Korean comics known as manhwa are starting to make their way here to the U.S. this year.  Similar to manga, you can find out more about it at Korean Manhwa.  Unlike manga, you read manhwa left to right and the art style is more angular and a bit more realistic than traditional manga.  We may also eventually see Chinese manhua make its way to the U.S.  While the Asian wave of comics expands, take a look at the library's extensive collection of manga to tide you over.   Our Josei and Shoujo list for "girl" comics and our Seinen and Shonen list for "boy" comics give you a great place to start exploring this popular art form.

I've been meaning to read Australian writer Tim Winton for a long time.  I'm now immersed in his 13th novel The Riders.  He takes us on a wild ride in this story about Scully who is abandoned by his wife Jennifer.  After they purchase an ancient cottage in Ireland, Scully stays behind to make repairs while Jennifer and their young daughter Billie return to Australia for their belongings. The day they are to fly back to Ireland, Billie deplanes without her mother.  Scully and Billie travel all over Europe desperately trying to find Jennifer.  Suspenseful and heart-wrenching, The Riders (which was short-listed for the Booker Prize) is a great introduction to Winton.   I eagerly await his new novel Breath which comes out this summer.  Now I wonder if I should read Cloudstreet or Dirt Music next?  Has anyone read those novels? 

Celebrate Mother's Day--read a novel with a mother as the main character, otherwise known as MomLit! Check out one of these classic momlit titles:

I Don't Know How She Does It by Allison Pearson

Sleeping with Ward Cleaver by Jenny Gardiner

Babyland by Holly Chamberlin

Mama by Terry McMillan

For more great titles, visit the MomLit website!

Did you know that  Minnesota is 150 years old?  Enjoy the book  Minnesota 150 : the people, places, and things that shape our state   the companion book to the exhibit at the MN Historical Society .

Number 14 in the Joe Gunther mysteries by Archer Mayor, Gatekeeper finds Joe and his crew to join various other police and anti-drug agencies in an effort to eliminate drug trafficking in the state.  Things start hitting too close to home and Joe realized that drugs are no longer trickling into Vermont - they're flooding in.  Scrambling to meet this challenge pushes Vermont's Bureau of Investigation to the limit.

Fans of local author Robert Alexander, author of The Kitchen Boy and Rasputin's Daughter, may want to check out his live book club webcasts on several dates in April and May. His new book, The Romanov Bride, set during the Russian Revolution, blends history and fiction in the stories of the Grand Duchess Elisavyeta (Ella), sister of Alexandra, the last tsarina, and Pavel, a young peasant revolutionary.
Read the Star Tribune review...

Georgette Heyer, often credited with creating the Regency romance, is an author to discover and rediscover! Hennepin County Library has many of her classic titles in the catalog or 'on order', so reserve a copy or three of her historical love stories!

Would you like to invite an author to chat with your book club? Random House Readers’ Circle offers opportunities for your group to discuss a book with the author by phone.

If you are like me and loved Lynn Flewelling's first three Nightrunner books than you will be delighted to hear that a 4th is on the way! Shadows Return is set to be released on June 24, 2008. Log into the catalog and reserve your copy now! Keep up with Lynn on her livejournal site or the yahoo discussion group, Flewelling.

The 2008 Minnesota Book Award winners were announced on April 12: 

Genre Fiction
Thunder Bay by William Kent Krueger
Novel & Short Story
The Last Communist Virgin by Wang Ping
General Nonfiction
The Art of Subtext: Beyond Plot by Charles Baxter  
Memoir & Creative Nonfiction
The Florist’s Daughter by Patricia Hampl
Minnesota
Land of Amber Waters: The History of Brewing in Minnesota by Doug Hoverson
Poetry
Willow Room, Green Door by Deborah Keenan 

More information about the Minnesota Book Awards.

Armchair travelers will love this National Geographic website that reviews new travel writing and offers a guide to classic travel lit, organized by place!

I just read a heartbreaking first novel called Mudbound by Hillary Jordan.   It recently won the Bellwether Prize for Fiction, deservedly so.  It's a gritty story of racism set in the Mississippi Delta after World War II.  College educated, city-bred Laura resigns herself to being an "old maid" until she is wooed by much older Henry McAllan.  His dream to be a farmer takes them to Mississippi to live in a shack with no indoor plumbing or electricity.  If that wasn't miserable enough for Laura, Henry's father moves in with them.  Pappy is a despicable racist and sexist man.  Every time he was in the story I wanted to smack him.  The story is told in six alternating first person voices.   Laura, Henry, Jamie (Henry's charming younger brother), Florence and Hap (husband and wife who are black sharecroppers) and their intelligent son Ronsel (a war hero who has just returned home) are beautifully crafted.  This complex novel oozes with the metaphor of mud.  Laura accurately dubs their cotton farm home Mudbound and the mud slows down the lives of these characters.  Listen to Hillary Jordan discuss her novel on NPR; you can also read an excerpt from Mudbound (in Jamie's voice).

Larry Millett, author of Lost Twin Cities, has recently published the AIA Guide to the Twin Cities, a fascinatingly detailed survey of the notable buildings of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Similar to the 1967 architectural classic, the AIA Guide to New York City, this 666-page volume presents the two cities neighborhood by neighborhood, uncovering many treasures that often go unnoticed by those who pass near them.

The World Science Fiction Society has announced the 2008 Hugo nominations.  The list is available on the Denvention 3 66th World Science Fiction Convention Website.

I'm currently reading Shooting War by Anthony Lappe and Dan Goldman.  When anti-corporate blogger Jimmy Burns vlogs a terrorist attack in NYC, he comes to the attention of a news media conglomerate who hires him to go to Iraq as their "man on the streets".  These streets are meaner and dirtier than anything he'd ever experienced before as the atrocities of war overwhelm him.  Sharp satire, black humor, and a firm grounding in the reality of war make this a truly outstanding read, especially with Goldman's photorealistic illustrations. 

This graphic novel has its own website where you can find out its history as an online comic, to the hardcover graphic novel I'm reading, and its future as a television series.   Lappe is the executive editor for Guerrilla News Network (GNN) and Goldman is a founding member of the daily comics anthology ACT-I-VATE, and after exploring these sites it's very apparent that they write what they know.  Definitely talent to watch.

My daughter and I once visited the Iolani Palace in Honolulu; it was the official residence of the Hawaiian Kingdom's last two monarchs - King Kalakaua and Queen Lili'uokalani.  Five years later I found Alan Brennert's wonderful debut novel Moloka'i. The story begins in the late 1890s on Oahu when the last monarchy was nearing its end.  Young Rachel Kalama lives on the island with her loving parents.  One day her mother notices a pink sore on Rachel's skin that she desperately tries to conceal but soon officials discover it and banish the seven-year-old to the quarantined leprosy settlement on the island of Moloka'i.  Rachel's life profoundly changes.  She clings to her beloved Uncle Pono who had been sent to the settlement a few months earlier.  Rachel has a mild case of leprosy and she grows up on Moloka'i with infrequent visits from her seaman father.  I was totally absorbed in this novel.  Publishers Weekly gave Moloka'i a starred review, "Compellingly original... Brennert's compassion makes Rachel a memorable character, and his smooth story-telling vividly brings early twentieth-century Hawai'i to life...a touching, lovely account of a woman's journey as she rises above the limitations of a devastating illness."