Author Archives: Susan Knisely

“Meet Ben Fletcher: Accidental criminal. Liar. Master of mohair.” So proclaims the cover of UK author T.S. Easton’s delightfully silly YA novel Boys Don’t Knit. Ben Fletcher is a 17-year-old good kid and worrier, who gets drawn into an act of juvenile delinquency by his misfit friends. Ironically, considering he was the most reluctant participant, and due in part to a series of unfortunate circumstances, Ben winds up in the most trouble when they’re caught. Placed on probation, Ben is required to keep a journal (hence the diary-format of the novel) and to take an evening class at the local community college.

Due to limited choices, he winds up as the only male student in an introductory knitting class. (Other options included a car maintenance class taught by his father; pottery taught by the mother of a female classmate he has a crush on; and Microsoft Office for beginners, which he describes as being “for grannies and people who’ve just arrived in civilization after having been raised by wolves in the Appalachians.”) The challenge for Ben is how to keep his participation in the knitting class a secret from his father, who wants Ben to share his manly interest in soccer, cars, and World War II, and his classmates.

Of course, Ben winds up being a natural talent at knitting, so much so that he is drafted to participate in the regional heat of the All-UK Knitting Championship, in the junior category. He also ends up REALLY LIKING knitting, not only the social aspects of class, but also the calming effect it has on his mind. It begins to take over his life: He listens to knitting podcasts; furtively reads knitting magazines at the store (hiding a girly magazine inside the knitting magazine when he sees his friends approaching so they’ll think that’s what he’s really looking at, when it’s actually the other way around); and even sets up an Etsy shop. Eventually, despite his best efforts, he’s “outed” at school by an administrator wanting to capitalize on his success as a young entrepreneur. As you can imagine, this leads to constant ribbing from friends and enemies alike, and while it is painful to Ben it makes for amusing reading.

There is a lot of humorously cringe-worthy material in this book (intentional on the part of the author) which we, the readers, get to experience along with Ben (though as readers we are in a better position to be tickled by it than Ben). This includes conversations between Ben’s parents, which are filled with food-based double entendres that used to go over Ben’s head but now cause him no end of psychic pain. We also get to read excerpts of his friend Joz’s horribly-written novel-in-progress, titled Fifty Shades of Graham, which he’s having Ben proofread. It contains winning lines such as “Her large chest heaved angrily at me.” All in all, Ben has a lot of crosses to bear. His voice, as he shares his experiences with us via his diary entries, is as delightful and appealing as can be, making this a wonderful romp of a read.

Easton, T.S. Boys Don’t Knit (In Public). New York: Feiwel and Friends, 2015.

I remember hearing buzz about Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain’s account of what it’s like to work in a restaurant kitchen, shortly after it was published in the summer of 2000. Interviews and reviews that surfaced in the media piqued my interest, but I never got around to reading it at the time. Since then Bourdain’s fame has grown due to his participation in several television series, most notably No Reservations and Parts Unknown. Finally, last week, my husband checked out the eBook edition from Lincoln City Libraries’ OverDrive collection. He laughed so hard he cried as he consumed it nightly before bed, interrupting my reading to share excerpts so frequently that I felt compelled to check out, download, and listen to the audiobook edition, read by Bourdain, himself.

Early in the book Bourdain describes the life lived by restaurant kitchen workers as a subculture. From his anecdotes, which my husband swears aren’t exaggerations (he cooked for two years while I attended library school), that sounds spot on. This is not a ponderous or philosophical book, though Bourdain does share interesting insights and opinions. The prose is raw, in-your-face, and eloquently crude. As Bourdain reads his own words one imagines this is just the way he speaks in real life, when not restrained by television censors. If profanity bothers you, this is not the book for you!

By the end of the book any illusions the reader might have had that cooking for a living is glamorous will have been completely shattered. Bourdain paints a picture of a physically and psychically hard life, where drug addiction and dysfunction reign. Kitchen crews are described at various times as pirate crews and mercenaries. It wouldn’t be the life for me, but I enjoyed reading about it!

Bourdain, Anthony. Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly. Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group, 2001. Internet resource. (Listen to sample)

I know Eleanor & Park has been out for almost two years and many librarian-types have already read and loved it, but I just got around to listening to it this past week. I’m glad I did. It was evocative, filled with both angst and sweetness. The tragedy is that in the end Eleanor’s family situation is too dire to overcome by any other means than escape. I don’t want to provide a plot summary or review – those are plentiful elsewhere – but I will share a few personal thoughts/impressions:

• The fact that the story was set in Omaha in 1984, when the characters were 16, definitely brought back memories. Though I graduated from a Lincoln high school in 1983, Rowell’s descriptions of students’ styles and (sadly) interactions rang true. References to music, the Old Market, and coffee at Village Inn also firmly grounded the narrative in a familiar time and place.

• I loved Park’s parents, the way sometimes one was the good guy while the other was the bad guy, and then at other times the roles would be reversed. It seemed realistic, since as parents we each have blind spots as well as soft spots. I also loved the way the point of view switched back and forth between Eleanor and Park, sometimes moment by moment.

