New year and new nonfiction books coming out this month that you can put on hold! 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. Continue reading “Nonfiction Roundup: January 2022”
“Where flowers bloom, so does hope.” — Lady Bird Johnson
We recently packed up our daughter (and her 30+ plants!) to move to the far edge of the country for college. It has been an emotional time for all of us and we have definitely felt a hole in our home. Both my husband and I have found a strange connection with her through houseplants. We have found ourselves enabling her in her quest for more and more plants while simultaneously trying to fill the space she left with more plants. It’s our way of trying to stay connected without hovering. Continue reading “Indoor Plants”
Comic fans, welcome back! We’re at it again with a list of five of Marvel’s most impactful events. The criteria for this list are that the stories herein had some lasting effect on the Marvel Universe or the featured characters. Additionally, some of these might have reached such a level of renown or infamy that they went on to become benchmarks of sorts for future Marvel content. I hope you’re as excited to get into this as I am. Here we go! Continue reading “Quintessential Comics: Marvel Events!”
The most common resolutions in our country are exercise more, lose weight, get organized and get finances under control. If these are the goals that call to you, then come to the library. We have tons of books about each of these.
I like the idea of resolutions that make my life feel fuller or richer. Check out this list of books to inspire resolutions. Whatever your plans for 2022, we probably have resources that can help you. Here are a few ideas:
Continue reading “Resolutions”
“When was the internet a good time for you?” I posed this very unscientific question to a few coworkers around the library. A Gen Xer, who only really got online around 2009 (but clarified they’re “not a Luddite”) said around that time, when Googling became second nature and Facebook was still new and not yet a source of FOMO. A fellow millennial said the early 2000s, instant messaging on AOL with middle school friends and perusing MySpace. One baby boomer I spoke to said it was after upgrading to broadband from dial-up, uploading photos to Flickr and trading music (CDs and LPs) with fellow fans online. Another boomer said, actually, now and during the pandemic, which gave her an excuse to reconnect with friends around their shared hobby/passion for art. Continue reading “TBT When the Web Was a Place”
The New Year is nearly upon us and with the changing of the calendar comes motivation to set goals and improve oneself. With this in mind, I have finally agreed with my partner that a move toward eating less meat is in order. So, my focus was on vegetarian cookbooks.
This month, I looked at two books in particular. “Greenfeast: Autumn, Winter” (there is a companion volume “Greenfeast: Spring, Summer”) by Nigel Slater (you may recognize the name, he has written some amazing cookbooks and is a long-time food writer; there was even a movie made from his memoirs) and “Everyday Vegetarian,” by Jane Hughes. Though I did not yet make anything from the Everyday Vegetarian book, I did read through it and noted dishes I will make in the future. I quickly became enamored with “Greenfeast.” Continue reading “Read The Recipe! Vol. 4”
As we near the end of another year, the number of books being published dwindles. But there are still a handful of debut adult fiction titles coming out this month. Here are a few of the more notable titles for December. These have all received positive reviews in library journals. For a (slightly) longer list, please visit our catalog.
“Learwife” by J.R. Thorp
Word has come. Care-bent King Lear is dead, driven mad and betrayed. His three daughters too, broken in battle. But someone has survived: Lear’s queen. Exiled to a nunnery years ago, written out of history, her name forgotten. Now she can tell her story.
Though her grief and rage may threaten to crack the earth open, she knows she must seek answers. Why was she sent away in shame and disgrace? What has happened to Kent, her oldest friend and ally? And what will become of her now, in this place of women? To find peace she must reckon with her past and make a terrible choice — one upon which her destiny, and that of the entire abbey, rests.
Continue reading “Debut Author Spotlight: December 2021”
Jólabókaflóðið is coming!
If you don’t happen to be one of the 314,000 people in the entire world who speak Icelandic, we’re talking about the Yule Book Flood.
Maybe you’ve seen the meme on social media about the tradition of Jólabókaflóðið, pronounced YO-la-bok-a-flud. People exchange books on Christmas Eve and spend the night reading and drinking hot chocolate. Sounds magical, right? Continue reading “Jólabókaflóðið Cometh”
Here is a new DVD list highlighting various titles recently added to the library’s collection. Continue reading “New DVD List: The Bee Gees, Pig, & More”
If you’re looking for a way to make the world a better place, and you’re a gifted inventor, I recommend inventing an empathy machine. Imagine if more people cared about other people, and also cared about animals and plants and whether they’re going to leave behind a habitable planet. It sounds pretty cool to me, but short of some device that forces one to feel empathy, such imaginings are clearly the stuff of speculative fiction.
Of course, there is always the original empathy machine: stories. These are incredibly effective at producing empathy and enlightenment, but their drawback is that one has to read them, and reading is something most people don’t do. So, to all the gifted inventors reading this, if you can’t quite crack the empathy machine, I recommend inventing a machine that forces people to read. (Just to be clear, dear inventors, so that my words don’t haunt me: the machine forces them to read in their leisure time: not while they’re operating machinery or performing a medical procedure or precariously balancing knickknacks on the lip of a frothing deep fryer, etc.)
Continue reading “The Gentleman Recommends: Richard Powers”
