OSCAR GRADY PUBLIC LIBRARY
THE LIBRARIANS’
BEDSIDE TABLE What your friendly librarians have been listening, reading, watching & MUCH MORE!
HAPPY SPRING!
Oscar Grady Public Library Mission Statement:
The mission of the Oscar Grady Public Library is to provide high interest, high demand materials and make them readily available from the Library’s collection or through interlibrary loan. The Library supports lifelong learning, information and recreational needs for people of all ages and abilities. Special emphasis is placed on stimulating children’s interests and appreciation for reading and learning. The integration of new technology with traditional library resources is used to expand service beyond the Library’s physical walls.
On this new issue of our “Librarians’ Bedside Table”, we compiled a list of really good titles recommended by your library friends. Each title can be accessed in electronic format for your convenience. Click or tap in the hyperlinks attached to each title that will take you right to them in the Monarch Catalog. We hope you enjoy this selection of books from your
librarians at the Oscar Grady Public Library!
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Jen Gerber, our Library Director, would like to recommend the following titles:
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie Considered by many readers the best mystery novel ever written, And Then There Were None is the story of ten strangers, each lured to Indian Island by a mysterious host. Once his guests have arrived, the host accuses each person of murder. Unable to leave the island, the guests begin to share their darkest secrets; until they begin to die. Provided by the publisher.
And Then There Were None (DVD) Based on the bestselling crime novel of all time by Agatha Christie, this “TV event of the year” (The Guardian, UK) boasts an all-star cast also including Anna Maxwell Martin (The Bletchley Circle), Toby Stephens (Black Sails), Burn Gorman (TURN: Washington’s Spies), Noah Taylor (Peaky Blinders), and Douglas Booth (Great Expectations).
Debra Jo, Library Assistant and ILL Specialist would like to recommend the following titles:
142 Ostriches by April Davila 142 Ostriches follows 22-year-old Tallulah Jones, who wants nothing more than to escape her life working on the family’s ostrich ranch in the Mojave Desert. But when her grandmother dies under questionable circumstances, Tallulah finds herself the sole heir of the business just days before the birds mysteriously stop laying eggs. Guarding the secret of the suddenly barren birds, Tallulah endeavors to force through a sale of the ranch, a task that is complicated by the arrival of her extended family. Their designs on the property, and deeply rooted dysfunction, threaten Tallulah’s ambitions and eventually her life. With no options left, Tallulah must pull her head out of the sand and face the 50-year legacy of a family in turmoil: the reality of her grandmother’s almost certain suicide, her mother’s alcoholism, her uncle’s covetous anger, and the 142 ostriches whose lives are in her hands. (Publisher's description)
It Began With a Page: How Gyo Fujikawa Drew the Way by Kyo Maclear & illustrated by Julie Morstad Gyo Fujikawa's iconic children's books are beloved all over the world. Now it's time for Gyo's story to be told--a story of artistic talent that refused to be constrained by rules or expectations. Growing up quiet and lonely at the beginning of the twentieth century, Gyo learned from her relatives the ways in which both women and Japanese people lacked opportunity. Her teachers and family believed in her and sent her to art school and later Japan, where her talent flourished. But while Gyo's career grew and led her to work for Walt Disney Studios, World War II began, and with it, her family's internment. But Gyo never stopped fighting--for herself, her vision, her family and her readers--and later wrote and illustrated the first children's book to feature children of different races interacting together." Publisher's description
Hope, our Collection Developer would like to recommend these titles:
The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell Following a scalding row with her mother, fifteen-year-old Holly Sykes slams the door on her old life. But Holly is no typical teenage runaway: a sensitive child once contacted by voices she knew only as “the radio people,” Holly is a lightning rod for psychic phenomena. Now, as she wanders deeper into the English countryside, visions and coincidences reorder her reality until they assume the aura of a nightmare brought to life. For Holly has caught the attention of a cabal of dangerous mystics—and their enemies. But her lost weekend is merely the prelude to a shocking disappearance that leaves her family irrevocably scarred. This unsolved mystery will echo through every decade of Holly’s life, affecting all the people Holly loves—even the ones who are not yet born. A Cambridge scholarship boy grooming himself for wealth and influence, a conflicted father who feels alive only while reporting from occupied Iraq, a middle-aged writer mourning his exile from the bestseller list—all have a part to play in this surreal, invisible war on the margins of our world. From the medieval Swiss Alps to the nineteenth-century Australian bush, from a hotel in Shanghai to a Manhattan townhouse in the near future, their stories come together in moments of everyday grace and extraordinary wonder. Publisher's description
S. by J.J. Abrams & Doug Dorst One book. Two readers. A world of mystery, menace, and desire. A young woman picks up a book left behind by a stranger. Inside it are his margin notes, which reveal a reader entranced by the story and by its mysterious author. She responds with notes of her own, leaving the book for the stranger, and so begins an unlikely conversation that plunges them both into the unknown. THE BOOK: Ship of Theseus, the final novel by a prolific but enigmatic writer named V. M. Straka, in which a man with no past is shanghaied onto a strange ship with a monstrous crew and launched onto a disorienting and perilous journey.
THE WRITER: Straka, the incendiary and secretive subject of one of the world’s greatest mysteries, a revolutionary about whom the world knows nothing apart from the words he wrote a n d t h e r u m o u r s t h a t s w i r l a r o u n d h i m . THE READERS: Jennifer and Eric, a college senior and a disgraced grad student, both facing crucial decisions about who they are, who they might become, and how much they’re willing to trust another person with their passions, hurts, and fears. S. , conceived by filmmaker J. J. Abrams and written by award-winning novelist Doug Dorst, is the chronicle of two readers finding each other in the margins of a book and enmeshing themselves in a deadly struggle between forces they don’t understand. It is also Abrams and Dorst’s love letter to the written word. Publisher's description
**HOPE'S NOTES ON READING THIS TITLE** After trying and failing once to get into this story, I realized I was reading it "wrong". On each page there are several sets of notes (back and forth between Eric and Jennifer), distinguished by different colors of ink, in addition to the actual printed text of Ship of Theseus. The first time I read it, I would read each page, top to bottom, beginning with the Ship of Theseus text, jumping into each set of hand-written notes as I came to them. It was very confusing and felt like a lot of work. I put the book down for several months. When I picked it back up to start over, I realized that it was apparent after a small amount of analysis that each set of notes comprised a particular "conversation" between Jennifer and Eric, and that it was better to read each conversation through to the end before beginning the next one. To that end, I made these notes to keep track of the passage of time and conversations between our two heroes. 1. Pencil = Eric's original notes from before Jen found the book 2. Blue cursive & BLACK BLOCK = Jen and Eric's first conversation 3. Yellow/orange cursive & GREEN BLOCK = Jen and Eric's second conversation 4. Purple cursive & RED BLOCK = