“Victorian Treasures: An Album and Historical Guide for Collectors” has a unique format takes curious readers on a tour through an upper-class Victorian home. Each page features furniture, art, and objects of daily life — some common, some truly one-of-a-kind, but each with a story to tell.
I love picking up temporary coffee table books at the library, and this one is certainly a hidden gem! If you’re a collector or a thrifter like me, you’ll love gaining context for your next trip to the antique mall and finding new treasures to add to your wish list.
Three words that describe this book: antiques, Victorian, detailed
You might want to pick this book up if: You love getting lost in an antique store.
-Laura
This reader review was submitted as part of Adult Summer Reading. We will continue to share them throughout the year.
The weather might be chilly, but it’s definitely heating up at the boy (and girl!) aquarium. Hockey romances aren’t new, but with the runaway success of “Heated Rivalry” and the book series the show is based on, they are definitely a hot topic. So pick up a winter sport romance to warm your heart during these cold months!
“Winging It” by Ashlyn Kane and Morgan James
“Hockey Ever After” series #1
This season isn’t going the way Dante thought it would. Gabe’s sexuality doesn’t faze him, but his own does. And he doesn’t mean to fall in love with the guy. Dante’s always been a “what you see is what you get” kind of guy, and having to hide his attraction to Gabe sucks. But so does losing, and his teammate needs him, so he puts in the effort to snap Gabe out of his funk. Getting involved with a teammate is a bad idea, but Dante is shameless, funny, and brilliant at hockey. Unfortunately, Gabe struggles to share part of himself that he’s hidden for years, and Dante chafes at hiding their relationship. Can they find their footing before the ice slips out from under them?
Continue reading “Warm Up with a Hockey Romance”
portrait
noun
por·trait ˈpȯr-trət -ˌtrāt
1: picture
especially : a pictorial representation of a person usually showing the face
2: a sculptured figure : bust
3: a graphic portrayal in words
From the “Merriam-Webster Dictionary”
There are different kinds of portraits: there are realistic representations painted on canvases, photographs collected in albums and descriptions written in books; some portraits are of famous people and some are of complete strangers. Here is a delightful conglomeration. Included are some interviews and various other ways to get a glimpse at who a person is, or was, with a special focus on relative unknowns. Continue reading “Portraits of Humans”
“How to Think About AI,” by Richard Susskind will be the subject of the February First Thursday book discussion, and it’s not a moment too soon.
Maybe, if you are a literal hermit, as in living by yourself in a cave or some other hermitage, you can avoid AI seeping into your life — for the rest of us AI is here and it’s not going away. Even if you avoid using it personally, you’re almost certainly only one degree removed from its use. Continue reading “February First Thursday Book Discussion: “How to Think About AI””
“I keep putting off beginning this journal because the things I must write, must admit by writing them, are hard, even threatening to me,” Alice Walker wrote on July 8, 1977. “But, to begin.”
This confession came from a courageous young woman, already an established writer and activist. Yet putting pen to paper still stirred fear in Walker, a diarist familiar with that strange truth — that the hardest conversations to start are often the ones within ourselves.
As you begin the journey through this new year, I hope the conversation between your heart and the page feels lively, honest and hopeful. Here are seven titles exploring the tender art and practice of journaling.
Continue reading “Literary Links: Journals”
New Year, new books! Below I’m highlighting some nonfiction books coming out in January. 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
“Miracle Children: Race, Education, and a True Story of False Promises” by Katie Benner & Erica L. Green (Jan 13)
T.M. Landry College Prep, a small private school in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, boasted a 100% college acceptance rate, placing students at nearly every Ivy League university in the country. The spectacle of Landry students opening their acceptance letters to Harvard and Yale was broadcast on television and even celebrated by Michelle Obama. It became a national ritual to watch the miraculous success of these youngsters — miraculous because Breaux Bridge is one of the poorest counties in the country, ranked close to the bottom for test scores and high school graduation rates. T.M. Landry was said to be “minting prodigies,” and the prodigies were often black. How did the school do it? It didn’t: It was a scam, pulled off with fake transcripts and personal essays telling fake stories of triumph over adversity. Worse, Landry’s success concealed a nightmare of alleged abuse and coercion. In a years-long investigation, Katie Benner and Erica L. Green explored the lives of the students, the school, the town, and Ivy League admissions to understand why black teens were pressured to trade in racial stereotypes of hardship for opportunity. Gripping and illuminating, “Miracle Children” argues that the lesson of T.M. Landry is not that the school gamed the system but that it played by the rules — that its deceptions and abuses were the outcome of segregated schools, inequitable education, and the belief that elite colleges are the nation’s last path to life-changing economic opportunity. Continue reading “Nonfiction Roundup: January 2026”
Well, here we are. A perfect holiday for those who need a holiday between Thanksgiving and the Winter Holidays and if you want a sugar rush while baking, decorating and buying gifts, why not?
