchi or Hollywood Shack Job: Rock Music in Film and On Your Screen by Harvey Kubernik.)

( publisher’s page for The Needle and the Lens )

Recommended by Scott S.
Polley Music Library

A Grandmother Begins the Story
by Michelle Porter (Porter)

Award winning Metis author Michelle Porter brings to life a brilliant ensemble of storytellers, which includes five generations of women, some buffalo, the earth itself, and a couple of yappy dogs. It starts in the middle, as all great stories do; telling of the past and future, rambling through the spirit world, the dance hall, and the grasslands. I found the way the stories were told, separately, but interlaced, distinct points of view describing shared histories, captivating. In the mixed up world of living, it makes sense to me. Mostly a telling of relationships between sisters and mothers and daughters, but you can’t have those without a few menfolk thrown in. Definitely one I I’d like to read again. (If only to decide if that one chapter was really necessary.)

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try A Council of Dolls by Mona Susan Power, Two Old Women by Velma Wallis, The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson, or Probably Ruby by Lisa Bird-Wilson.)

( Wikipedia page for Michelle Porter )

Recommended by Carrie K.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

The Mystery Guest
by Nita Prose (Prose)

This is a feel-good book in which Molly, a maid at a high-end hotel, sees the world differently than most people around her. It’s a mystery in which Molly is suspected of killing a guest. The reader is treated to both the suspense of discovering “whodunnit” and the refreshing opportunity to see things from a different perspective.

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try The Maid by Nita Prose or The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon.)

( official Nita Prose web site )

See Scott C.’s review of The Maid by Nita Prose in the October 2022 Staff Recommendations here on BookGuide!

Recommended by Jodi R.
Anderson and Bethany Branch Libraries

The Creepy Crayon
by Aaron Reynolds and Peter Brown (jP Reynolds)

The fact that the “Creepy Crayon” is purple was the first draw, as that’s probably my favorite color. And the fact the illustrations are large and uncomplicated, making it a very suitable book for storytime presentation was the second appeal. Having read the story, which combines humor, suspense, frustration, freak-outs and resolution, that really sealed the deal as to recommending it. Let’s just say that if you ever “find” a perfectly purple, perfectly pointy, perfectly perfect crayon — beware!!

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Purple Coyote by Cornette or Butterfly, Butterfly by Petr Horacek.)

( official Peter Brown web site ) | ( official Aaron Reynolds web site )

Recommended by Becky W.C
Walt Branch Library

Schoenberg: Why He Matters
by Harvey Sachs (Music 780.92 Sch)

There have been a series of books about pop artists lately that include something about them “mattering” in the title. We have a couple of them: Why Sinead O’Connor Matters, Why Patti Smith Matters, and Why Bushwick Bill Matters come to mind. But I never expected to see one about one of the most well-known composers of the 20th Century. That’s why I was a little amused to see the title of Harvey Sachs’ latest book, Schoenberg: Why He Matters. It addresses some serious questions about the Schoenberg legacy, though, and I think it’s an important book, which you can borrow from the Polley Music Library.

Sachs lays out the meaning of his title, and the necessity for the book, in his prologue. Although Schoenberg is remembered for being a very influential composer, his music is rarely played today. The 12-tone system of music that he is most known for was interesting and influential in its time, but today it is almost never used, and the atonality it produces is largely out of style again in a general sense, much less by way of Schoenberg’s formal considerations. Sachs also discusses his choice to proceed with this book in as non-technical a manner as possible. This isn’t a book that will require readers to understand music theory and follow formal analysis of 12-tone pieces, perhaps a first for writing about the composer. I found this refreshing: this is a body of work that has mostly been set aside for its reputation as being technical in nature and wholly dissonant in its approach, but I must admit that I have long been an enthusiast of Schoenberg’s music, and what I find to be most notable in his best works is a tremendous feeling for melody. His posthumous reputation stands somewhat at odds with the sound of his actual music, in my opinion. Perhaps this is the only kind of approach to a book about the composer and his music that can realistically help to correct that record.

It’s an unusual book. For the most part, Sachs has written a traditional biography here, following Schoenberg’s life chronologically. However, when he traverses into the more “controversial” periods of Schoenberg’s music, all surrounding his gradual shift toward atonality and the 12-tone technique, he pauses for moments of layperson musical analysis and also focuses on the social and interpersonal implications of the pieces, their performances, and their early reception by audiences. The musical analysis tends to be easy to follow, and often focuses on elements of performance practice around this music that have frequently conspired to obscure Schoenberg’s musical intentions.

