by Joyce Worsley, Librarian, Fiction Department

Looking for a way to entertain yourself during isolation? Then you may be on the hunt for some good escapist fiction to help keep your mind and imagination busy! The following authors can help do just that. They are established authors with solid series to keep you immersed for hours of reading pleasure.

The first is Kerry Greenwood’s Phryne Fisher series. The sleuth/heroine Phryne is introduced in Cocaine Blues. Her first case leads her to Australia at the height of the roaring twenties. The scenery is lush, the dialogue is witty and there is plenty of action. Phryne is not the typical young woman of the time: she’s been in the war and is a skilled pilot as well as a race car driver. She is very wealthy but grew up poor and appreciates all the good things her money can buy. Phryne doesn’t have the usual detective sidekick; rather she has an entourage composed of her lady’s maid, her two drivers, and a dour police inspector. They all pull together to solve mysteries in a most delightful fashion. There are currently 20 books in the series.

The next author is J. D. Robb and the In Death series featuring Lt. Eve Dallas in a futuristic world circa 2058. There are currently 50 books in the series, with the first being Naked In Death and the last, Golden in Death. If it’s hard to picture what life will be like post-pandemic, this series takes a leap into a very colorful, gritty, and tech-driven future which is one possibility. Lt. Dallas has a troubled past which could have led her into a life of crime but instead led her to be in charge of a homicide unit and do her best to speak for the dead by relentlessly hunting down murderers. She is helped in her endeavors by her sidekick Delia Peabody and the series love interest, Roark. There is definitely character development throughout the series so starting at the beginning with the first book is probably a good idea. The books are fun, fast paced, and gripping with a little bit of romance and sexiness without being graphic or gross.

The third series is the brainchild of Louise Penny and features Chief Inspector Armand Gamache as the main character. The series begins with Still Life and so far is up to 16 books. The novels take place in Canada, primarily, Quebec, although various cases take Gamache and his sidekick and son-in-law, Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir, to many locales. This series is probably the most literary of the three mentioned here. The author’s language is rich and the characters complex all the while weaving together complicated plots and surprising twists in remarkably good mystery writing. There is a little village described in the books called Three Pines which can’t be found on any map but which is definitely a place one ends up wanting to visit for the bookshop, the local restaurant, and the scenery.

These book series and many more are available to you via the Enoch Pratt Free Library ‘s digital collection. Happy reading!

by Beth Emmerling, Librarian, Fiction

Are you thinking of a light-hearted mystery, with people you would like to be your neighbors? Are you thinking it might be fun to make a new recipe for snacks or dinner? You can have your book and recipes too.  These books are available for e-books in Maryland’s Overdrive.

Diane Mott Davidson brings us a series featuring Goldy Bear, a caterer who always seems to be  involved in solving homicides. In Killer Pancakes, Goldy is catering a cosmetic company’s company banquet when a murder occurs. Goldy juggles the banquet and sleuthing for some fun moments. The mystery is solved, as are all of Davidson’s mysteries. Included in this book are low-fat recipes for Fettuccine Alfredo with Asparagus and a decadent Fudge Souffle. Yum.

In Dying for Chocolate, Goldy leaves her abusive husband and works as a caterer at a country club. A handsome psychiatrist, that Goldy has been dating, crashes his car into an oncoming car and dies. Convinced this was not accidental, she shifts into detective mode to solve this crime. This book has many high calorie recipes including one for Scouts Brownies. The recipe is found below. 

Having met Goldy and visited her world you will be hungry for more books and Davidson is kind enough to serve them up. If you need more recipes try Goldy’s Kitchen Cookbook.

Scouts Brownies

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
3 ½ ounces best-quality unsweetened chocolate (recommended brands: Callebaut or Valrhona – available at Williams-Sonoma)
3 tablespoons dark European-style unsweetened cocoa (recommended brand: Hershey’s Premium European-Style)
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
4 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extrac
1 cup chocolate chips (recommended brand: Mrs. Field’s)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Melt butter with unsweetened chocolate in top of double boiler, stirring occasionally. Set aside to cool. Sift together cocoa, flour, baking powder, and salt. Beat eggs until creamy, then gradually add sugar, beating constantly. Add vanilla and cooled chocolate-butter mixture. Stir in dry ingredients just until combined. Spread batter in buttered 9 by 13 inch pan. Sprinkle chips over surface. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until center no longer jiggles when shaken. Cool, then cut into 32 pieces.
Makes 32 brownies 

by John Jewitt, Manager, Social Science and History Department

As an example of the great movies you can find in our online Hoopla collection, check out Robin Wright At The Congress, directed by Ari Folman.

The movie’s three distinct sections are a really interesting exploration of the human condition, focusing on our fascination with entertainment and distraction.

The movie opens in the recognizable present.  Robin Wright (playing a version of herself), is offered a final contract by the head of Miramount Studios. Under economic pressure, and looking ahead to the end of movie-making with actors in-person, the studio is digitizing the images of stars so that they can be cast in any movie without needing to be physically present. Robin is their next target. 

