Library Bingo: Read a book that takes place in the future

It's a double rec day! Did you already see our post for the (possibly) new-to-you mystery author? If not, check it out, we'll still be here when you get back!

Note: we're calling "read a book that takes place in the future" speculative fiction.

On the speculative fiction front, we offer classics both deserved and seemingly undiscovered. From the grimly cyber to the colorful embodiments worth touching upon.


William Gibson’s classic Neuromancer hearkened in the a new reality and coined a evergreen term, "cyberspace", “Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts... A graphic representation of data abstracted from banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding...”  There are few books that usher in a completely new genre within a genre, and Gibson’s Neuromancer did that, which gave us "Cyberpunk". Think of this as the natural extension of Philip K. Dick, Ridley Scott, and the dark artificial intelligence of everyone’s connected minds.




Ray Bradbury wrote his first book on a checked-out typewriter while sitting in a library each day. From there he created unforgettable books such as Fahrenheit 451. The highlight here is on Bradbury's The Illustrated Man - -a wanderer whose entire body is a living canvas of exotic tattoos. What's even more remarkable, and increasingly disturbing, is that the illustrations are themselves magically alive, and each proceeds to unfold its own story, such as "The Veldt," wherein rowdy children take a game of virtual reality way over the edge. Or "Kaleidoscope," a heartbreaking portrait of stranded astronauts about to re-enter our atmosphere--without the benefit of a spaceship. Or "Zero Hour," in which invading aliens have discovered a most logical ally--our own children. Bradbury writes in a way that's accessible, beckoning you into other realities with open arms. Bradbury's a national treasure and certainly transcended the speculative fiction genre.



Octavia E. Butler is a writer that much like Ursula K. LeGuin, if you haven’t read her, you should. In Parable of the Sower, Butler astonishes the reader with an amazing story of grit, courage, and survival. In 2025, with the world descending into madness and anarchy, one woman begins a fateful journey toward a better future. This is a startling vision of human destiny by a writer that shouldn’t be missed.





What if you could live your life over again? And again? And again? Replay, by Ken Grimwood looks at that question in this time travel classic that was the basis for the Bill Murray film, Groundhog’s Day. How would you handle a replay, every day? This book will remind that life is short, even if you get to endlessly replay it.

Library Bingo: Read a mystery by a (possibly) new-to-you author

Before we turn our thoughts to leaves, classes, and . . . pumpkin lattes, we’ll suggest several mysteries and speculative fiction (for the bingo square: “read a book that takes place in the future”). A perfect way to embrace the last long weekend of summer and gin up with a good read. Let’s consider mysteries first, in all their permutations:

Two collections of classic noirs start the mysteries: the first Dashiell Hammett’s Complete Novels including Red Harvest, The Dain Curse, The Maltese Falcon, The Glass Key, and The Thin Man. The first two introducing Hammett’s anonymous detective, Continental Op. The Maltese Falcon needs no introduction. Easily, one of the most famous noirs written with it’s protagonist, Sam Spade, getting wrapped up in a quest for an elusive falcon. The cast of characters are unforgettable (and ably brought to the screen by John Huston who also used the book’s dialogue almost verbatim). Falcon is a swift read still, and worthy of a revisit in these waning days of a smoke-filled summer. As a lagniappe, Hammett lived in Tacoma as he recovered from tuberculosis after WWI. The lawlessness of Tacoma at the time certainly influenced Hammett’s outlook on life, and inspired what’s known as The Flitcraft Parable from The Maltese Falcon, which was excised from the film. The Maltese Falcon is worth rereading just for that section.


Speaking of verbatim dialogue, it is known that Elmore Leonard was the master of dialogue. With the collection, Four Novels of the 1970s, we get great examples characters, malcontents, and can games gone awry. Including classics novels such as Fifty-Two Pickup, Swag, and The Switch, this collection starts with the lean early Leonard writing, then evolves into the more comic mode that Leonard becomes famous for which was aptly exemplified by Get Shorty. A modern American classic mystery writer who easily takes the banner from Chandler, Hammett, and Cain and plants it at his feet.






Jacqueline Winspear’s The Mapping of Love and Death features Masie Dobbs (#7 in the series), a psychologist and investigator" in post–World War I London. In The Mapping, Dobbs is hot on the trail of the death of a cartographer. Set in London, France and the Santa Ynez Valley, Winspear has a great eye for period details and a flair for settings. A thoroughly enjoyable mystery series that can certainly be enjoyed as stand-alone novels.




