Have you ever started reading a book or sat down to watch a movie because you had nothing else to do or because someone suggested it to you & with very low or no expectations you found yourself completely blown away by its greatness?  It is one of the absolute best feelings, ever.  And it's really hard to come by!  That pure happenstance feeling of wonder is not something for which you can prepare or seek out.  It has to find you.  Since I read often & watch lots of movies, I feel like I wade through lots of mediocrity & disappointments, so when something unexpected becomes a favorite, I really want to share it with the world.

Books

Case Histories by Kate Atkinson.  The librarians here at Westbank often read books outside our own personal preferences so that we'll have reading suggestions handy for our members.  This selection fit that bill for me, & I read it thinking it would be a straight-forward detective story.  While it does indeed center around a protagonist who is in the business of solving mysteries, Case Histories is an apt title for a story that really delves into histories - case histories as well as character histories.  What makes these people tick?  How did they become the maladaptive individuals they are?  Why do these resolved & unresolved cases haunt them?  It turned out to be right up my alley, & I never would have predicted that I'd like it so much.

The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway.  If you've ever seen the librarian action figure Nancy Pearl (I have two!), you may be surprised to know that Nancy Pearl is a real person, & she is famed for being awesome at matching readers with books they'll love.  (She's written several books chock-full of suggestions: Book Lust; More Book Lust; Book Lust To Go; Book Crush.)  I read her suggestions on her blog & on NPR sometimes, & The Gone-Away World was my first test of her skill.  With a cover that's both hot pink & fuzzy, it doesn't scream "Trina".  I'm not sure what it's screaming.  But this book was great, start to finish.  It may be the biggest crowd-pleaser I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing, but there's nothing about it that fits neatly into conversation when people ask me what to read next.  So if you need a good book & nothing specific comes to mind, try this one.

On Writing by Stephen King.  Whoa, you guys.  Whoa.  Five stars.  Five stars.  Let me just say, this guy knows how to write.  On Writing is probably the most personal work of non-fiction I've ever read, so much so that by about page 50 I had to keep reminding myself that Stephen King was not, in fact, my close, personal friend.  Stephen King is not normally an author I consider being my type, but now I'm officially a fan, even if his other books are just too scary for me to ever read.

Flotsam by David Wiesner & The Spider & the Fly illustrated by Tony DiTerlizzi.  These books are works of art, people!  Picture books weren't really something I read on a regular basis before going back to grad school to become a librarian, & these two were my first re-introduction since childhood.  Everyone knows the classic picture books, but after missing a couple of decades worth of new publications, I had no idea what was being published for kids.  What a delightful surprise!

Movies

Brick.  It was during college that I really came into my own discovering my taste in movies, & some of my favorites are of the noir sort with distinct language & a hard-boiled detective.  Brick is a modern day take on the genre, following a high school student as he attempts to solve the murder of his ex-girlfriend.  It has a slightly unreal feeling with larger than life characters who fit into noir archetype roles but in the form of teenagers, & the dialogue...the dialogue!  It's so strange & unnatural & cool!

Jane Eyre.  I know I'm being so so blasphemous, but in my opinion, the 2011 version of Jane Eyre is far far superior to the book.  I wasn't a fan of the book when I read it as a teen, & after watching this paradoxically chaste & sexy remake I tried to read the book again.  Not for me.  Hence the reason I was so shocked by how much I loved this film.  The casting & directing is superb, & the screenplay did a great job picking out which parts of the book to emphasize & which parts to leave to the imagination.  If this movie isn't perfect, it's pretty close.

The Apartment.  Classics are just like anything else - to each his own - so even though everyone else likes them doesn't mean I will (like Casablanca or anything starring Humphrey Bogart...no thanks).  The thing about watching lots of old movies is that it's not really considered cool by most people, so it's not as if I can ask my friends if a particular old movie is worth my time.  Watching old movies means lots of misses, & I try to offset my own disappointment by having absolutely no expectations before I watch them.  The Apartment.  Is. Ridiculous.  So good.  SO SO good.  If this film were made today, I still think it would feel edgy, so I can't imagine what audiences of the era thought of it.  It walks a very dangerous line mixing some outrageous comedy with very real issues, & the result is masterful.

I'd love to hear about some of the hidden gems that our members have uncovered, so remember to share them with us when you stop in!