May is the month for Speed Reading!

Captain Criticism:
Today is April 28 and May is so close I can taste it. It's been a long, gray winter in the Northwest and we are all ready for sunnier days, flowers blooming, and the switch to iced rather than hot coffee. I grew up in Central Indiana and for me May always meant the start of practice sessions at the Indianapolis 500.

The first week of May is rookie orientation, followed by a couple weeks of practice runs. Pole Day is the day when the fastest driver is awarded the pole position for the race. Bump Day gets the field down to 33 cars by eliminating the slowest drivers. Many employees in the Indianapolis area ask for the day off on Carb Day, which takes place on the Friday before the race and includes Pit Crew competitions. The race itself is run on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend with Memorial Day used as a backup in case of rain on Sunday. All across Central Indiana people gather for backyard barbeques (we call them cookouts or pitch-ins in Indiana) and listen to the race on the radio because we are blacked out from televison coverage due to our proximity to the race.

I grew up hearing names like Unser, Andretti, and Foyt (read Indy Racing Legends by Tony Sakkis.) Today's IndyCar stars include Tony Kanaan, Buddy Rice, Helio Castroneves, and Danica Patrick. Castroneves might sound familiar to many people not for his driving, but because he was recently on "Dancing with the Stars, " and Danica Patrick has been in the news for becoming the first woman to win an IndyCar race when she won the Indy Japan 300.

Here at the library we have several books on Auto Racing, including a biography of Patrick called Danica: crossing the line. Two other recent books about racing (although not specifically about IndyCars) are City of speed: Los Angeles and the rise of American racing, and The Driver: my dangerous pursuit of speed and truth in the outlaw racing world.

And then there is always NASCAR! We actually have far more books about NASCAR than IndyCar racing (Hmm...wonder why Cycle Jan?). NASCAR is a whole other ballgame! Think Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt, and Tony Stewart. Checkout these books at the library: The physics of NASCAR : how to make steel + gas + rubber = speed, One helluva ride : how NASCAR swept the nation, and Speed, guts, & glory : 100 unforgettable moments in NASCAR history.

A book is born

Cycle Jan:
Last week I attended a library conference in Vancouver, and one of the sessions had three local authors speaking about their writing - how they came up with ideas, what the writing process is like, etc. One of the authors was Chelsea Cain who wrote the novel Heartsick (talked about in Captain Criticism's last posting). So, I have a question for you, Captain Criticism (aka CC) - what did you think about Ms. Cain's comments regarding the writing process for Heartsick? (for those who weren't at the conference, one of the reasons she gave for coming up with the idea of writing about a serial killer is that she had a rat problem at her house, so she and her husband adopted a cat, and the cat turned out to be a rat-killing machine. She would find rat parts - like a head! - strewn about her basement.) Since you read Heartsick, CC, what was it like hearing the author speak?

For anyone who is interested in reading novels by Northwest authors, I recommend checking out Chelsea Cain as well as Nicole Mones and Cai Emmons, the other two authors featured at the program. After listening to these authors, I really want to give Mones' The Last Chinese Chef and Emmons' The Stylist a try. I'm not sure I would have come across these novels on my own - which is not a negative comment about the subject matter...just too many things to read! But listening to an author explain why a particular book was created, well, that's better than any review I might come across.

Captain Criticism:
I attended this event as well, and thought Chelsea Cain was very entertaining. I really liked her comments about the writing process. She said that she didn't hold back, just put everything in the book that she thought was appropriate to the characters. She said that she just finished the followup to Heartsick, and took the same approach. There are a couple pretty graphic scenes in Heartsick so I wouldn't recommend it to someone looking for a "gentle read", but it would be great for anyone who enjoys thrillers.

Portland Oregon in Fiction

Captain Criticism:
I just finished reading a really great book by Chelsea Cain. It's called Heartsick, and it's set in Portland, OR. The main character is a Portland police detective named Archie Sheridan. He is recovering from being held prisoner by a female serial killer, and he just can't get her out of his head. It's a very well-written, somewhat dark, psychological thriller.

There are actually several books set in Portland. Try the new novel, The Shanghai Tunnel, by Sharan Newman, or True Faith by Alan Gold.

April is the cruellest month...

I wonder if T.S. Eliot had any idea how much April would forever be associated with a line from The Waste Land. It did feel a bit cruel to go from a sunny, 80 degree day on Saturday, to the inevitable rain and chill of today.

This time of year always makes me think of digging in the dirt (even though I don't do a lot of it...I just like to imagine myself "doin' the garden, diggin' the weeds" as the Beatles say.) Regardless of how you like to approach springtime gardening, the library offers a bounty of gardening books. If you're interested in organic gardening, try Organic Garden Basics: Five Easy Steps to Growing Organically by Bob Flowerdew. I understand that the author is a leading organic gardener in Britain, and with a name like his, surely he is.

Sometimes when a large expanse of dirt seems daunting, I like to focus my energies on container gardening. A new book to check out is Container Gardening for Washington and Oregon by Marianne Binetti.

And finally, if the urge to garden wanes a bit, and you just need to read a good book... about flowers, of course, try Flower Confidential: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful in the Business of Flowers by Amy Stewart. Turns out that it ain't all pretty in the floriculture industry.

ADVENTURE NONFICTION, EXTREME READS

When people read for fun, it's not always fiction that they are reading. I really enjoy reading what I like to call "Adventure Nonfiction." These are usually stories of travel, exploration, or survival. At my library we even have a Book Discussion Group dedicated to this topic. It's called Extreme Reads. (See a list of all FVRL book discussion groups at: http://www.fvrl.org/events/books.cfm )

The first book the group discussed is Adrift: seventy-six days lost at sea by Steven Callahan. The author was literally adrift at sea on a small life raft after his boat sank in the Atlantic. Ironically (and fortunately) he had a book called Sea Survival by Dougal Robertson in his raft. He used this book as a manual and inspiration to survive. The book Survive the savage sea, also by Robertson, tells the story of his family's 38 day survival after their boat sank. In his case, there were seven people surviving in a small dinghy. Check out my one minute video about "Adift" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NKBna9ZXUU.

Other books that fit in this category are Touching the Void, Into the Wild, The Perfect Storm, and The last river.