Book Club Pix

Contributed by Mary Anne Ellis, Southern History Department, Birmingham Public Library
book jacket Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel by Susanna Clarke
It is the turn of the nineteenth century, the era of Jane Austen, of Ludwig van Beethoven, . . and of Napoleon Bonaparte. Mr. Norrell, a scholar from Yorkshire, has studied obscure and secret volumes in his library and has managed to become a magician. He sees the careful, subtle application of his magical powers as the answer to the Napoleonic menace, but his apprentice Jonathan Strange has other plans and less regard for caution. Can England survive the threat of foreign invasion and the dark ambitions of Jonathan Strange?
book jacket He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo
Does he say he’ll call you and then he never does? Stop waiting by the phone and stop making excuses. If he doesn’t call or stay in touch, it’s because "he’s just not that into you," claim the authors of this book based on an episode of Sex and the City. Behrendt and Tuccillo insist that if he is as interested in you as you are in him, then nothing will keep him away. Stop giving him alibis. Find the guy who is into you and stop wasting time with the ones who are not.
book jacket The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
For lovers of detective fiction who are sated with the fogs of Sherlockian London or the hard-boiled surroundings of New York and LA, try a sojourn in Africa with Precious Ramotswe, who uses her inheritance from her father to open her own detective agency and becomes the first female sleuth in Botswana. And business is brisk: along with the usual cheating spouses and petty thefts, there is the case of the missing boy believed to have been kidnapped by a witch doctor. Can Precious find him in time?
book jacket The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
There’s nothing special about Eddie. He’s just an ordinary maintenance man who works in an amusement park. But when Eddie is killed in an accident at the park, he finds out upon entering heaven that his life has been more significant than he thought. One by one, five people that he meets in heaven come forward to explain how his life has been connected with theirs in ways he could never have imagined in this existence.
book jacket Eats, Shoots & Leaves: the Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss
Whether you are a stickler for correct grammar or a punctuation heretic who never knows where to insert a comma, you can find lots of laughs in Truss’ entertaining treatise on proper usage; there are times, as illustrated in the joke that inspired the title, when one comma can make a difference. While making the serious point that clarity is essential to communication, the author leavens the instructional aspect of the book with plenty of humor (or, since she is British, humour). So even if you are petrified by punctuation, give this book a try, laugh, and learn as Truss puts the glamour in grammar.