I love the book “Crying in H Mart” even though it broke my heart to read about the complicated, albeit loving relationship between the author and her mother. I waited to read this book because I lost my own mother in the last few years — at times it was tough to read the author’s words because they hit so close to home with my own loss.
I appreciated how the author highlighted the history of her family/mother through food and these shared experiences over a dinner/kitchen table. Overall it was a deeply moving experience reading about the author’s love and loss.
Three words that describe this book: Culture, family, food
You might want to pick this book up if: You are ever homesick. Also if you enjoy learning about people/culture through food.
-Anonymous
This reader review was submitted as part of Adult Summer Reading. Submit your own book review here for a chance to have it featured on the Adults Blog.
Here is a new DVD list highlighting various titles recently added to the library’s collection.
“Drop” – Website / Reviews
In this mystery thriller, a widowed mother’s charming dinner date is upended by a series of phone messages presenting a sinister choice: kill her date or lose her child and sister.
“The Friend” – Website / Reviews
Based on the bestselling novel, this dramatic comedy finds Iris’s comfortable New York life upended when her friend and mentor Walter bequeaths her his Great Dane, Apollo.
“The Wedding Banquet” – Website / Reviews
A romantic comedy where a gay man and his lesbian friend enter a green-card marriage for IVF treatments, but their plans are upended when his grandmother surprises them with a Korean wedding banquet.
“The Assessment” – Website / Reviews
In this sci-fi thriller set in the near future where parenthood is strictly controlled, a couple’s seven-day assessment for the right to have a child unravels into a psychological nightmare.
“Bridget Jones, Mad About the Boy” – Website / Reviews
After jumping back into the dating pool, single mother Bridget Jones finds herself caught between a younger man and her son’s science teacher in this romantic comedy. Continue reading “New DVD List: July 2025”
“Dungeon Crawler Carl” is a LitRPG that explores the idea of, “What if Earth turned into an intergalactic game show where only the strongest survive.” Meant to be in the vein of the video game stylings of “Doom,” this book has moments of comedy, tragedy, and action packed battle.
Our main characters are (expectedly) Carl, a young adult who’s recently left his girlfriend, and his pants, back in the apartment. His companion is Princess Donut, his ex-girlfriend’s cat. The story is a real page turner and will have you laughing and fist pumping the whole way through!
Three words that describe this book: Hilarious, Frantic, Twisted
You might want to pick this book up if: You’re a fan of survival stories, “Doom” video games, or pretty kitties who wear tiara’s (and shoot lasers from their eyes…)
-Mitch
This reader review was submitted as part of Adult Summer Reading. Submit your own book review here for a chance to have it featured on the Adults Blog.
Merrill Sapp is a Columbia, MO author whose debut book is “
Knowing Wonder: An Elephant Story.” The book is a blend of fiction and nonfiction exploring the lives of elephants within the context of real behaviors, scientific insights, and environmental challenges. Sapp, a cognitive psychologist and
Stephens College professor, is dedicated to understanding and protecting elephants. She was kind enough to take the time to be interviewed via email.
Continue reading “Q&A With Merrill Sapp, Author of “Knowing Wonder: An Elephant Story””
Since the tornado hit the Columbia Municipal Recycling Center in April, the laundry room in our house, which is where we collect our recyclables, looks a lot like the tornado hit it, too. It has our whole family thinking more about how to reduce waste streams in our house.
If you are also struggling to figure out how to adjust waste management in your household, we have a program coming up this month that might help! Continue reading “Beyond Recycling”
As the days grow hot and sunny, many of us find ourselves out in our green spaces, tending to gardens, watering and mowing lawns and enjoying time out in our carefully curated slices of nature. But science tells us that each year there are fewer buzzing bees, glowing fireflies and blooming wildflowers than before. Plus, in this Mid-Missouri heat, keeping the indoors comfortable can be difficult and uses a lot of fossil fuels and electricity. Taking steps to both enjoy the creature comforts we know, and still sustain our environment, is the driving force behind the philosophy of permaculture: a movement to create sustainable ecosystems in harmony with both what we humans need and what Mother Nature needs.