What are these intentions? Reading between the lines here, I really see them as having a very advanced and moving knack for melody, and for writing the kinds of textures beneath melodies that can really highlight their sometimes unusual, fragile natures. As Sachs proceeds through Schoenberg’s life and major works, I can’t help but to put together a bit of a secondary narrative around the music, some of which is explicit in the text, but some of which is more implicit once one starts to think about the musical evolution that happened over Schoenberg’s lifetime. His early works were still very much rooted in German Romanticism, which despite its increased reliance on chromaticism, was still a solidly tonal form of writing. The early works were often larger in scale, too, such as the tone poem “Pelleas and Melisande.” The transitional pieces like his celebrated “Pierrot Lunaire” are a kind of free atonality, and generally written for small ensembles. The lightness of orchestration often helps to clarify his emphasis on melody to my way of listening — check out his string quartets for a great example of this in action that you can compare across his long career, too. We finally arrive at the 12-tone period, from 1921 onward, where again the most representative pieces tend to be for smaller chamber ensembles or for the piano, and though there is a somewhat more strict kind of atonality — Schoenberg really strives to obscure any kind of tonal gravity taking form — the pieces are still somewhat free, too. 12-tone or “serial” composers, at least among this first generation, weren’t so strict as some of their successors like Babbit or Stockhausen.

Yes, Schoenberg and some of his contemporaries like Berg and Webern were looking for new kinds of sounds not so grounded in tonality, but this isn’t noise music. Harmonic function may be blurred beyond recognition, but in its wake, the gravitas of melody seems to take on an even deeper role. One problematic area, though, is that musicians simply aren’t trained to play atonally — the exercises and other music played over time all reinforce tonal performance habits. This means that in performance, musicians often find these pieces more difficult than other repertoire, and as a result many performances take place at slower tempos than Schoenberg intended. Sachs makes reference to this phenomenon several times throughout the book, and each time there is a detrimental effect on the feeling of the piece, the grace of the melodies. For example, in reference to Schoenberg’s Minuet from the ”Serenade,” Sachs notes that performances all take place around 20 bpm slower than specified in the music, “And this eliminated not only the ‘singing’ quality that the composer specifically requested but also the whole notion of the minuet as a dance: at too slow a tempo, the music plods, beat by beat.” Much of the misunderstanding of this music, then, may be related to performances that simply don’t match the musical intention. Where Schoenberg aimed for light, airy textures, we often hear these plodding performances.

Sachs does a great job of humanizing the composer as well. His long-term frenemy relationship with Stravinsky, for example, makes occasional appearances in the book, as well as Schoenberg’s occasionally prickly opinions about other composers as well. His complicated relationship with his Jewish background and Christian faith are explored, as well as his struggles with anti-Semitism and difficult audiences in his native Vienna. His economic difficulties later in life are discussed. He lived a deeply fascinating life, and knowing more about it will hopefully compel some readers to give his music another listen, too.

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Schoenberg and his World by Walter Frisch or Arnold Schoenberg by Bojan Bujić.)

( Wikipedia page about Arnold Schoenberg ) | ( official Harvey Sachs web site )

Recommended by Scott S.
Polley Music Library

R.I.P. Peter Schickele (1935-2024) — creator of P.D.Q. Bach

With the passing of classical composer and humorist, Johann Peter Schickele (known commonly as Peter Schickele) on January 16, 2024, I’ve found myself revisiting his creative output in my own personal book and CD collection, and the albums available through the libraries, both in CD and in the Hoopla streaming music app. Though he was an accomplished composer of both classical and modern works, Schickele will forever be remembered for his comedic creation — P.D.Q. Bach, the 21st of Johann Sebastian Bach’s 20 children. Schickele introduced his satirical brainchild, P.D.Q. Bach, to both the music and humor worlds in 1965, via the album An Evening With P.D.Q. Bach, and eventually went on to release around 20 albums featuring P.D.Q. Bach’s works (a few were retrospective collections or “greatest hits”). Music fans took the P.D.Q. Bach albums very seriously — Schickele not only brought both a sense of madcap, slapstick comedy and sharp, carefully thought-out parody, but he also injected the compositions with elements of both Classical and Baroque music. Schickele made use of less-common existing instruments (slide whistle, bagpipes, and kazoo, among them), but he also invented various musical instruments, either out of commonplace items found around the house (the “pastaphone”, made with uncooked manicotti), or by combining parts from two or more previously uncombined instruments, such as the Tromboon (a combination of trombone and bassoon). Even the titles of P.D.Q. Bach compositions show Schickele’s absurdist sense of humor: Concerto for Horn and Hardart, Pervertimento for Bicycle, Bagpipes and Balloons, The Stoned Guest, Hansel & Gretel & Ted & Alice, A Concerto for Bassoon v. Orchestra, Grand Serenade for an Awful Lot of Winds and Percussion (I remember playing this one for my final senior concert in high school — at one point, most of the orchestra is “performing” by gargling glasses of water!), Iphegenia in Brooklyn, The Seasonings, Toot Suite, Schleptet in E flat major and A Fanfare for the Common Cold. My late father introduced me to Schickele and P.D.Q. with the album “P.D.Q. Bach on the Air”, one track of which features a sports color commentating team giving play by play on a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony…still one of the funniest things I’ve ever listened to!

