Welcome to The Librarian Is In, The New York Public Library's podcast about books, culture, and what to read next.

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This week Frank and Rhonda went back to the 125 Books We Love list to help Sherlock Holmes solve the case of...

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle'sThe Hound of the Baskervilles gripped readers when it was first serialized and has continued to hold its place in the popular imagination to this day. Could the sudden death of Sir Charles Baskerville have been caused by the gigantic ghostly hound that is said to have haunted his family for generations? Arch-rationalist Sherlock Holmes characteristically dismisses the theory as nonsense. And, immersed in another case, he sends Dr Watson to Devon to protect the Baskerville heir and observe the suspects at close hand. With its atmospheric setting on the ancient, wild moorland and its savage apparition,The Hound of the Baskervilles is one of the greatest crime novels ever written. Rationalism is pitted against the supernatural and good against evil as Sherlock Holmes sets out to defeat a foe almost his equal. (Publisher summary)

They were also joined by YA librarian Joe Pascullo of Grand Central Library who dropped in to share some Young Adult book recommendations.

First on Joe's list is Lucky Caller by Emma Mills:

When Nina decides to take a radio broadcasting class her senior year, she expects it to be a walk in the park. Instead, it’s a complete disaster. The members of Nina's haphazardly formed radio team have approximately nothing in common. And to maximize the awkwardness her group includes Jamie, a childhood friend she'd hoped to basically avoid for the rest of her life. The show is a mess, internet rumors threaten to bring the wrath of two fandoms down on their heads, and to top it all off Nina's family is on the brink of some major upheaval. Everything feels like it's spiraling out of control—but maybe control is overrated? (Publisher summary)

 

Next up is The Midnight Lie by Marie Rutkoski:

Where Nirrim lives, crime abounds, a harsh tribunal rules, and society’s pleasures are reserved for the High Kith. Life in the Ward is grim and punishing. People of her low status are forbidden from sampling sweets or wearing colors. You either follow the rules, or pay a tithe and suffer the consequences. Nirrim keeps her head down, and a dangerous secret close to her chest. But then she encounters Sid, a rakish traveler from far away, who whispers rumors that the High Kith possess magic. Sid tempts Nirrim to seek that magic for herself. But to do that, Nirrim must surrender her old life. She must place her trust in this sly stranger who asks, above all, not to be trusted. (Publisher summary)

 

Joe's final YA book recommendation throws back to one of his hobbies—manga!

Blue Period by Tsubasa Yamaguchi

Yatora is the perfect high school student, with good grades and lots of friends. It's an effortless performance, and, ultimately... a dull one. But he wanders into the art room one day, and a lone painting captures his eye, awakening him to a kind of beauty he never knew. Compelled and consumed, he dives in headfirst—and he's about to learn how savage and unforgiving art can be... (Publisher summary)

 

 

And as a bonus! Joe has an adult manga suggestion! 

Parenthesis by Élodie Durand

Parenthesis narrates the author's experience with tumor-related epilepsy—losing herself, and finding herself again. Julie is barely out of her teens when a tumor begins pressing on her brain, ushering in a new world of seizures, memory gaps, and loss of self. Suddenly, the sentence of her normal life has been interrupted by the opening of a parenthesis that may never close. Based on the real experiences of cartoonist Élodie Durand.

 

 

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Tell us what everybody's talking about in your world of books and libraries! Suggest Hot Topix(TM)! Send an email or voice memo to podcasts[at]nypl.org.

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Transcript

[Music]

[Frank] Allo! And welcome to The Librarian is In, the New York Public Library's podcast about books, culture, and what to read next. I'm Frank.

[Rhonda] And I'm Rhonda! So what was -- was that your British?

[Frank] I was -- I dropped it.

[Rhonda] [inaudible]

[Frank] I decided to drop it.

[Rhonda] Oh, okay. I heard it!

[Frank] I've done it before.

[Rhonda] It's not bad.

[Frank] It's old news. I can't sustain -- let me see. I don't want to be too high fluting like "hallo" and -- what is it? Hello, welcome to The Librarian is In. Librarian is hard to say with a British accent. It's like the --

[Rhonda] Yeah.

[Frank] -- hard "R's." Librarian. But maybe people are getting an idea that we're edging into something British, which is the Hound of the Baskervilles!

[Rhonda] Yes!

[Frank] [inaudible] Arthur Conan Doyle.

[Rhonda] I know! And I'm --

[Frank] What?

[Rhonda] Our first -- we're both Sherlock newbies.