This is not one of four national chocolate holidays touted by the U.S. National Confectioners Association. Nor is it the International Chocolate Day (July 7) or the U.S. National Chocolate Day (October 28). No, this day celebrates the willingness of the general public to grab a pretzel or an orange slice and coat it in melted chocolate.
HOW TO OBSERVE CHOCOLATE-COVERED ANYTHING DAY
Create your own hand-dipped treats and invite your friends over for board games, movie watching or a white elephant exchange. A good chocolate cookbook is Kate Shaffer’s “Chocolate for Beginners.” Not only learn the basics of tempering chocolate and organizing your workspace, but find recipes for making all types of truffles. There are caramels, peanut butter cups, and my favorite: chocolate frogs with green guts! Continue reading “Chocolate-Covered Anything Day: December 16”
2025 has been a memorable year. One of the things that strikes me most about this year is that we’re over a quarter of the way into this century. Weren’t we just counting down the seconds as the calendar page flipped over from the 20th century to the 21st? Even though it seems like just a moment has passed to me, so much has happened since 2000 — many things that have forever changed our world. Let’s take a look at some of the events and people from the last 25 years!
What has changed the most in our lives since 2000? My guess would be the mainstreaming of the internet. In “This Is for Everyone: The Unfinished Story of the World Wide Web” Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web (aka the internet), explores the grand vision he had. Time has proven the internet to be a bold social experiment, powerful and, at times, problematic. Despite the downsides, Berners-Lee casts an optimistic light on the internet’s potential. Continue reading “Literary Links: Reflecting on 25 Years”
Below I’m highlighting some nonfiction books coming out in December. 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
“Queens at War: England’s Medieval Queens” by Alison Weir (Dec 2)
The tumultuous period in English history that marked the end of the medieval era and the rise of the Tudors comes to stunning life in the final volume of Alison Weir’s four-part Medieval Queens series, filled with dramatic true stories chronicling the turbulent reigns of the last five Plantagenet queens. The fifteenth century was a violent age. In “Queens at War,” Alison Weir chronicles the five queens who got caught up in wars that changed the courses of their lives: the Hundred Years’ War between England and France, and the Wars of the Roses between the royal Houses of Lancaster and York. Against this tempestuous backdrop, Weir describes the lives of five Plantagenet queens, who occupied the consort’s throne from 1403 to 1485. Joan of Navarre was happily married to King Henry IV but was accused of witchcraft by Henry’s heir and imprisoned. Paris-born Katherine of Valois’s political marriage to Henry V was meant to bring peace between England and France. It didn’t, and Henry died during the Hundred Years’ War without ever seeing his newborn heir, Henry VI, who was wed to another French princess, Margaret of Anjou, in 1445. In the Wars of the Roses, Margaret staunchly supported her husband and son. Henry’s successor, Edward IV, became embroiled in scandal after he fell in love with and married Elizabeth Widville, mother of the tragic Princes in the Tower. The notorious Richard III usurped Edward’s throne and married Anne Neville, who died after losing her only child, forsaken by her husband. Continue reading “Nonfiction Roundup: December 2025”
No matter your pace or path, the library offers companions for the journey. A 19th-century naturalist and a contemporary R&B artist gave shape to my recent trip and softened the landing. Which writers help you light the way?
I board the plane with a book and an album: “The Journal, 1837-1861” by Henry David Thoreau and “Chilombo” by Jhené Aiko. Maybe the artists will have something to say to each other — Thoreau
with his call to “throw away a whole day for a single expansion, a single inspiration of air” (Aug. 21, 1851); Aiko with her invitation to “rest your weary heart / dry your teary eyes” (“Born Tired”). Maybe somewhere between cities I will catch my breath.
Continue reading “Reading, Flying, Flowing: Henry David Thoreau, Jhené Aiko and Other Travelers”
