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Plymouth District Library is joining libraries around the world in the first ever BIG LIBRARY READ. Thousands of library patrons will be reading Michael Malone's The Four Corners of the Sky, from May 15 to June 1st. OverDrive will allow unlimited simultaneous use of this ebook to Plymouth patrons with valid library cards for this two week period.  This e-book may be downloaded and read in Kindle format, EPUB, and  OverDrive READ in your browser.

"The Four Corners of the Sky is the story of Annie Peregrine-Goode, a Navy pilot more at home in the sky than on earth. Having spent twenty years without a father, Annie is stunned when hers calls out of the blue to ask for a dying wish so absurd and mysterious, that no is the easiest of answers. It’s the reward that grabs her - the one thing she always wanted." 
Be a Big Library Read participant – checkout the free eBook at http://ebooks.mcls.org.

Dan Brown's Inferno

Tomorrow, 5/14/13, Dan Brown's newest book will be released. Even that date is significant to the clues built into the book, which again stars The Da Vinci Code's Robert Langdon, Harvard symbologist and puzzle-master extraordinaire. His work is cut out for him this time, because the book is "jampacked with tricks...To the great relief of anyone who enjoys him, Mr. Brown winds up not only laying a breadcrumb trail of clues about Dante (this is “Inferno,” after all) but also playing games with time, gender, identity, famous tourist attractions and futuristic medicine." (Janet Maslin, New York Times) Will Langdon solve the clues and save the world from disasters caused by sinister cults, doomsday plots, and looming pandemics? Of course!

Copies of this book are also available in both EPUB and Kindle format through the Library's OverDrive site.  These e-books are available to Plymouth cardholders only. To search for this title, connect to the MCLS OverDrive site now.

 "If Traditional Mysteries are Your Cup of Tea..."

The Agatha Awards, named after Agatha Christie, honor "traditonal" mystery novels published by a living author during the calender year of 2012. They are presented during Malice Domestic, an annual convention devoted to mystery fiction. As the Malice Domestic website states, "For our purposes, the genre is loosely defined as mysteries that contain no explicit sex and contain no excessive gore or gratuitous violence. Materials generally classified as "hard-boiled" are not appropriate."

Best Novel: The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny
This year's winner for Best Novel is The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny. Penny has won the award four times before for other books in the same series:  Dead Cold/A Fatal Grace (2007), The Cruelest  Month (2008), A Brutal Telling (2009), Bury Your Dead (2010). The series features Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, head of the homicide department of the Sûreté du Québec, and is set in the province of Quebec where Penny lives. The Beautiful Mystery is about a murder in a remote, peaceful monastery where the monks have taken vows of silence, but are well known for their glorious choir. The death of the choir master reveals that all is not harmonious in the cloistered community.

Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Ann Fowler

New on the May 5, 2013 New York Times Best Sellers List, Fowlers's novel about the woman-behind-the-man chronicles the marriage of Zelda Sayre and F. Scott Fitzgerald, the Jazz Age beautiful couple. As one of the most famous modern literary and romantic relationships, their flirtation and marriage, and its eventual dissolution, has fueled scores of literary articles, biographies, and novels. So much of their story seems to turn up in Fitzgerald's fiction that, as New York Times reviewer, Penelope Green put it, their relationship was  "symbiotic to the point of cannibalism, with Scott drawing freely from Zelda’s diaries, letters and experiences (including her treatment for mental illness) for his own work." Their meeting and courtship, while he was a young, ambitious Army officer and she a Southern belle, evokes the romance of Daisy and Gatsby, and the hedonistic lifestyle which ultimately led to their downfall, echoes the plot of Tender is the Night. Fowler's novel "shows us a more complicated portrait of the muse to one of the century’s most well-known writers. Here is a woman bursting with creativity and life, but who would find herself thwarted --- by society, by the times, even by her own husband." (Bookreporter)

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The newest film adaptation, in 3-D, of this iconic novel will open in theaters on May 10. Directed by Baz Luhrmann, it stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby, Carey Mulligan as Daisy Buchanan, and Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway. Fitzgerald's book serves as the quintessential book about the American dream, the Jazz Age, and the classic poor-boy-loves-rich-girl narrative of twentieth-century literature. Published in 1925, the book received critical acclaim but did not initially sell very well. It was only after Fitzgerald's death in 1940, and the revival of his work in the 50's and 60's, that the public embraced it. Gatsby is now widely regarded as a "Great American Novel;"  the Modern Library lists it as the second best English language novel of the 20th century. And if that's not enough, Stephen Colbert has selected it as the first book for his new book club, saying “We’re reading it for all the right reasons: because there’s a movie coming out.” 

May the Fourth Be With You!

Today is the celebration of all things Star Wars and the Force is strong, indeed. The Star Wars franchise has generated thousands of related items, from movies, cartoons, video games, comics, books and memorabilia etc. There is enough Star Wars fiction to keep the most devoted geek traveling throughout the galaxy for a long, long time. Given the purchase of Lucasfilm by Disney and the announcement of new Star Wars films to be made, the Force will be with us, always.

