I recently hit a milestone birthday — not quite 50, but close enough for me to wonder where all the time has gone. I think some of the changes in my body have made this especially apparent. I’ve had to invest in several pairs of readers because the font on everything is suddenly very, very tiny! And I have weird aches and pains. Did you know your thumbs could hurt? So, this got me thinking about what I might do to make my next few decades the best they can be. And what better place to look for this information than the stacks of my public library!
As we age, our bodies can’t do everything they once could, and that old adage of “use it or lose it” rings more and more true. Muscle mass shrinks, bone density starts dropping and aches and pains pop up in strange places. “Training for Your Old Lady Body: A Guide to Building Muscle and Mobility at Any Age” by Elizabeth Davies examines how weight training as we age can help us continue with our normal day-to-day activities. She includes a section of exercises you can start today to work towards a stronger body. Continue reading “Literary Links: Middle Age and Beyond”
“The AI Mirror: How to Reclaim Our Humanity in the Age of Machine Thinking” by Shannon Vallor will be the subject of the November First Thursday Book Discussion at noon on November 5 in the Columbia Public library.
As an award-winning professor from The University of Edinburgh with a joint appointment in philosophy and the Edinburg Futures Institute, Vallor specializes in researching the ethics of technology, particularly AI and robotics. The philosophical approach Vallor brings to “The AI Mirror” is surprisingly practical, grounded in real-life examples and outcomes.
In a relatively brief 225 pages, Vallor teases out the limits, abilities, liabilities and pitfalls of the large language models that make up the most well-known AI systems today. These models, based on statistical analysis of huge quantities of data are great at crunching through large statistical problems. Vallor explains how Google’s AI, DeepMind, has predicted protein folding structures for all known protein molecules, a computational task that had bottle-necked progress on protein research.
But the large language models lack actual experience or the ability to subscribe meaning, “Intelligence in a being that has no world to experience is like sound in a vacuum. It’s impossible because there’s no place for it to be,” Vallor writes. Which is why tasks that involve operating in the physical world — like self-driving cars, distinguishing truth from fiction, or applying morals — are still out of reach for AI.
Using tangible examples and plain language, Vallor sheds light on what these models can and can’t do, how they do it and why some tasks still elude them. At times every new page or even paragraph reveal another alarming example of AI amplifying our worst characteristics or failing to see a common sense answer with disastrous results. Vallor raises big questions. How do we proceed? What limits or expectations should we place on AI? Vallor’s analysis and reasoning gives us a solid understanding on which to project these questions and make our own meaning — something AI can’t do.
Read “The AI Mirror: How to Reclaim Our Humanity in the Age of Machine Thinking” and bring your queries, experiences and sense of meaning to our discussion.
Below I’m highlighting some nonfiction books coming out in October. All of the mentioned titles are available to put on hold in our catalog and will also be made available via the library’s OverDrive website on the day of publication in eBook and downloadable audiobook format (as available). For a more extensive list of new nonfiction books coming out this month, check our online catalog.
Top Picks
“Freedom’s Daughters: How a Generation of Black Women Resisted Oppression Through Literacy and Education” by Celeste Headlee (Oct 6)
In the waning days of the antebellum South, millions of African Americans were suddenly released from enslavement. But they soon realized that “freedom” was not free; they were subject to hundreds of laws aimed at preventing them from voting and, in many cases, learning. Were it not for the work of an exceptional group of women — activists, educators, mothers, organizers―the foundations for Black education might never have been laid. With “Freedom’s Daughters,” Headlee set out to write into the record book the untold stories of these remarkable women. As a journalist who spent her career in public media, Headlee has long championed unheard voices and sought to tell the stories of those whose contributions have gone unacknowledged. But this project was fueled by an even deeper connection: Carrie Still Shepperson — one of the most important figures in this fight — is Headlee’s great grandmother and one of the biggest influences in her life. Now, after a decade of research spanning personal diaries to public records, “Freedom’s Daughters” paints a vivid portrait of figures intentionally erased from history, recognizing the work of a generation of Black women who believed freedom was inextricably linked with learning and free expression, and who worked tirelessly to secure access to literacy and education for a generation of children born into freedom. By turns shocking, inspiring, and deeply moving, “Freedom’s Daughters” is Headlee’s impeccably researched journey to better understand her family history and herself, and a timely examination of the influence and power of unfettered access to schools, libraries, and higher education. Continue reading “Nonfiction Roundup: October 2026”
The contenders:
Stephen King’s 1974 novel “Carrie” and Brian De Palma’s 1976 film adaptation.
The premise:
Carrie White is a lonely high school girl that is bullied by her classmates and abused by her unstable and fanatic mother Margaret. When she experiences her first menstruation at school, Carrie discovers that she has telekinesis, the ability to move objects with her mind. After a cruel prank pulled by one of her bullies on prom night, Carrie decides to take revenge using her powers. Continue reading “Book Vs. Screen: Carrie”
Do you remember MapQuest? I do, having used it back in the days of taping paper routes onto my dashboard. The company has made a number of upgrades to their mobile app without losing some of their quaint pixelated branding. There are a couple of tools you can’t find on other popular routing apps. Combine that with a noticeable uptick in interest and our continuous efforts to provide timely technology training, I have created a quick tutorial for you. Continue reading “How to Use MapQuest”
We all need positive role models, and this doesn’t change when we start to notice gray hair and permanent laugh lines in the mirror. Perhaps it becomes even more true. The later years of life can be a time for the pursuit of new activities and dreams.
