Wendy Fink’s Best Reads of 2016

My name is Wendy Fink.  My husband Matt and I have raised our three children in Evanston (where we have resided for almost 30 years).  I like to read, knit, cook, scrapbook and exercise.  I volunteer at EPL and ETHS regularly.

1)   A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman (2014)

I relished the delightful character development of Ove from a depressed bitter man seeking to check out of life into a warm giving grandfather figure in his Swedish community.  The simple narrative style and sparse dialogue work well to mimic Ove himself.

The Resurgence of the Thriller

The Chicago Tribune ran an interesting article entitled The Evolution of the Thriller about the resurgence of the thriller as a popular genre in the post 9/11 world. According to Brad Thor, the author of the bestseller Full Black, the time period after the Cold War through the 1990s was a stagnant period for the thriller genre. 9/11 gave readers and writers a common, well-defined enemy back. Gone are the spy novels and simmering tension of superpowers of the mid-twentieth century replaced instead by detailed novels about military hardware and modern spycraft. According to author David Morrell, thrillers are the most popular form of reading in the past 10 years. Other books mentioned in the article include Rules of Betrayal by Christopher Reich and Die Twice by Andrew Grant. The article also pays homage to some classic gems of the genre including The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John Le Carre, The Tears of Autumn by Charles McCarry, and Absolute Power by David Baldacci.

Rika G

 

Book Trailer of the Week

Our final Book Trailer of the Week for 2010 is this chilling award winner for Norwegian author Jo Nesbo’s haunting mystery The Snowman.  Billed as the perfect crime fiction fix for Stieg Larsson fans, The Snowman is the fifth heartstopping read in a bestselling series favorably compared to Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch books.  So check it out, or if you prefer, climb aboard on the ground floor with The Redbreast, the series opener voted by Norwegian book clubs as the best crime novel ever.  Either way, though, beware… this snowman is nothing like Frosty. 

(Hint: Select “Search All Libraries” to locate The Snowman.)

International Thriller Writers announce awards

The fifth annual awards from the International Thriller Writers was announced several weeks ago in NYC. Twist Phelan won for her story ” A Stab in the Heart.”  ( EPL owns a few of her novels, some of which I am currently investigating!) Phelan is an endurance athlete and former trial attorney.

Barbara Vey, an editor/blogger from Publishers Weekly described the banquet for the above mentioned awards. Scroll down this post for the awards for Amazon’s “Worst Reviews.”

Shira S.

In Stieg’s League: Millennium Trilogy Readalikes

Find “In Stieg’s League: Millennium Trilogy Readalikes” at Off the Shelf’s new home on Evanston Public Library’s redesigned website.

See you there!!

 

The Piano Teacher

Lee, Janice Y.K.  The Piano Teacher. 2009. (Fiction Lee.J)

Soon after following her husband to Hong Kong in 1951, Claire Pendleton is hired as piano teacher to the daughter of a wealthy Chinese family and becomes involved with their chauffeur, an enigmatic Englishman haunted by memories of war with the Japanese and his relationship with a beautiful Eurasian socialite. Moving back and forth in time, this complex and richly atmospheric romantic thriller involving a missing Crown Collection of jewels, wartime crimes, deceit and betrayal, is also available on CD. (Susan R., Reader’s Services)