Library Journal's Reader's Shelf

This issue features books that use footnotes in innovative ways.

IBID By Dunn, Mark 2005-06 - Harvest Books 9780156031004 Check Our Catalog Only Mark Dunn, author of the acclaimed Ella Minnow Pea, would attempt to write a novel entirely in footnotes-and succeed so triumphantly. Ibid is the off-the-wall fictional biography of Jonathan Blashette, a three-legged circus performer and deodorant entrepreneur. Dunn, a character in his own novel, is Blashette's esteemed biographer. But when Dunn's editor destroys the manuscript in an unfortunate bathtub accident, all that remains are the footnotes, which they arrange to publish in a consummate portrait of Blashette's strangely hilarious life story, one that offers some infinitely interesting morsels of American cultural history. Of course, as endnotes go, these are the tidbits, the marginalia: snippets of commentary, correspondence, court transcripts, song lyrics, and even a recipe for Boston baked beans. But in the topsy-turvy world of Ibid, the footnotes tell the truest story of all. …More

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell By Clarke, Susanna Illustrator Rosenberg, Portia 2005-08 - Bloomsbury Publishing PLC 9781582346038 Check Our Catalog A BookPage Notable Title Centuries ago, when magic still existed in England, the greatest magician of them all was the Raven King. Now, at the beginning of the 19th century, England no longer believes in practical magic. Then Mr Norrell of Hurtfew Abbey appears. Persuaded that he must help in the war against Napoleon, Mr. Norrell meets a young magician and takes him as a pupil. Together, they dazzle the country with their feats. …More

In the Lake of the Woods By O'Brien, Tim 2006-09 - Mariner Books 9780618709861 Check Our Catalog This riveting novel of love and mystery from the author of "The Things They Carried" examines the lasting impact of the 20th century's legacy of violence and warfare, both at home and abroad. …More

The Spellman Files By Lutz, Lisa 2009-01 - Pocket Books 9781416594178 Check Our Catalog In her irresistible, laugh-out-loud debut novel, Lutz introduces Isabel Izzy Spellman, a 28-year-old private eye working for her family's investigative business--a family that puts the fun in dysfunctional. …More

The Women By Boyle, T. Coraghessan 2009-02 - Viking Books 9780670020416 Check Our Catalog BookPage Notable Title Having brought to life eccentric cereal king John Harvey Kellogg in The Road to Wellville and sex researcher Alfred Kinsey in The Inner Circle, Boyle now turns his fictional sights on an even more colorful and outlandish character: Frank Lloyd Wright. …More

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody By Cuppy, Will Illustrator Steig, William Afterword by Maeder, Thomas 2008-10 - David R. Godine Publisher 9781567923773 Check Our Catalog So you think you know most of what there is to kow about people like Nero and Cleopatra, Alexander the Great and Attila the Hun, Lady Godica and Miles Standish? You say there's nothing more to be written about Lucrezia Borgia? How wrong you are, for in these pages you'll find Will Cuppy footloose in the footnotes of history. He transforms these luminaries into human beings, not as we knew them from history books, but as we would have known them Cuppy-wise: foolish, fallible, and very much our common ancestors. When it was first published in 1950, The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody spent four months on The New York Times best-seller list, and Edward R. Murrow devoted more than two-thirds of one of his nightly CBS programs to a reading from Cuppy's historical sketches, calling it "the history book of the year." The book eventually went through eighteen hardcover printings and ten foreign editions, proof of its impeccable accuracy and deadly, imperishable humor. …More

The Well of Lost Plots By Fforde, Jasper 2004-08 - Penguin Books 9780143034353 Check Our Catalog Join Thursday Next as she encounters some of the greatest characters in literature and battles deadly villains who literally leap off the page. When it comes to sheer wit, literate fantasy, and effervescent originality, nobody can touch this new Ffordian tour de force, now in paperback. …More