NOT YOUR NORMAL SENIOR CITIZENS: HOW TO AGE DISGRACEFULLY

I have to confess: I want to grow up to be Daphne “Smith” in How to Age Disgracefully, by Clare Pooley, though I suspect I’m already too late to achieve her style and her panache (not to mention her backstory).  While there are other wonderful characters in this book, from Lydia, the middle aged woman who’s “running” the local senior center (“running” in quotes because she’s far from in charge for most of the book), to Art, the former actor and current kleptomaniac, to Ziggy, the teenage single father, it’s really Daphne who’s the heart and soul of the book, who makes things happen, and what a fabulous person she is!

The book is tremendous fun, even more fun than the description of the plot might suggest.  In fact, you might read the summary of the plot and think you’ve read this story before, or seen it in a dozen Hallmark movies, but trust me, you haven’t. Sure, there’s a building that’s a combined senior citizen center and day care (already you’re thinking it’s too cute for words, but stay with me here), and the building is in imminent danger of being sold by the city to a private buyer who’s interested in making condominiums from it, and sure, the senior citizens join forces and work with the children in the day care (not to mention a dog who’s passed around among three characters) to save the building, and that all feels like a cliche, but what lifts this plot above the banal is the characters and the unique way they interact to make this happen.

The building is in bad shape to begin with. When the ceiling falls in on one of the senior citizens, one who’s in a wheelchair, no less, and she subsequently dies (not, as it turns out, from the impact with the ceiling, though that hardly matters), the local council decides the building has to go, never mind how many different groups need and depend on it.  It’s possible that the council had already made a deal with a developer to sell the building, but the disaster just makes it easier for them to justify it.

While the rest of the oddball group of seniors, and Lydia, who’s only just started running the program and is seriously lacking in self-esteem, seem resigned to the thought that this place is going to be sold out from under them, Daphne is not about to stand by and be resigned to anything.  She has just turned 70 and has just started to emerge from her self-imposed isolation, and she has her goal of making friends written on her whiteboard at home, and she is determined that she’s not going to have her best chance of integrating into society ripped out from under her.  

When you first meet Daphne, you could be excused for thinking she’s the equivalent of one of Fredrik Backman’s irascible old ladies (a la Britt Marie), someone who’s shut herself away from the world and needs to warm up and discover love and friendship again. She is, after all, irascible, blunt to a fault, and wildly opinionated.  She has no family, no friends, and no connections to anyone outside of her beautiful home.  And I have to say that she does change over the course of the book, opening up to other people, getting involved in their problems and solving them in her own unique way (and I wouldn’t dream of spoiling the fun by describing what her unique way involves), but do not expect her to turn into a sweet old lady no matter how much she becomes entangled in other people’s lives.

Her energy pervades the book and provides a lot of the humor and liveliness of the plot.  Yes, the seniors work with the day care kids to perform a nativity play that the council members come to watch, in the hopes that they’ll be sufficiently charmed or shamed that they’ll keep the building, but this goes sideways in a hilarious and painful way. And yes, there is a television show with a prize that’s large enough to pay for the needed repairs and maintenance of the building, and Art trains Maggie, the dog (also known as Margaret Thatcher, Margaret and M, depending on who’s taking care of her), so they can perform in this show and hopefully win, but this doesn’t quite go the way anyone expects either.  And yes, Lydia gets revenge on her patronizing and philandering husband with the help of the group, but that, too – engineered by Daphne – is unlike any other kind of wifely revenge you’ve seen before.

You know a book like this is going to have a happy ending, but you don’t know exactly how you’re going to get there, given the characters involved.  That’s also part of the fun.  Once you put yourself in Daphne’s all too capable hands and launch yourself into this book, you’ll be in for a great time, lots of laughs and twists and turns before you reach the satisfying climax.  You’ll probably want to age as disgracefully as these characters yourself, especially Daphne. 

READ AROUND THE WORLD: SUMMER READING FOR ADULTS

Well, it’s summertime, and you know what that means (aside from heat and humidity): Adult Summer Reading Game! 

That’s right, we’re determined to give adults as much fun reading in the summer as the kids and the teenagers get.  Why should they get all the fun?

As you may recall, our first year we had an ordinary game board that people could move their markers along as they finished books.  And then last year, we got fancy and went with the theme of Reading as an Odyssey, and people made little boats which traveled along the route Odysseus traveled in The Odyssey, with special prizes at particularly important places in Odysseus’ route.

This year we’re trying something different, something that puts more emphasis on cooperation than competition (not that there’s anything wrong with competition, though some people did go a little overboard – see what I did there? – in trying to finish the route more times than anyone else).  The theme of New York’s Summer Reading program is “Reading is an Adventure,” and so we chose one of the classic adventure stories as our theme, Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days.  