[Frank] I know, and it's probably pathetic. But even in terms of movies and TV, and I know people listening have got to have probably seen the Benedict Cumberbatch Sherlock Holmes, which I've heard about, and I know they address the hound at some point. But -- and there's been movies since the nineteen-teens, there's been TV versions, BBC versions. So I, eh, I was never, I don't know, I've said this before when we talked about And Then There Were None. Like I was never a big mystery person and then I read mystery and I'm like I love this! I've missing so much. And I have to say, just as a spoiler, I love this so much and I realized, jeez, these are fun. So -- but, you know, we're going to tell the story not knowing a lot about the other versions of it even though the Penguin version I read has footnotes. And we've discussed footnotes because they're at the back. They're not at the foot, they're at the back, so they're notes.

[Rhonda] End notes.

[Frank] Which I don't like as much because then you have to flip back and forth. But then I got used to the notes in this version, the Penguin. They were mostly about like other versions, other like movie versions comparing to that, or earlier iterations of Conan Doyle's writing. By the way, we should say the New York Public Library in the Berg Collection has a full original chapter written by Conan Doyle of the Hound of the Baskervilles.

[Rhonda] Yes!

[Frank] That was in the footnotes, or the notes. Other institutions around the world have other chapters of the 15 chapters, and some of those chapters are also -- are in private ownership.

[Rhonda] [inaudible]

[Frank] Just to flaunt our NYPL-ness that we have a original handwritten Conan Doyle chapter from the Hound of the Baskervilles. Just to give a shout out to our peeps in the Berg collection!

[Rhonda] Yes, wonderful! And it's a beautiful room, so whenever we're open again. Oh my god, I love the Berg collection. It has Charles Dicken's desk in there, so whenever you go in it's just right there. It's amazing.

[Frank] You know, I think it's time to -- I'm going to put this out there. You can edit it out if it's not possible -- to start talking to other librarians in the system just to see what they're up to and to give them a little love and show them off a little bit. But we are going to have a guest today.

[Rhonda] Yes.

[Frank] Who is going to talk to us a little bit about young adult books because we need some young adult presence as well. But first we're going to dig into the Hound of the Baskerbilles [phonetic], Baskervilles.

[Rhonda] Well, I should say I listened to it --

[Frank] Right.

[Rhonda] -- and it was narrated by Simon Prebble, which was -- it was really fun to listen to it because he, that's what I imagined Sherlock Holmes would sound like. An older British, you know, guy. It was very nice to listen to. So I recommend that.

[Frank] Yeah. Even though Watson -- I mean, Sherlock Holmes speaks, of course, but Watson narrates it. His assistant, Dr. Watson.

[Rhonda] Which I didn't expect. I didn't know that he -- I wonder if that's how it is in all the books where he is the one who actually tells the story.

[Frank] Well, you know, I know a little bit about, from the notes, which turned out to be lovingly lovely, that this was -- alright. Hound of the Baskervilles is 1901, and Conan Doyle had killed off Sherlock Holmes like eight years before or something like that --

[Rhonda] Mm-hmm.

[Frank] -- because he was too famous, Sherlock Holmes, and Conan Doyle wanted to focus on other writings of his. So he just couldn't deal with Sherlock Holmes and killed him off in the story. So this was a way of bringing him back. He didn't resurrect him, he did that later, but Hound of the Baskervilles is built as like a -- it was a serial in a magazine. It was built as a old -- another adventure of Sherlock Holmes pre being killed off. What was I going to say? Oh! And so Watson -- so I don't know either if Watson narrates the other ones or not, but -- Oh! What I was going to say. Well, I could say it later, it figures into my -- well, I should just say. Sherlock Holmes in this, in Hound of the Baskervilles, comes on strong for the first couple of chapters and then disappears from the narrative for six chapters, and then comes back.

[Rhonda] Yeah! For a good part of the book.

[Frank] Well, actually I thought about that and I was thinking, because of that little backstory I just told about him being killed off and this was his return, was that they wanted a -- that Conan Doyle wanted to build tension and also have Sherlock Holmes come in at the end like a Deus Ex Machina. So he comes in I think to have him come in like a Deus ex Machina, like this god-like figure who solves the crime after Watson has been his correspondent on the doings of the Baskerville mansion. I don't know where to begin. We just gave a little something or another, but do you want us to start off with the story? Because you're kind of more organized than I am.

[Rhonda] I -- well, sure! We can start off with the story. So you can help me fill it in because I'm going to try to kind of do a -- I'll give a really quick overview, right? So it kind of begins with, you know, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson and the study, and Dr. Mortimer shows up because he wants to ask advice about his friend Dr. -- or Sir Baskerville. And apparently what's happened in this -- the area that they live in, I guess the moor, this part of the English countryside that they live in, there's this estate which belonged to the Baskerville family. And the original -- the man who was living there, Sir Baskerville, died, and he died because they believed he was scared to death by this demon hound which was supposed to have haunted this family for generations and it was kind of this legend and this myth throughout the centuries in this area. I hope I'm explaining this okay.

[Frank] Yeah, yeah.

