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Sci-Fi For People Who Don't Read Sci-Fi With John Alford in TX
70 Plays2 months ago
Recent Reads
- Maria: Sandwich by Catherine Newman
- John: Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
Reccommendations:
- New: The Women by Kristen Hannah
- Backlist: Circe by Madeline Miller
- Local Author: Loren by Jessica Harden
Book End - Sci-Fi For People Who Don't Read Sci-Fi
- All Systems Red by Martha Wells
- Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey
- We Are Legion (We Are Bob) by Dennis E. Taylor
Recommended
Transcript
00:00:19
Speaker
Hello and welcome to The Checkout Stack, where we talk books with a new librarian every episode. I am your host and the world's biggest library superfan, Maria Skogin, and I am so excited to introduce our guest today, John Alford, from Frisco Public Library in Texas. John, thank you for being here today. Can you introduce yourself to our listeners and tell us a little about you and your library?
00:00:44
Speaker
Sure. Thanks for having me on the show. I'm very excited. So Frisco Public Library is a suburb of Dallas. We're on the north side of the DFW Metroplex. We're a pretty new library that this library, there's been a library in Frisco for a long time, but this particular library just opened two years ago this March. So it, it's,
00:01:11
Speaker
Actually, the fifth largest public library in Texas now, which is pretty unusual to have a library that size in a town the size of Frisco. Frisco has a population of 225,000. And what's interesting about that is it's growing massively. In 2010, the population was only 116,000. Oh my gosh. So we doubled in population in like 14 years. So that's kind of crazy.
00:01:41
Speaker
But the the city decided that we wanted a larger library. So they put together a bond and and built this facility for the community. And it's just been amazing. I believe we surpassed our two millionth visitor a couple of months ago. ah So that's kind of incredible. ah The community is really receptive and enjoying the space. And I'm super excited that I can be a part of this. So I'm one of the librarians here.
00:02:09
Speaker
my focus area is adult education. So I help teach classes on English as a second language. I'm in the process of getting citizenship classes set up, also do things like gardening classes, stuff like that. So just kind of the the gambit of different things. I joke that my job is to teach old dogs new tricks.
00:02:35
Speaker
And so that's kind of what I do here. Wow. And were you with the library system before they built this new library or did you join two years ago? No, I was, I was here before. I've been here almost seven years. I started as a library assistant working on getting my, uh, masters in library science, which, uh, I graduated at the age of 50 and that's a really interesting experience going back to school at that age. I mean, it was great. I loved it. I loved being a librarian and it's been a great change for me.
00:03:08
Speaker
Oh, that's wonderful. Um, and for the listeners who don't know, do you remember off the top of your head what the square footage of the library is? Because when I initially talked with someone on the staff, they told me and it was like mind blowing how big, but I can't remember the number now. I do. I actually wrote it down so I wouldn't forget it because I thought it might come up. It's 158,000 square feet. And for a frame of reference for people don't who don't know what that is like, that's the equivalent of a super Walmart.
00:03:38
Speaker
on the first floor. But if, if you can picture a super Walmart that has a second floor mezzanine kind of overlooking. So that that's the size of it. And that's only the fifth biggest library in Texas. So amazing. Yeah. Texas. yeah but Yeah. Some of the downtown libraries like downtown Dallas, downtown Austin, like Austin's I think is an eight story library. It's massive. Wow. Well, that's really cool.
00:04:08
Speaker
Let's transition into talking about books. So I always like to kick us off with our recent reads. I will go ahead and go first. I recently read Sandwich by Catherine Newman. So Sandwich is a a book about a mother named Rocky. She has two adult children, and she has two aging parents, and all of them are in a house on Cape Cod for a week for their annual family vacation.
00:04:37
Speaker
The story is really just about Rocky navigating the sandwich of caregiving. So she's trying to parent her two kids that don't really want to be parented anymore. And she's also trying to parent her parents as they begin to need that, but are kind of resentful that she's trying to take care of them. And then she's also navigating menopause and she's experiencing hot flashes and mood swings, and that is making her kind of crazy.