Schickele frequently appeared in character as “Professor Peter Schickele,” from the University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople, the world’s only expert researcher into the life of P.D.Q. Bach, and served as conductor for many orchestra concert performances of his works around the world. In the guise of the Professor, he would arrive late to the stage, his shirt partially un-tucked and his hair windblown and out of control. Often, he would run in from the back of the auditorium, or slide down a rope from the rafters above the stage, or wing in on a rope from the balcony. He would breathlessly share his oddball knowledge of the oddball composer, and his conducting of the orchestra would often go out of control (with humorous intent). Schickele occasionally appeared in costume as P.D.Q. Bach himself (it is his image on various album covers). Schickele wrote a book about P.D.Q. Bach, The Definitive Biography of P.D.Q. Bach, 1807-1742? (published in 1976), in which he artfully mixes satire and seriousness.

Schickele composed the instrumental score for the ecological science fiction film Silent Running (1972), including two original songs sung by Joan Baez. He also created the soundtrack, and narrated the tale, for a 1973 animated version of Where the Wild Things Are, from Maurice Sendak’s classic children’s picture book. In the 1990s and early 2000s, his “Schickele Mix” appeared on public radio stations across the country (as both first-run episodes through 1999 and then in repeat rotation) — in which he provided an education in classic music to listeners. Although he composed over 100 works for classical orchestras, choral groups, chamber ensembles and more — it is for his invention of a crazed classical music composer that he will most fondly be remembered by most of his fans, including me. If you’ve never experienced the mix of serious musicology and absurd satire, you’ve simply got to try one of the P.D.Q. Back titles in the list below. Personally, I highly recommend the album P.D.Q. Bach on the Air, although you’ll have to use the libraries’ InterLibrary Loan service to track that one down!

• P.D.Q. Bach/Peter Schickele albums:
• Peter Schickele Presents an Evening With P.D.Q. Bach (1965) — Hoopla
• An Hysteric Return: P.D.Q. Bach at Carnegie Hall (1966) — Hoopla
• Report From Hoople: P.D.Q. Bach on the Air (1967)
• P.D.Q. Bach: The Stoned Guest – Two Madrigals From the Triumph of Thusnelda (1970)
• The Wurst of P.D.Q. Bach (1971) (a greatest hits compilation)
• The Intimate P.D.Q. Bach (1974)
• Portrait of P.D.Q. Bach (1977)
• P.D.Q. Bach: Black Forest Bluegrass (1979)
• P.D.Q. Bach: Liebeslieder Polkas – Twelve Quite Heavenly Songs (1980)
• P.D.Q. Bach: Music You Can’t Get Out of Your Head (1982)
• A Little Nightmare Music (1984) — available on Hoopla and also as sheet music
• The Abduction of Figaro (1984) — video/DVD concert program
• P.D.Q. Bach: 1712 Overture and Other Musical Assaults (1989) — Compact Disc, Hoopla (Grammy Award Winner — Best Comedy Album)
• P.D.Q. Bach: Oedipus Tex and Other Choral Calamities (1990) — Hoopla (Grammy Award Winner — Best Comedy Album)
• P.D.Q. Bach: Classical WTWP Talkity-Talk Radio (1991) — Hoopla (Grammy Award Winner — Best Comedy Album)
• P.D.Q. Bach: Music For an Awful Lot of Winds and Percussions (1992) — Compact Disc (Grammy Award Winner — Best Comedy Album)
• P.D.Q. Bach: Two Pianos Are Better Than One (1994) — Hoopla
• P.D.Q. Bach: The Short-Tempered Clavier and Other Dysfunctional Works for Keyboard (1995) — Hoopla
• The Definitive Biography of P.D.Q. Bach, 1807-1742? by Peter Schickele — book, eAudio (Grammy Award Nominee — Best Comedy Album)
• Dreaded P.D.Q. Bach Collection, Vol. 1 (1996) (a greatest hits compilation)
• The Ill-Conceived P.D.Q. Bach Anthology (1998) — Compact Disc, Hoopla (a greatest hits compilation)
• P.D.Q. Bach in Houston: We Have a Problem! (2006) — DVD concert program
• P.D.Q. Bach and Peter Schickele: The Jekyll and Hyde Tour (2007) — Compact Disc, Hoopla
• Also (though not P.D.Q. Bach-related):
• Silent Running (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (xxxx) — Hoopla
• American Piano Duets (2000) — Compact Disc (Schickele is one of multiple musicians featured)

