MADreads Reviews

It’s been a while since I’ve read really a good anthropomorphic novel (stories where animals take on human characteristics). When the ALA awards were announced and Scary Stories for Young Foxes was named a Newbery Honor, I figured it must be special. Special is only one of the many ways to describe this book. Harrowing, magical, sad, corrupt, and resilient are other words that come to mind but once you read it you’ll have your own words to describe it.  “All scary stories have two sides,” says the old storyteller to the seven fox pups eager to be frightened.

Jenny Odell’s book is not, in spite of the title, about literally doing NOTHING. Rather, it’s about how one can find time and mental space for oneself in a world where advertising, social media and work increasingly vie for our attention every hour of the day.

Maybe you just haven't met the right one, yet? MADmatches pairs local readers with the books of their dreams! 

Post the last three books you read and enjoyed on our Facebook MADmatches event page from 5:30-7:30 pm tonight, and our librarians will respond with a few titles they think you’ll enjoy. Madison librarians will be on Facebook from 5:30-7:30 pm with custom book recommendations just for you.

A library card isn’t needed to take part in MADmatches.

How would you, a college freshman with little social skills, get the attention of the hot, tattooed baker/barista with an equally hot-but-manipulative ex-girlfriend with an enviable Insta feed named MsLOLAXO?Answer: Save his life with your EDC (Every Day Carry) bag of emergency items and become each other’s emergency contact (cause you know, the baker/barista is bare bones making it in life and can’t afford healthcare).

The Regrets is a unique love story.

When the novel begins, we meet Thomas, a cool, young Brooklynite who is newly, but incompletely, dead. Due to an erring angel, Thomas is placed in limbo and instructed to await his final fate, albeit with the grave warning that he is not to incur regrets by engaging in intimate involvements with the living.

Has there ever been a character that has inspired other writers so much as Sherlock Holmes? The world of the quintessential English detective has expanded and reimagined to include Holmes-like detective on the western frontier, an unlikely apprentice to Holmes, Holmes as a consulting magician and the 

Though my imagination is vivid enough for me to picture myself as the twenty-something heroine of every Sophie Kinsella novel, it’s refreshing to follow the adventures of fictional women born in the same millennium as I was.

Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series is one of my favorite pick-me-ups. I am linking to the latest, Twisted Twenty-Six, in this review but I've only read to book fifteen, plus four "between the numbers" books. 

Jeannie Gaffigan is a writer and executive producer of The Jim Gaffigan Show.  Both seasons are currently airing on TV Land.  She's also a business partner and wife to comedian Jim Gaffigan. She's a year older than I am and grew up in Milwaukee.  I've long admired how she manages five kids and their appointments, activities, school schedule and gets them all to church.  I know this because I've read Jim Gaffigan's comedy memoirs and watch The Jim Gaffigan Show, which is described as loosely (or exactly?) based on the lives of the Gaffigans.  If it's at all true, Jeannie an

Pottermore has made it possible for the Wisconsin Digital Library to make copies of  Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone available for unlimited checkouts with no waiting until April 30th.

Looking for something different to read, to challenge you, then check out the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award winners, which honor books that address racism and diversity. The 2020 books have been announced "The new books explore human diversity in riveting style, putting the lie to racism and ableism even as reading them knits us closer together in times when we must be apart," said prize manager Karen Long. I have included the ebook link for those available in the Wisconsin Digital Library and at the end the library book.

Looking for something to read or listen to?  There are many titles to choose from in the Wisconsin Digitial Library with your public library card. Since March is Women's History Month, why not check out some nonfiction books about women? Below are a few suggestions. I tried to choose ones that are available now (or at least were when I was writing this post). There are many more if you do a subject search "Women's Studies".

Pity poor Rudolph Valentino. No, not that one. It’s not just the name and the visage that brings to mind the defining heartthrob of the silver screen, Valentino also happens to make his life in the film industry, which means he’s forever correcting people in the industry who take his name at face value. One of the few UCLA film archivists laboring to preserve Hollywood’s silver screen past, Valentino has made film his life.

The Pinney afternoon book group recently read the book Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward. Most of us knew before reading it that it was a National Book Award winner and it took place in the days leading up to Hurricane Katrina. The book was a real look at living in poverty in Mississippi and what it means to be a family. As with many reads, the group had mixed feelings about the book. Some people felt like it was a great book. Others thought that it was too challenging to read and didn’t finish it.

Most area libraries have been closed for a few days now and many of you are social distancing and staying home (and washing your hands, natch). And if you're like me your anxieties and stresses are many, and perhaps among them is 'will I have enough books to read?' Sure, this may seem like a minor consideration in the grander, global scheme of things, but for me right now distraction of any kind helps me in de-stressing. I'm guessing the same may be true for many of you.

Bridie Devine - don't call her Bridget - is quite possibly my new favorite detective. A woman who wears a distinctly unfashionable bonnet and can often be found smoking a colleague's experimental tobacco blends, she is not a typical Victorian lady, nor is she a typical detective. As the ward of a respected doctor, she grew up learning to assist in a laboratory, and has the nerves of steel one might expect from someone who has watched many gruesome surgeries on patients not under anesthesia. She also travels with some unusual companions.

White Bird is a stunning graphic novel about one of the ugliest events in history. Set in France during World War II, White Bird tells the story of Sara and Julien, classmates at a rural school in a Nazi occupied village. Sara doesn't want to get her beautiful red shoes wet when all of the Jewish students are rounded up and marched to the woods one day. She's able to sneak away and hide without understanding what's happening.

Lucy Parker never fails me. When I need a warm hug of a book I know I'll find one in Parker's London Celebrities series. That said, Headliners doesn't start out all warm and cozy. The protagonists (introduced in The Austen Playbook) are rival TV presenters who pretty much loathe each other. And with good reason. 

This book is written as an advice letter from comedian and Hollywood star Ali Wong to her daughters to read one day, presumably after they are grown, because holy smokes, it is explicit. This is described as "unfiltered" in the book blurb. Like I wrote in the title to this review, I grew up listening to George Carlin, Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy (one of Ali Wong's favorite comics and someone she also listened to as a kid). If you don't know who these comedians are and/or think they are old fuddy-duddies, then you are the perfect demographic for Ali Wong.