Romantic comedy : a novel. Sittenfeld, Curtis. New York : Random House, [2023]

Romantic Comedy is the perfect, well, romantic comedy!

Sally Milz is a writer for an infamous late night live comedy show called The Night Owls that airs every Saturday night. She was married once, and it ended without too much fanfare. But it made her skeptical about marriage and love, and seeing others around her with failed relationships doesn’t bolster her confidence.

Her office mate, Danny, is engaged to a celebrity, Annabel, and he isn’t the only male staffer at The Night Owls who is in a relationship with a beautiful woman. Sally cynically creates a sketch called the Danny Horst Rule. The Danny Horst Rule, she says, is when an average Joe ends up dating or marrying a beautiful woman, when the opposite would never happen.

Noah Brewster is a world-famous singer/songwriter worth millions, who also looks like a million bucks. He’s the host and musical guest this week, and Sally is trying not to be impressed. He isn’t all that excited about the Danny Horst Rule sketch, saying it’s not fair to poke fun at other people. But his kindness and willingness to do (almost) anything for a laugh on the show slowly wins her over. They spend a night together in her office, rewriting the sketch he created, and she is surprised at how well they work together and the connection between them.

But what will Sally do when it looks like she has a chance with Noah?

The book begins with the week of the show in 2018, then jumps to 2020 and the pandemic. Sittenfeld is a master at writing fully developed characters, witty dialogue, and wonderful story lines. Anyone familiar with a certain Saturday night show will love the behind the scenes view of a late night weekly comedy show. And anyone who has written off love or felt cynical about relationships will relate to Sally, and maybe find a little hope for their future!

Sittenfeld has written a romantic comedy for the ages. Everyone is going to be looking for their Noah after reading this book!

Mary Beth Adams is the Community Engagement Librarian for Alamance County Public Libraries. She can be reached at madams@alamancelibraries.org.

Seen and Unseen: What Dorothea Lange, Toyo Miyatake, and Ansel Adams’s photographs reveal about the Japanese American incarceration by Elizabeth Partridge, illustrated by Lauren Tamaki. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2022. 124 pages.

The incarceration of Japanese Americans by the United States Government is one of the darkest events in American history. Over 120,000 Japanese Americans were forced from their homes and into prison camps like Manzanar. In Seen and Unseen: What Dorothea Lange, Toyo Miyatake, and Ansel Adams’s photographs reveal about the Japanese American Incarceration, Elizabeth Partridge and Lauren Tamaki tell the story of three photographers who documented this historic event, providing an accessible introduction to this time in history.

Seen and Unseen follows three photographers- Dorothea Lange, Toyo Miyatake, and Ansel Adams, who all photographed the prison camps which Japanese Americans were sent to, and had varied reasons for why they photographed these events.

Dorothea Lange, best known for her documentation of the Great Depression while working for the Farm Security Administration, photographed the entire incarceration process of Japanese Americans for the War Relocation Authority from March-July 1942. She photographed the forced relocation of people from their home, as the government hoped that it would show it was being done in a “humane way.” She followed as they were moved to temporary assembly centers, and even photographed prison camps like Manzanar. Lange was troubled by what she witnessed, but felt it was her duty to document what was happening. Many of her photographs were not published until after the war, held back by her supervisor so the government could curate the image they wanted from the camps.

Toyo Miyatake was imprisoned at Manzanar from 1942-1945. Miyatake smuggled in his camera lens, telling his song “I have to record everything. This kind of thing should never happen again.” A friend built a camera from scrap wood, and a salesman friend agreed to smuggle in film and darkroom chemicals for Toyo. Unrest grew among the prisoners, and guards sought ways to raise spirits. A guard asked Toyo to open a portrait studio so prisoners could document monumental events like birthdays and weddings. Eventually rules loosened and Toyo was able to document life outside of the studio.