[Rhonda] [inaudible] of this demon hound that was after this family. This family was cursed to be followed by this hound. And then the heir to this estate, the next Sir Baskerville, is coming, and Dr. Mortimer is kind of fearful for Sir Baskerville because I believe they received a letter, right? Warning him --

[Frank] Well, yeah. He's fearful of it because Dr. Mortimer shares the history that, you know, 200 years previous in the 1700's, the ancestor Baskerville did something horrible. He kidnapped a local girl because he wanted her to be his wife and then commenced a carouse around and the girl escaped. And he, because he was evil, went to chase her and when his compatriots caught up with him they find the girl lying there, but also Hugo, this evil ancestor, lying there with this giant hound tearing at his neck, and that supposedly starts the curse. So Mortimer had this sort of written down and shares it with Holmes and Watson. And then he shares that the new heir, because they're looking for the new heir, is coming to town, which is the nephew I believe, Sir Henry. There's another heir, another son of the family, Rodger Baskerville, but Roger apparently had died under sinister circumstances in South America. So it's now Henry stepping up to the billion dollar inheritance. And then yes, the next morning Henry comes to town and Henry and Mortimer meet with Holmes and Watson and Henry shares this sort of -- this is where I was like a lot of mystery tropes were taken from, certainly from Sherlock Holmes because he shows him a letter he received, which is all cutout --

[Rhonda] Mm-hmm.

[Frank] -- paper.

[Rhonda] Right.

[Frank] Letters cut out and words cut out from a newspaper saying like, "go away, you're in danger. Do not go to the Baskerville Mansion." And it's all like newspaper letters cut out like we've come to learn from kidnapping letters and serial killer letters and mysteries ever since.

[Rhonda] Right.

[Frank] I'm closing the window. Excuse me.

[Rhonda] Okay.

[Frank] So that's what kicks it off. But then they, you know, he's -- Henry sort of thinks it's somewhat of a joke and doesn't really understand. So then they are going to go to Baskerville's Mansion. But what then happens -- a series of little occurrences happen where one of Henry's boots is stolen. And there's a little drama there, and then interestingly, tell me if I have this right too, Holmes says, "well, you know, I have many other things to do." Because -- we should talk about Holmes too. He's like a little arrogant and a little full of himself, but definitely smart and has got it going -- but says, "Watson, you can go to the Baskerville Mansion. Keep an eye on Henry. Don't let him out of your sight, and send me reports about everything you learn." Which is interesting, right?

[Rhonda] Mm-hmm.

[Frank] That Holmes just sort of backs away from the narrative, and then the next bunch of chapters is Watson infiltrating the Mansion with Henry and keeping an eye on things with Holmes off-scene.

[Rhonda] And getting to know the people of the moor.

[Frank] And we get to know the people of the moor, like the neighbors the Stapletons, Beryl and Jack.

[Rhonda] And, yeah.

[Frank] Go ahead.

[Rhonda] No, I was going to -- I was adding to that just saying that the neighbors, like you said, the Stapletons, and then there are -- there's a family, well, a husband and wife of servants who work also in the Baskerville estate who also play a role in it.

[Frank] The Barrymores.

[Rhonda] The Barrymores, yes.

[Frank] Right, because also before they left for Baskerville Mansion, or Baskerville Hall, Holmes does follow briefly when Mortimer and Henry leave because he's convinced that someone's going to be following them and that proves to be true. So he sees some guy with a beard in a buggy following Henry and, you know, it then turns out that the servant at Baskerville Hall, Mr. Barrymore and his wife Mrs. Barrymore, he has a beard so they're like "ha-ha! Maybe it's Barrymore!"

[Rhonda] Yeah, that is our, that's our suspect.

[Frank] Right and, you know, technically when we do these things people have read it already.

[Rhonda] Yeah.

[Frank] So we don't have to go through minutely.

[Rhonda] Yeah, I don't think we need to go through all this stuff.

[Frank] Each plot point because now I just want to get into like talking about what happened because the Barrymores are total red herrings.

[Rhonda] Yes, absolutely.

[Frank] You know, and this red herring thing, which I actually, we talked a little bit about in And Then There Were None. Like this sort of misleading subplot that gives texture and feeling to the book but is ultimately a dead-end because, you know, the first night that Watson and Henry are in Baskerville Hall, which is introduced like [inaudible] from Rebecca. It's like this grand gloomy, you know, gothic estate.

[Rhonda] I love it.

[Frank] They hear crying in the night, which is another sort of mystery trope or gothic mystery trope where you hear like this, you know, usually a female voice crying in the distance like, you know, moaning through the halls kind of thing. That turns out to be Mrs. Barrymore for unrelated reasons basically.

[Rhonda] Right, which we find at the end.