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to help us read around the world.  We will be posting a giant map of the world, with all 108 countries on it. We are going to try to collectively read something from or about each of those countries, and cover the world in 80 days, starting on June 20, and finishing on September 7.  We on the library staff will keep track of what countries people have visited by reading, and encourage people to go for less obvious, less well-traveled countries. If you’re the first person to read a book from a particular country, you get to color that country in on the map, so we can all see how far we’ve gotten and what’s left to find.

Sign up at the library, and you’ll get an official Passport.  When you finish a book, write it in your passport, and bring it in to the Reference Desk, where a librarian will check the book, determine what country it represents, and stamp your passport.  Then go and color the country on the map (if someone hasn’t beaten you to it!).  If you’re planning to read about a particular country, you can input it into our spreadsheet (either the online one or the physical one at the desk), so we can encourage other people to choose another country. 

What counts as a book about a country? Either the book is written by a native of the country or a significant part of the book takes place in that country.  Fiction and nonfiction books both count, and that includes travel books (but you have to read them and not just page through them – it is a reading game, after all).

Everyone can enter the game, but only people with cards from The Field Library will be eligible to be entered into the lottery for the ultimate prizes.  You’ll get a ticket in the lottery when you enter and when you read a book and report it in your passport.  Stay tuned for more information about the lottery prizes!

Join the fun.  Let’s all travel around the world via reading for the next 80 days! Let’s watch that map get colored in as we have great fun discovering new authors, new books and new places.  All the thrills of an around the world trip without any of the hardships: sounds like a good deal to me.

FIELD NOTES EXPLORES MODERN NATIVE AMERICANS: THERE THERE

On Saturday we had our usual vigorous discussion of our monthly selection at the Field Notes Book Group.  Discussing Yellowface led us to questions about social media, about the world of publishing and whether the main character in the book was a sociopath or not (we think she probably was, for the record), and whether flat and even stereotypical characters in a book that’s meant to be a satire are effective or whether they weaken the power of the book as a whole.

After all that, we then turned our attention to our selection for July (!!), and had a very close vote, in which we ended up selecting our July book and also our August book (nice when it works out that way).  The book for our July 20 meeting is There There by Tommy Orange, and there are already copies available at the Circulation Desk for anyone who’s interested.

There There gets its title from the famous Gertrude Stein quote about Oakland, California (“there’s no there there”), which is appropriate because the book focuses on a number of Native Americans living in urban areas who are all, for one reason or another, heading for a Big Powwow in Oakland.  But it’s more than just a description of Oakland itself; the idea of being without substance is a deep part of what the author is exploring among the modern Native Americans, all of whom are, for various reasons, caught between worlds and cultures, trying to balance their current living situations with their histories and their understandings of their Native cultures.  Though these characters each have their own reasons for coming to the powwow, they all end up together, with dramatic results.  There There was widely acclaimed when it was first published, and made numerous “best of the year” lists.

It should also make for some exciting discussions among the members of this opinionated but respectful group of book lovers.  Join us if you can.

ROM COMS FOR JUNE

June is the month for love and weddings (among other things). There’s something about the late spring, early summer atmosphere that makes it feel perfect for affairs of the heart, and so it’s not surprising we have a number of intriguing new romantic comedies coming to The Field Library during June.

A Beauty and the Beast romantic comedy, set in modern times? It is, after all, a “tale as old as time,” to quote Disney. Barely Even Friends, by Mae Bennett, substitutes a modern day rich family’s mansion for the Beast’s castle, a young woman who’s lead contractor on the job of restoring the Killington Estate for Belle, and the grumpy recluse scion of the family who’s living in the mansion for the Beast.  Bellamy, the heroine, wants to make a name for herself in the male-dominated profession, and also wants to restore the glory of the estate, but she didn’t count on the angry presence of Oliver Killington on site.  He’s still traumatized by the car accident that killed his parents and injured him, and he wants nothing to do with Bellamy, going so far as to sabotage her wherever he can.  Then the two of them discover a common interest in dealing with the family’s ultimatums, and once they start to work together, well, one thing leads to another, as usually happens in romantic comedies.  Will they find their happily ever after?  You know the answer, but the fun is in the journey.

I’ve read a lot of romantic comedies over the years, but Birding with Benefits, by Sarah T. Dubb, is the first one I’ve seen where the connection between the two protagonists begins with birdwatching, and competitive birdwatching at that.  There’s more quirkiness in this book, too: the heroine is an older woman, newly divorced, almost an empty nester (it’s not that I’m tired of reading about twenty or thirty somethings finding romance, but I’d love to see more romantic comedies involving people who are a bit older and more mature); she’s giving herself permission to put herself first for a change and say yes to adventures as she hadn’t done when she was younger.  The hero is a shy birder who wants to start his own business guiding people in the mountains around Tucson, who sees the upcoming big bird-watching competition as a way to get himself known.  He accepts her as his partner for the competition, and the two of them agree that when the competition’s over, their “birding with benefits” arrangement will be over.  Or will it?

