Please note: The accuracy of the information below is valid at the time the newsletter was distributed. Please always contact the Readers' Advisory Desk for the most up-to-date information on any of these programs.

Adult Summer Reading Program – Launch into Reading! 
Continues through Aug. 31.
No matter in which direction your reading tastes lean, all systems are “go” for a summer filled with great reads, and it's never too late to sign up!  Each participant in the reading program must read eight (8) titles by the end of August.  Everyone is eligible to participate in the reading program and receive a gift for completing the reading requirements.  However, only STDL patrons are eligible for the grand prize drawing at the program’s end.  Sign up at the central library Readers’ Advisory Desk or at the branch libraries.  For more information, contact our Readers’ Advisory Desk at (847) 923-3189.

Portrait of a Crime Scene
Thursday, Sept. 20 – 7:30 pm
Rasmussen North
What’s the difference between TV’s CSI and a real crime scene?  Police detectives/authors Michael A. Black and Dave Case will set up a crime scene and discuss how evidence is handled.  Audience members will interpret the scene and write a report to be analyzed by the officers/authors.  Awards will be given for the best analysis.  Copies of their books will be available for purchase and signing at the event.  Registration is required.

Dana Stabenow was born in Anchorage, Alaska and raised on a 75-foot fish tender in the Gulf of Alaska.  She survived the 1964 Great Alaskan Earthquake, the largest reported earthquake in North America and second largest ever recorded (for those not familiar with earthquakes, the reported 9.2 magnitude of this quake is equivalent to 5.6 gigatons of TNT).

Dana put herself through college working as an egg grader, bookkeeper and expediter for Whitney-Fidalgo Seafoods in Anchorage, and received her B.A. in journalism from the University of Alaska.  On a post-graduate backpacking trip to Europe, Dana claims she spent all the money she had earned the previous summer. 

When she returned home, with only about twenty dollars in her pocket, construction had begun on the TransAlaska Pipeline and Dana found work with Alyeska Pipeline at Galbraith Lake and later for British Petroleum at Prudhoe Bay.  According to Dana, "I made an obscene amount of money and went to Hawaii a lot.  That was in the days when it cost $322.21 [round trip] Anchorage-Honolulu-Anchorage, and a flight to any of the outer islands was included."

Dana later enrolled in the University of Alaska's MFA program and her goal was "to sell a book before I went broke."  Although it's hard for any new author to find an agent, trying to find one when you live in Alaska, she says, "the difficulty compounds geometrically, like interest owed to a loan shark.  My manuscripts returned regularly like little homing pigeons accompanied by letters which read, 'Alaska? Where is that? Oh, right, over by Finland?' and 'Alaska? Is that, like, you know, a state?' My favorite letter came from an agent who said, 'Your manuscript is wonderful and I would love to represent you; unfortunately, I only represent American authors.' "

Despite her problems finding an agent, she did succeed in selling her first book, Second Star, to Ace Science Fiction in 1990.  "It fell with an almighty thud on the marketplace," she admits, "and you’ll be amazingly lucky if ... Amazon says they’ve got a copy."

In 1991, Dana's editor at Ace read the first Kate Shugak mystery and offered her a three-book contract.  " 'What makes you think I can write any more of these?' I said. 'Shut up and sign,' said she."  A Cold Day for Murder, the first of fifteen Kate Shugak novels, was released in 1992.  Protagonist Kate Shugak is an Aleut who lives on a 160-acre homestead in a generic National Park in Alaska.  Her roommate Mutt is a half-wolf, half-husky and her nearest neighbors are a bull moose and a grizzly sow.  Kate's world is populated with mushers, miners, hunters, trappers, fishermen, bush pilots, pipeline workers, Park rats and rangers, other Aleuts, Athabascans, and the criminals that she always seems to run into. The series is known for its breathtaking portrayal of the Alaskan scenery and way of life, its complex characterizations and the wry humor that gives the stories their unique appeal. The book won the Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original Mystery Novel.  "And the rest," as she says, "was madness."