00:05:05
Speaker
It's a beautiful story. What I really liked about it was that her life is very mundane and relatable, but it also just felt so beautiful and magical. And it kind of reminds you how special everyone's life is, even when, you know, it like they're just, they're just on a little family trip, but everything about it, you're like, wow, how wonderful that you get to be this person. And yeah, I really enjoyed it. So that was,
00:05:34
Speaker
Sandwich by Catherine Newman. John, what have you read recently? So I read Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt. And that was a great book. I just really enjoyed. It's very unique. The first thing to tell you right off the bat is the main character is an octopus, um which is a lot of fun. At first you think, OK, that sounds silly, but it's actually very well done.
00:06:05
Speaker
The idea is that this particular breed of octopus is highly intelligent. People just don't know it. And this octopus is living in a a public aquarium. Okay, so picture a big, you know, destination aquarium you might go visit and see all the different sea life and stuff. So it's in one of those. And because it is highly intelligent, it observes the people coming and going and kind of gets to know them and understand them.
00:06:34
Speaker
and actually cares about some of them. Particularly one of the other main characters is a janitor who works there. She's a little bit older lady, lost her son, hasn't really reconciled with her grief over that. And the the octopus really feels for her and and wants good things for her. There's another character who comes in who's a young man who It's just like he doesn't have his act together. And the the three of these characters are pulled together in different ways and trying to figure out their life, figure out how to move past some things that happened in their life. And it's very heartwarming, but also very funny. And so it just it kind of goes back and forth between some very heartfelt, serious content and just some kind of fun, enjoyable stuff.
00:07:34
Speaker
I liked it a lot. I think it's a great, like when summer rolls around, it'd be a great beach read or just kind of ah a cozy, I want to hang out on the couch and just you know have a nice book. it's It's that kind of book. Yeah. I've heard people talk about this book before, but I guess I didn't realize, is the octopus, like you're hearing the voice of the octopus as if he's talking or to himself? You're hearing his thoughts.
00:07:58
Speaker
Okay. So he's noticing things like, oh, I noticed so-and-so is walking a little differently today. Did they pull a muscle? What happened? What's going on with them? So it's a very observant creature. And so it the the author uses the octopus as kind of an outsider looking in on the other characters and making observations about them.
00:08:20
Speaker
Fascinating. Yeah, I definitely did not pick that up when other people talked to about this book. That was Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt. Next up, we are going to go into the book recommendation portion of the show. First, we are going to talk about a new book. So this is something that's been released in the last year. John, what new book would you like to recommend for us? I would recommend The Women by Kristin Hannah. A couple of things about that.
00:08:50
Speaker
Kris and Hannah is an interesting author to me. Typically, I either like everything an author writes or nothing. Kris and Hannah is interesting to me because I like some of her stuff a lot and others, I just just didn't resonate with me. And I found the trend is I really like her historical fiction. And so the women falls into that category. The plot focuses on a young woman who's recently graduated nursing school during the Vietnam War.
00:09:20
Speaker
and she's from a very patriotic family and she wants to serve her country and do her duty. So she signs up to be an army nurse in Vietnam, which as you can imagine is a very intense role. And the, the plot is very rich because it gets into a lot of issues that I've read about in history of the time period. Her family, she thinks her family is going to be excited that she's doing that and they are,
00:09:51
Speaker
not supportive at all, um kind of kind of the someone else should be doing this, not you sort of thing. the The experience over there is much more intense than she thought. This is a time period in the war where the government was downplaying the fighting and what was going on. And so she gets there and finds out, Oh my gosh, this is a real war. Things are really happening here. And so I thought,
00:10:18
Speaker
One of the things I really like about historical fiction is when they can pull me back into that period and and really mentally place me there. So I understand what it was like to live in that, not as a modern person who knows what happened, but as a person in that period who doesn't know what's about to happen. And she did a really great job with that in this book. ah You really feel for the characters, you feel for what she's trying to do. And I just thought it was really well done.
00:10:47
Speaker
Wow. Yeah. So this would be a good one for people who liked the four wins by her. That's another historical fiction that she's pretty popular for. For sure. Yeah. I also like that one a lot. And yeah, I thought this one may be a little more action, but still very similar and and really good. Okay. That was The Women by Kristin Hannah.
00:11:09
Speaker
Next up, we are going to go into a backlist title. So this is something that has been on the shelves for a bit. You might be able to check it out if you're lucky or if you have to put a hold on, it won't take you months and months to get it. John, what do you have for our backlist pick? I have Circe by Madeline Miller. And I did not expect to like this book.
00:11:35
Speaker
So this was actually a book I read for a book club I facilitate. By the way, side note, book clubs are great. They will get you to read things you don't normally read and talk about them and understand them in a deep way you didn't understand before. So can't recommend that enough. But Circe really caught me by surprise and I enjoyed it a lot. And here's why. As a kid, I read Greek mythology, thought I knew it fairly well.
00:12:04
Speaker
And in in the mythology, Cersei is this kind of ease evil sorceress who um turns men into pigs and is just not nice. And the the author kind of takes a step back and says, well, wait a minute. and that was Those myths were written by men, and specifically men who are off raiding and pillaging other lands and stuff. Maybe they're not the best judge of character. you know is it possible Is it possible that these men did something to make her mad? And and of course, when you think about it, you're like, well, yeah, they were roving around and sacking cities and stuff. maybe Maybe they aren't the kind of people you want showing up on your doorstep for dinner. you know And so so she kind of takes that concept and run with it that Cersei is a sympathetic character who's living alone on an island, wants to be left alone.
00:13:04
Speaker
but has to defend herself. And so that's kind of the direction that the book goes. And I enjoyed that a lot because it took a story that I thought I knew and just flips it on its head and makes me reconsider it in a new way. And it makes perfect sense. It's not a stretch at all to to believe that this is what actually happened. And so so, yeah, I just thought it was a great book.
00:13:29
Speaker
Yeah. Madeline Miller makes those Greek myths so fascinating and relatable that in a way that I haven't read anywhere else. Did people in your book club, was that like a pretty common consensus that they were a fan? Did anyone not like it? No, I think they all liked it. I don't remember anyone saying that they didn't like it. Um, I think everybody was familiar enough with the story that that this kind of, um,
00:13:57
Speaker
was new and and kind of fresh for them. So yeah, the consensus was that it it was good. And it was also a fun book to discuss because a lot happens, a lot of relationships, a lot of personal things happen. And so it was fun to sit around, you know, almost gossiping like, can you believe they did this? And, you know, what do you think about that? is that with Would that really have happened? what do you So it was very fun for discussion. That was Circe by Madeline Miller.
00:14:24
Speaker
Next up, we are going to talk about a local author. So as John mentioned, he is in Frisco, Texas. John, where is the author that you're bringing to the table from? ah She's actually from Frisco. Okay. And what is the title? Lawrence by Jessica Harden. This book is really fun because It's a coming of age story told as almost like a folk tale or a fairy tale. So you've got some fantastical elements in it, intelligent animals. You've got pixies and fairies and things like that. The main character's name is Florence and Florence
00:15:13
Speaker
it finds out that her parents aren't actually her parents. And this isn't a spoiler. This happens right in the beginning of the book and is warned that she needs to escape because they have nefarious plans for her. And so she runs off and disguises herself as a man and makes her way to a town and starts trying to fit in as a man.
00:15:42
Speaker
And it's very challenging because A, obviously she's a woman, she was raised as a woman, but also very sheltered. And so there's there's a lot about the world that she doesn't know and doesn't understand. And so she's got some friends who are trying to help her. Some of them know her secrets, some of them don't. And so it's a really fun story just in terms of of her trying to figure out what's happening. And there's some undercurrents where you find out there there's even more going on than you realize.
00:16:11
Speaker
And I don't want to get into that because I don't want to spoil anything, but it yeah it's ah it's a fun, enjoyable read. So it's another one of those great beach read, great sitting on the couch, just kind of chilling out read and just just a lot of fun. What was the setting? I couldn't quite tell. Is this like taking place in kind of a fantasy world or where are you? It is. It is a fantasy world. So kind of a think medieval fantasy type thing.