( official Peter Schickele/P.D.Q. Bach web site )

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

The Princess Dolls
by Ellen Schwartz (j Schwartz)

Esther and Michiko are best friends. They do everything together including pretending they’re Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret. When the local toy shop displays doll versions of the British Princesses, of course Esther and Michiko dream of having them. Set in the early 1940’s in Canada, in an atmosphere which is increasingly hostile towards the Japanese community, the two young girls try to negotiate their friendship in the face of good fortune for one, and bad fortune for the other.

The illustrations are sweet and the Canadian vantage point adds interesting details to the story. It is both a good read for those interested in the history of the early forties and the treatment of Japanese in North America, but also it feels like an authentic representation of the interactions of little girls.

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Write to Me by Cynthia Grady, Dust of Eden by Mariko Nakai, or They Called Us Enemy by George Takei.)

( official The Princess Dolls page on the official Ellen Schwartz web site )

Recommended by Carrie K.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

The Man Who Went to the Far Side of the Moon
by Bea Uusma Schyffert (j629.45 Sch)

This little gem of Apollo 11 Moon mission history is intended for middle graders but I found it informative and enjoyable, especially from the perspective of a ‘senior’ adult who witnessed the event via television as a 9-year-old. It combines photographs, quotes, drawings, comparison charts, mission data, and quick facts — all with an emphasis on the “The Story of Apollo 11 Astronaut Michael Collins” per the subtitle. Collins had the responsibility of piloting the command capsule multiple times around the moon while Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin landed on the surface and walked into epic history. Originally published in Sweden in 1999, just 30 years after the Moon Landing, this American edition came out in 2003. If you are at all interested in the space program (NASA in particular), the lives of astronauts, the history of technology, or anything associated with the “Right Stuff”, this is a wonderful presentation of it.

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try I Love You, Michael Collins by Lauren Baratz-Logsted, Apollo, The Epic Journey to the Moon by David West Reynolds or Apollo 11 directed by Douglas Miller.)

( Wikipedia page for Bea Uusma )

Recommended by Becky W.C.
Walt Branch Library

The Man Who Fell to Earth
by Walter Tevis (Tevis) and
The Man Who Fell to Earth (graphic novel)
by Dan Watters and Dev Pramanik, adapted from the 1974 film version of The Man Who Fell to Earth by Nicolas Roeg, which was adapted from the Tevis novel

If you ask most people nowadays if they’ve heard of The Man Who Fell to Earth, they’d probably mention having seen David Bowie (in his first major acting role) in the 1974 film by director Nicholas Roeg of that title. But is was actually a classic scifi novel before that film adapted the story (with some changes) for the big screen.

Thomas Jerome Newton may look human, but he’s not. He’s a visitor from a distant planet — an emissary from his own dying people, sent to Earth to manipulate both events and technological developments in order to surreptitiously build a spacecraft that can be used to return to his dying planet and ferry the rest of his people to our world. But he’s supposed to do it without attracting dangerous attention to himself. He is only partially successful.

This is a quiet, thoughtful science fiction novel that fits more into the “social science fiction” category. It is “scifi as written by a mainstream author”. Newton is a highly sympathetic character, separated from all he knows and values and surrounded by those he considers to be only rudimentally intelligent. It is a profile of loneliness and isolation and self-reflection, as Newton eventually grows to question the value of his own underlying mission.

In addition to the famed 1974 film, this story was adapted into the unsold pilot for a 1986 TV series (available on YouTube in its entirety), and a 2022 10-part Showtime series, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, was an official “sequel” to the David Bowie movie, with Bill Nighy taking over the Bowie role as Newton.

