You don't have to be a child to love this book!

Title: Everything I Need to Know I Learned from a Children’s Book: Life Lessons from Notable People from All Walks of Life by Anita Silvey


The Plot: There isn’t any plot. This is a delightful coffee table sort of book that you can open and just begin reading. More than 100 notables from all walks of life including politics, the arts, and business leaders remember a children’s book they loved. They explain why and how the particular title had an enduring and profound impact on their life.
Each essay is accompanied by a short excerpt from the book as well as some delightfully selected illustrations.

Why You’ll Love It: Many readers began their personal love affair with books in their childhood. This book will most likely entertain as well as bring back some fond memories.

Who Should Read It: Anyone who spent their childhood summers engrossed in Treasure Island, Little House on the Prairie, Little Women, or Goodnight Moon will find this book a delight. It will also make a wonderful graduation gift as each of the selections gives readers a wealth of advice and insight.

Outside of a Dog, #50

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." - Groucho Marx.

Hooray, our 50^th column! Since we started Outside of a Dog in January 2008, we’ve done 50 columns of all shapes, sizes, and recommendations – in total, we’ve suggested over 250 books to our patrons. Today’s list contains new books from each of the four Warren libraries. If you’re not sure what to read now, why not take a chance on a new-to-you book?

Arthur Miller Branch

Bright Futures: A Lew Fonseca Mystery – Stuart M. Kaminsky

Lew Fonseca, late of 2006’s “Always Say Goodbye” is a private detective who up and left his life in Illinois after his wife died. He ended up in Sarasota, Florida, finding lost people and often being tailed by scarier ones. In this tale, he thinks he has his work cut out for him, but he’s about to find more twists and turns than he expects!

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Mrs. Astor Regrets: The hidden betrayals of a family beyond reproach – Meryl Garden

Life amongst millionaires and celebrities is always something we look at with anticipation. However, in this year’s biography about the misuse of money and mistreatment of mothers, we find that the lifestyles of the rich and the famous aren’t always what they’re cracked up to be.

Bio Astor

Civic Center Branch

Angels of Destruction – Keith Donohue

Margaret Quinn, a widow, seeks lost connections with an orphan in this novel set in 1985. Her daughter, Erica, ran away before the book begins to join the titular revolutionary group. Since then, Margaret’s life has been a lonely one. When 9-year-old Norah happens by her doorstep, looking for help and a home, Margaret creates a backstory for the young girl, shaping her into the granddaughter she never got to have.

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Negotiating With the Dead: A Writer on Writing – Margaret Atwood

Author of over twenty-five books, novels, and anthologies, Margaret Atwood is a Canadian legend. Her dystopian novel “The Handmaid’s Tale” made a splash when it premiered in 1985, and her 2000 work “The Blind Assassin” won the Booker Prize for fiction. Here, she discusses what it means to be a writer, both from her perspective and that of other famous and not-so-famous writers.

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Dorothy Busch Branch

Illegal – Paul J. Levine

Edgar-nominated author Levine’s work has spanned almost two decades and a variety of mediums; he has written novels and episodes of the television series JAG. Here, in one of his few standalone novels, we meet shyster lawyer Jimmy “Royal” Paine, who’s on the run because of his latest lawbreaking adventure. He is almost robbed, then begged for help by 12-year-old illegal alien boy Timo. Paine is then sent on a thrilling journey to find Timo’s mother, which will take him across state, country, and moral lines.

Fic Levine

The Wikipedia Revolution: How a bunch of nobodies created the world’s greatest encyclopedia – Andrew Lih

As the saying goes, veni vidi wiki (Mental Floss). One of the top ten most visited sites, and trusted for quick, mostly reliable information, Wikipedia is almost always one of the first sites to come up on a search engine. This is the inside story of how it began, and how it still continues on today.

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Maybelle Burnette Branch

Natural Elements – Richard Mason

A third novel of epic proportions, Natural Elements is a historical work that mixes together rich widows, the French Resistance, the Boer War, and metallurgy. If you’re curious as to how that works, come and check this book out!

Fic Mason

What Was I Thinking?: 58 Bad Boyfriend Stories – Barbara Davilman

A collection of humorous essays about real life bad boyfriends and the actresses, authors, and everyday women who had to deal with them. Included here are stories by Carrie Fisher, Francesca Lia Block, and Cindy Chupack (of Sex and the City/"He’s Just Not That Into You" fame.)