00:16:42
Speaker
That was Lawrence by Jessica Harden. Next up, we are going to go into our bookend. So for this segment of the show, our librarian gets to pick any topic that they want and pull three titles on it. So John, what bookend topic have you brought to the show today? Sure. So,
00:17:05
Speaker
the The topic is science fiction for people who don't usually read science fiction. And I came up with this topic because these are books I tend to recommend when people come in and either they've got a particular genre they like, but they've kind of read through a lot of it and they're looking for something different, or they're looking for something and it's checked out, but I noticed one of these is on the shelf and I think they might enjoy it anyway because these are books that have a lot of crossover with other genres. And so that's why I think they're kind of fun to get someone into science fiction without being like, you know, kind of heavy, hard science fiction. Awesome. And so the first one is All Systems Red by Martha Wells.
00:17:56
Speaker
This one is actually kind of a novella. It's, I think it's around 200 pages or so. It's pretty short. And the idea here is it's about an artificial intelligence or a robot. It's a security robot. So it's designed to protect people when they're you know doing various things and it has hacked its programming and become self-aware. Okay. And now usually in these kinds of books, this is where the robot goes crazy and starts trying to kill everyone.
00:18:26
Speaker
But what's funny about this is the robots decided that that sounds like too much trouble. So, and, and also it kind of likes the humans because the other thing about this robot is that it is really addicted to soap operas. And so, so it, it likes the humans, it likes the soap operas we make. And so when it's on duty, it's got a little heads up display where it's watching soap operas and just kind of doing its thing and living its life.
00:18:53
Speaker
I love the book because the character is just so entertaining. It's, it's a very funny book. It is an action book. There's a little bit of mystery thriller kind of stuff going on. So anyone who likes that kind of, you know, fast pace action will enjoy this, but also is very humorous. Uh, Martha Wells has a pretty funny sense of humor, you know, kind of sarcastic ironic sense of humor. And I really enjoyed that. My understanding is they're actually going to be making a TV series out of this book soon. So I'm kind of looking forward to that.
00:19:23
Speaker
Oh, I didn't know that. That'll be fun. this is This is one I have read. It's very popular. And it's a big series. So if people like it, there's a lot of books after. That was All Systems Read by Martha Wells. John, what is the second book you have for the science fiction for people who don't read science fiction? So the second book is called Leviathan Wakes. And that's another series. It's called the Expanse series.
00:19:54
Speaker
This is the one that actually has already been made into a TV series. And the author is James S.A. Corey. And so Leviathan Wakes is really interesting for a couple of reasons. It crosses over into a couple of genres. There is a murder mystery that's going on. There is also kind of a political thriller angle going on. You've got a couple of main characters. One of them is a detective trying to understand what happened to a missing girl. And the other is just a freight hauler who unwittingly i gets involved in some political espionage type stuff going on. And of course, as you might imagine, the two other paths cross in the course of them trying to figure out what's going on. So it's a great kind of action thriller type book.
00:20:50
Speaker
just happens to be set in space. What I really liked about it, though, is the the setting is the Earth has started to colonize the Moon, Mars, and certain asteroids. And so the author really tries to envision what would that look like as a society if we've got people living off of the planet for their entire life. You know, the the low gravity would affect them, the need for supplies from Earth, things like that.
00:21:20
Speaker
So it really is a fascinating look at kind of societal issues on top of the the actual story. So it's a longer book. I will warn you, but I thought it was well worth the read. How long are we talking? You know what? I don't remember the page count, but I'm thinking it's probably a little bit over 400. Okay. Sure. Still manageable, but a little bit thicker.
00:21:49
Speaker
Yeah, it's not terrible. It's not terrible. And I feel like with most of these science fiction books, they're pretty plot heavy, so it tends to move faster. Do you think that was the case for this one? Yeah, definitely. Yeah, there's a lot going on, a lot of moving pieces. You get introduced to a lot of characters, but they were really enjoyable characters, so I didn't mind. That was Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey.