[Frank] Because another character is introduced, just to add, again another trope, a escaped convict from the local maximum security prison on the moors, who is a devilish killer and evil doer, has escaped. So you've got the Barrymores sort of like hulkering [phonetic] in the house, and then this escaped convict, and it's like huh. But that again turns out to be -- the escaped convict is Mrs. Barrymore's younger brother who she loves very much even though he's evil because she's the older sister and she remember him when he was a little kid. And she and her husband are bringing food and clothes to him on the moors until he can escape to another country, and basically abetting a criminal. And when Watson finds out about that it's interesting how nobody really has this sort of moral thing about getting the criminal back into jail. It's just like well, alright, that's not our killer.

[Rhonda] Yeah, exactly! I noticed that as well. They were just kind of like ah, too bad.

[Frank] I know, it's just like a red herring tied up. So we should reiterate that Sir Charles, the original Baskerville, older -- Henry is around 30, his nephew -- died on the grounds but not touched. So clearly died of freight --

[Rhonda] Mm-hmm.

[Frank] -- or a heart attack, but brought on by freight because Dr. Mortimer sees his face and he thinks, you know, his face is sort of twisted in a face of fear kind of thing. And apparently he was chased because a giant footprint of a dog --

[Rhonda] Yeah.

[Frank] -- they think is found near the body.

[Rhonda] And that's my favorite part of the story, actually, is the supernatural element. As someone who loves horror, I don't know, that's what I -- I actually like that line the most. But the thing is you don't really -- so we have Stapleton who comes in and he's kind of the one who's pushing this idea of this devilish dog --

[Frank] Right.

[Rhonda] -- but you don't really hear too much from the rest of the village if they really believe in it. He kind of keeps saying, oh, the villagers believe in these type of things, and the ignorant superstitious people, but you really only hear that from him and you don't know if they actually feel that way. But I don't know. That was one of my -- I love the supernatural part of it.

[Frank] Well, that's, yeah that's interesting because it is -- I think Dr. Mortimer sort of pushes the belief that the dog might be a hound from Hell and something supernatural. And Stapleton, as we will discover, has a reason to push that narrative. But Stapleton lives with his sister, supposedly. A very glamourous dark haired woman.

[Rhonda] Yes.

[Frank] Yeah?

[Rhonda] No I was just saying the way they describe her is like an exotic, you know.

[Frank] Well, you know --

[Rhonda] Like [inaudible] a lisp.

[Frank] Which might indicate the fact that she -- because she's from Costa Rica? Or --

[Rhonda] Yeah.

[Frank] -- South America.

[Rhonda] You find that out at the end.

[Frank] Right. So basically, I mean, like it's -- now it's find -- some way I'm finding it hard to talk about this as, even though our rule is that everyone has read it and so we don't have to go through the plot points, but it feels like I guess you want to go through the plot points because it's a mystery and you want to sort of unravel each thing in turn. But yeah, they, Stapleton presents himself as the brother of this woman, Beryl Stapleton. And Stapleton himself is like an entomologist, he's into bugs and like butterflies, and he's sort of like described as sort of pale and slim and, you know, a little nerdy but with a sort of edge to him. But --

[Rhonda] And they call him a naturalist.

[Frank] A naturalist, right. He's very -- he's always on the moors and he's always looking for a new bug or something. We should say the moors get a lot of play in this book. And I love the moors, as I've discussed when I talked about Wuthering Heights, the moors in Britain. This is in South England as opposed to North, which is Wuthering Heights, but they're still the same wind swept, scraggily rock outcropping, heath covered, swampy, dramatic, anything can happen, mysterious moors. And Conan Doyle describes them like impeccably. Like if you're a fan of setting --

[Rhonda] Mm-hmm.

[Frank] -- and you're into moors and sort of the drama of British landscape, this is definitely satisfying on that level because he describes the place so intensely and often. So you really get a sense of this foreboding, that it's really as much about the moors as it is about any possible supernatural hound from Hell.

[Rhonda] Yeah, and also the fact that they're really, as he kind of described, they're dangerous too, right? They're one of the other, you know, I feel like kind of a part of character because Stapleton talks about, you know, if you go out too far, you know, you'll get lost or you can get trapped and never find your way back out.

[Frank] Exactly, I mean one of the most -- actually, one of the most memorable parts was just a sort of short description of like one of the wild ponies that run the moors getting trapped in one of the mires, like the bog, like quick sand almost, and this poor little pony getting pulled down into this mire indicating if you don't watch your -- and you can't tell. Like if you don't watch your step you could get plunged into this sucking morass. So it's very scary. Like the setting definitely sets up this sort of sense of foreboding that a hound of hell could be roaming the moorland. So there are other characters, but let's just do this because --

[Rhonda] Okay.