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Author Profile: Augusten Burroughs

Humorous memoirist Augusten Burroughs is probably best known by most people as the guy who wrote the book that spawned the movie “Running With Scissors,” which released on DVD in 2007. Of course, there’s much more to the author that just that – he’s got six books (some fiction, some memoir), and has been a commentator for NPR, and a columnist for Details magazine.

Running With Scissors
The most famous of Burroughs’ memoirs, this book details his young life, when, at age 12, he was sent to live with his mother’s psychiatrist for three years. The story is true by Burroughs’ accounting, and some of the events are definitely adult in nature.
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Dry
Detailing Burroughs’ adult life as an alcoholic and an ad-writer for a top New York agency, Dry follows the author from New York to Minnesota and back. Here, he discusses rehab and what comes after; especially how hard it became to return to his life that revolved around alcohol once he was “tenuously sober.”
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Magical Thinking: True Stories
Witty and sarcastic again, Magical Thinking showcases Burroughs’ gift at telling stories of his childhood and adult life. While many (okay, most) are mean-spirited and a little R-rated, they’re well worth a read.
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If you’d like to read some of his shorter pieces, Details magazine is owned by St. Clair Shores Public Library and is available for interloan.

Also out is his first novel, Sellevision, about the antics behind-the-scenes at a home shopping network. Sellevision is available as a book from Harper Woods Public Library, and as an audiobook from Troy Public Library.

Thanks to CB for this author suggestion!

Outside of a Dog, #37

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." - Groucho Marx.

(We apologize for missing last week's Outside of a Dog.)

From 48 Hours to To Catch a Predator and Dominick Dunne’s Power, Privilege, and Justice, true crime is all the rage today. Law and Order takes its cues from real life murder mysteries, and so does Criminal Minds. Want to read about murder and mayhem? Try some of these tried and true books!

Too Late to Say Goodbye: a true story of murder and betrayal– Ann Rule
Ann Rule is the most famous of the famous true crime authors – known best for her book A Stranger Beside Me (Rule worked with serial killer Ted Bundy at a suicide prevention hotline). Too Late is the story of Bart Corbin, a successful Georgia dentist who killed his wife, and fourteen years earlier, his girlfriend.
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Justice: Crimes, Trials, and Punishments – Dominick Dunne
Dunne has written for Vanity Fair since 1982, when his daughter was murdered, sending him on a path to write several novels and true crime books about the lives, loves, and deaths of the rich and famous elite. Justice contains several essays, including pieces of Claus von Bulow, the Menendez brothers, and Dunne’s daughter, Dominique.
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Darker than Night: The True Story of a Brutal Double Homicide and an 18-Year Long Quest for Justice – Tom Henderson
Henderson is still relatively new to the true crime field, with only two other books published so far. Darker than Night is the story of two Detroit deer hunters who went missing in 1985, and their murders, solved 18 years later, only when a terrified witness finally spoke up.
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Cracking More Cases: The Forensic Science of Solving Crimes : the Michael Skakel-Martha Moxley Case, the Jonbenet Ramsey Case and Many More! – Henry C. Lee
Renowned forensic criminologist Lee, who worked on the O.J. Simpson murder case in 1995, has written several titles about mistakes made by criminals and theories about murders and their perpetrators. Here, he talks about the scientific skills one needs in order to view crimes separate from their victims.
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You'll freak for this book!

Today’s Book: Candyfreak: A journey through the chocolate underbelly of America, by Steve Almond


The plot: A nonfiction winner of the Alex Award (given to 10 adult books with special appeal to young adults), Almond’s odyssey of rediscovering the candies he loved as a child is funny and touching all at once. It’s a road-trip adventure to see how candies are made, and gives great detail on the machines and hand-done confections. Almond also goes into the politics and price of getting older candies made and sold.

Why You’ll Love It: Described by many reviewers as tantalizing, Candyfreak will make your mouth water for old classics like the Twin Bing, the Peanut Chew, the Goo Goo Cluster, and the Idaho Spud (which doesn’t contain potatoes, by the way.)

Who Will/Should Read It: Food lovers, candy lovers, chocoholics, and anyone who likes humor and a road trip rolled together in caramel and nuts!