The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency - Alternative Format, Audiobook

Title: The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency

Author: Book author- Alexander McCall Smith; Movie Creators- Richard Curtis, Anthony Minghella

Production/Bibliographic Information: DVD- BBC, HBO Entertainment, The Weinstein Company; 2009; 451 minutes

Directed/ Performed by: Jill Scott as Precious Ramotswe, Anika Noni Rose as Grace Makutsi, Lucian Msamati as JLB Matekoni

Part of a Series: Yes. Season One. No other seasons have been produced.

Book tie-in: Based on the book The Double Comfort Safari Club by Alexander McCall Smith

Subject Heading(s):

• Abandonment
• Botswana, Africa
• Divorce
• Female Detectives
• Missing Persons
• Mysteries

Plot Summary: After her father’s death, the smart and occasionally sassy Precious Ramotswe, a “traditionally built” young woman in her thirties, decides to use her skills of observation to open the first detective agency in Botswana run by a woman. Secretary Grace Makutsi provides plenty of additional humor and pathos, and the shy but gentlemanly mechanic JLB Matekoni provides an endearing love interest for Precious.

Appeal: This warmly human character based mystery series provides an intriguing look at African culture in the exotic setting of Botswana. Pacing is steady, and the tone is a nice combination of humor and drama. Production values are excellent, shot entirely on location in Botswana. Netflix tags the series as “heartfelt” and “quirky.”

Features: Bonus features include “Making of” feature, feature about country of Botswana, music of Botswana, director Anthony Minghella, and author’s diary.

Prizes or Awards: Winner of the Peabody Award in 2010. (Annual international award since 1941 for excellence in radio and television)

Similar Works:

Amazon.com suggests “Botswana: In the Footsteps of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency” (a non-fiction look at the country of Botswana with author Alexander McCall Smith)

Tvtropes.org mentions “The Gods Must Be Crazy” (also set in Botswana)

Reviewer’s Name: Beth Lyle

Form adapted from Fiction Annotation Form in Saricks, Joyce G. and Nancy Brown. Readers’ Advisory Service in the Public Library 2nd. Chicago: ALA, 1997.

You Suck: A Love Story - Alternative Format, Audiobook

Author: Christopher Moore (performed by Susan Bennett)

Title: You Suck: A Love Story

Publication Date: 2007

Number of Pages: AUDIO BOOK, 7 compact discs

Part of a Series: Yes, Vampire love stories (Christopher Moore), 2 of 3.  

Subject Heading(s):  

• Dead
• Death/Dying
• Friendship
• Goth teenagers
• Interpersonal Relations
• Men/women relationships
• Misadventures
• Necrophilia
• Nineteen-year-old men
• Police
• Prostitutes
• Teenagers
• Vampires
• Women – Diaries
• Women vampires

Geographical Setting/Time Period:San Francisco, California/ 2007

Main Character(s):  

• Tommy/Vampire Flood – witty yet awkward newly turned vampire.
• Jody/Countess – sarcastically wise older girlfriend of Tommy’s, also the vampire who turned him.
• Elijah – ancient vampire who desires Jody and is set on revenge
• Abby Normal – hilarious and unfortunate young Goth girl turned minion
• The Animals – haphazard group of grocery store stockers who have no real purpose.
• Blue – slightly evil past beauty queen turned blue dyed prostitute who takes advantage of The Animals. 

Plot Summary: Tommy wakes to find that his vampire girlfriend Jody has turned him into a blood sucking fiend. As they adapt to this new life together they find themselves in the midst of many misadventures.

Appeal: You Suck is a fast paced read that is laced with a darkly humorous and offbeat narrative about what it’s like being a vampire in modern day San Francisco. The witty narrative makes you feel as if you are experiencing some sort of slap stick comedy routine. **There is explicit language and sexual situations throughout the book**  

Special Features: Each disc has a track listing on it that offers details of events happening in that track so it is easy to follow along and find where you left off. There is also a featured interview with the author on the last disc.

Brief quote:  She’d dated rock musicians and stock brokers and was conditioned to unusual bumps on the road of romance. So she simply sighed and kicked the hooker in the ribs. More as a conversation opener than a confirmation that the ho was dead. And said, “So…rough night?” (Disc 4 track 6)

Prizes or Awards: Author has won the Quill Award, Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror book of the year for The Stupidest Angel, 2005 and A Dirty Job, 2006.     

Similar Works:

Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow – both books are about the lore surrounding mythical creatures and written with dark humor and a fast paced story.  
The Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett – Both books are humorous stories about vampires.

Reviewer's Name:   Patricia Lowrey

 

Form adapted from Saricks, Joyce G. and Nancy Brown. Readers' Advisory Service in the Public Library 2^nd.  Chicago: ALA, 1997.

