The Giver of Stars - by Jojo Moyes

People often share with me articles such as this one about the Kentucky Packhorse librarians, one of President Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration (WPA) projects. During the Great Depression these bad-ass librarians rode through rough mountain terrain in all weather in order to deliver books to rural Kentuckians. Moyes' novel tells the story of Margery O'Hare, Alice Van Cleve, Sophia Kenworth, Beth Pinker, Kathleen Bligh, and Isabelle (Izzy) Brady who took on the challenge of ensuring all in the mining town Baileyville could access reading materials.

Not everyone in town was happy about the set up. There were those who were not happy that Sophia a "colored" woman was working in the library. And some residents preferred that the librarians not bring any reading materials to their families (except perhaps the Bible), lest they "spread all kinds of crazy notions". Nevertheless even amid reports of 

wives no longer keeping house because they're too busy reading fancy magazines and cheap romances...[and] children picking up disruptive ideas from comic books 

the librarians took their charge seriously, and delivered materials to homes and schools across the mountainside. 

Newlywed Alice volunteered for the duty despite the vigorous objections of her husband and father-in-law who felt that as a proper woman she should stay home. The Van Cleve men, along with Pastor McIntosh and his sister Pamela also insisted that the horse riding was interfering with Alice's ability to have children. "It's like if you shake a jar of milk up too much, it turns sour. Curdles, if you like". Explains the clueless elder Mr. Van Cleve. Pastor McIntosh adds that he'd in fact read an article indicating as much. Although Alice is a bit naive about certain sexual matters, she is well aware of the real reason she hadn't conceived, and it had nothing to do with horseback riding. Rather than pointing out her husband's disinterest in sex she instead launches into an explanation of the importance of information literacy.

Knowledge is so important, don't you think? We all say at the library, without facts we really do have nothing. If I'm putting my health at risk by riding a horse, then I think it would only be responsible for me to read the article you're talking about. Perhaps you could bring it next Sunday, Pastor?

Alice further points out that

in England [whence she hails] nearly all well-brought up ladies ride. They go out hunting, jumping ditches, fences, all sorts. It's almost compulsory. And yet they pop out babies with extraordinary efficiency. Even the Royal Family. Pop, pop, pop!  

One of the more popular books in the library was a discretely requested manual called Married Love by one  Dr. Marie Stopes. The women who ventured to read the work found that their husbands spent less time at the honky tonks and more time at home "shorn of their usual short tempers".

It even worked for those women who preferred not to be married. Margery O'Hare read it twice and she and her beau Sven Gustavssen and made good use of the advice therein. Curious? You can read the whole thing here.

This book has something for everyone - murder, romance, intrigue, censorship, and more. My husband and I listened to the audio version. An excellent tale it is.

See also my post for That Book Woman for a children's picture book about the Packhorse librarians.

That Book Woman - by Heather Henson

Franklin D. Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration (WPA) program put people to work during the depression. According to this article many more men than women benefited from the WPA. However, the Pack Horse Library Project employed mostly women. The "Book Women" traveled on horseback to remote areas where schools and libraries were scarce. That Book Woman tells the story of Cal, who lives in the Appalachian mountains of Kentucky. His resentment that the Book Woman is keeping his sister from doing more chores changes to admiration as she comes through snow, fog, and rain to bring books to the entire family. Cal eventually realizes that he wants to read, and asks his sister for help. 

This picture book turned out to be a real tear-jerker for this librarian. Get out your hankies and listen to the whole story on the YouTube video above.

Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs - by Molly Harper

I am fascinated by vampire legends, lore and stories. I have visited Dracula's boyhood home in Transylvania, and have taken the vampire tour of New Orleans. I am a bit embarrassed to admit how much I like Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series of vampire books. I read all four of them in less than a month, and while I will say that I thought the fourth one left a bit to be desired, overall, I really enjoyed reading them. I found them thrilling and sexy. I also watch a lot of vampire movies, my favorite is Transylvania Twist, not because it is is an exceptionally great movie, in fact, it is pretty goofy, but because it features both vampires, and librarians. For this same reason, I couldn't resist reading Harper's romance/fantasy about a vampire librarian. In the world created for this series the dead and undead co-exist in the land of Half-Moon Hollow, Kentucky. Our protagonist, Jane, is a newly "turned" vampire, and unemployed children's librarian who shares the family home with the ghost of her great aunt Jettie. This work did not pique my interest as much as I expected it to. While the consummation of Jane and Gillbert's relationship only took place after several frustrating encounters, the sexual tension wasn't built up in a way that made me care one way or the other if sex ever happened. And, while this was not the first book I read to feature sex in the library, it is the first that made it out to be so unsatisfying.

Dave Chandler left me on the ninth floor of our university's research library without my panties after we lost our virginity together. He never called me again and actually turned on his heel  and walked in the opposite direction whenever he saw me on campus...Dave and I were both student library workers...It turned out that while the Russian folklore section offered plenty of privacy...the shelves left really weird bruises on your back.

I also grew weary of the one-dimensional characters - the obnoxious sister; the overbearing mother; the nasty supervisor librarian, among others.

It was a quick read, and I believe it may have been the first book I blogged about here to actually mention Banned Books Week (which coincidently was when I read it), and while I did not dislike it, I did not find it engaging enough to read the rest of the series.