What are you reading? Tell us about it!  From weighty tomes of historical fiction to the secrets of math, Broadway, and the alphabet, we enjoyed lively book chat and heard about some great fiction and nonfiction reads at our January Open Book Night.  We had asked readers to tell us about a book that helped them explore or learn something new or to share a recently discovered book or author they loved. Please feel free to add your own recommendations in the comments section below. 

If you're in the neighborhood, we'd love to hear your recommendations in person. Please join us this Friday, February 12  at 6 PM at the Mid-Manhattan Library for our next Open Book Night. In honor of Valentine's Day, our theme is Love Makes the World Go 'Round. 

Joy started us off by recommending The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. She urged readers not to be discouraged by the book’s nearly 1000-page length. “The style of writing is accessible and you’ll find the pages fly by! ... Set in England in the Middle Ages, the story revolves around the building of a cathedral, living in the feudal lands surrounding the castle, and the knights defending their kingdom as life goes on for about 100 years.” 

One of the aspects of the The Pillars of the Earth that Joy found interesting were the detailed descriptions of the design and construction of the cathedral offered in the novel. This reminded a reader of a nonfiction book telling a great building story of the Renaissance, Brunelleschi’s Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture by Ross King a highly readable account of a 15th century engineering breakthrough.

Wemoved forward in time and from Europe to Africa with our next book. Rachel recommended Half of a Yellow Sun, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s 2007 novel set in Nigeria in the 1960s. “I’m committed to reading a year of fiction by women. This look into another world was heartbreaking and beautiful.”

Our next reader posed a general question to the group about characters we esteemed in fiction and whether we were willing to see their natures change in new works. Yvette was thinking of Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, a character she loved and esteemed. She was curious to know if anyone in the group had read the recently published Go Set a Watchman, and if their vision of Atticus had been spoiled. No one in our group had read both novels, and some expressed similar qualms about ruining a beloved classic. What are your feelings about this? Has it ever happened to you?

Our next reader took us from fiction to how-to. Pedro recommended Student Success Secrets (2005) by Eric Jensen for tips on how to improve reading, take notes, and create mind maps to improve comprehension and recall of concepts. He noted that the motivational techniques and advice on goal setting in the book were also very helpful. Although this title is now out of print, many other books on study skills are available to borrow from the Library. And the use of motivational techniques called to mind Dale Carnegie’s classic How to Win Friends and Influence People for one reader in the group.

If you think you can’t understand high level math concepts, our next reader Julie recommended a math book for you, How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking by Jordan Ellenberg. “This book takes mathematics—a normally esoteric and inaccessible topic—and makes it entertaining and quite easily understandable. It tackles topics like calculus and the law of large numbers, and explains them with humor and wit.”

From accessible calculus we moved on to math in fiction. Our next reader recommended Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, a novel of code breaking and hacking set in two time periods, World War II, and the present (1990s). Our reader described Neal Stephenson as the kind of professor who will answer your questions in Latin and noted that his lengthy books are a mental workout but ultimately worthwhile reads.

From codes to Broadway, Janet highly recommended Razzle Dazzle: The Battle for Broadway (2015) by Michael Riedel, theater critic for the The New York Post. “Fantastic Broadway history and a personal ‘you are there’ quality to stories about the Great White Way are what Michael Riedel excels in.” Janet was re-reading the book when we met; her first read was a library copy, but she enjoyed Razzle Dazzle so much that she had to buy her own.

Our discussion of Razzle Dazzle reminded one reader of novelist William Goldman’s classic account of the 1967-1968 theater season on Broadway and Off, The Season: A Candid Look at Broadway.

After our math discussions, our last recommendation (from me) was a book about the alphabet. Award-winning British children’s author Michael Rosen uses his storytelling skill in an engaging history of the alphabet for grown-ups, Alphabetical: How Every Letter Tells a Story. A fun read filled with interesting language facts that imparts the author’s love of language.