[Frank] -- what I found interesting, and like I said before about Holmes disappearing and Watson sending him correspondents about what's going on, is towards the end I realized, and Holmes says it but as a throwaway, is that once -- and this is where you have pay attention to detail, which I'm so bad at -- is that once the boot of Henry was stolen, Holmes -- and this is like the first, second, third chapter -- what Holmes realized that the hound was not supernatural because the boot was stolen to give scent to the real hound that was going to hope -- that was going to probably kill the rest of the Baskervilles.

[Rhonda] Right.

[Frank] And I thought that was really interesting because you get it -- and so Holmes backs away and lets Watson get all the data, but we also find out that he stayed, in quotes, in London, that he didn't. He actually was staying in the moors, observing everything going on without Watson knowing so he could actually find out clues better without -- if he was present in the mansion he would always be observed, he would have to talk to Watson. When he sort of says I'm not coming in but then hides out in the moors and does, Holmes, he's doing it because he wants to just be unmolested and just observe and get the facts.

[Rhonda] Right.

[Frank] Because basically by that point he went to -- he knew that it wasn't a supernatural event, so he just had to figure out who did it, who was behind it.

[Rhonda] Yeah, and I actually, you know, thinking about it and the fact that he is not kind of a main character in most of the book, I think I really like the fact that Watson was telling -- we were seeing Sherlock Holmes through Watson's eyes. I thought it was really telling because you know he kind of had this kind of idol worship for Sherlock Holmes, but sometimes Sherlock Holmes would be like, you know, fall back a little bit Watson, like, you know? Like you know when he, you know, Sherlock Holmes discovers Watson hiding in this -- in his place where he was secretly staying to watch the events, and Watson was kind of like did you know it was me because of my footprints? And Watson is like how am I supposed to know your footprints from everyone else in the world? I thought that was kind of funny, you know? I don't know, just kind of like seeing his character and their relationships through his eyes, I thought that -- I don't know, that added something for me.

[Frank] Yeah, I mean that's a classic duo, of course.

[Rhonda] Right.

[Frank] And Watson is smart. He's a little slightly comic figure, I mean in terms of his relationship to Holmes, I mean, because you know he calls Holmes his master sometimes and, you know, Holmes has these throwaways where he sort of puts down Watson a little bit --

[Rhonda] A little bit.

[Frank] -- in a super silly, arrogant way. Like he -- it's a simple line that he says about, Holmes says about Watson at one point when Watson suggests doing something, you know, like something that's not right, Holmes says, "Watson, you're always so energetic about these things." And he's basically just saying, "calm down, Hun, just chill because I know the real deal." And their relationship is definitely shown that way.

[Rhonda] Yeah, and I like it. I think it's kind of a, it's a fun dynamic. Because he -- he is kind of condescending to Watson, but it also feels like it's coming out of like a place of love, like kind of out of this fatherly type of relationship. That's how I saw it.

[Frank] They definitely care about each other. I mean, they definitely have [inaudible].

[Rhonda] Are they besties? I don't know.

[Frank] Huh?

[Rhonda] I said, are they besties? Not exactly.

[Frank] I think they're besties in some ways. Holmes is not like a super emotional person. He doesn't --

[Rhonda] No, he's not.

[Frank] He sort of doesn't go there that way. So he's now in the picture and they're trying to figure out who is doing what, and it basically turns out to be, spoiler alert, which we know we're going to reveal, Stapleton --

[Rhonda] Mm-hmm.

[Frank] -- who, through a long series of events, is actually a Baskerville. That character that I mentioned earlier in this conversation just to plant that seed was Rodger Baskerville who died under mysterious circumstances in South America. Stapleton, who is really a Baskerville, is that character's son. So he realizes he's part of the inheritance line and he has to get rid of Charles and then Henry and then he'll be the next to get the 19 billion dollars of Baskerville money. So he's behind it all. And actually Beryl is not his sister but his wife.

[Rhonda] Mm-hmm.

[Frank] This gets into the most interesting part to me in some ways, the character of Beryl and that she -- so Stapleton is not a good guy at all, even though he is like the classic sort of like fuss budget naturalist with glasses, you know, roaming with a butterfly net like a goofball. But he's really obviously pretty bad because he was in South America -- and that's why Beryl is South American, his wife, he meets her there. He goes on a spree of robberies. He has to leave the continent because he stole public money and then, you know, he makes his way through various other machinations to the Baskerville Hall to get that inheritance and basically trains a dog he got in a London shop, who's like a combination bloodhound mastiff, tricks him out with like phosphorous and glow to make him look hellish, and scares Charles to death. And then plans on, you know, knowing he can't scare Henry to death probably, but like he can stun him enough where the dog then, crazed with hunger, because he's not feeding the dog, will attack Henry and kill him that way. But Beryl, so he meets this woman in South America, Stapleton/Baskerville, and she's an accomplice. What do you --

[Rhonda] Yes. She's an accomplice, but she also -- I don't know. I guess -- she's also not really happy about this situation, and she does kind of take some steps to prevent Sir Henry Baskerville's death.

