Staff Reviews: Books, Films, Music, and More

Janet Ross-Heiner, Library Assistant and Engilsh Language Instructor recommends What You Have Heard Is True: A Memoir of Witness and Resistance by Carolyn Forché.

Over the past six years I have cultivated relationships with many patrons who have a great passion for reading. I invite you now to read, What You Have Heard Is True: A Memoir of Witness and Resistance by Carolyn Forché. Her incantation with writing has a tone that is scorching and poetic. I felt spellbound when reading her. Forché has also written a book of poems. A distilled form of poetry after seven extended trips to Salvador, In the Lateness of The World (811.54 FOR).

Her works are ingrained by her testimony of the El Salvadoran 12-year civil war during the late 1970s into the 1980s, in which tens of thousands were murdered. A clarion work that took her to Salvador with seven extended stays where she experienced grave atrocities. I connected immediately with her storytelling and hypnotic writing as I do with Eduardo Galeano, Rigoberta Menchú, Isabel Allende, and Pablo Neruda, because of my own epistemological experiences in Central America and Latin American studies.

Forché presents truth as something personal and individual, verified by physical senses and therefore impossible to ignore.

Forché presents truth as something personal and individual, verified by physical senses and therefore impossible to ignore. Her memoir suggests that those who truly take the time to walk in the shoes of others will themselves be changed, and that when they speak out against suffering, they do so with authority. What You Have Heard Is True is a beautiful and important book of one poet’s awakening to the suffering of others and to the power of words.

Carolyn Forché lived in Mallorca, Spain, where she spent a summer translating poems of Claribel Alegria, a self-exiled Salvadorian who was Nicaraguan. The book begins when Carolyn, at 27, hears a knock on her door. It was a man whose name was Leonel Gomez. In the back of his car were his two young daughters. Gomez’s name was vaguely familiar to Forché. She remembered Claribel speak of him. He urged her to travel with him back to El Salvador, where she could write for the voiceless. She was a writer, a journalist and an extraordinary poet. Gomez believed a war was inevitable and that the United States had something to do with it. During their first conversation, he spoke of his conviction that poetry could convey across borders the suffering of others and their hope for a better life.

The war Gomez predicted turned out to be just that, a blood bath, sparked by the inequity between the majority living in squalor with a meager subsistence and the wealthy elite that controlled the country. The civil conflict was between Marxist resistance groups fighting against the U.S. backed conservative government. The Government death squads terrorized the country; more than 700,000 people were massacred. The U.S.-backed sanctions and soft coups continue today. Nicaragua is a recent and current target.

Her memoir suggests that those who truly take the time to walk in the shoes of others will themselves be changed, and that when they speak out against suffering, they do so with authority.

I, too, experienced firsthand the covert and illegal insidious U.S.-sponsored Contra War during the 1980s. Living in Nicaragua, I peeled away misinformation and disinformation mostly shared in mainstream news media. Was it alternative truth?

I asked myself often during the 80s when living in Nicaragua: What is a Freedom Fighter and who is the terrorist? 

The Community Library hosted an event on September 1, 2022: ARGO: Behind the Scenes with Jonna Mendez. CIA mastermind and current Hemingway Writer-in-Residence, Jonna Mendez, took us behind-the-scenes in a film about the Iran hostages and the Contra War supported as a covert illegal act. While the event isn’t available for replay, you can check out the film or the book in ebook or eaudiobook from our Digital Collections here.

“Walker, there is no path. You make the path as you walk.”

Antonio Machado

Epilogue: Forché lived in Salvador, 1978-80. Forché’s collection of poems, The Country Between Us, which opens with a series of poems about El Salvador, begins:

In memory of Monsignor Oscar Romero:

Caminante, no hay camino
Se hace camino al andar.

“Walker, there is no path. You make the path as you walk.” ~Antonio Machado.

Find What You Have Heard Is True: A Memoir of Witness and Resistance here.

Will Duke, Information Systems Manager, recommends Razzmatazz by Christopher Moore.

Sammy “Two-Toes” Tiffin is back in the sequel to Christopher Moore’s sequel Noir.  Now, if you haven’t read Noir, go do that right now.  I’ll wait. 

Okay, good book, right?  Well, you’re in for more of the same in Razzmatazz.  Eddie’s back trying to start a driving school with his girlfriend, while his crazy uncle is trying to save his opium den business while hiding from the Tongs long enough to get Sammy to retrieve the dragon to appease them. There’s a new top cop in town, no spoilers on what happened to the old cop in Noir, good thing you just read it, but anyway, there’s a new cop now, and he’s got an agenda. Unfortunately, that agenda isn’t to find the murderer.