This fictional Robin is vulnerable to the manipulations of the studio. She has an obligation to her teenage children, and has made some poor career choices. Although well known for Princess Bride and Forrest Gump, this Robin has not been particularly successful since. The studio makes an offer. They want to pay Wright one final time to completely digitize her image, after which she will not be permitted to act again. Wright’s performance, faced with this life-altering and potentially career-ending decision, is nuanced and emotional and captivating. The men around her are craven and manipulative. Studio head Danny Huston gives a pep-talk that veers subtly but sharply into a list of all Wright’s character flaws and mistakes, and we watch her as he says this to her face. In a remarkable monologue, Agent Harvey Keitel tells the exact story he needs to tell to help his client make the decision he favors, and again confronts Robin with her weaknesses in confessing his reasons for selecting her as a client. This is a confrontational take on fame, celebrity, and the entertainment economy, made all the more pointed by the fact that Robin Wright is “playing herself” and not a different character. 

In section two, we fast-forward twenty years to see Wright arriving at The Miramount Congress. In these twenty years, the technology of experience has moved beyond 3-D scanning, and is now entirely chemical. Wright attends The Congress by inhaling a chemical that she’s handed by a doorman. The transition into this alternate reality is represented by the movie’s switch to an animated format.  As Robin checks in to The Congress she is greeted as “the fourth one today.” In this neurochemical reality, anyone in possession of the correct chemical compounds can be anyone, or experience anything that they want to, and the “real” Robin Wright can’t necessarily be distinguished from imposters or pretenders. As the image of her previously-digitized self, Rebel Robot Robin, Street Fighter, whirls in the air above the animated attendees, Wright arrives to provide the keynote at the Congress. Can she be relied upon to continue to represent the interests of Miramount?

The third section of the movie moves us on another twenty years, and begins (like The Matrix, Ready Player One, and even WALL-E) with the proposition that alternate reality or constant distraction is superficially preferable to actual reality. The animated world of the Congress is now, somehow, not simply a neuro-chemical conference. It’s a full lived experience. Is there any way out? What happens when you move between reality and neuro-reality? Can you move in both directions? What does this version of Robin Wright want from her life, and how will she navigate between these worlds to be able to find it?

The movie is partially inspired by The Futurological Congress by Stanislaw Lem, a Polish science-fiction novel first published in 1971. The novel is also available on Hoopla. Usually I’m a “book before the movie” person, but in this case, part of the fun of reading the book comes from finding the pieces that were adapted and placed in the movie, and revisiting some of the scenes that make a direct reference back to the book. The stories are different enough that the movie doesn’t spoil the book, but rather enhances it.

As you’re looking through Hoopla to see what’s in the collection to watch, read, and listen to, or you want to look at some items side-by-side, take a look at the mind and reality-bending The Congress, and the book that inspired it. 

Happy Asian Pacific American Heritage Month! This May we wanted to spotlight some amazing Young Adult books written by Asian and Asian-American Authors . Go ahead and check them out today.

by Shaileen Beyer, Librarian, Fiction Department

Hooray for David Eberhardt! His poem “After ‘Blade Runner 2049’ and Anton Webern ‘Piano Variations’- Op 27 / Ruhig, fliessend” has won the 2020 Pratt Library Poetry Contest. The Little Patuxent Review judges wrote, “This poem is one part syntactical cybernetic wild ride, and one part orchestral arrangement. Both help readers to hear, see, and critique our experiences of the world.”

Here is part 2 of the Q & A with David Eberhardt.

Which writers inspire you?

I like what I call “juicy” word poets- Shakespeare’s lush poetry in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, Hart Crane, Wallace Stevens, also poets that have something to say- many anti war poets- particularly Wilfred Owen and William Stafford. 

Many Baltimore poet friends have inspired me-particularly Clarinda Harris, Chris Mason, Chris George and the late Dino Pantazonis. The list is long of those upon whose shoulders I stand- some outlaws, some academics, poets associated with The Loch Raven Review and Poetry in Baltimore-Alan Reese and Dan Cuddy. I am inspired by mystery novelist Laura Lippman and her husband and all writers of the TV series “The Wire”.

When did you start writing poetry? 

Oberlin College early 60’s. I was co- editor of the “Yeoman” poetry magazine. After 1967 I had more to write about, because that year I poured blood on draft files to protest the Vietnam War. As a result I spent 21 months in federal prison. Finally I had scads to write about.

What’s the best advice about writing you’ve ever received?

From my primary critic, my partner, CP who brooks no nonsense. Her advice is always: Explain and justify, think of your readers and what you are trying to say. (I tend to please myself at all costs.) 

Poets without editors tend to get away with too much.

If you don’t have the genius of an ED- find good mentors and editors and writing salons and groups (even if you have to pay). If all else fails,  put yourself into a great event (for me the Peace Movement). Then you’ll have something to say.

What’s one of your favorite lines of poetry or sentences from a poem? 

Dante Gabriel Rosetti  in the title and haunting beginning of his poem “Sudden Light”: “I have been here before”; Andre Breton’s “Fata Morgana” has a stunning opening: “This morning  the daughter of the mountain holds on her knees an accordion of white bats.”

Beginning of Rimbaud’s “Drunken Boat.”

This poem attributed to George Chapman, although to me it seems much more current as if written by Dylan Thomas or a surrealist.

Many quotes from the Bible I grew up with- especially from, Kings: “and in a still voice, onward came the Lord.”