Guest Blogger!

Andrew Smith has a peculiar way of writing: he defines Young Adult as a genre in itself, not as just an audience type. He is adamant in his expression of YA as genre so that teens are treated as adults. This is apparent in his recent work, The Marbury Lens. The main characters, their friends, lovers, and rivals are all teenagers. However, the content and situations they find themselves in are most definitely not typical for modern YA. The book is edgy, gritty, raw, graphic, violent, sexual, explicit, and apologetically honest. The protagonist, Jack, must lie, cheat, steal, murder, and worse in order to survive. He often finds himself face to face with his enemies over and over again, and sometimes those enemies are his best friends. At this point you’re probably wondering why you should even pick this book up, right?

It will change you. It will get inside your head and make you feel like Jack feels. Paranoia will unexpectedly creep into the back of your mind; you’ll hear Seth’s “Tap, tap, tap” in the middle of the night. You’ll keep asking questions, the same ones Jack is asking, and when you don’t get the answers you’ll want to read the sequel. Trust me. You won’t be able to escape Marbury. Pick it up, read the first page. Get sucked into Jack’s world, into his head, and then with him into the hell that is Marbury.

If you don’t believe me, check out what some critics, experts, and such have to say about it: "The Marbury Lens"

Read more about author Andrew Smith, his books and his views on writing and publishing on his website: http://ghostmedicine.blogspot.com/

~Written by guest blogger Eden Rassette, our Young Adult Programmer at Erlanger

Right Now I'm Reading:

A couple of weeks ago I went to see the movie Argo (which was great by the way), and there was a preview for the greatly anticipated film Lincoln which opens on November 16th. I had been intending to read Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin which inspired the film for some time now and I finally picked up my copy at the library last week. Right now we're waiting to find out who will be the Republican nominee for 1860 - William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, Edward Bates, or a fellow named Abraham Lincoln. It's a good sign to me when I know how a book is going to end up, but I enjoy the story and facts of how it will get there.

If you've read Team of Rivals and want to know even more about Lincoln, here are some great suggestions from Bill Lucy at The Huffington Post:

The Abraham Lincoln Reading List: Recommendations and Suggestions

Tomorrow night marks one our yearly highlight events at Kenton County Library - an evening with our One Book, One Community author Rick Robinson! I've now been to a number of the meet the author nights and it's always interesting, insightful and fun. So many people have read this year's book, Writ of Mandamus, that I think there will be a lot of great questions for Rick.

In the book, "Congressman Richard Thompson is about to run for reelection and his only opponent is Sean Sullivan, an eccentric lawyer known for wearing fuzzy slippers in the court room and railing about the temperature of the Guinness served at Chez Nora (one of the many places you’ll recognize). But as Thompson and his wife prepare for a long-awaited vacation in Ireland, Sullivan files a writ of mandamus against him, and Thompson realizes that Sullivan is a more formidable candidate than previously thought. Then someone is murdered and the Thompsons are plunged into an investigation involving Keeneland, an Irish horse farm, an attack on CIA operatives and the smuggling of military aircraft parts to the Middle East." This is only one of several fast-paced thrillers that Robinson has penned, so check at the library for his other titles.

The talk is at the Erlanger branch on Thursday 10/25 and will start at 7pm. Robinson will also be signing books - if you don't have your own copy yet, you can buy one at the event for $5.

I describe some books as "a soap opera". It's not a criticism, it just means I think it's very dramatic, features over the top situations and highly emotional characters, and compels me to keep reading no matter what.

In the case of Rich Man, Poor Man by Irwin Shaw, the book is a grand family saga that chronicles  two brothers and their sister from the mid-1940's through the late 1960's. A difficult and bitter home life sends the Jordache siblings into the world on vastly different paths. Gretchen is the eldest and runs off to try and pursue a life in the theater; brother Rudy pushes himself to succeed as a businessman; and angry, defiant little brother Thomas is sent off by his father, and must try to make it on his own. Full of scandal, passion, triumph and defeat, this novel is the very definition of "popular fiction". I also suggest delighting in the made for TV mini-series from 1976 - we have it on DVD!