• While high school definitely wasn’t a high point in my life (I considered myself somewhat disaffected at the time) I was completely sheltered from the type of dysfunction in which Eleanor’s life was steeped. However, I’m sure I had classmates who, unbeknownst to me, lived lives very similar to Eleanor’s. This is why I absolutely abhor the fact that parents try to ban books like Eleanor & Park from school libraries. If a book accurately portrays the lived experiences of some students, it strikes me as condescending and dismissive to claim that it is “inappropriate” for other students to even read about it, especially if the subject matter is handled compassionately, in a way that may cultivate empathy. And what about the potential value to students living lives similar to Eleanor’s in seeing their own experiences in print? Eleanor is beaten down, but she retains a sense of self, her quirky point of view, and is able to experience moments of sweetness and acceptance with Park. Although she doesn’t get the proverbial fairy-tale happy ending, she survives long enough to escape – and sometimes in real life maybe that takes precedence over the stereotypical though not universal “happy highs” of high school (e.g. boyfriends/girlfriends, parties, football, prom). That seems like an important message to me.

Having finished Eleanor & Park, I’ve now moved on to Fangirl, another book by Rainbow Rowell. This one is set in Lincoln, on the University of Nebraska campus. The main character lives in Pound Hall, is an English major who hangs out in Andrews Hall, and haunts the north basement of Love Library. Ditto, ditto, ditto.

Rowell, Rainbow, Rebecca Lowman, and Sunil Malhotra. Eleanor & Park. Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group, 2013. Internet resource. (Listen to excerpt)

I’ve recently been reading some of Suzanne Brockmann’s romantic suspense novels, which feature Navy SEALS as leading men. This got me wondering about real Navy SEALS—can they truly be as accomplished and multi-talented as Brockmann makes them out to be? My curiosity piqued, I searched Lincoln City Libraries’ OverDrive collection and wound up checking out the audiobook edition of SEAL Team Six: Memoirs of an Elite Navy SEAL Sniper, by Howard Wasdin.

I’m about half-way through at this point, and so far have found it quite interesting. Wasdin begins by recounting his difficult childhood, which he later credits with preparing him to withstand many of the rigors of the SEAL training and selection process. His descriptions of the physical and mental challenges SEAL candidates endure definitely inspire awe and respect. At the same time, it’s easy to see what a toll this career would take on family life. At the point I’m at in the story Wasdin is still married, with two kids, but his allusions to relationship strain make me think the marriage won’t survive.

So far I’d say that Wasdin’s non-fiction account of the numerous and incredibly varied skills and abilities of Navy SEALS is every bit as impressive as Brockmann’s fictional version—meaning maybe she’s not exaggerating. Unfortunately, I’m not sure the path to a happy ending is going to be quite as straight-forward and assured.

Wasdin’s memoir definitely offers a window into a life very different from my own. It’s impossible not to admire and respect the strength, tenacity, and intelligence required to make it as a SEAL, and I’m definitely looking forward to listening to the rest of his story.

Wasdin, Howard E, Stephen Templin, and Ray Porter. Seal Team Six: Memoirs of an Elite Navy Seal Sniper. Ashland, Or.: Blackstone Audio, Inc, 2011. Internet resource. (Listen to excerpt)

At the end of summer, my 12-year-old son and I road tripped to South Texas to visit friends. This involved a two-day drive down and a two-day drive back. To me, road trips mean audiobooks. Although my son is the stereotypical boy who doesn’t read, he has enjoyed audiobooks in the past; therefore I came prepared with three young adult possibilities, checked out from OverDrive and downloaded to my Kindle Fire: a dystopian thriller, a baseball mystery, and a nonfiction history book.

Listening to an audiobook held no appeal for him on the way down to Texas, but on the way back, the novelty of road tripping having completely worn off, he gave in to my suggestion that he select a title for us to listen to. Scanning the three I’d downloaded, it was really no contest: he immediately picked the nonfiction history book, Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon, by Steve Sheinkin.

This is a great example of a nonfiction title that reads like fiction, and my son was rapt throughout the seven hour narration. The story jumps back and forth between Soviet agents recruiting young, initially unemployed U.S. chemist Harry Gold as a spy, Robert Oppenheimer’s efforts to assemble a team of scientists to build an atomic bomb at Los Alamos, and Norwegian resistance fighters’ intricate and ultimately successful plan to sabotage a heavy water plant in Norway in order to disrupt Nazi development of nuclear weapons.

The plot involving the Norwegian commandos was like something out of a James Bond or Mission Impossible movie, and my son sat bolt upright in his seat, the Kindle held to his ear so he wouldn’t miss a word. At one point he exclaimed “I could listen to this book forever!” Talk about music to a librarian mother’s ears! And when the team succeeded in infiltrating and blowing up the plant, he reacted with a fist pump and a “Yes!”

Learning about the espionage networks at work at the time was also fascinating. One of my favorite scenes involved two spies meeting up. Their handlers had given each spy half a Jell-O box cover. At first contact each man produced his half of the Jell-O box cover; when placed next to one another they matched up perfectly, letting each spy know that the other was legitimate.

Upon returning home I looked up author Steve Sheinkin and discovered that he’s penned additional nonfiction history books for young adults. And what do you know! My son had previously read and enjoyed two of them: The Notorious Benedict Arnold: A True Story of Adventure, Heroism & Treachery and King George: What Was His Problem?: The Whole Hilarious Story of the American Revolution. Given his 100% satisfaction rating to date, Steve Sheinkin is definitely an author who’ll stay on my radar as I continue to search for the right books for my particular reluctant reader!

Sheinkin, Steve. Bomb: The Race to Build–and Steal–The World’s Most Dangerous Weapon. Listening Library, 2013. (Listen to excerpt)