The 1963 novel is definitely a thing of its time, with certain glimpses of futuristic technology now looking absurdly quaint. But it is still well-written and I believe it justifies its place in the series of “SF Masterworks” of the 20th century. If you like it — check out Walter Tevis’ other novels, including Mockingbird, The Queen’s Gambit (turned into a 7-episode limited series on Netflix in 2020), The Hustler and The Color of Money (both adapted into classic feature films starring Paul Newman), among others.

If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try The Man Who Fell to Earth (graphic novel adaptation of the 1974 film by Nicolas Roeg starring David Bowie) by Dan Watters and Dev Pramanik. The film (and thus this graphic novel adaptation of the film) differs in several key facets from the original novel, notably in the presence of sex scenes and slightly different end fates for some of the characters. Having just read the novel, I was amused at the changes that are clearly evident in the graphic novel, but even then, it still gets across its messages about isolation, loneliness, addiction and corrupt power. And the artist does a good job of capturing the appearances of cast members David Bowie, Rip Torn, Bucky Henry, Candy Clark and Bernie Casey. I give both versions a 7 on our 1-10 rating scale.

( Wikipedia page for Walter Tevis , with links to info about all versions of The Man Who Fell to Earth )

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

The Oud: An Illustrated History
by Rachel Beckles Willson (Music 787.82 Wil)

The oud, a common stringed instrument throughout the Middle East, eventually begat the Medieval-era lute, which was at its essence an oud with gut frets tied around the neck, and from there, the guitar was eventually born. Though we don’t see lot of oud performances in the United States, it remains one of the most popular stringed instruments in Middle Eastern musical traditions, along with its cousins the baglama, the tanbur, and the buzuq.

We recently got a new book at the Polley Music Library called The Oud: An Illustrated History by Rachel Beckles Willson, and it may be the first book-length discussion of the history and present status of this noble instrument published in the English language. As it turns out, this book can show us a lot about the instrument itself, lesser-discussed aspects of music history (both Eastern and Western), and the many ways the instrument continues to be used in contemporary music, both traditional and new forms that combine multiple traditions.

As Willson notes in her introduction, the oud is found all over the world today, but there isn’t as much concrete information known about its history, particularly for Western audiences. She has a background as a writer, musician, composer, artist and educator that makes her uniquely qualified for writing this book. As an artist who has toured the world as a professional concert pianist, who also has studied composition and the saxophone at the collegiate level, and who has regularly published as a music scholar, she has been able to bring all of these skills to her personal journey into learning to play the oud since 2010. She has returned with an in-depth analysis of the instrument’s history and the social and political conditions around its development over the ages. In her exploration of the oud, she has studied many unique styles and traditions connected with the instrument, finding that many nationalities take umbrage with the different musical approaches of their neighbors. As she says, “My outsider position is my strength. It is what allows me to bring together the multiple voices that make up the history and contemporary life of this extraordinary instrument, and to draw out the fascinating stories of those who have been lost along the way.”

Willson approaches the instrument from a variety of perspectives, starting with the history of the instrument, and early stringed instruments more generally. The oud is not the earliest stringed instrument, though it is so ancient that the absolute beginning of its development remains somewhat lost. Musicologists generally divide the early chordophone instruments including the oud into two categories: long-necked and short-necked. The long-necked varieties are much older, dating back to somewhere around 2300 BCE in the area of Iraq. These evolved into a different set of instruments: the tanbur, the dutar, the more modern saz and baglama instruments. They generally all share characteristics of having smaller bodies with their relatively long necks, relatively few courses of strings, and many have frets made of gut tied onto their necks. In contrast, the oud features more courses of strings and a shorter neck to achieve a similar range, all attached to a considerably larger body. Evidence of instruments close to this design start to appear in the historical record closer to one century BCE. The relatively modern iteration of the instrument, likely very similar to the ouds still in use today, appears to date to roughly the 7th or 8th Century CE.

Next, we explore construction of ouds. While there are similarities in features and proportions, there are ouds of somewhat different sizes in use today, each refined to the particular needs of a region or country’s particular musical tradition. Arabic, Turkish, Iraqi and Egyptian ouds are all common, and their subtly different scale lengths (the distance that the strings span) and body sizes all create unique tonal characteristics. Willson also discusses the techniques used to make ouds, which include a lot of ingenious molds that help to shape wood staves or “ribs” into the classically recognizable pear-shaped bowl back that these instruments all feature. The various pieces of wood that comprise the oud are both functional and made to be quite beautiful!

