That’s right….As if the Library wasn’t a great enough place already, this year, the West Branch is an official polling place for early voting in Massachusetts!  Those who choose to take advantage of this new option can check out the schedule of polling locations and places by clicking on this link, which will take you to the website for the Secretary of the Commonwealth.  The application for an Early Voter Ballot can be found by clicking here, as well.  We hope this process will make it a little easier for you to fulfill your civic duty by voting when you are able to do so…and also, hopefully, minimize the stress of these elections by allowing you do avoid any nonsense that may occur on Election Day itself.  You can also visit the Torigian Life Center and City Hall to cast an Early Ballot.

If you have any problems, especially on Election Day, you can feel free to talk to one of the wardens (police officers) at the polling place, or call the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s Elections Division at 617-727-2828 or 1-800-462-8683. Additionally, the national Election Protection Hotline is 1-866-OUR-VOTE or 1-888-VE-Y-VOTA (en Español).

And just a friendly reminder, pursuant to General laws chapter 56, section 25, it is against the law to allow the marking of his ballot to be seen by any person for any purpose. This includes a voter photographing their own ballot after marking it.  So party like it’s 1992 while at the polling places, ok?

Ok.  Now that all that Adulting has been done and dusted, let’s get to the books….This week is a survey of histories of many different kinds.  We hope you enjoy!

The Terranauts: Ostensibly, T.C. Boyle’s newest novel is science fiction; it’s set in a version of 1994, in the deserts of Arizona.  With global warming an ever-growing threat, eight ‘Terranaunts’ are preparing to enter a three-acre biodome where they will live completely sealed off from humanity in preparation for an off-earth colony.  Yet while Boyle’s book has plenty of interesting scientific details, and his alternative America is a fascinating place, this book is really about the lives, loves, and choices of the Terranauts themselves–those who enter the dome, and those who are left outside.  By switching narratives, he allows the reader to full experience life through these characters eyes, making this a much more personal, searching, and therefore, realistic story than might otherwise be expected.  Many are calling this book Boyle’s masterpiece (or one of them, at least!), with Publisher’s Weekly proclaiming it “A sprawling tale of achievement, yearning, pride, and human weakness…a multilayered work that recalls the tragicomic realism of Saul Bellow and John Updike.”

Napoleon’s Last Island: When Thomas Keneally was visiting Melbourne, he learned the story of the Balcombe family, who lived on the island of St. Helena.  Mr. Balcombe worked for the British East India Company, and was responsible for provisioning ships bound for the Cape Colonies.  The family also played host to St. Helena’s most famous inhabitant–Napoleon Bonaparte, who was sent to live there in exile following his defeat at Waterloo.  Taken with the Balcombe’s story, and, most specifically with the experiences of their thirteen-year-old daughter Betsy, he crafted this novel, a fascinating blend of fact and fiction that explores not only the relationships on the tiny St. Helena, but also its place in the wider world of the French Revolution and Terror.  At the heart of it all, however, is Betsy, and her remarkable, heartbreaking, horrible, and vivid memories.  The New York Times Review of Books was particularly taken with Keneally’s “Insightful and nimble prose. . .[Keneally] seamlessly unites fiction and the ‘truth,’ which means in this case that its armature of fact supports its layers of fictional invention as thought they were weightless.  The delight Keneally took in pulling off this trick shows on every page.”

The Authentic William James: From the imagined past to the reconstructed past to an historical mystery we go.  Stephen Gallagher’s fin-de-siecle investigator Sebastian Becker has seen some of the worst that Britain has to offer.  Now an agent for the Crown, Becker is once again called upon to use his familiarity with madness and the human soul to evaluate the sanity of a confessed arsonist known as “Wild West Showman, The Authentic William James”.  The quest will take Becker to the wild world of Hollywood, where his hunt into James’ psyche will force him to reconsider his own duty–to his country, and the man he pursues.  Stephen Gallagher clearly delights in delving into shadowy, nearly-forgotten corners of history for his tales, and this book is no different, offering readers a very unique view of his subject, through the eyes of a increasingly interesting protagonist.  Publisher’s Weekly agrees, giving this book a starred review and saying “Gallagher gives Sebastian Becker another puzzle worthy of his quirky sleuth’s acumen in his outstanding third pre-WWI mystery…[He] makes the most of his unusual concept in the service of a twisty but logical plot line.”

A Life Discarded: 148 Diaries Found in the Trash: A bit of actual (and recent) history here:  In 2001, 148 tattered and mould-covered notebooks were discovered lying among broken bricks in a dumpster on a building site in Cambridge, England.  Filled with dense handwriting, the books were the partial record of a life, spanning fifty years from 1952 until weeks before they were discarded.  This book is biographer Alexander Masters’ five-year journey to discover the author of the diaries, and piece that person’s life back together, with results that are as surprising as they are touching.  Masters’ is a talented biographer, and this real-life detective novel is also about putting the titular ‘discarded life’ in a much broader context, making these diaries the center of a considerably larger, and deeply emotional, and undeniably odd tale.  This book got rave reviews in England, where it was first published, with The Spectator hailing it as “Playful, unsettling and altogether compelling … pin-sharp and generously open to eccentricity … an ingenious new twist on the concept of a ghostwritten biography, in which the ghost turns out to be the kind of person who usually disappears between the cracks of society without leaving a trace behind…brilliantly fleshed out and brought back to life.”

Truevine: And finally, another true, and nearly forgotten story to round our our survey, this one opening in 1899, on a tobacco farm in Truevine, Virginia.  As the story goes, one sweltering summer day, a man approached two young boys, George and Willie Muse, who worked as sharecroppers on the farm, and lured them away with candy.  Albino black children, the boys were captured into a circus that performed all around the world, and they became celebrities, performing as “Ambassadors from Mars”,  among other far more derogatory titles.  Back in Truevine, their mother frantically searched for her missing children, leaving a scar on the family that lingers to this day.  In this haunting and meticulously researched story, journalist Beth Macy followed not only the Muse brother’s experiences in the circus, but also the effects their disappearance had on those left back home.  What she discovered was a tale much more twisted, challenging, and morally complex than she ever suspected, and the book, as a result, is a fascinating, moving, and occasionally chilling tale about race and family and memory that is already being nominated for non-fiction awards, include the Kirkus Prize.  Kirkus said in its review, “The story draws on years of diligent, investigative research and personal investment on the author’s behalf, and it features numerous interviews with immediate family, neighbors, distant relatives, Truevine townsfolk, and associated friends, most notably Nancy Saunders, Willie’s fiercely outspoken primary caregiver. Macy absorbed their own individual (and often conflicting) interpretations of the Muse kidnappings, condensing and skillfully braiding them into a sturdy, passionate, and penetrating narrative.”

Until next week, beloved patrons–happy reading!