[Frank] Right, she is the one that sends the cutout newspaper letters warning Henry of not coming to Baskerville hall. She won't be a part of murder --

[Rhonda] Right.

[Frank] -- apparently, but yet she allows herself to be passed off as her husband's sister for the sole reason to beguile and basically make Henry fall in love with her.

[Rhonda] Mm-hmm.

[Frank] So, you know, Stapleton is basically, you know, tricking out his wife.

[Rhonda] Yeah [inaudible].

[Frank] [inaudible]

[Rhonda] And he takes advantage of the other woman. I think her name is Laura, right?

[Frank] Laura Lyon, yeah.

[Rhonda] [inaudible] Laura who kind of gotten herself into a situation and, you know, he's, you know, Stapleton/Baskerville acting like he is a single man has kind of promised this woman that, you know, he'll marry her if she kind of helps him unknowingly trick the elder Sir Baskerville out into the night --

[Frank] Right.

[Rhonda] -- to kill him. Yeah. So --

[Frank] Laura Lyons is used as a plot point to out Stapleton as a Baskerville to Holmes because, because for the same reason as with Beryl, his other women in his life, Holmes basically reveals -- because Laura doesn't know Stapleton is married because Stapleton is trying to beguile Laura to do his bidding and get Charles in a certain place where he can then scare him to death with the hound. So this sort of goofball guy has two women like slavishing after them --

[Rhonda] Mm-hmm.

[Frank] -- after him, which is sort of like, it's just weird. I don't know, he's -- so anyways. So Beryl is just an interesting character because she does beguile Henry, but keeps her distance obviously, but Henry is in love with her and Stapleton has a moment of like jealousy. They don't really know yet why he's acting the way he's acting because he's her husband. But Beryl herself is an interesting character because she doesn't really turn on Stapleton until she finds out that he has been stringing along Laura Lyons for nefarious reasons, and then she sort of goes the opposite and says he's hateful and horrible. So there are basically these girls who are just like, you know, all for love. I mean, she's abused by Stapleton, physically --

[Rhonda] Right.

[Frank] -- as well as emotionally.

[Rhonda] Physically abused, yeah.

[Frank] And she says, you know, as long as he loves me I can take anything. Male author.

[Rhonda] And then when the other woman enters the picture, you know, it changes.

[Frank] Yeah. So -- and also it surprised me that once they reveal it's Stapleton, and they do, and Stapleton doesn't actually -- you don't see him get killed, you just assume he's basically, you know, fallen into the mire and sucked under.

[Rhonda] Mm-hmm.

[Frank] You pretty much can be sure of that, and Holmes does shoot the hound. But how Conan Doyle doesn't sort of allow romance to happen. Here we go with romance. Like how -- I sort of thought like Beryl, who was so sort of abused and, you know, a somewhat unwilling accomplice to Stapleton, and that Henry was in love with her, that she would be saved by love and go with Henry to the Baskerville Hall and be a rich lady. But that doesn't happen. You don't even really know what happens to her. She's sort of beaten up and tied up by Stapleton, because Beryl flipped out when she realized there was this other woman, in quotes. You know, what a hot-blooded South American, some silly thing like that, and that's the end of her. And I wonder why he didn't give a sort of tidy romance tie up there.

[Rhonda] Yeah! I mean, that's a good question. I mean, I guess there are a few ends, a few things from this story that we're just never supposed to find out. With her story, with Stapleton, I mean, again like we assume he's dead but he could be alive.

[Frank] Exactly, because you don't see his death but, you know, you assume it -- you [inaudible] assume it's happening and they certainly do. They solved the mystery. Anyway, it was really fun. I mean, I feel like we could go on and on. I mean, I feel like this is probably unsatisfactory, but -- we apologize listeners but, you know, we're struggling ourselves. Just working our way through books of love and wonder.

[Rhonda] Yes, but I will say this.

[Frank] Okay.

[Rhonda] One of the, again, kind of adjacent to the discussion, I have not really read or ever read any Sherlock Holmes, but I was kind of fascinated by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle because you know I love my horror and supernatural things, and he was a really devout spiritualist kind of right after the second, or first World War, which you know as the time when everyone was kind of doing these seances and connecting with the dead. And, you know, he, his son died and he saw a spiritualist who claimed that she was able to speak to his son from the other side. And he ardently believed that he could speak to his dead son. And he went on tours and he gave speeches kind of saying like all of this is true, seances, being able to talk to the dead are really like real things. And I just always thought that was really fascinating because you see the Sherlock Holmes character as this very kind of very practical, no nonsense person, yet Doyle was really into the supernatural, really into the spiritual, and I just always thought that was fascinating.

