So when we spontaneously decided to meet at the Taproom this Tuesday to talk about Michel Faber’s Under the Skin , I knew I had to get reading… fast.  Because books about Scottish alien cannibal women do not lend themselves well to spoilers.

You guys, Under the Skin is the most fun I’ve had reading since Gone Girl in June.  Part morality tale, part horror story, and part dystopian sci-fi, it’s a lightning-paced read with a serious literary backbone, featuring an embattled, tough-as-nails heroine.  Better yet, it taps into pop-culture’s beloved hitchhiking motif, but in totally new and unexpected ways.  I promise you’ll want to hitchhike even less after reading this book.

Although I don’t typically read horror or sci-fi, I loved Under the Skin.  It’s a genre-bending tale in the vein of some of the best science fiction classics out there: 1984, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451; the genre is such a great vehicle for exploring those big juicy human questions, and Faber writes with such economy and control.  And if you’ve ever been in a book club, you’re hip to the fact that they’re fabulous for getting you to pick up stuff you might not have read on your own.

You might already know Michel Faber as the writer behind the awesome historical mini series The Crimson Petal and the White.  But he’s about to enter pop-culture consciousness in another big way — Scarlett Johansson is slated to take the screen as the leading lady in the film adaptation of Under the Skin, due out next month.  If you want to read the book first, here’s a tip — the audio version is worth it for the Scottish accents alone.

Creepy Cute Crochet

I will always have a soft spot in my heart for the tiny crocheted zombies, ninjas, and robots within these pages; this is the book that first introduced me to amigurumi.  In fact, I learned how to crochet just so I could use this book. (YouTube Donna taught me.) Literary bonus points: contains an amigurumi Cthulhu. How perfect is this for Halloween?

Tiny Yarn Animals

The whole point of amigurumi is arguably cuteness, which is reflected in its characteristic proportions of oversized spherical heads, wideset eyes, cylindrical bodies, and tiny arms and legs. Tiny Yarn Animals is a great example of this cute “chibi” style. I’m also a big fan of the unexpected critters in this collection by Tamie Snow — hippos, koalas, foxes and ring-tailed lemurs.

Amigurumi Two

This is the sequel to Ana Paula Rimoli’s Amigurumi World, which has now grown into a four part series. After spending time with amigurumi books penned by several different authors, I have to say that Ana Paula Rimoli is my favorite. Her patterns are creative, super cute, and — importantly for beginners — totally easy to follow. And I love her boyish amigurumi robots and airplanes.

Ami Ami Dogs 2

When I first saw Ami Ami Dogs 1 & 2, I thought, “wait, it’s just dogs??”  I’ve since developed an appreciation for Mitsuki Hoshi’s approach: because she’s dealing with just one basic shape (dogs), she’s able to drill down into the techniques for creating many different amigurumi effects — spots, shaggy fur, adorable facial expressions. She also offers several creative takes on how to transform your tiny amigurumi friends into accessories like refrigerator magnets, keychains, and cellphone charms.

Tasty Cute

One of my favorite trends in amigurumi is adorable crocheted food! Sprinkle donuts, hot dogs, bananas, sushi… you can find amigurumi patterns for just about any of these. The best example of this from Lawrence Public Library’s collection is Tasty Cute, but I’m also a huge fan of Christen Haden’s book Yummi ‘Gurumi, which you can get through Inter Library Loan.

If crocheting isn’t your thing, you can still get in on the amigurumi phenomenon by sewing “softies” (try Steampunk Softies) or creating an amigurumi knit (why not Knitted Meerkats?). Please leave us a comment if you’re into amigurumi — we’d love to see what you’ve been making! And don’t forget about Lawrence Public Library’s annual DIY crafting series, Thrifty Gifter, which starts up again on November 13 and will cover awesome projects ranging from Linoleum Block Printing to Upcycled T-Shirt Cowls.

–Rachel, Adult Programs

Pleasant Rowland, creator of the iconic American Girl doll, had been buying up property in New York’s Finger Lakes region in the early 2000s.  Meanwhile, W.W. Norton was readying to publish Happyland, J. Robert Lennon’s “plot-driven satire about a manipulative doll-company millionairess who buys and renovates much of a small college town in upstate New York” (New York Times book review, Aug. 27 2006).