Ansel Adams, best known for his landscape photography, was invited by the director of Manzanar to photograph prisoners in the camp to show other Americans that they were hardworking, loyal Americans. Rather than take candid shots like Lange and Miyatake did, Adams staged portraits to show prisoners in the best possible light. Eventually, Manzanar and other prison camps were closed in 1945.

Seen and Unseen provides an excellent introduction to a dark period of American history. While the narrative focuses mostly on the photographer’s experiences, there is substantial information about what everyday life was like for the imprisoned Japanese Americans.  Lauren Tamaki’s gorgeous illustrations compliment the photographs, providing a engaging reading experience.  This book could serve as an excellent introduction for upper elementary readers, but adults will likely learn something new as well. Seen and Unseen is a masterful introduction to a very difficult topic, and is well worth seeking out.

Elizabeth Weislak is the Children’s Programming Specialist for Alamance County Public Libraries. She can be reached at eweislak@alamancelibraries.org.

 “Blue Marlin” by Lee Smith.  Durham, NC:  Blair-Carolina Wren Press, 2020, 123 pages, $15.95

This slight novella by North Carolina author Lee Smith is a little pocket gem that can probably be read in one-sitting by most readers.  The year is 1958 and 13-year-old Jenny Dale is obsessed with growing up, movie stars, surveilling the neighbors on her bicycle, and puzzling over grown-up relationships.  As a child of her parent’s middle-age, Jenny spends much time amusing herself because she is the only one of her sisters still at home.

Because of her solitary jaunts around town, Jenny is the first to suspect that her attorney father has begun an affair with Carroll Byrd, a painter newly arrived in town who has inherited the family home of her deceased father.  Carroll has an artistic temperament, strong features, and ways that are foreign to the rural Virginia town and the Dale family’s small-town Southern lifestyle.

Jenny’s blonde, bridge-playing, former Debutante mother Billie suffers an emotional breakdown when she learns of the affair by not being able to locate her husband during a family crisis.  Billie’s ne’er-do-well brother dies unexpectedly and her husband’s cover story of a trip to a hunting cabin implodes when he can’t be found after the death.

The aftermath of this tense family situation results in Jenny being shipped off to loud and unfashionable cousins in South Carolina so that her parents can work on their marriage.  Just when she’s starting to warm to her big-boned cousin Rayette, Jenny’s parents swoop down to take her on a “family” road trip vacation to Key West, Florida. 

The car trip is punctuated by bad feelings and long silences until the arrival at the Keys when the Dale family finds that they are unexpectedly staying at a motel being used by the movie crew filming “Operation Petticoat”, a war movie featuring a pink submarine.  Running into the stars of the movie, Cary Grant and Tony Curtis, becomes a preoccupation of Jenny and her mother.

 Finally, a family thaw and truce are negotiated when father John Dale agrees to participate with his wife and daughter in a movie crowd scene to welcome the submarine back to port.  As daughter Jenny quips, “The geographical cure worked. Mama and Daddy would go home refreshed and stay married for the rest of their lives.”

Not all dysfunctional family stories end so well, but this one rings true—even down to Jenny’s adolescent crush on her young brother-in-law reminiscent of the Southern literature classic “Member of the Wedding” by Carson McCullers.  This is a charming story of adolescent awakening that will find a wide audience among those nostalgic for a gentler era.

Lisa Kobrin was the Reference Services and Local History Librarian for the Alamance County Public Libraries. She served in this position for 32 years, and retired on April 1. We will miss Lisa’s book reviews as well as her presence.

“Dead Wake:  The Last Crossing of the Lusitania” by Erik Larson.  New York:  Crown Publishers, 2015.   (430 pages)

“Dead Wake” is the story of the massive Cunard ocean liner RMS Lusitania that was torpedoed off the coast of Ireland in May 1915 with a huge loss of civilian life.  At the time of the tragedy, only 6 of the ship’s 22 lifeboats were able to launch and many men, women, and children were forced into the water in incorrectly donned lifejackets.