Don Winslow has been lurking under the skin of serious mystery fans for a while until he broke big with The Power of the Dog, a ruthless look at Mexican drug Federacions and their battles with the DEA. With an unerring eye for the attention to detail backed by deep research, Winslow exposes all the corruption, double dealings, and includes a lone avenger as the story relentlessly unravels. I knew about Winslow from his earlier surfing mysteries, and The Power of the Dog is another wild riveting ride.

Library Bingo: Read a biography of someone you admire

 Hello all,

The wildly successful bingo bonanza ends after the Labor Day weekend so we’re here with more suggestions to fill out your cards. This week we look at Biographies, which we’ll include in that category memoirs:

Stephen Greenblatt’s thoroughly readable look at Shakespeare’s life, Will in the World: How Shakespeare became Shakespeare  is worth taking to the beach for that last long breather before fall hits. Greenblatt effortlessly puts Shakespeare within the context of his contemporaries. The milieu is rough as only 16th century London could be, and Greenblatt brings it to life. While Greenblatt has to approach Shakespeare’s life speculatively (there’s scant few original documents from Shakespeare), he does so with engagement, learned scholarship, and a bit of brio. I think Shakespeare would have approved.








The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot is one of those sweeping biographies that wraps up whole cloth all the world surrounding a life. Mesmerizing, unbelievable, and utterly unstoppable, this story encompasses a tale from slave quarters to polio vaccines to cloning cells. A powerfully informative biography of a woman, a family, and the intersection of history and modern medicine.

Jonathan Eig’s, Ali: A Life, harnesses what is certainly one of America’s most astonishing figures. In or out of the ring, Ali embodied greatness, veracity, bombardment, bravery, and was an enigma that will live on. To understand the 60s and 70s and all the turmoil of America during those times, you have to deal with Ali and his journey from Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali. No one was so hated and beloved as Ali in those times, and no one quite conquered the world as Ali did on his own terms.

A slight tack on the bio scenario brings us the wonderful world of Wonder Woman with Jill Lepore’s fascinating look at The Secret History of Wonder Woman. As Lepore sketches out Wonder Woman’s life as seen through the comic strip, she ties this fully fleshed out chronology with the creation of the character, the lives of the people surrounding the strip, and the way the strip remarkably reflected and influenced the times drawn upon.









David McCullough is always a fresh breeze in the sometimes murky waters of the subjects he shines a light on. As monumental as McCullough’s history of the building of the Brooklyn Bridge is (I highly recommend The Great Bridge as an audiobook), Truman stands right up there. A deeply moving book of the life of the US President, and as such, comes in at a hefty number of pages. But don’t despair, Truman’s life was astounding, and possessed a strength of character not often seen these days in the political arena.

One of the best memoirs in recent history is Roxane Gay’s Hunger. An intimate and searing memoir of Gay’s life living in a body she calls “wildly undisciplined.” With unrestrained candor and authority, Gay examines what it’s like to live in an overweight body in a world where the bigger you are, the less you’re seen. Brutally frank, intimate, and validating as no other book in recent times, Gay brings it all in this memoir.

Lives not to be missed:

Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell is This?, by Marion Meade

Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Eleanor Roosevelt: Volume One, by Blanche Wiesen Cook

Library Bingo: Read a book that is translated from its original language

Welcoming the curve of the earth and all that we might discover, this week’s blog post covers international writing. Looking at the bingo space “Book that is translated from its original language” we roam far and wide to find some of the best in global reading. The CGCC library shelves offer a well-rounded journey of intriguing writing. Many of these can be considered for the bingo square of “read a classic” but this isn’t your aunt’s clam dip, no double dipping allowed. Let’s set sail shall we?

Voltaire’s Candide faces the evil in the world with an ever-optimistic and naïve outlook. It’s all here – coming-of-age bildungsroman, forbidden love of a baron’s daughter, the dissection of science, spirituality, and society, all set within a desolate 18th-century Europe. What could be more fun?  A biting French commentary that still prods and pleases to this day.

The Portuguese writer and Nobel Laureate, José Saramago offers up an enthralling story of a mysterious ailment – the affliction of a spreading blindness within a city sparing no one.  As Blindness reclaims the age-old story of a plague, it evokes the vivid and trembling horrors of the twentieth century, leaving readers with a powerful vision of the human spirit that's bound both by weakness and exhilarating strength. A compassionate book, filled with humor and lyricism, that exposes the light with the darkness.



The German author, Patrick Süskind, puts us on the scent of a murder in his wonderful mystery Perfume: The Story of a Murderer.  Set in 18th Century Paris (aren’t all perfume-based mysteries?), Süskind eloquently weaves the essence of perfume production with the obsession of a parfumeur. Not satisfied with mere trifle scents, the parfumeur discovers the “ultimate perfume” . . . .and will stop at nothing to create it. A sensuous, dazzling narrative that unstoppers an odorous crime.

