The popular Books Sandwiched In review series returns to the newly renovated and opened Central Library, Fifth Street and Denver Avenue, in Aaronson Auditorium.
Bring your lunch or purchase food at Starbucks then enjoy insightful reviews by Tulsa book aficionados from 12:10-12:50 p.m.
Oct. 3, The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey by Rinker Buck
Reviewer: Michael Wallis, historian and biographer of the American West
In 2011, Rinker Buck, along with three cantankerous mules, his boisterous brother, Nick, and a Jack Russell terrier named Olive Oyl, traveled the length of the Oregon Trail in a covered wagon – an audacious journey not attempted in a century. In beautiful prose, Buck shares stories of the pioneers themselves, ordinary families whose courage and sacrifice made our country what it became. Using humor and compassion, he creates a compelling page-turning saga of the American experience.
Oct. 10, No review. All Tulsa City-County Library closed for staff training.
Oct. 17, The Road to Little Dribbling: Adventures of an American in Britain by Bill Bryson
Reviewer: Ros Elder, Pilates-based personal trainer at Total Pilates Studio, was born in London and raised in Oklahoma by a British mother and an American dad.
A loving and hilarious – if occasionally spiky – valentine to Bill Bryson’s adopted country, Great Britain. Prepare for total joy and multiple episodes of unseemly laughter. Twenty years ago, Bryson went on a trip around Britain to discover and celebrate that green and pleasant land. The result was Notes From a Small Island, a true classic and one of the bestselling travel books ever written. Now he has traveled about Britain again, by bus and train and rental car and on foot, to see what has changed – and what hasn’t.
Oct. 24, The Secret Life of the American Musical: How Broadway Shows Are Built by Jack Viertel
Reviewer: Machele Miller Dill, director of musical theater, University of Tulsa. The review will include performances by TU students.
In The Secret Life of the American Musical, Jack Viertel takes them apart, puts them back together, sings their praises, marvels at their unflagging inventiveness and occasionally despairs over their more embarrassing shortcomings. In the process, he invites us to fall in love all over again by showing us how musicals happen, what makes them work, how they captivate audiences, and how one landmark show leads to the next – by design or by accident, by emulation or by rebellion – from Oklahoma! to Hamilton and onward.
Oct. 31, Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune by Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell Jr.
Reviewer: Rebecca Howard, manager of the Broken Arrow Library and Your Next Great Read library service co-creator.
When Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Bill Dedman noticed in 2009 a grand home for sale, unoccupied for nearly 60 years, he stumbled through a surprising portal into American history. Empty Mansions is a rich mystery of wealth and loss, connecting the Gilded Age opulence of the 19th century with a 21st century battle over a $300 million inheritance. At its heart is a reclusive heiress named Huguette Clark, a woman so secretive that, at the time of her death at age 104, no new photograph of her had been seen in decades. Though she owned palatial homes in California, New York and Connecticut, why had she lived for 20 years in a simple hospital room, despite being in excellent health? Why were her valuables being sold off? Was she in control of her fortune, or controlled by those managing her money?
Nov. 7, Deadly Hero: The High Society Murder That Created Hysteria in the Heartland by Jason Lucky Morrow
Reviewer: Michelle Place, executive director, Tulsa Historical Society and Museum
On the night of Thanksgiving 1934, the son of a prominent Tulsa doctor was shot to death in his car in the wealthiest neighborhood of the oil-rich city. Two days later, the son of one of the most powerful men in the state walked into the sheriff’s office with his lawyer and surrendered. The killer’s name, and who his father was, would shock the entire nation and make news around the world. When a key witness was found dead in his car under similar circumstances, it only confirmed their worst fears. This true story is not a “whodunit,” but rather, a “will he get away with it?” The answer to that question is still up for debate after the killer did something only the bravest of men would ever do.
Nov. 14, A Man Called Ove: A Novel by Fredrik Backman
Reviewer: Wayne Hardy, Friends board and Books Sandwiched committee member
Ove is getting older. He’s the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines and a short fuse. People in Ove’s neighborhood call him “the bitter neighbor from hell.” But behind Ove’s cranky exterior lies a story and a sadness. When an accident-prone young couple with two young daughters moves in next door and accidentally flatten Ove’s mailbox one November morning, overturning his well-ordered routine, it is the spark in a surprising, enlivening chain of events – featuring unkempt cats, unexpected friendships, arrogant bureaucrats, several trips to the hospital and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul. Swept along in the tide, Ove is forced to change and learn to understand his neighbors and the modern times into which he has been grudgingly dragged. But as his neighbors learn more about the reasons behind Ove’s grumpy façade, they must also band together to protect each other and their neighborhood in a struggle that will leave no one, including Ove, unchanged.
Nov. 21, Midnight in Broad Daylight by Pamela Rotner Sakamoto
Reviewer: Sarah Jenkins, retired elementary and middle school teacher
Meticulously researched and beautifully written, the true story of a Japanese-American family that found itself on opposite sides during World War II – an epic tale of family, separation, divided loyalties, love, reconciliation, loss and redemption – this is a riveting chronicle of U.S.-Japan relations and the Japanese experience in America. Alternating between the American and Japanese perspectives, Midnight in Broad Daylight captures the uncertainty and intensity of those charged with the fighting as well as the deteriorating home front of Hiroshima – as never told before in English – and provides a fresh look at the dropping of the first atomic bomb. Intimate and evocative, it is an indelible portrait of a resilient family, a scathing examination of racism and xenophobia, an homage to the tremendous Japanese- American contribution to the American war effort and an invaluable addition to the historical record of this extraordinary time.
Nov. 28, A Billy Collins Sampler
Reviewer: Adrian Alexander, dean of McFarlin Library at the University of Tulsa and member of the Helmerich Author Award Selection Committee
Billy Collins, one of the country’s most popular and acclaimed poets, is the winner of the 2016 Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award. Collins, who served as U.S. Poet Laureate from 2001 to 2003, is the first poet to receive the award. A native of New York City, Collins wrote his first poem at age 12, but it would be almost 30 years before he would publish his first book of poetry in 1988. His work often begins with an easily recognizable image or situation, and the words flow in a conversational way, before a slight twist of phrase takes the poem into more profound, unexpected territory. Our reviewer will introduce us to the works of Billy Collins. Collins will receive the award on Dec. 2 at Central Library.
For more information on Books Sandwiched In or other Tulsa City-County Library programs, call the AskUs Hotline, 918-549-7323, or visit the library’s website, www.tulsalibrary.org.
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