In 1998, Dana launched another mystery series; this series features the smart and sexy Alaska State Trooper Liam Campbell who is relegated to working in a remote Aleutian Island post. The first Liam Campbell novel was Fire and Ice, and debuted to rave reviews from critics and fans alike.  There are four titles in this series so far.

Her current release, Blindfold Game, is her first non-series title.  This taut thriller features a husband-and-wife team - Hugh Rincon, a Langley-based CIA honcho and Sara Lange, the executive officer aboard the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Sojourner Truth - facing off against resourceful, ruthless and well-funded terrorists.  Another non-series book, Prepared for Rage, is scheduled for release in January 2008.

Dana credits her mother for her success.  "I grew up believing I could do anything because my mother showed me how.  She could bake bread, shoot and skin and butcher a moose, shoot, pluck and cook ducks, help maintain and run a boat, count fish, fool the Fish and Game, skin a mink and tan its hide, homeschool me the year we trapped...Because she could do anything, I could, too. It was her gift to me."

Dana is also known for her short stories, wrote travel columns for Alaska magazine, and is a member and past-president of the Alaska chapter of Sisters in Crime.  She still lives in Anchorage.

For more information, check out her web site: www.stabenow.com.

Her books:

Kate Shugak series (Kate is a Native Alaskan, an Aleut, living in a fictional national park in Alaska. Formerly an investigator for the Anchorage District Attorney's office, an on-the-job injury causes her to quit and return home):

A Cold Day for Murder (1992)
A Fatal Thaw (1993)
Dead in the Water (1993)
A Cold-Blooded Business (1994)
Play with Fire (1995)
Blood Will Tell (1996)
Breakup (1997)
Killing Grounds (1998)
Hunter's Moon (1999)
Midnight Come Again (2000)
The Singing of the Dead (2001)
A Fine and Bitter Snow (2002)
A Grave Denied (2003)
A Taint in the Blood (2004)
A Deeper Sleep (2007)

Liam Campbell series (Campbell, an Alaska State Trooper, is broken in rank after the preventable deaths of people under his watch and is sent to a remote post in the eastern Aleutian Islands):

Fire and Ice (1998)
So Sure of Death (1999)
Nothing Gold Can Stay (2000)
Better to Rest (2002)

Star Svensdotter series (in these futuristic tales, Star Svensdotter helps to build habitats for earthlings moving off-planet; all these titles are out of print):

Second Star (1991)
A Handful of Stars (1992)
Red Planet Run (1995)

Non-series titles:

Blindfold Game (2006)
Prepared for Rage (forthcoming, January 2008)

 

 

As an author, you only have a few pages to grab the reader's (or editor's or agent's) attention.  Donald Maass, in his workbook Writing the Breakout Novel, agrees:  "Weak first lines greet us like a limp handshake."  This is not the first impression you want to give your readers (or an editor or an agent).  Multi-award-winning science-fiction author Ursula K. LeGuin describes that first page as the readers' "door to the world."

There are workshops devoted to first lines.  There are authors who will agonize over their first lines.  But relax.  You don't need the "perfect" first line.  One editor say that a good opening line is one that doesn't make the reader (or editor or agent) say "this is awful."  But, in reality, a good opening line just makes the reader want to read the next line.

According to Donald Maass, "The best first lines make us lean forward, wondering, 'What the heck does that mean?' ... The one thing all good first lines have in common is the intrigue factor."

Does not having that "hook" mean your novel is doomed?  Not necessarily.  One of the greatest books ever written, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, has a very un-dramatic hook, and one can't say that it has diminished the book's popularity:  When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.

The "how" of writing an opening line is not something that will be discussed here.  Each author must find their own path.  Many published authors, when asked for their advice on this topic, will tell you not to think of the first line as the beginning of your novel.  Get your words flowing and you will be able to figure it out.