Murderer? Yeah, someone’s killing Drag Kings, and Sammy’s been conscripted into finding the killer. His reward? Housing. Yeah, some things are timeless. 

Anyway, the local Madam’s trying to put on a Christmas party, but that new cop is watching her too closely. She wants Sammy to help her out, too, since he did such a bang-up job with that other cop. 

Of course, there’s a new dame in the mix that Sammy has been hired to find; thank goodness for rich fathers that finance everything else in this adventure.  But she’s been hanging out with the Drag Kings, so The Cheese goes undercover to investigate. 

Moore has a delightful way with language and humor that is sweet, irreverent, and a rollicking good time. 

Oh yeah, don’t worry, Stilton “The Cheese” is back, and in a big way. Sure, she still loves Sammy, and he’s crazy for her, but in addition to her new detective gig with Sammy, she’s got a side project building something for Scooter, Wendy-the-Welder style. If you don’t remember who Scooter is, back you go to Noir.  I can’t say here, as it could be a huge spoiler! I can say that even Scooter is a hustler. He has convinced everyone that his people’s greeting rituals involve some rather intimate contact. 

Don’t worry, some things don’t change. Meatloafs are eaten, New Years is still celebrated nightly, Government men are afoot, and there’s plenty of supernatural activity to entertain you. 

That’s not everything, but it should give you a feel for how this all goes down in post WWII San Francisco.  It’s sort of like a medley of Tom Waits music about Bugs Bunny and the gang in a Raymond Chandler novel.  Moore does a fantastic job of keeping his tongue in his cheek, and not making fun of anyone, whilst making light of everything. He reserves his contempt for those who are so strait-laced they can’t see the humor of it all. And humor abounds. Moore has a delightful way with language and humor that is sweet, irreverent, and a rollicking good time. 

Find it in print here.

Aly Wepplo, Media and Digital Librarian, recommends Der Hund Von Baskerville (The Hound of the Baskervilles), a silent film directed by Richard Oswald.

I’m thrilled to be a part of The Liberty Theatre Company’s upcoming play, The Hound of the Baskervilles. It’s a modern adaptation of the classic Sherlock Holmes mystery, and it’s brought to life by just three actors – playing almost 20 parts.

The story is a classic of English literature. In it, Holmes and Watson investigate the legend of a supernatural hound who haunts the moors surrounding Baskerville Hall. Sir Charles, the hound’s most recent victim, died of a heart attack as he fled in terror from the beast. Now Henry, Charles’ nephew, has come to carry on the family name. But something’s afoot in the sleepy village surrounding the Hall, and Henry’s life is clearly at risk. Can our heroes solve the mystery before the hound claims another victim?

Something’s afoot…and Henry’s life is at risk. Can our heroes solve the mystery before the hound claims another victim?

In the staged version, I play Dr. Watson, Holmes’ closest friend and confidant. It’s been a delight to research the archetypical Watson, and what better place to research than the Community Library? I studied Sidney Paget’s illustrations in the original book, of course, and I was delighted to discover Der Hund Von Baskerville (The Hound of the Baskervilles), a silent film available on Kanopy. Der Hund…, produced in 1914, is the first film adaptation of Doyle’s book. It strays quite a bit from the original plot, but it is delightful to see its silent movie magic crafted with sound effects, music, and a dog in a sparkly cape.

Watch the movie on Kanopy. or check out this title in print, ebook and eaaudiobook here.

And get tickets to the show at https://www.libertytheatrecompany.org/.

Pam Parker, Circulation Manager, recommends The Candy House by Jennifer Egan. 

The Candy House (2022): Highly recommended for those that like to wax philosophic and unravel complex plots as they read.  Be prepared for a dose of gritty reality. 

Jennifer Egan’s newest work of fiction, The Candy House, is unusual.  

Published as a novel, it reads more like a series of related short stories. A number of the characters appear in several stories but at different periods of their lives. Egan also revisits some favorites characters from her Pulitzer Prize-winning A Visit From the Goon Squad, which makes this technically a sequel though it can be read as a stand-alone. 

The net effect is a fascinating exploration of the near future where a technology akin to the internet increasingly impacts people’s lives. A candy house is a drug house in urban lingo. But the premise of this novel involves a mind-tapping cube that downloads memories. Hence, Egan seems to be asking us, ‘Has technology become our drug of choice?’  

While an alluring idea on the surface, it obviously bodes ill for some who recover what perhaps was better left forgotten. 