I found the third section of the book to be the most interesting, as I knew the least about it: Willson explores what she describes as the “tangled lives of oud players” historically. Specifically, the early history of the oud, and of a lot of Middle Eastern musical culture in general, was driven by the contributions of women: “Women performed in temples and they performed in courts, playing a range of instruments…women continued to dominate the professional class of players in the first centuries of Islam, and so the earliest oud players were inevitably women.” This is not to say that the culture at large was matriarchal: in these earliest years, some of these women were free, and some were enslaved courtesans, also expected to be responsible for musical entertainment. As many religious scholars assessed that music itself was a corrupting influence, musicians in general weren’t particularly admired, either.

Over time, men took over music-making, and in present times, relatively few women have been involved with playing the oud. Willson explores this transition in the next section, in which the oud travels throughout Europe and gradually becomes the lute in many countries. This happened in the 15th and 16th centuries, and at some point the two instruments and their traditions more or less diverged permanently, with lute players opting to play more contrapuntal and chordal-based music by plucking with their fingers instead of a plectrum, aided by the addition of frets to lute necks. Some things remained the same, though: women who played this instrument in Medieval Europe were often courtesans as well. As empires and trade routes changed from the Medieval era to the present, there appear to be some similarities in the West and the East in terms of how music was treated culturally: in both cases, the celebration of composers and performers as “geniuses,” or people to be admired as representing their area’s cultural traditions to an increasingly interconnected world, became common, and most of those figures were men. And the instruments themselves, like many cultural artifacts, have become collectable and valuable, an interesting phenomenon when one considers how impoverished most instrument-making families have been historically.

For readers with a musical background but not much knowledge of how middle eastern music works, the section on taksim may be the most important here. This tradition has dictated a lot of the direction of middle eastern music since the 17th century. It’s a form of improvisation, with some differences: in the West, our improv is often governed by chord progressions. There, where the music is often not heterophonic or chord-based, taksim dictates particular melodic directions and angles preferred to be used with their scales, or makam. The playing of taksims remains an important part of the oud playing tradition today, and the pieces produced through this tradition often go on to become familiar songs themselves, with a mix of composition and improvisation.

Though the oud is used by many cultures in the middle east, most countries have their own unique traditions, repertoire, and even microtonal tuning systems, which make a fretless instrument like the oud ideal for traveling between traditions, and even participating in the creation of new ones. The later sections of the book focus on these new traditions, many of which find oud players taking on roles in exciting new blends of musical traditions from around the world. It’s a flexible instrument that shines in a wide variety of styles, and it’s great to see it finally being celebrated in the West with this thorough overview book!

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Music and Traditions of the Arabian Peninsula : Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar by Lisa Urkevich or Music in the World of Islam: A Socio-Cultural Study by Amnon Shiloah.)

( Wikipedia page about The Oud ) | ( official Rachel Beckles Willson web site )

Recommended by Scott S.
Polley Music Library

A Christmas Story Christmas
(DVD Christmas)

The first time I saw the movie A Christmas Story, I was expecting something completely different. Instead of a heart-warming, sentimental story about a family’s Christmas in the 1950s, this hilarious film looks at Christmas through the eyes of a child who sees everything going wrong for him. A Christmas Story became one of my favorite Christmas movies to watch during the holiday season.

I was excited to find that a new movie was produced recently looking at the characters from that original production nearly 30 years later. In A Christmas Story Christmas: Ralphie Comes Home, Peter Billingsley stars again as Ralphie Parker, looking at Christmas through the eyes of the Dad who is responsible for making sure everything turns out just right for his own young family as they celebrate Christmas with his Mom in his childhood home. Unfortunately, Ralphie has to deal with the loss of his own father and his inability to secure a publisher for his book that he has written while trying to make this a memorable occasion for his kids.

This excellent movie is filled with the same kind of imaginary scenes that made the original film the classic it became. We see all of the actors who played important roles in the original return for cameos as their adult characters. We see the same department store and its “visit Santa and his elves” but with the twist that its Ralphie’s kids waiting in the long line this time. The filming is well done, re-creating the look from the original set but fast-forwarded to the year 1973. We don’t have Darren McGavin as Old Man Parker (the actor passed away in 2006) but his photo is everywhere and there are clips from the original production as Ralphie remembers things his Dad did. We also don’t have actress Melinda Dillon (Mother Parker); she passed away shortly after this new film was released. Otherwise, the film does have the same feel as its predecessor.