Tamara Drewe - Alternate Format, graphic novel

Author: Posy Simmonds

Title: Tamara Drewe

Production/Bibliographic Information: graphic novel, Posy Simmonds (creator)

No of pages: 134 pages

Publication date: 2008 (U.S.) 2007 (U.K.)

Part of a Series: Not part of series

Book tie-in: Yes, loosely inspired by Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd

Subject Heading(s):

• Accidental death
• Great Britain – Social life
• Retreats
• Columnists and customs
• Social classes
• Drug abuse
• Infidelity
• Stalking victims
• Extramarital relations
• Man woman relationships
• Teenage girls
• Farms
• Middle-age
• Troubled marriages
• Graphic novels
• Midlife crises
• Writers

Plot Summary: Tamara Drewe has recently renovated her life and gone from being shy and bookish to becoming an irresistible, sexy gossip columnist.  She returns to her childhood home following the death of her mother and reacquaints herself with her neighbors, Beth and Nicholas Hardiman, who operate a nearby farm as a writer’s retreat.  The semi-famous Tamara attracts the attention of all of the locals, including Nicholas, an inveterate philanderer, Andy, Beth’s handyman, and two local teenage girls.  The story weaves their lives together until the characters are inextricably bound at the conclusion. 

Appeal: The main appeal of this graphic novel is likely the almost soap opera feel of all the tangled relationships as the leisurely-paced story unfolds.  The frame of the British countryside writer’s retreat and village is also appealing, as is the author’s skillful use of British dialogue.  There is also a good deal of character development in this novel.  This graphic novel does contain sexual themes, nudity, and occasional strong language and is recommended for adults.

Features: Uses a combination of sequential art, prose narrative, and fake newspaper columns and headlines to tell the story.  The detailed illustrations are also an interesting mix of color and shades of gray, sometimes mixed together on the same page. 

Prizes or Awards:

2008 Booklist Editors’ Choice – Adult Fiction for Young Adults

Similar Works:

• Ghost World by Daniel Clowes – introspective graphic novel dealing with the relationship between two teenage girls as they graduate from high school and enter the adult world.
• Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy – the novel that Tamara Drewe is loosely based upon.
• Cheat by Christine Norrie – graphic novel that deals with the marital issues and infidelity of two couples, issues that are also featured in Tamara Drewe.

Reviewer’s Name: Jennifer Lehner

The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born - Alternative Format, Graphic Novel

Title: The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born

Author: Script by Robin Furth and Peter David, Illustrated by Jae Lee and Richard Isanove

Production/Bibliographic Information Marvel, 2007, unpaged but approximately 100 pages

Part of a Series: Yes, first in the Dark Tower graphic novel series

Book tie-in: based on the Dark Tower series by Stephen King

Subject Heading(s):

• Bleak
• Comic Book, strip, etc
• Fantasy comic books, strips, etc (
• Fate and fatalism
• Graphic novels
• Gunfighters
• Menacing
• Quests
• Supernatural
• Western

Plot Summary: In a world where no one ever feels safe and only a few are courageous enough to take on the evildoers, Roland and his fellow gunslingers set out on a journey to prevent a plot to take over the world’s oil and create a business monopoly. This event is just one of the many journeys that Roland will take guided by his ka, or destiny, in order to fulfill the ultimate goal of finding the Dark Tower.

Appeal: Tone: dark, menacing; Plot: good vs. evil; Pace: quick paced due to the format- reads similar to a comic strip; Style/Language: uses a unique language similar to that found in the Dark Tower series by Stephen King

Features: vivid and detailed illustrations; alternate cover illustrations, maps of the world in which the book takes place, really nice website found at: http://www.stephenking.com/darktower/the_graphic_novels.html

Prizes or Awards: YALSA Great Graphic Novels for Teens 2009

Similar Works:

Preacher vol. 1: Gone to Texas by Garth Emmis – graphic novel, supernatural, western, fantasy fiction

Reviewer’s Name: Taryn Kingery

 

Form adapted from Fiction Annotation Form in Saricks, Joyce G. and Nancy Brown. Readers’ Advisory Service in thePublic Library 2nd. Chicago: ALA, 1997.

Sarum - Historical Fiction

Author: Edward Rutherfurd

Title:  Sarum

Publication Date:    1987

Number of Pages: mass market:1344; pb: 897

Part of a Series: No

Subject Heading(s):

• Cathedrals–England
• Christianity
• Civilization, Stone ageFamily
• Domestic fiction
• Family – Fiction.
• Farmers
• Historical fiction.
• Human evolution
• Human settlements
• Hunters
• Industrial revolution
• Men/women relations
• Salisbury (England) – Fiction.
• Salisbury (England) – Fiction.
• Salisbury Region (England) – Fiction.
• Salisbury Region (England) – Fiction.       
• Stonehenge (England) – Fiction
• Technology and civilization
• Women rulers

Geographical Setting/ Time Period: England/7,000 B.C.E. to 1985 C.E.