This was the case for Nell Irvin Painter, an acclaimed history professor and author, who could have considered such a successful career enough accomplishment for one lifetime. But upon retiring from Princeton, she pursued an entirely different path, as described in her engaging and witty memoir, “Old in Art School.” Painter talks of training her brain to look at the world in entirely new ways as she earned first a BA and then an MFA alongside much younger classmates. In graduate school, she was not just the oldest, but also the only Black student in her class, meaning she came to the work from a completely different perspective. Nonetheless, she found her own style and experienced personal growth in the process. Continue reading “Older and Bolder: Nonfiction”
Kay Oursler is a Mid-Missouri resident who has co-authored a book called “
Becoming Bibi Kay.” The book tells Oursler’s life story, including joining the
Peace Corps at 65 and her subsequent work spent helping bring medical and educational facilities to people in Africa. Local author
Rosemary Fisher listened to Oursler’s story and helped write and publish the book. Now officially retired, Oursler loves telling others about her adventures in Africa and hopes to inspire others to make a difference in the world. She was kind enough to take the time to be interviewed via email.
Continue reading “Q&A With Kay Oursler, Co-author of “Becoming Bibi Kay””
Here is a new DVD list highlighting various titles recently added to the library’s collection.
“Project Hail Mary” – Website / Reviews
Based on Andy Weir’s novel of the same name, this sci-fi adventure follows a lone man who wakes up light-years from home with no memory and one impossible job.
“Decision To Leave” – Website / Reviews
A neo-noir romantic mystery featuring a sleep-deprived detective investigating a mountain climber’s death who develops feelings for the man’s mysterious widow — a prime suspect in the death.
“Is God Is” – Website / Reviews
Two sisters embark on an epic quest for revenge, confronting a charged family history that will push them to extraordinary lengths in this mystery/thriller.
“Tuner” – Website / Reviews
In this crime/thriller, a gifted piano tuner’s meticulous skills for tuning pianos leads him to discover an unexpected aptitude for cracking safes, turning his life upside down.
“Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World” – Website / Reviews
Shown at the 2026 True/False Film Fest, this documentary is a portrait of Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Mary Oliver, who published more than 30 collections of poetry and essays on nature, beauty, and love. Continue reading “New DVD List: September 2026”
Magical realism is a writing style that gives voice to a story or characters that otherwise resist tidy narrative or linear timelines. The magical element in a predominantly realistic world lets the reader feel the weight of what happened and invites us to more broadly experience an emotion, a background or story which a strictly realistic narrative can limit. So, I encourage you to leave your skepticism behind and enjoy what a little magic can bring to a story.
Tony Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “Beloved” focuses on Sethe, a woman who has escaped slavery in Ohio, but is haunted by the ghost of her baby whom she killed to prevent her from being returned to slavery. Morrison gives voice to the mother’s grief and guilt
in the form of a ghost. Its supernatural attacks and hauntings run off family members and isolate Sethe and her remaining daughter much the way that grief and guilt do. Could these emotions be told in a different way? Maybe, but magical realism allows these feelings to take physical form which gives them a depth that saying “I feel haunted…” often does not. Continue reading “Literary Links: Let the Magic Begin”
The 2026 One Read runner-up “Playground” by Richard Powers, will be the subject of October’s First Thursday Book Discussion on October 1, at noon in the Children’s Programming Room at the Columbia Public Library.
Both “Playground” and the One Read title “Remarkably Bright Creatures” explore interactions between humans and marine environments, but they diverge from there. “Playground” falls solidly into the ecological literature genre alongside Powers’ previous Pulitzer Prize winning novel “Overstory.” In a style to similar “Overstory,” Powers weaves a complex web of history, characters and ecology orbiting mostly around a remote Pacific island in French Polynesia and three primary characters Evelyne, Todd and Rafi.
As a child growing up in an wealthy but dysfunctional home, Todd found Evelyne’s pioneering marine biology text comforting. Rafi’s abusive father relentlessly drilled him in reading and literature. When Todd and Rafi meet at an elite school they seem like opposites but bond over the intellectual challenges of the ancient board game Go.
Decades later, Evelyne is in her 90s, Todd has made billions in artificial intelligence and Rafi is living a quiet life as a father and teacher — his friendship with Todd a distant memory. The lives and interests of these three converge on a remote Pacific island, where a tiny population will decide its fate.
Dr. Cindy Dudenhoffer will lead this month’s discussion. Dudenhoffer is a teaching professor at the University of Missouri in the College of Education and Human Development, the associate director of the School of Information Science and Learning Technologies and an AI Faculty Fellow and director of the WeMake — Learn and Design Lab.
The contenders:
This was the case for Nell Irvin Painter, an acclaimed history professor and author, who could have considered such a successful career enough accomplishment for one lifetime. But upon retiring from Princeton, she pursued an entirely different path, as described in her engaging and witty memoir, “
