By Barbara Engstrom
As anyone who has ever worked in a library knows, there will always be that person who, upon finding out that one works in a library, comments, “That must be so great, I’d love to just sit around and read all day. “Ummm…. yeah… not in any public law library that I know …. but sure, most of us give a polite nod and refrain from an overly sarcastic eyeroll. That said, libraries do attract people who love books and yes, we do spend a lot of our free time reading them. In this month’s column you can get a bird’s eye view into what the law library and foundation staff are currently reading.
The Children of Anguish and Anarchy by Tomi Adeyemi (final installment of the Legacy of Orisha series)
This book was chosen by Tamara Hayes, Technical Services Librarian. Tamara is responsible for every aspect of the collection including acquisitions, circulation, collection development, cataloging, and processing. Tamara also manages the subscriber program, conference room reservations, and invoicing. She is the glue that holds the library.
“I just finished reading the final book in the Legacy of Orisha series by Tomi Adeyemi called The Children of Anguish and Anarchy. If you’re familiar with this series, then you know the wait for this last book was long but worth it to wrap up this story. The series is about the struggle of the Maji, those with magical powers, trying to get out from under the oppression they experience from the monarchy of Orisha. Book 3 picks up after the battle where the Maji defeated the royals but some sort of gas knocked them out and they wake up in chains on a boat! We learn who has captured the Maji and why. The Maji must now work together with what’s left of the royal army and their new allies, the people of New Gaia, to defeat a new enemy, King Baldyr whose intent on destroying them all. I especially loved the descriptions of New Gaia and can’t wait to see how it’s interpreted in the film adaptation of the series.”
California Bear by Duan Swierczynisky
This is Outreach Services Attorney, Sarah deQuay’s pick. Sarah is the newest addition to our staff and has taken over producing our self-help form packets. Sarah has that rare talent of being able to do deep dives into complex legal subject matter and then present her conclusions in a way that’s easily accessible by pro se litigants. Sarah is unfailingly kind and empathetic with patrons and just generally a ray of sunshine in the law library.
“I’m currently reading California Bear by Duane Swierczynski. It is about a fictional prolific serial killer, nicknamed the California Bear, whose decade-long crime spree ended in the 1980s. The California Bear’s true identity has never been discovered, but four seemingly unrelated characters believe he is still alive, and they are all working separately to crack this cold case. So far, I can’t seem to put this book down. I grew up reading lots of Agatha Christie, which molded me into a huge fan of mystery and crime novels, especially when they are told from multiple perspectives. I just love those “AHA!” moments when you connect the dots between the characters and start piecing the mystery together.”
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
If you’ve been to KCLL within the last 40 years then you know Rick Stroup, our Assistant Director and recommender of this next pick. Rick is a legend at KCLL — no matter how esoteric or novel the question coming across the reference desk is, more likely than not, Rick has run into it before and knows just the resource to point the patron to. Rick would be forgiven for being resistant to change after almost 40 years on the job, yet surprisingly, he’s always the one to quickly embrace new technology, programs, and initiatives. We also love him for his infectious laugh and mad baking skilz.
“Had Charles Dickens, Margaret Atwood and Agatha Christie ever taken a cruise down the Nile together, and if the result of that sailing wasn’t outright murder but instead the creation of a single piece of fiction, and if the final draft of that single piece of fiction had been shared with Henry James, Saul Bellow and William Blake for a few last-minute tweaks, Diane Setterfield’s The Thirteenth Tale could have been their collective brainchild.
The Thirteenth Tale is, on its surface, a mélange of troupes. A reclusive, internationally successful novelist, who is at once brilliant, self-absorbed, self-deluded and potentially homicidal, beguiles and bullies an equally reclusive part-time rare books dealer and amateur biographer into a lengthy series of interviews, the final result of which will be the creation of the novelist’s only authoritative biography. There are Dickensian characters who are as much an expression of the landscapes and environs in which they move as flesh-and-blood people. There is a once grand but now ruinous Gothic manor. There is a would-be giant. There are chance encounters, would-be ghosts and layers upon layers of intrigues, betrayals, heart breaks, devotions and expressions of unstoppable love. How Setterfield weaves her chosen troupes into a unique narrative is the magic of The Thirteenth Tale. The novel is both a straight-forward Gothic tale well-told and an exploration of fiction’s foundational troupe: the alchemy of truth, fiction and powerful story telling.”
Fight No More by Lydia Millet; Liberation Day by George Saunders; Martyr! By Kaveh Akbar
Our next round of picks come from Kristie Thompson, Executive Director of the KCLL Foundation. Kristie somehow finds time to keep the foundation running like a Swiss watch on top of multiple other volunteer activities, raising two very active teenagers, and fostering an even more active toddler. I’m constantly in awe of her organizational and time management skills. On top of all that she maintains a great sense of humor, is a lot of fun to be around, and she reads more books than anyone I know!
“I usually visit the Seattle Public Library weekly to check out the Peak Picks section, but the recent ransomware attack limited the selection available. As a result, I’ve purchased quite a few books over the past few months. Among the used books are two collections of short stories that I recommend: Lydia Millet’s Fight No More and George Saunders’ Liberation Day. Both are full of strange and interesting stories that I keep thinking about weeks later. I also enjoyed Kaveh Akbar’s novel Martyr!, in which he explores the themes of art, identity, and the search for meaning in life. The denouement is open to interpretation, so it’s another book I continue to think about after finishing.”
The Fraud by Zadie Smith; Normal Rules Don’t Apply by Kate Atkinson
The final round of picks are two books that I, Barbara Engstrom, Chief Cook and Bottle Washer, recently read and really enjoyed.
In The Fraud, Zadie Smith builds her narrative around The Tichborne Affair a true historical episode in Victorian England. The novel has an entertaining cast of characters including a once famous but on the decline novelist, William Harrison Ainsworth, his sister-in-law Eliza, and a cadre of famous author friends (including Charles Dickens) all based on real people. Much of the plot centers around the drama surrounding a person claiming to be Sir Roger Tichborne, heir to a title and large fortune, who was shipwrecked in Jamaica and presumed dead. This novel is too layered to adequately cover in a few sentences, but Zadie Smith does a wonderful job of making this long-ago legal case that captivated the Victorians feel like a reflection of our current obsessions with conspiracy theories and con-men. She manages to capture that spirit and do it all in a wry and funny retelling.
My second pick is by one of my favorite authors, Kate Atkinson. Her novel Life After Life ranks right up at the top of my all-time best fiction list. It’s a dazzling literary exercise on reincarnation and fate in the guise of a historical family saga. Normal Rules Don’t Apply, her recent collection of short stories, brought to mind Life After Life. The stories run the gamut of fairy tales to dystopian vignettes to Raymond Carver-ish takes on marriage and motherhood all with a recurring character named Franklin popping up now and again. The stories are so wildly disparate on one hand yet by the end you see how the same threads have been woven through. Just as with Life After Life, when I finished Normal Rules Don’t Apply, I had to sit for a minute and let what I had just read sink in, struck by how amazingly clever the whole endeavor was.
Come Visit Us at KCLL
While we don’t have a fiction collection at KCLL we do have law book collection that we’ve lovingly curated and maintained. To find out more about our collection in print and eBook format, visit us at www.kcll.org.