Main Character(s): The ancestors of the five families

Hwll: lived as a nomadic hunter from the tundra in 7,500 BCE; has a reputation as a skilled hunter and tracker, he is a good protector and provider for his family. He is above average height with coal black eyes, beard and hair.

Tep: a woodland hunter in 7,500 BCE; conniving and vicious without provocation, he and his family are pariahs. His distinct physical traits: his face had a pinched look and he had unusually long toes.

Krona: lived around 4,000 BCE: a born leader among men, he was both a fierce warrior and peaceful farmer. He was a big as a bull, had a noble mien and piercing, angry black eyes. He always carried a large, black wooden club.

Nooma: a stone mason around 4,000 BCE; shy and often reserved, he easily trusted others. People often respected him for his skill with stone but found him physically unusually- his large, statuesque head was combined with a stocky body, bowed legs and small hands with stubby fingers.

Aelfwald the thane: an Anglo-Saxon that lived in 877 CE; he was a thane, meaning a nobleman, tall, “well built,” and was remarkably good looking with his blond hair and blue eyes. He was known for being calm and intelligent.

Plot Summary: Describing the history of England over 10,000 years, from the Ice Age to present, it traces five families from 7500 BCE to their present day descendants. Included are maps of southern England and family trees.

Appeal: Frame: a wealth of details about the evolution of the country of England; both how the land changes, how the people and their beliefs evolve, and how society develops. Setting: England from 7,000 BCE to the present. Most of the narrative describes the events that lead to England becoming the nation it is today. Realistic fictional characters and real historical figures are tools for fleshing out accurate historical events. Language is modern, but includes some vocabulary relevant to each time period. Some descriptions of violence are included that are necessary plot elements but rarely graphic. Pacing is unhurried; chapters are chronological, each chapter describes a different point in history, and chapter lengths vary from 50 to 200 pages.

Brief quote: “About seven thousand five hundred years before the birth of Christ, in the still bleak and uninviting season that was summer in those northern lands, a single hunter undertook a journey that was impossible. His name, as nearly as it can be written, was Hwll.” (page 3)

Prizes or Awards:

NYT Bestseller for 23 weeks.

Rutherfurd’s New York: The Novel won Langum Prize for American Historical Fiction for 2009 from the Langum Charitable Trust.

Similar Works:

London by Rutherfurd

Fall of Giants by Ken Follett

Ireland by Frank Delaney

Reviewer’s Name:   Lori Chatman

Form adapted from Saricks, Joyce G. and Nancy Brown. Readers= Advisory Service in the Public Library 2^nd.  Chicago: ALA, 1997.

The Romanov Bride - Historical Fiction

Author: Robert Alexander  

Title: The Romanov Bride

Publication Date: 2008

Number of Pages: 306

Part of a Series: no, although 2 other books written about the same time period in Russia (The Kitchen Boy and Rasputin’s Daughter)   

Subject Heading(s):

• Aristocracy
• Class conflict
• Revenge
• Revolutionaries
• Romanov-House of-fiction
• Russia-fiction

 Geographical Setting/ Time Period: Russia (USSR), early 1900s       

Main Character(s):

Ella (Grand Duchess Elisabeth Fyodorovna) - a beautiful, religious German-born princess; Pavel- revolution-drawn peasant

Plot Summary: This novel combines two life stories from different social classes which take Russia from before the revolution to just after the revolution. Ella begins as a princess in Germany before marrying into the Russian royal family and ends her life as the head of her own convent in Moscow. Pavel begins as a peasant moving to St. Petersburg and is swept into the revolution after his wife’s life is lost in the massacre on Bloody Sunday. Their lives intersect when the paths they are on cross due to the revolution.

Appeal: The chapters in this book switch between Pavel and Ella weaving their separate lives together. It is relayed in first person with a few Russian words included. It is character driven with historic details. It balances the two worlds and shows the human side of the revolution.

Brief quote: “Within minutes after the bombing some priest had got himself back to the Kremlin’s Chudov Monastery, where he started ringing a lone bell against the steely winter sky…This was how my poor Sergei was carried to the heavens, to the tolls of bells and on the wings of my very own prayers.” (p.97)

Prizes or Awards: none

Similar Works:

Fiction- the Red Wheel series by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (WWI to Russian Revolution),

Emily by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles (Russian aristocracy around the same time period)

Non-fiction- Nicholas and Alexandra or The Romanovs: The Final Chapter by Robert K. Massie

Reviewer’s Name: Erin Bedford

Form adapted from Saricks, Joyce G. and Nancy Brown. Readers= Advisory Service in the Public Library 2^nd.  Chicago: ALA, 1997.