German U-Boat 20 was responsible for the attack—a submarine that had been prowling the North Atlantic water looking for neutral targets that were unprotected by British naval ships.  The submarine launched a single torpedo at the British-flagged passenger liner during the last day of its transatlantic voyage from New York.  It sunk the ship in less than 20 minutes and killed more than two-thirds of the almost 2,000 passengers and crew.

This event took place during a period when military action during the Great War was expanding rapidly and the United States had not yet become a combatant or issued a war declaration.  More than 150 Americans died in the attack and the bodies of as many as 600 passengers were never recovered.  Such submarine predations were cited by the American government as a reason for the US to declare war on Germany.

Author Erik Larson highlights many fascinating subplots including that of President Woodrow Wilson’s romance with second wife Edith Galt and bookseller Charles Lauriat’s antiquarian volumes that traveled on the Lusitania and were lost in the sinking.  Another prominent sub-plot involves female architect Theodate Pope, an aspiring spiritualist and paranormal enthusiast, who lost her traveling companion to drowning.  Playboy Alfred G Vanderbilt, the most socially prominent passenger who perished, is given little notice in the book—probably because he was the focus of a 2013 book on the sinking by another author.

U-Boat Captain Walther Schwieger is the narrator for a portion of the story, making for an interesting juxtaposition of viewpoints between “the hunter” and its prey.  The most telling information revealed is that British intelligence may have had more tracking capability of U-boats than was previously revealed, and therefore greater culpability in the death of innocents.

Described as narrative nonfiction, this is a gripping disaster tale that compares favorably with accounts of the sinking of the Titanic.  Author Erik Larson is an American journalist who has written multiple bestsellers focusing on the sensational, including popular works about both serial killers and Nazi Germany.

Lisa Kobrin is the reference and local history librarian for Alamance County Public Libraries. She can be reached at lkobrin@alamancelibraries.org.

Katie the Catsitter By Colleen AF Venable and Stephanie Yue. New York : Random House Children’s Books, 2021. First in a series

“Some heroes have capes…Katie has cats!”

217 of them, to be exact! Have you ever wondered what that many cats in one apartment would be like?  Twelve-year-old Katie gets to find out when she takes on a job catsitting for her upstairs neighbor, Madeline, to earn money to join her friends at summer camp.  She soon finds, however, that the real summer adventure may be closer to home when she begins to suspect that there’s more to Madeline than meets the eye.  Could cupcake-baking, late-night-working Madeline actually be notorious super villain The Mousetress?  Why do the cats play with actual lasers instead of laser pointers?  And why isn’t Katie’s best friend writing home much from camp?

As a cat lover, I found this graphic novel pawsitively delightful!  Madeline has 217 cats, each with their own personality and special skill, ranging from computer hacking and laser technology to fashion design and art curation.  My personal favorite is probably Moritz, whose specialty is Counterattacks, but the choice is quite difficult.  Though I doubt my own cat is a welding expert or jiujitsu master, who knows what cats get up to when we’re not around?

I found Katie to be a highly relatable character.  Even years after middle school, I remember the sting of being left out when your friends were all doing something together and you couldn’t take part.  Venable does an excellent job capturing the uncertainty that comes with changing friendship dynamics at any age. 

Katie experiences more uncertainty as she begins to see that not all heroes and villains are truly all evil or all good.  Her world is one in which superheroes and villains are an accepted part of society, to the point of caped crusaders competing for the highest Yelp review scores.  The Mousetress is reviled as the evilest of all – yet Katie realizes that her crimes ultimately result in good, such as freeing animals from a testing facility.  Katie finds herself inspired in turn to fight for those who can’t fight for themselves and begins to view the world in a less black-and-white way – important lessons for anyone, but especially inspiring at an age when you’re starting to find your unique voice.  