A Christmas Story Christmas was co-produced by Jean Shepherd’s two adult children, Randall and Adrian Shepherd. One thing that I loved was the scene where Ralphie goes to visit his friend Flick in the neighborhood bar, Flick’s Tavern. The camera pans to a spot on the wall with a sign that says “In God We Trust; All Others Pay Cash.” This, of course, is the name of the book by Jean Shepherd that the original film was based on. I thought it was a nice touch to include that. The story was based on the author’s memories of growing up in the Hessville neighborhood of Hammond, Indiana.

I recommend this movie for anyone who is a fan of the original story.

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try the original A Christmas Story.)

( Internet Movie Database entry for this 2022 film )

Recommended by Kim J.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

The Creator
(DVD Creator)

The Creator was a spectacular original science fiction concept — refreshing to see when so many SF/F films are franchise entries. Director Gareth Edwards (he also co-wrote this with Chris Weitz) gives us a world in which Artificial Intelligences have struck back at humans in the United States, detonating a nuclear bomb in Los Angeles. When the action picks up years later, U.S. special forces are actively seeking out and destroying AIs around the world — but in New Asia, AIs are still valued and American intervention is opposed. Deep cover special U.S. special forces agent Joshua is married to an Asian woman and expecting a child, while still working on his mission to find the chief scientist creating new AIs. A strike force blows his cover, kills his wife and badly injures him…but when a mission to infiltrate and destroy a super weapon (that will take out the orbiting defense platform that is the primary U.S. weapon against AIs), Joshua is forced back into active service.

Joshua’s team is inserted into New Asia to try to find Nirmata, the creator of the ultimate weapon, and destroy both the weapon and Nirmata themself. The missions goes awry, and Joshua finds himself on the run with “the weapon”…which has been designed as a six-year-old little girl (who’s learning how to manipulate the technology around herself). Joshua believes his wife, Maya, may still be alive and he’s determined to use “the weapon” to find his wife and reclaim part of the life that was stolen from him. But he starts to bond with the little girl…and there’s still people out to destroy her.

John David Washington does a terrific job as the tortured Joshua, and there are some excellent supporting performances by Allison Janney, Ken Watanabe, Gemma Chan and several other adult actors. But the film is literally stolen by Madeleine Yuna Voyles, in her film debut, as the young weapon, “Alphie”. The Creator is complex and fast moving, and a lot of it is set in darkness. It is far from perfect, but it is still an excellent movie, and I highly recommend it. Particularly for the Hans Zimmer score.

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Gareth Edwards’ other films, including Rogue One – A Star Wars Movie, Godzilla (2014) or Monsters.)

( Internet Movie Database entry for this 2023 film )

See Kristen A.’s review of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (directed by Gareth Edwards) in the September 2017 Staff Recommendations here on BookGuide!

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

Miss Fisher’s Modern Murder Mysteries
(DVD Miss)

Last month I reviewed “Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries” on DVD, that take place in the late 1920’s Melbourne, Australia. That series is based on the Phryne Fisher books by Kerry Greenwood.

“Ms Fisher’s Modern Murder Mysters” is an offshoot and revolves around Miss Fisher’s niece, Peregrine Fisher, in 1960’s Melbourne. Peregrine inherits Phryne’s fortune when she goes missing after crashing in the jungle over New Guinea. Peregrine had never met her aunt and decides to follow in her footsteps to become a private-detective. She makes her way to Phryne’s club, The Adventuresses’ Club, where she is befriended by the other members who thought highly of Phryne.

I wasn’t sure I’d take to this series because I’m not that fond of the 1960’s – the color schemes, the furniture, the blatant sexism. But I ended up enjoying the characters, the mysteries, and watching Peregrine take on the challenges of meeting, learning from, and befriending the exceptional women of the Adventuresses’ Club.

Of course our thoroughly modern heroine meets a straitlaced guy, James, who is a police detective (just as her aunt did). He tries to dissuade her from investigating the various murders she encounters but they end up teaming together – against the wishes of his captain.

Produced by Acorn, the library owns all of this series on DVD.

( Internet Movie Database entry for this series )

See Charlotte M.’s review of The Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries in the January 2024 Staff Recommendations here on BookGuide!

