This month's LitSoup question:

What are you reading right now?

It's the quarterly check-in with what's on the shelves of those in The News-Herald's newsroom:

Rhonda Colvin:

I am in the middle of “Fall from Grace” by Richard North Patterson. It’s a new novel that follows a son who uses his experience as a CIA operative to look into the mysterious death of his estranged father, a wealthy author who fell from a cliff. This book has a lot of twists and turns and it seems like whatever happens in the end will surprise me, which I hope is the case.
As far as non-fiction, I just finished Isabelle Wilkerson’s "The Warmth of Other Suns." It’s a deeply researched piece of work that follows the story of the Great Migration, the period of decades when thousands of African Americans moved from Southern states to the North in the hopes of living a life without segregation. The accounts of some of the migrants are so vivid that you sometimes forget you’re reading non-fiction, but the events are true which makes the book even more thought provoking.

Jeffrey L. Frischkorn:

After I'm done wading through a stack of hunting, firearms, natural history magazines I intend to get back to a pair of books that I've started reading: "Fox's Book of Martyrs" and "1491."

Larece Galer:

Ok so I’m hooked "Kill the Irishman" was good so I had to follow with "SuperThief, A Master Burglar, the Mafia and the Biggest Bank Heist in U.S. History"
Author Rick Porrello writes about the old neighborhoods and familiar places. SuperThief is a good read about crime in Cleveland in years past.

Janet Podolak:

I'm reading "In the Garden of Beasts" by Erik Larsen, chilling account of life in Germany in the 1930s when most people looked the other way in regard to the atrocities that Hitler was carrying out.
This was a book club selection and I didn’t like it at first, but now that I'm almost done I think it's well written and interesting.

Cheryl Sadler:

"Friday Night Lights" by H.G. Bissinger and "Salem Falls" by Jodi Picoult

Jeff Schudel:

"Macbeth" by Shakespeare, "The Night Manager" by John Le Carre and "Foundation and Empire" by Isaac Asimov

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This post is part of a LitSoup, a monthly feature on The Book Club compiled of contributions from the newsroom. Send an e-mail or tweet with your suggestions for future LitSoup topics.

-- Cheryl Sadler | CSadler@News-Herald.com | @nhcheryl

Local writer Priscilla Eldredge tells us her booklet "Chardon Public Square 1812-2012" will be available for sale at this weekend's Geauga County Maple Festival.

Proceeds from the sale will go toward expenses of the Chardon Bicentennial.

Eldredge, a life-long resident of Chardon, says the booklet gives information about the various structures and memorials on the square and discusses why the park has been so important to the community in good times and in bad.

- Tricia Ambrose @triciaambrose

Neat graphic I just came across shows metropolitan statistical area and library distribution across the U.S.:

Browse more Geography infographics.

-- Cheryl Sadler | CSadler@News-Herald.com | @nhcheryl

The weather seems to have aligned itself with the season once again. At last the temperature doesn't seem so out of whack from what my calendar is telling me.
And so with spring in the air, I've been dreaming of taking my reading outside.
Since I'm in the market for some stacks to be piling next to the glider in my backyard to enjoy those warm weekend afternoons sure to come, I'll be hitting up some of these sales.

I'm sure it's no surprise that I'm a huge fan of Friends of the Library book sales. It's the confluence of many of my favorite things - helping libraries, finding books and saving money.
Here's some of the local sales coming up.
Hope to see you there!

The Friends of the Cleveland Public Library will host a Spring Used Book Sale at the Cleveland Public Library, 525 Superior Ave., April 23 through April 26. A large selection of books in all categories will be on sale, including a large assortment of art books, audio books and music CDs. A members-only preview will be 10 a.m. to noon and members should bring their cards for admittance. Those who are not members of the Friends may join at the door. The sale will be open to the public noon to 6 p.m. Monday; 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday and on Thursday, a bag of books will be offered for $5 between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m.

Friends of the Euclid Public Library, 631 E. 222nd St., Euclid will host the April Book Sale 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. April 27; 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. April 28 and 1 to 4 p.m. April 29.
Friday evening is a special preview for members only. Saturday and Sunday the sale is open to the general public with a $2 buy a bag event on Sunday. Only Friends-issued paper bags will be allowed in all of the sale rooms. No outside bags will be permitted.
Donations benefit the Friends of the Euclid Public Library. For details, call 216-261-5300 or www.euclidlibrary.org.

