SHELF HELP

Staff from your Monroe County Public Library recommend some of their favorites from the collection.

What: “Kick the Latch” by Kathryn Scanlan

Why: Ms. Scanlan is one of our most gifted and incredibly modern authors. You’ll read lots of reviews about her attention to detail and microprecision, blah blah blah ... she specifically knows what to add and what to take away. Just like Coco Chanel saying, “Before you leave the house, take one thing off.” Ms. Scanlan takes it ALL off and then adds just one thing — the perfect thing.

The book was constructed from interviews with a woman who made a name for herself by becoming a horse trainer — not a field with many women practitioners. Spare, bleak, luminous, revelatory — all the words.

Read: if you like Amy Hempel, Raymond Carver and Denis Johnson. And haikus.

This book will take you a couple of hours to read but offers you a lifetime of remembering.

Where: This is available as an e-book from the Monroe County Library system.

How: You can request books online by logging in to www.keyslibraries.org and get ebooks and e-audiobooks 24/7 at www.estuff. keyslibraries.org. If you don’t have a card, you can visit your local branch or register online to get one. Questions? info@keyslibraries.org

Recommended by: Jay Beasley, library assistant, Key West branch