At the time, Lennon was a promising up-and-coming literary superstar.  Barnes and Noble had numbered him among their prestigious “Discover Great New Writers” alums for his 1997 debut Light of Falling Stars, and his 2003 book, Mailman, was also met with widespread critical success.

Then, in the eleventh hour of his publication deal for Happyland in 2005, Norton got cold feet — presumably in terror of the awesome power wielded by real-life millionairess Pleasant Rowland.  They put Lennon in touch with lawyers who advised him to remove any reference to dolls or a doll company.  Lennon refused.  The book deal was scrapped.

Although devastating, it wasn’t a complete loss.  Much of the publishing world took note of the critical darling’s dismissal from Norton, and Harper’s Magazine rushed in to publish Happyland as a 4-part serial novel in late 2006 — their first serialized novel in over 50 years.  Since then, renowned independent publisher Graywolf Press has taken J. Robert Lennon under their wing, publishing his two most recent novels: Castle, the story of a crotchety man who sets out to explore a forbidden and impenetrable forest, and the brand-new Familiar, in which a woman experiences a psychotic break — or entry into a parallel universe — while driving back from her son’s grave.

Lennon’s book tour for Familiar will stop in Brooklyn, Seattle, Portland, Boston, Iowa City, Missoula and Lawrence, where he’ll speak at the Lawrence Public Library auditorium on Tuesday October 16 at 7 pm.  He currently teaches creative writing at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and can be found producing multi-media artworks including music, photography and film when he’s not writing eerie, soft-spoken satires that explore the surreal undercurrents of contemporary American life. – Rachel Smalter Hall, Programs

It’s a title that’s bound to pique interest.  She told me that she grew up in the sixties and doesn’t really know a lot about meth.  Indeed, methamphetamine first showed up on the national radar in a big way in the 2000s, and has since captured the public imagination as a drug that’s weirdly predominant in rural working-class communities in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and all across middle America.  It’s also started cropping up all over pop-culture, from Breaking Bad to True Blood to Winter’s Bone.  People are curious about meth.

The thing I like best about journalist Nick Reding’s book Methland is that it transcends a sensationalist true crime attitude to look deeply and thoughtfully at the meth pandemic.  “Viewing meth as a crime story vastly oversimplifies the problem,” Reding has written, and he’s taken pains to craft a narrative that avoids stereotyping, trivializing or caricaturing.  After spending four years on and off in the tiny town of Oelwein, IA, getting to know meth from every perspective — addicts, the town doctor, the chief of police, the mayor, the county prosecutor, social workers, the owner of the local dive bar —  Reding had the material for a book that would land on the New York Times bestseller list and tell the complicated story of meth in small town America.

Methamphetamine was first widely used in combat operations by Allied and Axis soldiers during World War II — many have even speculated that Hitler, when he devolved into increasingly Parkinson’s-like symptoms and a derelict mental state, was addicted to meth.  In the 1950s thru the early 80s, meth was often prescribed to suppress appetite and fight depression, among a host of other ailments.  Then, in the mid-80s, TV personality Tom Arnold’s sister, Lori, started trafficking illegal meth to Ottumwa, IA, and all over the U.S.  Now, like a socioeconomic cancer, illegal meth ravages small-time dealers and cooks like Roland Jarvis, who miraculously survived blowing himself up one night after hallucinating that he saw live human heads in the trees at his mother’s house, and Major, a young man struggling to get clean after hooking up with the Sons of Silence biker gang and fathering a child who was taken away by DHS.  Meanwhile, strapped local law enforcement agencies are trying every possible strategy — including banning bicycles on downtown Main Streets — to clean up their towns and rid them of meth, for good.

I’m looking forward to hearing Nick Reding speak at the Dole Institute of Politics on Thursday, September 20 at 7:30 pm in conjunction with Read Across Lawrence.  A true-life Winter’s Bone story, Reding will use Methland as a springboard to discuss the politics of methamphetamine use, its effects on addicts and their communities, and the families and children who, like Ree Dolly, are left behind to try to survive.