Chardon Friends of the Library will host its annual Maple Festival Book Sale in the Chardon Library’s Bostwick Room. There will be a Friends Members Only Preview from 9 to 10 a.m. April 26. It’s possible to join the Friends or renew membership at the door.
General book sale hours will be 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. April 26, 27 and 28; 1 to 5 p.m. April 29 (bag day, $3 per bag).
For details, call 440-285-7601.

The Friends of the Willoughby-Eastlake Public Library will hold a large book/AV sale at the Willoughby Public Library, 30 Public Square, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. May 4, 5 and 7. Call 440-942-3200 for more information.


The Friends of the Kirtland Public Library, 9267 Chillicothe Road, will host a book sale to benefit the Library from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. May 5. All books, except those specially priced, are $3 per bag. Audio visual materials and jigsaw puzzles are all priced separately. A large collection of adult fiction and non-fiction is available as well as children’s books. Bags will be provided. For details, call the library at 440-256-READ.

Let me know if you make any great discoveries...

- Tricia Ambrose

@triciaambrose

R.L. Anderson Jr. is a resident of Concord Township who grew up in Lake County.  The self-employed small businessman is working on his Will Nickerson Mysteries series, which he recently emailed me about.

Anderson writes:

My first novel, Ranch Park, is set at a fictional theme park that has some similarities to Lake Metroparks Farmpark, but I have located it near a fictional town that I call New Oslo, North Dakota. I chose North Dakota because I had a ranch there for awhile and know that state very well and wanted to write a novel with a North Dakota setting. My second novel, It's A Place For Trees, takes place at a fictional arboretum that has a few similarities to both Holden and Penitentiary Glen, but I've located it in my dad's home state of Pennsylvania, also near a fictional town. I have a third novel in the works. All feature Will Nickerson, a small town businessman turned amateur detective. They are light and easy reading mysteries, with a touch of very light and playful romance woven in, along with lots of action, suspense and surprise, and, although I have adult readers in mind, the language is 100% clean.

Check out R.L. Anderson's author page on Amazon for more information on the author and his books. From there -- and for just $6 -- you can get the Kindle edition of both of his books (or, borrow them for free through the Kindle Owners' Lending Library). Anderson also said he occasionally offers free promos.

Another author I previously profiled: Annmarie Cleversey, who used Painesville and Morley Library as inspiration for her Hailey Hanson Mysteries.

Are you an author in the area or one who has taken inspiration from the beauty of Lake and Geauga counties? Drop me a line so I can share your work with my blog's readers.


-- Cheryl Sadler | CSadler@News-Herald.com | @nhcheryl

I'm sure it's happened you to:
You've read and raved about a novel. It's inspired you to pick up another of that author's works. You have such high hopes for it. And, sadly, it can't live up to those expectations.
That's pretty much what I thought lay in store for me when I got a copy of Hillary Jordan's "Mudbound."
How, I wondered, could this work (her first) live up to "When She Woke," a novel that completely blew me away?

Let's just say I would like to be president of the Hillary Jordan fan club.
I was absolutely enthralled by "Mudbound."
This author can craft a story. And this story could not be more different than the other.
Whereas "When She Woke" took us to a fictional future, "Mudbound" takes us to a more realistic past.
Jordan's first novel is the story of the families Laura, a city-raised white woman struggling to adjust to farm life in post World War II Mississippi, and Florence, the black woman working for her struggling with the racism that surrounds her and her soldier son's return home.
Both women chafe against the bonds the society of the time has placed on them. And neither will be the same following the events that intertwined their families.
Jordan writes stories that have you hooked from first page to last, filled with fully developed characters.
In just a few sentences she conveys so much.
We learn about Florence's son Ronsel:

"I never thought I'd miss it so much. I don't mean Nazi Germany, you'd have to be crazy to miss a place like that. I mean who I was over there. There I was a liberator, a hero. In Mississippi I was just another nigger pushing a plow. And the longer I stayed, the more that's all I was."

We learn about Laura's husband Henry:

"That land had been in my mother's family for nearly a hundred years. My great-great-grandfather and his slaves had cleared it, wresting it acre by acre from the seething mass of cane and brush that covered it. rebuild and replant: that's what farmers do in the Delta.
My father did neither."

 We learn about Henry's brother Jamie:

"I would have great adventures and perform acts of daring and defend my country, and it would be glorious. And I would be a god.
Fifteen years later the Army granted my wish. And it was not. And I was not."

And as we read Jordan's work we learn about ourselves.
I'm already trying to fit a stop at the Printer's Row Lit Fest into my summer plans now that I've learned she'll be on hand.
Have you discovered - or rediscovered - any authors lately?
- Tricia Ambrose
@triciaambrose