However, to provide some inspiration, here are some examples of opening lines (in no particular order of importance), all guaranteed to make you want to read further:

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."  (Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, 1813)

"It was a pleasure to burn."  (Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, 1953)

"Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person."  (Anne Tyler, Back When We Were Grownups, 2001)

"If I am out of my mind, it's all right with me, thought Moses Herzog."  (Saul Bellow, Herzog, 1964)

"The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting."  (Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage, 1895)

"On the third day of their honeymoon, infamous environmental activist Stewie Woods and his new bride Annabel Bellotti were spiking trees in the forest when a cow exploded and blew them up.  Until then, their marriage had been happy."  (C. J. Box,  Savage Run, 2002)

"First I had to get his body into the boat."  (Rhian Ellis, After Life, 2000)

"Daisy Deveraux had forgotten her bridegroom's name."  (Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Kiss An Angel, 1996)

"January, as usual, was meat locker cold, and the girl had already been missing for nearly two days.  Corcoran O'Connor couldn't ignore the first circumstance.  The second he tried not to think about."  (William Kent Krueger, Blood Hollow, 2004)

"Before the pain, before the blind terror - even before the man on the bed realized anything was wrong - there was a beeping that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere simultaneously."  (Jay Bonansinga, Head Case, 1998)

"Jack Reacher ordered espresso, double, no peel, no cube, foam cup, no china, and before it arrived at his table he saw a man's life change forever."  (Lee Child, The Hard Way, 2006)

"Even on the night she died, Rose Shepherd couldn't sleep."  (Stephen Booth, Scared to Live, 2006)

MAIN DISPLAYS

MINI DISPLAYS

The following is a list of upcoming films based on novels, books and plays, now playing or coming soon to a movie theater near you:

Playing or opening this quarter:

Bug– based on the play by Tracy Letts
Nancy Drew – based on characters created by Carolyn Keene
1408 – based on the short story by Stephen King
Evening– novel by Susan Minot
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix– novel by J. K. Rowling
The Bourne Ultimatum– novel by Robert Ludlum
Stardust – novel by Neil Gaiman
The Invasion - novel by Jack Finney
The Hottest State - novel by Ethan Hawke
Wristcutters: A Love Story - based on the short story Kneller's Happy Campers
by Etgar Keret
Death Sentence - novel by Brian Garfield
The Nanny Diaries - novel by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus
December Boys - novel by Michael Noonan
Into the Wild - based on the book by Jon Krakauer
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford -
novel by Ron Hansen

Coming in October:

The Dark is Rising - novel by Susan Cooper
3:10 to Yuma - based on the short story by Elmore Leonard
 

Since, in this issue, our "Writers Corner" discusses the topic of first lines, and a number of fine examples were provided, this issue will end with some of the worst opening lines of a novel. 

There is actually a contest on this topic.  The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, initiated in 1982 by Professor Scott Rice of the San Jose State University Department of English, is named "in honor" of English novelist and playwright Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, author of the much-quoted first line (often attributed to Peanuts' Snoopy), "It was a dark and stormy night."  Actually, the full quotation of this first line from 1830 novel, Paul Clifford, reads:

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.

In the contest's first year, there were only three entries, and all three came from on-campus.  In subsequent years, the contest has reached international attention and some years may see nearly 10,000 entries.  Currently, the contest offers sub-categories, such as detective fiction, romance novels, Westerns, and purple prose.  Entries deemed notable, but not bad enough to merit the Grand Prize or a category prize may be awarded a "dishonorable mention."

The 2006 overall winner of the Bulwer-Lytton award is Jim Guigli, a retired Californian mechanical designer.  "My motivation for entering the contest," he joked, "was to find a constructive outlet for my dementia." The following is his winning entry:

Detective Bart Lasiter was in his office studying the light from his one small window falling on his super burrito when a door swung open to reveal a woman whose body said you've had your last burrito for a while, whose face said angels did exist, and whose eyes siad she could make you dig your own grave and lick the shovel clean.

Five books collecting the "best" Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest entries have been published (items marked with an asterisk (*) are available in the Library's collection):

• It Was a Dark and Stormy Night (1984) *
• Son of "It Was a Dark and Stormy Night" (1986)
• Bride of Dark and Stormy (1988)
• It Was a Dark & Stormy Night: The Final Conflict (1992)  *
• Dark and Stormy Rides Again (1996)

“A room without books is as a body without a soul."

--  Marcus Tullius Cicero,
Roman statesman and philosopher, 106-43 BC