The setup for The Irish Goodbye, by Amy Ewing, falls into the category of “things I would love to do myself” (which can be a dangerous setup, as I’ve mentioned in the past): our heroine is a woman broken by grief who accepts a summer job at a cottage on Ireland’s Inishmore island.  Almost as soon as she arrives, however, she runs afoul of the hero, an Irish chef who’s returned home from Dublin to the island in order to nurse his broken heart and his ruined life.  The two of them keep running into each other (it’s a small island, after all), and, of course, first they’re fighting every time they meet, but in classic enemies-to-friends fashion, the sparks they strike change from animosity to attraction.  Can love and a beautiful Irish setting, filled with quirky and charming Irish characters, heal the wounds that both our main characters are suffering?  If you can’t manage a trip to an Irish island yourself, perhaps this romantic comedy could serve as a substitute (or could encourage you to look into how to visit Ireland yourself).

The “bit with a dog” in a romantic comedy is nothing new, and if done right, adding a dog (or a couple of dogs) to the story can bring a lot of fun and complications to the plot. Pardon My Frenchie, by Farrah Rochon, turns on dogs and the people who love (and don’t necessarily love) them. Our heroine is a woman who’s running a very successful doggie day care, whose beloved French bulldog, and his buddy the poodle have become social media sensations.  Our hero is the grandson of the poodle’s owner, and when the grandmother moves into assisted living where no pets are allowed, he finds himself responsible for the poodle even though he really isn’t interested in dogs.  He pulls the poodle out of the doggie daycare and then the troubles really start.  Social media erupts, the protagonist’s business is hanging by a thread, and she realizes she needs to make it up with the hero, to get the poodle back and save the day.  Can a poodle and a French bulldog show ornery human beings how to fall in love? 

If you really want to set up a conflict in a romantic comedy (and isn’t that what it’s all about?), you can have one character who doesn’t believe romance or happily ever afters are possible, and the other who believes in romance and happily ever afters with all their heart. Then you can make them really opposites by having one character a person who writes rom coms for a living, and the other a divorce lawyer.  Then, just because we don’t want to be too obvious, make the one who believes in romance be the divorce lawyer, and the one who writes rom coms be the one who believes it’s all bunk. Throw in a past romance between the two main characters, and then bring them to a high school reunion, and you have sparks.  Actually, what you have is Just Some Stupid Love Story, by Katelyn Doyle, and, while I haven’t read it yet, I have to give the author props for such an excellent setup.  Just in case the opposites attract, former lovers and high school reunion setting aren’t enough to make things interesting, in this case the two main characters have a bet about which one of them can predict the fates of five couples, and the fifth couple is – of course – the two of them. The potential for fun and complications is exceptionally high, and so are my expectations for this one.

Whether you want to return to your love of Beauty and the Beast, or learn more about birding, or vicariously travel to Ireland, spend some time with dogs and dog people,  or sit back and enjoy the attraction of opposites, we’ve got you covered at The Field Library this June.

A NEW ZEALAND MYSTERY FOR JULY: BETTER THE BLOOD

Sometimes the Field of Mystery Book Group has trouble choosing between two possible selections for the following month.  On occasion, when we have a tie, I’m the one who does a tie-breaking vote (since I chose all the possible books, it’s not always easy for me to make up my mind either), but sometimes we like both books so much that we end up choosing one book for the next month and the other book for the month after that.  Which is what happened in May: we couldn’t make up our minds between Dirt Creek and Better the Blood, so we read Dirt Creek for June and we will be reading Better the Blood for July.   

Better the Blood, by Michael Bennett,  is more of a thriller than a strict mystery, but it’s an excellent read either way. In modern day Auckland, New Zealand, Hana Westerman is a Maori woman who’s a police officer. She’s separated from her husband, a white man who’s also a police officer, and they have joint custody of their creative and fiery college-age daughter.  Hana receives a video from a killer; when she investigates, she and her fellow officers discover a murder victim who has been ritually hanged in a secret place, with a symbol beside his body which puzzles the police.  When another, seemingly completely unrelated, person is killed, with the same symbol nearby, she realizes that this is the mark of a particular kind of serial killer, a very intelligent one who is referring back to a colonial crime in which British soldiers hanged the leader of a Maori tribe and photographed the incident.  Hana doesn’t understand at first why she’s being given the leads to the murders, why the murderer has chosen her, but it’s connected to an incident from when she was a young police officer, used by the authorities to break up an indigenous protest at a sacred mountain, an incident that destroyed her connections to her own family and tribe.  As the long past and the more recent past collide, Hana has to stop the killer before he finishes his work, while coming to grips with her own past and how it affects her family now.

It’s a page-turner of a book, with great characters and a lot of insight into colonialism and the scars it’s inflicted on generations of indigenous people, and into the Maori cultural mindset, which proves to be the heart of the book.

Copies are already available at the circulation desk.  Join us for our meeting on July 13 (a week later than usual because of the 4th of July weekend) for what promises to be an excellent discussion.