[Frank] Yeah. You've actually just reminded me, because in those notes I saw that the lack of romance may or may not have been attributed to Conan Doyle's private life because he was married to a person he was very happy with, a woman he was very happy with, but the woman contracted tuberculosis and was bed ridden for many, many, many years. And he was very loyal to her and wouldn't do anything to betray her, but he did fall in love with another woman during that period. And he was very much concerned that his wife should never, ever know that he had found love with another woman. And eventually his first wife died and never found out about his sort of emotional, you know, swaying to another woman, and then he married this second woman. But Hound of the Baskervilles was written right in the middle of this and I wonder if he was just like torn -- he sort just was tormented by love and he didn't, he didn't give anyone a sort of love connection.

[Rhonda] Oh that's interesting! And you know, he had --

[Frank] [inaudible] no romance with me.

[Rhonda] He had five children and has no descendants because all of his children died without having children.

[Frank] Really?

[Rhonda] Yeah, exactly.

[Frank] Yeah, he had three with his second wife, two with the first. Yeah.

[Rhonda] Right.

[Frank] How interesting and mysterious.

[Rhonda] I know!

[Frank] So the Conan Doyle line died.

[Rhonda] It did. You know, I think that he's just as interesting as the book to talk about.

[Frank] I don't know a lot more about other than what we both just said, but yeah. Definitely a fascinating read, and definitely a young people's book as well, I think.

[Rhonda] I think so.

[Frank] Yeah.

[Rhonda] That's a good segue!

[Frank] Oh right! You know, good for you for bringing it up. Yes! We do have our special guest today, who is a young adult librarian in the New York Public Library. Hey, Joe! Are you there? How are you?

[Joe] I'm there, how are you?

[Frank] Hey, Joe Pascullo!

[Rhonda] Hi Joe!

[Frank] Alright, so Joe, tell us a little bit about you.

[Joe] So I'm technically a young adult librarian at what I like to call the concept of the Grand Central Library because it's not, it's not quite a thing right now, but we're still putting in, you know, program attendance numbers and what have you. So I was at 67th Street, now I'm at the new Roosevelt Island Library, so that's where you, yeah, you can find me there. I am a native New Yorker, which I don't know if we have many of them anymore, but I've lived here forever in Flushing, Queens, so I have to give a shout out to the 718 there. But, yeah, so I went to Saint Johns, also in Queens, and then in 2014 I ended up at the NYPL. So I've been there -- I've been here ever since.

[Frank] So how did you end up as a librarian?

[Joe] I think it was just, I hung out in the library a lot as a high schooler. Typically the East Flushing branch in Queens. That was actually my first job. So as a teen, I was in the library often, in college as well, and I think just kind of figured, you know, why not try to make a career out of it? It would be a great place to report to work. So it kind of all just fell into place and it worked out, I suppose.

[Frank] Joe, you have any hobbies or interests we should know about?

[Joe] So I am a, you know, true to my Flushing, New York nature, I am a pretty big Mets fan. So I know, I know that's not really the NYPL's thing, but I'm a pretty -- I am a pretty big Mets fan, so it was a bummer we didn't get to go to any games last year. Hopefully we can go to a few this year. In addition to that, on the total opposite side of the spectrum, I'm a pretty big anime, manga fan, which definitely assists me -- yeah, it definitely aids in my work here. So I would say those two things are my main hobbies.

[Frank] Alright. Let's talk about books. What are your young adult recommendations please.