The modern lawn is one of the biggest contributors to water waste and soil pollution, and it has also led to loss of native flora and fauna. Creating a curated monoculture of a non-native plant species like lawn grass is a significant contributing factor to reduced populations of pollinators like bees and to diminished water tables. But, of course, it doesn’t have to be this way; “Lawns Into Meadows: Growing a Regenerative Landscape” by Owen Wormser is vehement in its indictment of modern lawn culture, and vigorously advocates for replacing so-called “deadscapes” with verdant, diverse and healthy meadows and permaculture yards. Continue reading “Literary Links: Permaculture, Green Living & Eco-Friendly Living Spaces”
In the past few years I’ve noticed more books with lead characters who have several decades of living under their belts. Perhaps publishers have come to realize that a good chunk of their audience is comprised of older adults who would like to see themselves represented in stories and another segment contains readers who want to imagine a future in which they don’t disappear into the background as they age. Then there’s the fact that the more past a character has, the more richly layered their backstory is. Here are a few titles with older and bolder protagonists:
“Mrs. Quinn’s Rise to Fame” by Olivia Ford has been called a “coming-of-old-age tale.” After nearly 60 years of marriage, Jenny Quinn’s husband seems content to believe the time for new adventures is past. But Jenny surprises him, and herself, by winning a spot on a reality TV show, “Britain Bakes,” where she wows the world with her baking skills. Each edible creation relates to her past in some way, which serves to unfold her story. But as her fame grows, she finds herself struggling with the possible revelation of a secret she’s kept for decades. Continue reading “Older and Bolder: Fiction”
Join staff and community members for next First Thursday Book Discussion at noon on August 7 in the Columbia Public Library to talk about “Adventures in the Louvre: How to Fall in Love With the World’s Greatest Museum.”
The title sounds like it could be the next hot mystery from Dan Brown, à la “The Da Vinci Code.” Instead “Adventures in Louvre,” by Elaine Sciolino is a lively nonfiction account of the famous Parisian museum. By the end, you will understand why the Louvre, the artworks within, and the history without have inspired such a dazzling variety of passionate responses ranging from Beyonce and Jay-Z’s 2018 viral music video (explicit content) to a 1909 protest threatening to burn or flood the museum. Continue reading “August First Thursday Book Discussion: Adventures in the Louvre”
Below I’m highlighting some nonfiction books coming out in July. 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
“We Are Eating the Earth: The Race to Fix Our Food System and Save Our Climate” by Michael Grunwald (Jul 1)
Humanity has cleared a land mass the size of Asia plus Europe to grow food, and our food system generates a third of our carbon emissions. By 2050, we’re going to need a lot more calories to fill nearly 10 billion bellies, but we can’t feed the world without frying it if we keep tearing down an acre of rainforest every six seconds. We are eating the earth, and the greatest challenge facing our species will be to slow our relentless expansion of farmland into nature. Even if we quit fossil fuels, we’ll keep hurtling towards climate chaos if we don’t solve our food and land problems. In this rollicking, shocking narrative, Grunwald shows how the world, after decades of ignoring the climate problem at the center of our plates, has pivoted to making it worse, embracing solutions that sound sustainable but could make it even harder to grow more food with less land. But he also tells the stories of the dynamic scientists and entrepreneurs pursuing real solutions, from a jungle-tough miracle crop called pongamia to genetically-edited cattle embryos, from Impossible Whoppers to a non-polluting pesticide that uses the technology behind the COVID vaccines to constipate beetles to death. It’s an often infuriating saga of lobbyists, politicians, and even the scientific establishment making terrible choices for humanity, but it’s also a hopeful account of the people figuring out what needs to be done — and trying to do it. Continue reading “Nonfiction Roundup: July 2025”
“First-Time Caller” is about a radio host and a caller — how they meet and fall in love.
❤️
- The radio excerpts throughout
- THE LIST!!!!
- A gasp at the last few chapters especially at “Long time listener, first time caller”
- Chosen & found family — blended family
- Maya’s line “You don’t have to be alone to feel lonely.”
- The supporting characters
💔
- Kinda lulled for me around halfway & felt a little long
- Third act breakup, grrrrr!!
Three words that describe this book: Romance, contemporary, mixed-media
You might want to pick this book up if: You want a binge-able, feel-good romance.
-Anonymous
This reader review was submitted as part of Adult Summer Reading. Submit your own book review here for a chance to have it featured on the Adults Blog.
