A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

There are several things to love about this novel. I love a book where literature is lauded. The Count's life is saved on account of a poem he wrote, which some thought had a revolutionary message.

Count Alexander Rostov nevertheless finds himself under house arrest in his favorite hotel, The Metropol. He has become in the eyes of the state a "non-person" for the sole crime of having been born a Count.

He loses his grand rooms and is forced to take rooms in the attic where the wait staff live. The Count still considers himself the luckiest man in all of Russia. He is able to keep his desk and its secret stash of gold coins.

No matter how well-educated and well-informed the Count may think he is, life and the people who populate it, never fail to surprise him.

The Count forms, for instance, forms an unexpected friendship with a handyman and he has a love affair with a woman, an actress, who is nothing like she seems.

 

The Count's odd friendship with Nina, a precocious eleven-year-old and daughter of a party leader, results in her sending him Sofia. This girl becomes his adopted daughter, his world, and his greatest accomplishment.

All of these scenes are ironic and comic rather than lugubrious such as the time that Nina goes off to work for a collective farm. Count Alexander knows that "life" will find her.

 

While the novel moves at the pace of an art film, there are wonderful comic moments. This is especially true with the Count's conflict with a waiter-turned-manager that he calls "the Bishop."

 

With sly humor, Towles traces the subtle and not-so-subtle shifts in Russia's changing political landscape.

 

"Ghosts couldn't hurt you directly. They couldn't push you off a cliff, but the could lead you off one, if you were stupid enough to follow..." Razorhurst, Justine Larbalestier. 

"Ghosts couldn't hurt you directly. They couldn't push you off a cliff, but the could lead you off one, if you were stupid enough to follow..." Razorhurst, Justine Larbalestier. 

Writing Tips for Librarians

From Library Journal's John N. Berry III's  "Skills Librarian Need to Survive: Learn to Write."

1)  Delete the first two paragraphs of an essay to see if a better beginning has been discovered.

2)  Do the same for the conclusion of the essay. 

3) Avoid rhetorical questions.

4) Avoid words ending in "ly.
Writing skills are needed more than ever, John Berry explains in "Blatantberry" because it will take "powerful prose" to prove that libraries are not obsolete. 

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden

This epic story that  reads like a fairytale at times is the story of a Boyar, Pyotr, his sons, Sasha and Kolya and his strange daughter Vasilia. Before his wife died, she told him that Vasilia would be most like her mother who had the "gift."

Vasilia was born with  the ability to see the creatures that populate Russian airytale creatures--the rusalka, the vazila, domonvoi, vodianoy, leshy and the Frost King, Mozorko. While its commonplace to her, others are terrified of her abilities. Much of the town, and her stepmother, call Vasilia ("Vasya") a demon or a witch. 

Ironically, Vasya's stepmother, Anna, also has the ability to see these household spirits and cheyerti of the forest. Anna, however, denigrates what she sees as "demons" or manifestations of her madness. 

Konstantine, a priest sent by Prince Ivan to the wilds of Rus, terrifies the town by labeling the old village ways "demonic." Their fears only multiply the existing dangers. An old rivalry between two supernatural forces is renewed as the terrible Bear of the fairytales is released from his bindings. 

Don't miss the next two novels in the Winternight series: Arden's The Girl in The Tower and The Winter of the Witch.

Women in Science: 50 Fearless Pioneers Who Changed the World by Rachel Ignotofsky

Women in Science includes great information about little known women scientists who made incredible advances in science. 

Illustrations by Rachel Ignotofsky are adequate but lack color. Each scientist is assigned a single neon color. For instance, illustrations for Maria Sibylla Merian who observed and painted the metamorphoses of butterflies are each some shade of bright blue against a charcoal gray background. Marie Cure's illustrations are neon green and so on. 

Interesting facts can be found in the margins. The entry for Ada Lovelace, for instance, relates in the margins that Lovelace signed each of her letters to Charles Baggage as "lady fairy." In another entry (for Rosalind Franklin) we learn that Franklin, who took the first photo of DNA's double helix structure, also created a huge sculpture of the tobacco mosaic virus for the World's Fair. 


Ignotofsky's Women in Science is a wonderful starting place for those writing biographies on scientists. Since the entries or so short, though, most students will need to consult more resources. 

This book will please everyone but its especially written for young readers, grade 2 through 5. 

Louisiana Flooded

More than 60,000 Louisiana homes were damaged in the flood (the week of Aug 12). My family members who live there were affected; it's hard to understand how this so called 1,000 year flood (chances of happening are 1 in a 1,000 per year) could have happened.

Right now, it feels a little surreal because though the nightmare is very real, it scarcely gets a mention in the news. Everyone is quick to say that Louisianans are taking care of themselves but that hasn't really happened in my family's case. Everyone that has helped them has also charged them. I think they got one free case of drinking water.