Hello and welcome to Episode Thirteen of Page Turn: the Largo Public Library Podcast. I’m your host, Hannah!
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The Spanish Language Book Review begins at 14:56 and ends at 19:43
The English Language Transcript can be found below
But as always we start with Reader’s Advisory!
The Reader’s Advisory for Episode Thirteen is Wanderlust: a History of Walking by Rebecca Solnit. If you like Wanderlust you should also check out: In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust, Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life by Allen Kaprow, and The Old Ways: a Journey on Foot by Robert Macfarlane.
My personal favorite Goodreads list Wanderlust is on is Microhistory: Social Histories of Just One Thing.
Today’s Library Tidbit comes to us from Dick Powell. Dick’s mother, Thelma, was the Largo Librarian for several years. Dick came on to the podcast to give us some stories of being put to work in the library as a kid by his mother and also some local Largo history.
And now it’s time for Book Traveler, with Victor:
Hi. Welcome to Book Traveler. My name is Victor and I am the Community Outreach Librarian here at the Largo Public Library. Today I’m going to talk about a fiction book we have in the Spanish collection titled Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty.
Synopsis:
Big Little Lies follows three women, each at a crossroads:
Madeline is a force to be reckoned with. She’s funny and biting, passionate, she remembers everything and forgives no one. Her ex-husband and his yogi new wife have moved into her beloved beachside community, and their daughter is in the same kindergarten class as Madeline’s youngest. And to top it all off, Madeline’s teenage daughter seems to be choosing Madeline’s ex-husband over her.
Celeste is the kind of beautiful woman who makes the world stop and stare. While she may seem a bit flustered at times, who wouldn’t be, with those rambunctious twin boys? Now that the boys are starting school, Celeste and her husband look set to become the king and queen of the school parent body. But royalty often comes at a price, and Celeste is grappling with how much more she is willing to pay.
New to town, single mom Jane is so young that another mother mistakes her for the nanny. Jane is sad beyond her years and harbors secret doubts about her son. But why? While Madeline and Celeste soon take Jane under their wing, none of them realizes how the arrival of Jane and her inscrutable little boy will affect them all.
Big Little Lies is a brilliant take on ex-husbands and second wives, mothers and daughters, schoolyard scandal, and the dangerous little lies we tell ourselves just to survive.
Personal Opinion:
Big Little Lies is one of those books that start to intrigue you from the beginning, because in the first moment we know that there has been a suspicious death, but we do not know who has died or what has happened.
The story is set in the Perriwee peninsula, a dream place located in Australia. The main characters are three quite different women who know each other thanks to their young children, since they are going to the same preschool. Although their lives are quite different, they create a bond between them from the first day and little by little we will see how a great friendship is formed.
In addition to these three women, we will meet a multitude of other characters, such as the rest of the mothers who take their children to school. I found it very interesting to see the behavior of these mothers, as I think it is a reflection of what happens in reality. They are very prejudiced women, who like to gossip. From day one we start to see the problems that will drag throughout the story, until the day of Pirriwee Public’s Trivia Night, organized by the school, which is the day in which a tragic accident happens.
The story tells you from the beginning what happens in school, but at the end of some chapters there is a kind of testimonies from the people who attended the trivia night, where they tell us their suspicions or make small statements of what happened. Many of these testimonies have discrepancies between them and distort reality enough, but the point is that little by little they give you an idea of what happened that night and you start to create your own opinion about who can be the victim and who the culprit.
What I liked most about the book was to get to know the protagonists with such depth. They are the perfect example that people are simply the tip of an iceberg and hide many secrets inside. By knowing them you realize that no one has a perfect life, that material objects and superficial things have no meaning and that life is not always fair with good people.
As a negative point I would emphasize that there is a moment in which the novel was getting long and there were a few repetitive chapters.
As for the end, I must admit that I am quite satisfied because the conclusions I reached were not correct and the ending managed to surprise me very much. I did not think for a moment that everything that happened that night could happen and there were things that left me in shock. The author achieved a very good balance between the dramatic elements (which are many, such as bullying, food problems, sexual abuse and domestic violence) and the strange and funny situations that develop between the parents. It is a book that I would recommend a lot if you like mystery.
This is all for today. See you in the next episode of Book Traveler. Goodbye.
Thanks everyone for listening some upcoming library events to keep track of:
May 1st PowerPoint 2013 for Beginners at 3:00pm in the Computer Lab
May 4th Ancestry DNA: I have my Results What’s Next? At 1:00pm in Jenkins Room A
May 8th Chapter Chat @ Evermore Cafe at 6:00pm at the Evermore Cafe
May 11th Library Legos at 2:00pm in the Children’s Program Room
May 13th Poets Live! At 6:30pm in the 1st Floor Quiet Reading Room
May 15th Adult Sign Language at 6:00pm in Jenkins Room C
May 18th Hiking the Pilgrim Paper Trail at 11:00am in Jenkins Room B
May 20th Book Bingo at 6:00pm in the Children’s Program Room
May 22nd Getting Started with YouTube at 3:00pm in the Computer Lab
May 29th Orphan Trains and the Children Who Rode in Them at 10:00am in the Local History Room
We hope you have a great month and we’ll talk to you again soon.
For everyone interested our intro music is by Break the Bans and the outro music is by Jahzzar, both artists can be found on Free Music Archive.
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