2013 EDGAR AWARDS

The Mystery Writers of America presented the Edgar Allan Poe Awards honoring the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction and television published or produced in 2012 at their annual banquet on May 2.

BEST NOVEL:                                                                                               

LIVE BY NIGHT BY Dennis Lehane
In 1926 Boston, Joe Coughlin, the youngest son of a prominent police captain, has long since turned his back on his strict and proper upbringing. Now having graduated from a childhood of petty theft to a career in the pay of the citys most fearsome mobsters, Joe enjoys the spoils, thrills, and notoriety of being an outlaw. But life on the dark side carries a heavy price. In a time when ruthless men of ambition, armed with cash, illegal booze, and guns, battle for control, no one--neither family nor friend, enemy nor lover--can be trusted.

BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR:

THE EXPATS BY Chris Pavone
In the cobblestoned streets of Luxembourg, Kate Moore's days are filled with playdates and coffee
mornings, her weekends spent in Paris and skiing in the Alps. But Kate is also guarding a tremendous, life-defining secret—one that's become so unbearable that it begins to unravel her newly established expat life. She suspects that another American couple are not who they claim to be; her husband is acting suspiciously; and as she travels around Europe, she finds herself looking over her shoulder, increasingly terrified that her own past is catching up with her. As Kate begins to dig, to uncover the secrets of the people around her, she finds herself buried in layers of deceit so thick they threaten her family, her marriage, and her life.

D.E Johnson

Michigan author D.E. Johnson will be speaking at the annual Book and Author Luncheon co-sponsored by the Friends of the Canton, Plymouth, Northville and Novi public libraries on Thursday, May 9, 2013. Johnson's historical mysteries are set in the Detroit of the 1900's, and highlight the development of the first electric cars amid corporate intrigue, organized crime, blackmail, and murder.

The Detroit Electric Scheme
Will Anderson is a drunk, heartbroken over the breakup with his fiancee, Elizabeth. He's barely kept his job at his father's company - Detroit Electric, 1910's leading electric automobile manufacturer. Late one night, Elizabeth's new fiance and Will's one-time friend, John Cooper, asks Will to meet him at the car factory. He finds Cooper dead, crushed in a huge hydraulic roof press. Surprised by the police, Will panics and runs, leaving behind his cap and automobile, and buries his blood-spattered clothing in a garbage can. What follows is a fast-paced, detail-filled ride through early-1900s Detroit, involving murder, blackmail, organized crime, the development of a wonderful friendship, and the inside story on early electric automobiles. "...this gem of a debut showcases an author to watch very closely." (Booklist)

Motor City Shakedown
Detroit 1911: seven months have passed since the events of The Detroit Electric Scheme, and Will is in the throes of morphine addiction due to the injuries he sustained then. He lives for nothing except revenge against the people who contributed to a friend's murder--first among them crime boss Vito Adamo. When Will stumbles upon the bloody body of Adamo's driver, he knows he'll be a suspect, particularly since he was spotted outside the dead man's apartment that same night. He sets out to find the killer, and the trail leads him to a vast conspiracy in an underworld populated by gangsters, union organizers, crooked cops, and lawyers. Worse, it places him directly in the middle of Detroit's first mob war. "Johnson brings the turbulence and rampant corruption of the era to life through his flawed yet tenacious lead in this worthy successor to his debut." (Publishers Weekly)

Detroit Breakdown
Will Anderson and Elizabeth are called to the vast Eloise Insane Asylum outside of Detroit, where Elizabeth's cousin Robbie is a patient and now a murder suspect. The victim, like three others before him at the asylum in recent months, was killed with the infamous "Punjab lasso," the murder weapon of the Phantom of the Opera. Certain of Robbie's innocence, they begin an investigation with the help of Detroit Police Detective Riordan. Will has himself committed to the asylum to investigate from the inside, and Elizabeth volunteers at Eloise and questions people outside the asylum. "Johnson's spooky third series entry (after Motor City Shakedown) ensures its place among hot new historicals. His unique take on Detroit in the early 20th century and its burgeoning automotive culture make this entry a perfect crossover selection for historical fiction buffs. The lead characters-chapters alternate between the two narrators-have a checkered and violent past that Johnson fills in nicely for new readers." (Library Journal)

Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction

Novelist Don DeLillo has been named the first recipient of the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. The prize is a new lifetime achievement award announced on April 26th by Librarian of Congress James Billington. DeLillo will be presented with the award at the 13th annual National Book Festival held in Washington D.C. in September. According to a statement from the Library of Congress, the new Prize for American Fiction “seeks to commend strong, unique, enduring voices that — throughout long, consistently accomplished careers — have told us something about the American experience.”  DeLillo is considered "the postmodern master of sweeping novels dealing with pressing contemporary American issues," (Daily Beast). HIs titles include   Underworld, Cosmopolis and Falling Man. DeLillo has won the National Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award and been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize twice.