– Rachel Smalter Hall, Adult Programs

Mr. Woodrell first launched his writing career as a crime novelist with his haunting and gritty Bayou Trilogy featuring Detective Rene Shade in the Louisiana swamp town of Saint Bruno, a place where “tempers went on the prowl and relief was driving a hard bargain.”  Soon after came Woe to Live On, which was adapted into the Ang Lee film Ride With the Devil and explores the dark and twisty undertones of Quantrill’s Bushwhackers and their raid on Lawrence, KS.  Winter’s Bone is one of his most recent works, and familiar as the inspiration for the film that was a multiple Oscar contender in 2010.

Curious to see what Daniel Woodrell had been up to since Winter’s Bone, I cracked open his newest book, The Outlaw Album, a collection of short stories set in his ancestral home of the Missouri Ozarks.

To characterize Woodrell’s work just as tough and gritty would be to miss out on some of its finer nuances.  Following in the footsteps of other southern gothic writers like Flannery O’Connor, William Faulkner and Cormac Carthy, Daniel Woodrell knows a thing or two about how to turn a sentence.  His work is infused with eerie dreamlike enigmas, a quality that really shines through in the short story format.  In one of my favorites from the collection, “Night Stand,” a Vietnam war vet named Pelham is attacked by an intruder and defends himself with a knife that mysteriously appears on his nightstand.  The intruder is killed, and for the rest of the story the question gnaws at Pelham: how’d he get that knife?  He never solves the mystery, but instead becomes obsessed with his deceased attacker.

The other stories in the collection are equally tragic with fabulous first sentences: “Once Boshell finally killed his neighbor he couldn’t seem to quit killing him.”  “Morrow wondered if he might soon die because of a beautiful girl from his teens he’d never had the nerve to approach.”  “My brother left no footprints as he fled.”

Most of the characters who populate The Outlaw Album are unfussy tough guys who don’t suffer fools: handy with shotguns, suspicious of fancy outsiders. But a few have softer sides: the convict with a surprise gift for poetry. The army private who processes difficult emotions by creating fantastical paintings (of cows).  The girl with penny-colored hair who wears swan-winged glasses and a crinkled black dress, and whose “words put special color to events.”  There’s beauty and humor to be sniffed out from tragic passages.

In a Fresh Air interview with Terry Gross, Woodrell has said that he likes to write about people who are easy to dislike; he wants to coax the reader into caring about somebody she or he wouldn’t usually care about.  These are the characters of The Outlaw Album, and if you look closely, you’ll glimpse their redemption — writ however quiet or small.

Daniel Woodrell will be the library’s guest on September 27 for a free Meet the Author event at Liberty Hall at 7:30 pm.  Earlier that afternoon he’ll give a special talk on writing on the KU campus at Spooner Hall.  Click here for more details about Read Across Lawrence and to learn more about Winter’s Bone events all over town, all month long.

– Rachel, Programs Librarian

But sometimes, let’s face it, it’s pretty satisfying to read a sharp, smart thriller that you can dive into and devour in 48 hours flat.  So says Nick, one of the slippery narrators of Gone Girl, the latest bestselling novel by KU alum Gillian Flynn.  Honeymooning with his devastating bride Amy, Nick observes: “She’d made a grim figure on the Fiji beach during our two-week honeymoon, battling her way through a million mystical pages of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, casting pissy glances at me as I devoured thriller after thriller.”  Nick knows it, I know it, and you know it: sometimes it takes a thriller to hit the spot.

On the morning of their fifth anniversary, Amy Dunne of Gone Girl goes missing from her perfect Midwest home with perfect husband Nick.  After spending the first few years of their marriage together in cosmopolitan New York, the couple has relocated to Nick’s hometown in rural Missouri to open a neighborhood bar and take care of his ailing mother.  But on their anniversary morning, Amy disappears from the living room.  Coffee tables are overturned.  Vases are broken.  There are obvious signs of struggle.  And Nick can’t provide an alibi.  Soon the cops discover Amy’s diary, and we’re enticed to jump to conclusions.  Was their home truly happy?

I loved the fun, twisty, whodunit aspect of Gone Girl, executed so well under the author’s surgical precision.  But my favorite part, by far, was Flynn’s signature — savage — perceptivity.  It’s what makes Flynn stand out from the rest of the thriller-writing pack.  Gone Girl is ultimately a portrait of a marriage on the rocks, and Flynn relishes peeling back the layers to reveal how it all went wrong, step by teeny step, as two very flawed characters fail in their vow to love and to cherish.  Flynn makes it absolutely delicious to take sides, and you will — and then you’ll change sides (I promise).  And then you’ll change sides again.  But whose side will you take in the end?