We, by Yevgeny Zamyatin, was the inspiration of Orwell’s 1984, Huxley’s Brave New World, and the writings of Ayn Rand and is considered the archetype of modern dystopia, or anti-Utopia novel. What happens if society surrenders the individual self to a collective dream of technology yet fails in the vigilance of freedom? Suppressed in Russia, this classic still has reverberations felt today.

Like Water for Chocolate (Como Agua Para Chocolate) by Laura Esquivel, is a heartfelt tale where each chapter is introduced by a mouth-watering recipe. Magic, sensuality, and romance delight the senses as food forms the backdrop to this family tale rich in generational aspirations. A classic tale of family, life, and a soulful wedding cake.

Selected Verse: A Bilingual edition, is a fantastic introduction  to Federico Garcia Lorca, Spain’s greatest modern poet. Emotionally intense and metaphorically brilliant, Garcia Lorca unravers “the dark root of the scream” in his poems. From his playful Suites, to his evocative imagery of Andalusia, to his final Elegies, this wide scope of his work sweeps across time and terrain to help us rediscover one the major poets of the 20th century.

Hemingway might have written the shortest of stories (“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”), yet Maupassant wrote some of the most elegant and poignant stories. In the collection, Selected Short Stories, Guy de Maupassant evokes a world within a few pages. Covering all aspects of the human condition - adultery, prostitution, pleasures of river and countryside, greed and cunning, his stories cut to the chase. Masterly, atmospheric, the nuances of psychology bloom under his quill.

Other books in translations worthy of an international flight:
Yasunari Kawabata, Thousand Cranes (Japan)
Amos Tutuola, The Palm-Wine Drinkard; and, My Life in the bush of ghosts (Nigeria)
Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend (Italy)
Mario Vargas Llosa, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (Peru)

Library Bingo: Read a book by an Oregon author

With a prompt from a Facebook friend, today’s blog post will highlight the bingo box of Oregon authors.






Heading the list is Ursula K. LeGuin who authored fantastic books such as The Left Hand of Darkness, The Lathe of Heaven, and the Earthsea series. Winner of multiple SF awards, she also won a National Book Award. If you haven’t read LeGuin, I suggest The Lathe of Heaven which is set in Portland, OR. and follows a draftsman, George Orr, whose dreams change reality.






Another of the pantheon of Oregon writers is Ken Kesey, author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest which is a must read book if you haven’t already.  Set in an Oregon psychiatric hospital, Kesey explores institutional processes and the human mind. Often picked as one of the best novels of the late-20th century, Cuckoo’s Nest is a chaotic character driven novel not easily forgotten. Yep, the movie was great, the novel is better.








Portland author Blake Nelson keeps writing great young adult novels uncovering aspects of youth, disenfranchisement, and the slacker generation. Thoughtful, telling, and empathetic, Nelson knows the milieu of what he writes about. His skate punk novel, Paranoid Park was made into a Gus Van Sant film. Look at his novels Girl, Dream School, and Recovery Road.








Another great Oregon author is William Kittredge who penned fantastic essays on the modern West. He has a pitch-perfect and poetic sense of the west that is heartfelt but never saccharin. He west is not quite lost, yet never remains the same. Look at Owning It All, and his wonderful memoir, Hole in the Sky: A Memoir.

Other Oregon authors worth reading:

Craig Lesley – Winterkill, River Song

Robin Cody – Ricochet River 

Tom Spanbauer – The Man Who Fell in Love With the Moon

      

Library Bingo: Read a book with a number in the title

The weather outside is frightful, but we think you'll find Library Bingo delightful! How does your bingo card look? If you like, show us your card or check out other's on the CGCC Bookstore and Library Facebook page.

This week's highlight for the CGCC Library Bingo Challenge is for the "read a book with a number in the title", and while we have no doubt that many of you could name one off hand, we thought we'd provide some we liked. For your consideration:


The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared, by Jonas Jonasson
The dog days of August welcome a very funny read like Jonasson’s novel. An octogenarian who’s lived quite a life reexamines the travails and adventures that formed his life. Rollicking isn’t quite the word, but could be. Think Zelig as written by Bill Bryson’s brother.



The Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century, By Ian Mortimer.
This is a fascinating social history of a time much written about. From the commonplace to the bizarre, Mortimer lays out every aspect of Medieval England from pikes to bogs, from the clothes you wear to the food you eat, then to how you die (see: Pikes). A nice escapist look at a time much visited in literature.



