Here is a new DVD list highlighting various titles recently added to the library’s collection. Click on the website links to see the trailers.
“Minari”
Website / Reviews
Shown earlier this year at Ragtag Cinema, this drama follows a Korean-American family that moves to a tiny Arkansas farm in search of their own American Dream. The family home changes completely with the arrival of their sly, foul-mouthed, but incredibly loving grandmother. Amidst the instability and challenges of this new life in the rugged Ozarks, Minari shows the undeniable resilience of family and what really makes a home. Continue reading “New DVD List: Minari, Hemingway, & More”
June is a time to remember the Stonewall Riots (or Stonewall Uprising/Stonewall Rebellion). In 1969, what started as an act of protest has become a way to continue to celebrate the LGBT+ Community and promote activism within the community.
As we are distant this year, with hope in the future for less distance Pride events, here are a few websites to hear and share LGBT Voices. Through these online resources, there are avenues for expression, stories, and creation of spaces to keep and protect voices that might otherwise be lost. Continue reading “LGBT+ Voices: Online Archives on Coming Out”
Editor’s note: This reader review was submitted as part of Adult Summer Reading. We will be sharing more throughout the year.
In the book “Strands of Truth,” Harper, a young woman who has always longed for family, is ecstatic when a DNA test reveals she has a half-sister. When Harper and her half-sister meet they find out both of their mothers died tragically. The sisters wonder if their unknown father was involved in their mothers’ deaths and they begin to investigate with the help of Ridge, the son of a mentor to Harper when she was a runaway teenager. Events from the past collide with the present in this fast-paced novel.
I liked this book because it was about the importance of family, trust, and forgiveness. The author is a master at character development and interweaving faith into her books.
Three words that describe this book: Suspenseful, Fast-paced, Intriguing
You might want to pick this book up if: you enjoy Christian romantic-suspense novels and enjoy novels that have many twists and turns until the very end.
-Anonymous
Nothing helps me feel more centered than a good, long walk, whether in the woods or just up and down the streets of my neighborhood. In this, I join a large sisterhood. Throughout human history, women have found peace, fulfillment and health through the act of taking a walk.
A few years ago, readers were mesmerized by Cheryl Strayed’s memoir of her solo hike along the Pacific Coast Trail, a journey in which she sought healing from grief and addiction after losing her mother, her marriage and almost her very sense of self. As much an account of her spiritual journey as it is a story of hiking, “Wild” speaks to the healing powers of nature and of movement. Continue reading “Women Walking”
Here are just a few of the books by debut adult fiction authors that are being published this month. The books listed below have received one (or more!) starred reviews by library journals. For a complete list of debut fiction, please visit our catalog.
“The Other Black Girl” by Zakiya Dalila Harris
26-year-old editorial assistant Nella Rogers is tired of being the only Black employee at Wagner Books. Fed up with the isolation and microaggressions, she’s thrilled when Harlem-born and bred Hazel starts working in the cubicle beside hers. They’ve only just started comparing natural hair care regimens, though, when a string of uncomfortable events elevates Hazel to Office Darling, and Nella is left in the dust.
Then the notes begin to appear on Nella’s desk: LEAVE WAGNER. NOW.
It’s hard to believe Hazel is behind these hostile messages. But as Nella starts to spiral and obsess over the sinister forces at play, she soon realizes that there’s a lot more at stake than just her career.
Continue reading “Debut Author Spotlight: June 2021”
Editor’s note: This reader review was submitted as part of Adult Summer Reading. We will be sharing more throughout the year.
“Heartstopper” is about the unlikely new friendship between Charlie Spring, Year 10, and Nick Nelson, Year 11, at Truham Grammar School for Boys. The reader tags along as Charlie and Nick get to know each other and become close, potentially leading to something … more? I loved this book in part because of the format. I’m a sucker for graphic novels and the story really popped because of this medium choice. I also loved how light-hearted it was and how realistic the interactions between the two main characters were.
Three words that describe this book: Light-hearted, pure, adorable
You might want to pick this book up if: You like queer romances, graphic novels, friends to significant-others stories
-Amanda
It’s time to saddle up and head from the West Coast into the Rocky Mountains and the High Plains. In the words of Wallace Stegner, “Under the rough and ridiculous circumstances of life in the Rocky Mountains there was something exciting and vital, full of rude poetry: the heartbeat of the West as it fought its way upward toward civilization.” So I begin my journey of this poetic land. Continue reading “Travel Through Story: The Rocky Mountains”
I picked up A.R. Moxon’s “The Revisionaries” because it had a glowing blurb from the brilliant Sergio de la Pava on its cover, and one great way to get me to read a book over 600 pages long is to earn an endorsement from someone else that has written a long and genius novel (in de la Pava’s case, two of them). Another way is to put half a cat on the cover of your book (“Where’s the other half of the cat?!” I’ll inevitably wonder. “Is it ok?” I’ll ask anyone in proximity.) as Moxon’s publisher did with the hardback edition. Yet another way is to make it spectacularly zany and satirical but also high stakes and sometimes frightening and loaded with sentences bursting with the enthusiasm of a gifted writer precisely conveying the complex reality they’ve created. (There are awesome sentences.) Continue reading “The Gentleman Recommends: A.R. Moxon”
Join us virtually to discuss the fascinating work of nonfiction, “Grandma Gatewood’s Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail” by Ben Montgomery, winner of the 2014 National Outdoor Book Award for history/biography.
Emma Gatewood told her family she was going on a walk and left her small Ohio hometown with a change of clothes and less than $200. The next anybody heard from her, this genteel, farm-reared, 67-year-old great-grandmother had walked 800 miles along the 2,050-mile Appalachian Trail. This virtual discussion is on June 3 from 12:00-1:00 p.m.
Check here for more books about adventurous women and solo traveling.
Please register to receive a Zoom link.
Blue skies, sunny days, open windows and flowers blooming everywhere: all of the bright and shiny celebrations of spring. This month’s Crafternoon-To-Go: Hanging Paper Stars project is a perfect way to increase spring’s glow. They’re super easy to make, and then you can hang it in a window — or anyplace you want. These are also great decorations for a summer gathering, a birthday party or another special occasion. Continue reading “Crafternoon-To-Go: Hanging Paper Stars”