Its surprising twists and turns make Gone Girl the perfect novel to read with a book buddy.  Whatever you’re in the middle of reading now, I recommend a 48 hour detour — you’ll have a juicy debate waiting for you when you get to the last page. - Rachel, Programs

Leave it to Rolling Stone editor Rob Sheffield and his ruminations on Pat Benatar, Whitney Houston, Sleater-Kinney and Pavement to make me cry like a baby.  It also wreaked havoc on my bank account balance as I went on an iTunes downloading spree.  Hanson’s “MMMBop,” anyone?

In Love is a Mix Tape, written half a decade ago, Rob Sheffield chronicles his marriage to a punk rock, hell raising Appalachian girl; a love affair that ended tragically when she suffered a pulmonary embolism with no warning at the age of 31.  Sheffield writes about their relationship in the best way he knows how — each chapter is prefaced with the tracklist from a mix tape that describes each phase, from their first meeting at a South Carolina bar (Big Star’s: Radio City) to the painful process of grieving and becoming a young widow (Sleater-Kinney’s One More Hour).

It’s a device that you suspect might get tired after a few chapters, except it doesn’t, because Rob Sheffield is a music critic god — a brainy guy with a pop culture sensibility that infuses each sentence of the book.  On his sexual awakening at the junior high dance: “It was a painful night, but I got the message: Let the dancing girls dance. [...] By the second verse of ‘Bad Girls,’ it was obvious everything I knew was wrong.  ‘Toot toot, beep beep’ was meaningful on a much deeper level than I could have fathomed.”  And so on.

As a fellow purveyor of pop culture, and someone who agrees that stories and songs are mostly meant to connect us to each other (and also to keep the girls dancing), I stand by Love is a Mix Tape as the perfect little summer book.  Check it out, but make sure you’ve got your credit card handy.  You might be downloading a lot of TLC and Debbie Harry over the weekend.  – Rachel, Programs

Sure, I laughed to my husband about the terrible prose and ridiculous characters.  And then I waited till he fell asleep to read the next chapter.  I complained to my girlfriends about the heroine’s “Inner Goddess.”  And then I picked it back up on the sly and kept right on reading.  In fact, for two weeks of my life that I’ll never get back, I utterly neglected the “TBR” pile on my nightstand, ignored my book club’s current book, stopped reading about project management for work, and kept leafing through 50 Shades of Grey to find out what new, um, entanglements Ana and Christian would find themselves in for the evening.

In case you’ve missed all the buzz, let me fill you in.  50 Shades of Grey is a juicy little piece of erotica that’s been cropping up all over popular culture lately, from Good Morning America and The View to the New York Times bestseller list.  It’s Twilight for the boudoir — gorgeous but insecure young woman falls for impossibly handsome, brooding gazillionaire.  But instead of fangs, this guy’s got handcuffs, a dungeon, and a 10 page NDA contract he makes all his girlfriends sign.

The fun thing about 50 Shades of Grey is that it is so “girl next door.”  It’s such a far cry from old school erotic classics like The Story of O, Venus in Furs, or Story of the Eye, but that’s kind of what makes it so fun.  Anastasia isn’t some new wave French girl or a 19th century German dominatrix, but a 21st century American woman who could be your college roommate.  She grapples with the modern woman’s dilemma of wanting to have her cake and eat it, too — she wants a strong, sexy guy to protect her and take control, but she wants him to do his half of the housework, too.

And the thing is, it works.  If you can make it through the first six chapters, which are a little dull, the heat turns way up and Ana and Christian become blank canvases for all your little daydreams.  The plot is sorta vanilla, but the romantic scenes between our heroes rank at roughly 65,000 on the Scoville scale.  Dr. Oz has said it’s helping women save their relationships.  Sherri Shepherd from The View can’t get enough of it.  And even Kristin Wiig has made the case for why anyone who likes a little heat in their fiction might not want to miss 50 Shades of Grey.

The only thing that drove me crazy is that the story ends on a complete cliffhanger.  But not to worry, gals and guys — we’ve got the second and third books in the series, too.   –Rachel, Adult Progams