[Joe] I love to talk about books. So I was on the Best Books Routine's committee in 2020. I'm not on it this year. But so pretty much last year, 2020, you know, pandemic, sitting home, all I did was read young adult fiction. So I did want to bring a couple titles today that did not make the list. I want to kind of give them a shout out that I really liked and maybe I just didn't get enough support from other committee members, but I would love to, you know, definitely talk about them really fast here. First one is called Lucky Caller by Emma Mills. It's about a girl who takes a radio broadcasting class in her senior year. So kind of like a cake walk elective, but instead it's a complete disaster. She has to work with other members of her class, which is always kind of a dicey thing in group projects, we all know that, and try to make their radio show as cool as possible. And, you know, on top of that she has her old childhood crush in this group, she has a little bit of problems at home where her mom is remarrying and her actual father is way out on the West Coast. He's not really in the picture. I really like this book. It was a pretty relaxing low-stress read, even though there's a lot going on in the main character's life. Really made me wish that I was a kid again. I love the concept of the radio class. I think that's something I really would've liked to do back in high school myself. Really liked the writing, and I think at the heart of the story is kind of this message that, you know, nothing lasts forever, and I think that's something that's important that young adults understand. You know, for worse or better, you know, I think it's something that they should know. Sometimes you read these YA romances and, you know, they end up all happy, and do those ever really last? You know, not really. But this was -- this was more realistic book where people, you could kind of tell at the end people are going to go their separate ways, and when you're that age I think that's a pretty common thing. So I think it's a book that tells you just to enjoy the moment and enjoy being where you are in that moment. I really love the book and I wanted to definitely mention it on the episode today. So Lucky Caller by Emma Mills, check it out. But yeah, that was one book I definitely wanted to mention that didn't make the list. Another one that I really enjoyed was called The Midnight Lie. It's kind of a throwback to other YA books from the 2010s that have like cast systems, like I can think of Divergence, Red Queen, the Selection books, and this is a book where like societies pleasures are reserved for the people who are at the top of that cast system. They live in a place called the ward and it's really grim and really punishing. People who aren't at the top of the cast system, they're forbidden from doing things like eating candy or wearing colorful clothes. So you have to obey the rules or you're going to suffer the consequences. But it is also an LGBT romance that's set in a dystopian world and there's magic involved, so it's definitely a lot of cool stuff there. It's a really good fantasy selection. I felt the plot was really compelling, it was pretty straight forward, it wasn't difficult to grasp. You know, cast systems, they have the privilege, those without, you know, they struggle. So it had pretty good world building. I liked the chemistry between our lead characters. I liked it. I thought there were some issues in that book that were pretty relevant to things we deal with today. So I really enjoyed reading it. It did not make the list, unfortunately, but it is The Midnight Lie, and let me get you the author, I don't have it here. Marie Rutkoski? Sorry if I butcher that if she's listening. One final title I definitely wanted to talk about. I did have to bring a manga to the table since that's kind of one of the things I do. It is not a Dark Horse title like the other ones. This one did make the list and it was pretty substantial. It's called Blue Period by Tsubasa Yamaguchi. It's about a second-year high school student who he's very, very intelligent but he's also a bit of a delinquent at the same time. So another opposite spectrum kind of individual. He doesn't really get a lot of support from home. He kind of just coasts through school. It's easy for him, and he just wants to someday get the job that pays the most money, and that's pretty much his MO in life. However, he does take an elective art class, again for an easy grade, and he is really moved by another painting that a student has done, and now he wants to get into the world of art. And the world of art in this book, they pretty much hammer home that it is not a slam dunk that you're going to make a lot of money, and that was our main character Yatora's goal throughout the bulk of the beginning of the book, but now he's kind of wondering, hey, do I really want to go that route? You know, the absolute sure fire way to make money? Or do I want to explore this world of art and maybe be able to communicate with others better? Honestly I loved it. It was beautiful. I think the one knock on it everybody had was that it wasn't in color, which most manga is not. Just think if this was in color it would be so cool. But like the full color thing in manga, that's usually an honor that's given to -- like in a -- a lot of mangas release chapter by chapter in different manga magazines, and sometimes when you're doing really well the publisher will let you do a couple of pages in color. But for the most part it is in black and white. Just kind of the way it is. It's the way it's always been. I guess it's the way it's printed over there as well. So I'm pretty used to the black and white of manga. You know, when I read an American comic book I kind of have to get used to it, but this one would be really great in color, and it is going to receive an animated series where it will be in color, so that's probably going to be really cool to look at. It did win a lot of awards in Japan, including a big one called Manga Taisho award. Another book that pretty much speaks to what the teenage experience is all about. A lot of uncertainty at that age and you really only get one shot at it. So do you take that chance or do you not? You know, once again, living in the moment, but also maybe a little bit of planning for the future. Super passion driven, just -- and I think it's pretty -- it's a book that everyone can relate to, not just young adults. I think adults may be able to relate to it as well, and I think that's the thing with manga. You know, there's really no pigeonholding. Everybody can read anything. So loved it. Definitely wanted to give it a shout out. It is Blue Period by Tsubasa Yamaguchi.

[Frank] Wow, these are all great recommendations. Thank you. Anything else?

[Joe] There was one I read recently for the -- I'm actually sharing the, whatchamacallit, the adult graphic novel committee. It's inaugural, it's new. So one I read really -- that I really enjoyed is called Parenthesis. It's by a French artist, Elodie Durand I think is their name, and she suffers from epilepsy, so it's a memoir of the things that she deals with as an epileptic and the things she has to do to kind of get over her epilepsy and, you know, kind of get on with life. I thought it was great because I never really gave it a lot of thought, you know, people who have epilepsy, and this one is just fantastic. I think young adults could definitely read it. I think there's some stuff that we've read for the young adult committee that we definitely don't want to put on the list, it's just not appropriate for teens, but this one I think it could be relatable as well.

[Frank] Thanks so much, Joe! And thank you all for listening, and we will see you next time. Bye!

[Narrator]Thanks for listening to The Librarian Is In, a podcast by the New York Public Library. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcast or Google Play, or send us an email at podcasts@nypl.org. For more information about the New York Public Library, please visit nypl.org. We are produced by Christine Ferrell. Your hosts are Frank Collerius and Rhonda Evans.