We meet again with Bix Bouton, the young engineering student from Goon Squad. He found mega-success as the founder of Mandala, a social media company inspired by behavioral theories of Miranda Kline, a reclusive anthropologist. He goes on to develop a revolutionary new service, “Own Your Consciousness” that lets people download and share their memories in exchange for access to others’ memories. While an alluring idea on the surface, it obviously bodes ill for some who recover what perhaps was better left forgotten. 

The Candy House is clearly a metaphor for the addictive lure of the internet and social media. Egan seems to be asking us what role memory has in our consciousness – and how augmenting it will impact the human experience. Not coincidentally, the most evolved characters in The Candy House find solace in academia and art – and an underground emerges that aids people who decide to ‘opt-out’ of The Collective. 

This complex, insightful work may demand deep reading and perhaps a return to The Visit from the Goon Squad (FICTION Egan, 2010) to fully appreciate. But curious readers will be rewarded with plenty of mind candy along the way. 

Find it in print, ebook, and eaudiobook, here.

Sara Zagorski, Gold Mine Thrift Retail Manager, recommends Nettle & Bones by T. Kingfisher.

So, a pseudo-nun, magical mortician, evil fairy godmother, convicted murderer, and a dog made of bones walk into a bar…

Nettle & Bones is a fairy tale turned on its head, as told from the perspective of Marra, the third-born princess of a small city-state. Her home is under constant threat, surrounded by far larger domains eager to get their hands on the Harbor Kingdom and the valuable trade channels it contains.

Her mother, the queen—being politically minded and determined to protect both the land and her people—promises her eldest daughter to the Northern Kingdom’s prince. A textbook move in the medieval world, guaranteeing their security and that someday the Northern King’s blood will sit on the throne.

All goes according to plan, until the princess dies, having fallen down a staircase not long after her arrival in the north and union with the prince. Marra is too young to truly grasp her sister’s passing, but after a brief mourning period, she notices a change in her remaining sister, Kania. And then she realizes—with no heir provided by his deceased wife, the prince will take another, and Kania is next in line.

As the pieces start coming together to form a grim, larger puzzle. . .Marra knows she must do something. She must kill the prince. She just has no idea how.

Though timid by nature, defiance towards the system hellbent on controlling women and using them as breeding stock has her rallying against her mother’s plan. As a result, she gets sent to a distant nunnery, where she grows up relatively peacefully, performing all the duties of a not-quite nun.

When she’s suddenly summoned to the north, she learns her sister Kania has gone into labor. Sadly, the baby is lost. While mourning alone together, Marra notices dark bruises covering her sister’s forearms when her long sleeves fall back. As the pieces start coming together to form a grim, larger puzzle, suddenly—for the first time in her life—Marra knows she must do something. She must kill the prince. She just has no idea how.

This book is a satisfying, humorous, and sometimes brutal retelling of all your childhood tropes. Marra is a refreshing, unconventional lead and the cast of characters she encounters are as equally enthralling. My long-winded synopsis didn’t even get to the best parts, so you should definitely read it.  

Find it in print, here.

Children’s and Young Adult Library Director, DeAnn Campbell, recommends Mushroom Rain by Laura Zimmerman. 

Mushrooms, to me, have always been enchanting. Maybe it is the prominence of red roofed mushroom houses for tiny mice that were the backdrop in children’s stories, or the magical appearance of a mushroom fairy ring in my middle school reading of Where the Red Fern Grows, but mushrooms have always sparked my curiosity. Yet, I don’t know an awful lot about them, and when I don’t know a lot about something, I often find that a children’s nonfiction book is a good start.  

“What can smell like bubble gum, glow neon green at night, be poisonous. . . and even help create rain?” Mushrooms, of course.  

Mushroom Rain by Laura Zimmerman is a very easy nonfiction book accessible to even a very small child. It reads like a picture book with very sparse text about these fungi. Want to explore even more? The back matter of the book provides information for an older, perhaps school-age reader. A bibliography provides others sources you might want to check out for a deeper dive into the world of mushrooms. The book is beautifully illustrated by Jamie Green.  

The book is factual but every bit as enchanting as the fairy tales of talking mice using mushrooms as umbrellas and refuge from a rainfall. I love how Zimmerman makes something scientific easily accessible to a young child, sparking a curiosity that will grow into larger more complicated texts. I also love that when I’m ready for more information about mushrooms, the library’s collection can provide. We have 110 books about mushrooms ranging from this one (one of the simplest) to those that advance in reading level and complexity. From the smallest child to the most advanced and ardent mushroom expert, there is a book about mushrooms at The Community Library for you.  

Find it in Children’s New – J EASY ZIM.