Venable’s storytelling and Yue’s illustration combine to form a delightful, relatable, and inspiring graphic novel geared toward middle grades but appropriate for older readers as well.  Yue’s illustrations add details that aren’t to be missed, such as each cat’s individuality and fun, small background details that readers may connect throughout the story.  Fans of Raina Telgemeier’s Smile series, Shannon Hale’s Real Friends, and Victoria Jamieson’s Roller Girl are sure to enjoy Katie the Catsitter.

Joan Hedrick is a Circulation Assistant at Graham Public Library.  She can be reached at jhedrick@alamancelibraries.org.

“Beyond the Wand: The Magic and Mayhem of Growing Up a Wizard,” by Tom Felton. Copyright 2022, Grand Central Publishing (288 pages, $28.00).

Content Warning: Alcoholism, Addiction, Mental Illness.

In this memoir, Felton allows fans of Harry Potter to take a peak into his own pensieve (a rare and magical item that allows for memories to be stored and reviewed) and see how the high and lows of life, fame, and Potter shaped the man and actor he is today. 

Felton doesn’t start off with Harry Potter. He knows it’s what we’re all here for, but he also understands that in order for us to get to that part of his life, we have to start at the beginning. Felton tells stories about his parents, his four older brothers, and his first days of finding his passion with acting, because these memories and stories are important to who he becomes. Something that he reflects on and makes a point of mentioning while sharing his past with us.

Felton has a way of making you feel like he’s having a conversation with you while you’re reading his essays. He drops in humor, heart, and little nuggets that some people may not know already (like how he first met Emma Watson and their friendship, or what really happened with Peeves) that just really makes it all so personal. That doesn’t mean that he doesn’t stray into the darker side of life and fame. He talks about how LA Fame is different than Harry Potter fame and how that his ego and willingness to believe the hype (even when there wasn’t much of one, from time to time) led him towards drinking, substance abuse, and eventually, an intervention.

Not to spoil anything, but Felton realized that the intervention saved him in a way that he didn’t know he needed. Felton expresses that he still has his down days but now has the tools to manage the swings. He focuses on the everyday and shares that he can’t wait to see what his future has in store for him.

Kayleigh Dyer is a Library Technical Processing Assistant at May Memorial Library. Contact her at kdyer@alamancelibraries.org.

Miss Aldridge Regrets by Louise Hare. New York : Berkley, [2022]

I am a huge mystery fan, and my favorites are those that fall between cozy and hard boiled, and have a historical element. Miss Aldridge Regrets fills both of those criteria!

Lena Aldridge is a singer in a nightclub who has big dreams of making it big on the stage, but feels stuck in her life. Her father Alfie died recently of tuberculosis, and her best friend Maggie is married to Tommy, a goon who owns the nightclub where she sings. It’s London, 1936, and Lena is multiracial – her father was black and her mother (who left when she was a baby) was white. Because of her lighter skin, she can “pass” as having Spanish or Italian heritage, but is still considered “exotic.”

Charlie Bacon approaches Lena and offers her the job of her dreams – starring in a Broadway musical. He says he’s the friend of Benny Walker, an old friend of her father, who wants to heal the rift between them by offering his daughter a job. Lena has never heard of Benny, and the job seems too good to be true. But when Tommy fires her, then is killed right in front of the stage (poisoned with cyanide), Lena makes the decision to accept his offer and go to New York with Charlie. He has two first class tickets on the Queen Mary leaving in a few days.

When they get on the ocean liner, Lena finds out Charlie has finagled to have them seated at meals with the Parker/Abernathy family, who are rich New Yorkers. The patriarch, Francis, is incapacitated after a stroke. His son, Jack, Jack’s wife Eliza, their two children, Frankie and Carrie, Francis’ nurse Daisy and his doctor Richard Wilding are traveling with him. Charlie tries to sell them on investing in the musical, and wants Lena to flirt with the men, but she feels really uncomfortable. The family obviously is dysfunctional. Francis Parker looks at her very strangely, like she reminds him of someone. Jack and Frankie both exude wealth and privilege, and the bad behavior that sometimes comes along with that. Doctor Wilding seems very boring, although his dry wit makes her laugh. Daisy seems likeable, but she also is having an affair with Jack. Eliza is ignoring the affair, and acts as though she wants to befriend Lena, but Lena’s not sure of her motives. And Carrie, still in school, is the most likeable and the only one Lena really wants to spend time with.

