At CMLE Headquarters, we love books!
This is likely the most popular and most unifying statement you can possibly make when chatting with library people – but it’s true! On our weekly podcast, Linking Our Libraries, we always have a book segment so we can share some of the books we read. This is always popular with our listeners, so we are expanding that into other formats including a second podcast coming out this fall, and in some regular book suggestions here on our site.
(Books below have links to Amazon; if you follow them and buy stuff from Amazon, Jeff Bezos and his crew will donate a small percentage of your sale to CMLE! It can really help us out, so thank you! And if you want to use our Amazon link anytime you shop, it helps us out. Check it out here for all the info!)
I stayed up late last night to finish this book – I couldn’t put it down! Usually, I really like audio books; and this is available in that format. But in this case, I would recommend reading the paper copy. Much of the story is told in journals, descriptions of video recordings, codes, and other formats easier to read than to hear.
Months after the last of the Wells sons jumped out of his bedroom window in Axton House (incidentally forgetting to open it first), a strange couple of Europeans arrive in Virginia to take possession of the estate. A. is the 23-year-old unforeseen scion; Niamh is the mute punk teen girl he refers to as his associate or his bodyguard. Both are ready to settle into their new cushy lifestyle, and the rumors about the mansion being haunted add to their excitement. But ghosts are not in any way the deepest secret of the house.
Through journals, letters, security footage, audio recordings, and ciphers, we follow A. and Niamh as they delve into Wells’ dubious suicide, the secret society he founded and its mysterious Game —a “bourgeois pastime” of global proportions— in Edgar Cantero’s dazzling and original gothic adventure.”
You might also like his newer book: Meddling Kids. I listened to this one, and laughed out loud at points while walking. For pop culture fans, like me, it was fun to read for all the nods to assorted icons. I liked it overall; for me, it kind of trailed off as it got closer to the end and less pop-fun. But I did still enjoy it, and if you like mysteries and stories that turn tropes on their heads – this maybe the book for you!
SUMMER 1977. The Blyton Summer Detective Club (of Blyton Hills, a small mining town in Oregon’s Zoinx River Valley) solved their final mystery and unmasked the elusive Sleepy Lake monster—another low-life fortune hunter trying to get his dirty hands on the legendary riches hidden in Deboën Mansion. And he would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids.
1990. The former detectives have grown up and apart, each haunted by disturbing memories of their final night in the old haunted house. There are too many strange, half-remembered encounters and events that cannot be dismissed or explained away by a guy in a mask. And Andy, the once intrepid tomboy now wanted in two states, is tired of running from her demons. She needs answers. To find them she will need Kerri, the one-time kid genius and budding biologist, now drinking her ghosts away in New York with Tim, an excitable Weimaraner descended from the original canine member of the club. They will also have to get Nate, the horror nerd currently residing in an asylum in Arkham, Massachusetts. Luckily Nate has not lost contact with Peter, the handsome jock turned movie star who was once their team leader . . . which is remarkable, considering Peter has been dead for years.
The time has come to get the team back together, face their fears, and find out what actually happened all those years ago at Sleepy Lake. It’s their only chance to end the nightmares and, perhaps, save the world.
A nostalgic and subversive trip rife with sly nods to H. P. Lovecraft and pop culture, Edgar Cantero’s Meddling Kids is a strikingly original and dazzling reminder of the fun and adventure we can discover at the heart of our favorite stories, no matter how old we get.”