00:22:16
Speaker
And now we're on the last book in the bookend. So John, what is the last science fiction book for people who don't read science fiction? It is We Are Legion, We Are Bob. And so this is another of a series. The series is called The Bob-a-Verse, which is pretty funny. And you're hearing a lot of bobs here and and here's the reason. So this book is and another book about artificial intelligence.
00:22:46
Speaker
the idea here is that we have figured out how to map a person's brain and create an artificial intelligence that's exactly like them. okay Now we find out in the book later, it's not quite that simple, but that's that's the the opening concept. And the corporations want to use these people, AIs, to go and explore the universe.
00:23:12
Speaker
find minerals, find resources, possibly find habitable planets. And because they're an AI, they can just send them off. And it doesn't really matter how long it takes them, because yeah time doesn't matter a whole lot. But the thing is, they have to find personalities that are suitable for something like that, for being sent off on your own and kind of individualistic work, that kind of thing. And so the main character is one of those suitable candidates.
00:23:41
Speaker
he gets sent off. And the other thing is the the ship he's on, uh, has a manufacturing plant so he can make more versions of himself. And so that's why it's we are legion is because he goes out and starts immediately replicating himself and giving himself multitudes of tasks. Okay. Bob, you, I want you to go explore that planet. Bob, you, you need to go check out that mineral deposit. Let's just, you know, Bob everywhere doing all kinds of stuff.
00:24:09
Speaker
And it's ah it's an entertaining book for a lot of reasons. there's There's some action stuff, but it's also fun as just kind of a ah mental exercise of, okay, if we really can create self-aware, self-replicating machines, which is you know a goal that's happening right now, like what does that really look like? it's just So it's of a fun just kind of fun story, fun exercise in that.
00:24:33
Speaker
Yeah. So if you're someone who is, uh, like AI gives them existential crisis, will this amplify that crises or will it help tone it down a little of bit? I guess it depends on why it's giving you crises. For me, I felt like it it made me realize it's AI can be okay as long as you're kind of careful what you're doing with it and you've thought through what you're doing with it. Although it probably will give you crisis if you start thinking about not being careful with it.
00:25:12
Speaker
Right. I also really like the idea of like a character having to interact with themselves and then like deal with their own shortcomings. I think that's an interesting plot line. Like I'm trying to imagine if I had to assign tasks to myself, like how I would react to some like myself trying to tell myself what to do. Well, you know, and that is one of the sub themes of the book that's very entertaining is the various versions of Bob having, because he's a very individualistic person. That's why he was chosen for this. And now he's getting orders to himself and he's having it. Okay. Take a breath. This is you talking to yourself. Don't get mad. He's not being abrupt. This is just how you would be in that. You know, it's very funny. Yeah, no, that sounds really funny. And that was we are Legion. We are Bob by Dennis E Taylor.
00:26:07
Speaker
All right, that wraps up all of our book portions of the show. I always like to leave some time at the end if there is anything that you want to plug for your library. Do you have anything you want to plug out in f Frisco, Texas? Just to say we've we've got ah a great facility here, a great space. If you're in the area, come check it out. We've got a little something here for everyone. We've got study spaces, workspaces, we've got Tots Town for kiddos. We've got a makerspace if you want to learn how to 3D print, laser cut, anything like that. A lot of good stuff here. It's probably a lot more than you would expect a library to have. So definitely come check us out and see what we're all about. Yeah, for sure. I mean, you could come multiple days in a row and probably not see the whole thing. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.
00:27:04
Speaker
Great. Well, this has been a wonderful episode. Listeners, if you enjoyed this episode, please give us a five star review on Spotify and Apple podcasts to help us grow our numbers. If you know someone that you think would enjoy it, send the episode over right now. We are trying to grow our audience just to find the right people to get keep us going. So feel free to share with people you think might enjoy the show.
00:27:28
Speaker
If you're a librarian and you are interested in being on the show, please reach out to me at the checkout stack at gmail dot.com. Alrighty, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us today. Now go forth and use your public library.