Recommended by Charlotte M.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

Only in Theaters
a documentary by actor/filmmaker Raphael Sbarge (DVD 791.43 Onl)

Fascinating documentary about the Laemmle family (pronounced Lem-lee) and the chain of independent arthouse movie theaters they established in the Los Angeles area. This documentary started filming in 2018/2019 and its focus was going to be on the decline of independent movie theaters, and the Laemmle family facing hard decisions on whether to sell their chain or continue to cater to arthouse movie crowds.

But the documentary was still filming when COVID-19 arrived and movie theaters in California all had to shut down. The documentary focus shifted to how a family-owned-for-80-years business can survive during a period of forced social isolation.

I loved the sections of this film, particularly the interviews with film critics and fans (like Leonard Maltin), which dealt with the history of the Laemmle chain and how essential it has been to the film-loving community of Southern California. The interviews with both movie fans and movie makers was absolutely marvelous. While I certainly feel badly for the current generation of Laemmle family leadership on the hard decisions they have had to make in the pandemic era, those portions of the documentary eventually became somewhat repetitive.

But I do still recommend this film to cinemaphiles and anyone who loves the experience of seeing movies with a crowd in a movie theater…an experience that continues to become less and less common in an era in which streaming and home theaters continue to replace the actual movie-going tradition.

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try The Last Blockbuster (a documentary on DVD), Going Attractions: The Definitive Story of the Movie Palace by April Wright, American Picture Palaces: The Architecture of Fantasy by David Naylor, Ticket to Paradise: American Movie Theaters and How We Had Fun by John Margolies (Heritage Room only) or The Projectionist by Nicholas Nicolaou.)

( Internet Movie Database entry for this 2022 documentary film )

See Scott C.’s review of the documentary The Last Blockbuster in the August 2021 Staff Recommendations here on BookGuide!

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

Peppermint
(DVD Peppermint)

This 2018 film stars Jennifer Garner and is a hard-core hard-bitten action thriller. Garner stars as Riley North, a young woman whose husband and daughter are gunned down by members of a street gang. Even though she is able to identify the killers, her testimony is not taken seriously during the trial, the killers go free, and she herself is labeled a dangerous psychotic. Riley manages to escape from medical personnel and goes underground. A few years later, having trained with some of the best physical and mental trainers she could find, she returns to her old city and starts to take violent revenge on those who wronged her: corrupt judges, lawyers, gang-bangers, etc.

As Riley works her way up the ranks of organization led by the drug lord who was ultimately responsible for the death of her family, both the bad guys and the good guys are out to find and stop her.

This is “revenge porn” — with a mercenary taking out the people who wronged her, in increasingly violent ways. But Garner still pulls off a completely sympathetic character. She also proves that at age 46 (13 years after her action-espionage series Alias ended) she still has massive “action film” chops and is wholly believable as this avenging angel.

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Garner’s TV series, Alias, which ran for five seasons in 2001-2005.)

( Internet Movie Database entry for this 2018 film )

See Scott C.’s review of the first season of the TV series Alias, in the July 2009 Staff Recommendations here on BookGuide!

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

Station Eleven
based on the novel by Emily St. John Mandel
(DVD Station)

One of my daughter’s favorite books is Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, a book about what happens when the swine flu Pandemic kills off most of the population. Mind you, this book was published in 2014, years before COVID. Because of the focus on trying to keep culture alive, specifically theater, music and literature, I decided to give the new mini-series a try. The mini-series, Station Eleven, is based on the internationally acclaimed novel but with many changes in characters and plot. Even so, the series holds the same basic idea: survivors of the Pandemic must attempt to rebuild their world while keeping hold of the best of their culture: Shakespeare plays, music performance, and literature. A group of survivors bands together, calling themselves the Traveling Symphony, performing plays on their established route around Lake Michigan. Small groups of survivors who have formed new communities such as the one at the Severn Airport in Michigan invite the players to come perform for them. This happens 20 years after the Pandemic, bringing together all of the storylines and resolving them in one climactic performance. Much of the series revolves around a graphic novel that was created by one of the characters. Referred to as “the prophecy,” all of the main characters have some tie to this novel — only a few copies exist, but the impact of the story affects many people over the course of these twenty years.

I have to say that I really enjoyed the post-Pandemic story and how connected all of these characters were to the mission to save the best of humanity. However, the DVD set had no rating. I would view this with caution due to Language; Graphic Violence; Adult Situations; and Themes.

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try The Road by Cormac McCarthy, and the film adaptation of that, The Road starring Viggo Mortensen.)

(Also available in traditional print format.)

( Internet Movie Database entry for this 10-episode mini-series )

Recommended by Kim J.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

last updated February 2024
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