Tamed: Ten Species That Changed Our World, By Alice Roberts
From anthropologist Alice Roberts, a deep dive into the domestication of ten species that were changed by history: horses, dogs, potatoes, apples and more are brought to light un-dogmatically.



One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Possibly the high point of numerical titles, Garcia Marquez brought magic realism to the forefront of literature with this book (although he didn’t care for that literary distinction.) At times weird and wonderful, One Hundred Years, is always worth giving up your time for, it pays back dividends you didn’t know existed.



Nine Stories, By J. D. Salinger
Salinger’s big book, Catcher in the Rye, obscures what could be considered his better work, his short stories (much like F. Scott Fitzgerald’s bane). Nine Stories is deceptively quick, delightful, layered, and worth taking to the beach to get out of your head if just for an instant. Yet, you’ll remember scenes from these stories long after the bananafish are washed off.



A History of the World in 100 Objects, by Neil MacGregor
What’s the significance of the North American Otter Pipe from Mound City, OH., or the Sutton Hoo Helmet from Suffolk, England, or Korean Roof Tiles from South Korea (pioneers of metal movable type!)? MacGregor deftly weaves the formations and destructions of civilizations through artifacts far and wide. This is not an obscure jaunt, but more as if Antique Road Show could really time travel and tell you endlessly fascinating stories.



Curious Gorge: Over 100 Hikes and Explorations in the Columbia River Gorge, by Scott Cook.
The Gorge trail bible for locals and tourists alike. Set geographically from Portland to The Dalles, Cook traces trails up and down the gorge. Trace is the optimum word here, because there are no topo maps, but plenty of asides, to keep you amused if you get lost.




1491: new revelations of the Americas before Columbus, by Charles Mann
A completely captivating book of the pre-Columbus Americas. Mann uncovers rich stories such as the genetic engineering of food, running water systems, and the concept of zero long before Europeans showed up. This is a compelling book that could possibly change your worldview.




1984, by George Orwell
First written in 1948, Orwell’s prescient vision of a world seemingly far too close right now. A classic that’s still readable that will take your breath away in it’s audacity of a future that always seems present.




One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey
Most will remember the cinematic vision of Chief pulling out the sink in the film, but the novel takes that scene to a whole other level. The rich depth of the characters that Kesey creates are unforgettable, as is the metaphorical asylum all of us are caught up within.



Playing with Fire: the 1968 Election and the Transformation of American Politics, by Lawrence O’Donnell
It’s fairly easy to say 1968 was the crux of the modern American political landscape. Turmoil, chaos, turns too deep to recover from, and hidden shenanigans belied any sense of probity. O’Donnell lays out a straightforward path through all the muck with a political knowledge that is unbiased and insightful. A must read to understand a crucial turning point of American politics.



Thirty-Three Multicultural Tales to Tell, by Pleasant DeSpain
“The folktale is the primer of the picture-language of the soul.” Joseph Campbell. Enriching stories from around the world that still inform everyone of us.



Year Zero, Ian Buruma
Buruma interweaves the chaotic plight of millions after the end of World War II with the personal story of his father who was captured in Holland by the Germans and forced to a labor camp in Berlin. One of the great transitions of civilization occurred after WWII and Buruma captures it perfectly. There are many takeaways here that pertain to issues of today.

               

  

Library Bingo: Read a book about geography or travel

Library bingo rolls on! This week’s highlight is reading a book about geography or travel. Here’s some great reads that’s perfect for a weekend at the beach. Look to Tony Horwitz for insightful travelogues such as Baghdad Without a Map, Blue Latitudes, and A Voyage Long and Strange. Each weaves history, culture, and travel into an enlightened mosaic.

Horwitz first gained notoriety in travel writing with Baghdad Without a Map where he eviscerates long standing clichés and offers up an exasperating example of trying to get an interview with Libya’s then leader, Muammar Gaddafi. In Blue Latitudes, Horwitz follows in the wake of James Cook’s epic voyages. Horwitz explores not only seafaring in Cook’s time, but also the legacies, dubious as they be, that Cook left behind. In A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World, Horwitz reexamines the “discoverers” of North America, what they went through, and how they shaped each geographic corner they encountered. A fascinating and startling read. 

Another take on travel gives us the adventures of Richard Grant, author of God’s Middle Finger, American Nomads, and Dispatches from Pluto. Grant writes from the point of view of the not-quite hapless British traveler and infuses his adventures with a gimlet eye. Also worthy to find are books by Pico Iyer, Redmond O’Hanlon, and Geoff Dyer.