Up in the lounge their second night, Francis Parker dies – from cyanide poisoning. Lena knows if anyone realizes this is the second person in a week who has died in front of her from poisoning, she’ll be arrested on the spot. But what are the chances that two people she knew would be killed from cyanide within a week? Lena doesn’t know who to trust, certainly not the Parker/Abernathy family, who would throw her under the bus in a second if it kept the suspicion off of them. However, the piano player and singer on the ship, Will Goodman, seems like a good man (and is a good-looking man, too). But he isn’t sure about socializing with Lena, reminding her that if she wants to pass, spending time with a man of color isn’t going to do her any favors.

There are several mysteries to unpack in this novel, and vivid descriptions of the clothing, music, food, and atmosphere of the Queen Mary and London that give you a good feel for life in 1936. I didn’t want to put this book down, because I had to know who had killed the two men, and who was setting up Lena to take the fall. There are short chapters from the murderer’s point of view interspersed in the book, which ratchets up the suspense.

I hope Louise Hare continues to write, as this mystery was wonderful!

Mary Beth Adams is the Community Engagement Librarian at Alamance County Public Libraries. She can be reached at madams@alamancelibraries.org.

“What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions” by Randall Munroe; Dey Street Books (320 pages, $24).

Would humanity survive if the Earth suddenly stopped spinning on its axis? What would happen if the sun suddenly vanished from our sky? Is it possible to propel yourself into the air with a machine gun jetpack? What if everyone in the world all jumped at the same time? If you’ve got some time to kill, and don’t mind watching fictional stick figures die in the pursuit of knowledge, then the answers to these absurd questions and many more like them can be found in the pages of Randall Munroe’s bestselling 2014 book What If?.

Munroe is an American cartoonist, author, and engineer best known as the creator of the webcomic “xkcd”. He has worked full-time on the comic since late 2006, taking on absurd hypothetical questions from internet strangers from all across the globe and then setting out to look up scientific answers to them, and next creating silly stickmen comics illustrating how these absurd situations would most likely unfold (or more often, collapse horribly).

In the pages of What If?, about half of the hypothetical situations presented are originally from Munroe’s webcomic, but they are elaborated upon in much more detail. The remainder of situations are brand new, with all situations of either variety originating from anonymous questions submitted to him through his “xkcd” website.

The book is narrated with a great sense of humor, but you can still learn a few things along the way if you really pay attention! But you can also enjoy the book by turning the logic center of your brain off and just following these hapless stickmen scientists and explorers to their usually grim fates. I’d definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys watching MythBusters or fun science-oriented shows in general. No calculator is required, because Munroe always shows his work!

Munroe was born in Easton, Pennsylvania, and his father has worked as an engineer and marketer. He has two younger siblings, and was raised as a Quaker. He was a fan of comic strips in newspapers from an early age, starting off with Calvin and Hobbes. After graduating from the Chesterfield County Mathematics and Science High School at Clover Hill, a Renaissance Program in Midlothian, Virginia, he graduated from Christopher Newport University in 2006 with a degree in physics.

Millions of people visit Randall Munroe’s iconic webcomic each week. His stick figure drawings about science, technology, language, and love have a large and passionate following. You can check out his webcomic at xkcd.com and submit your own absurd hypothetical questions his way. Who knows, he just might make a comic about your submission next!

Donavon Anderson is a reference library assistsnt at May Memorial Library. He can be reached at 336-229-3588 or danderson@alamancelibraries.org.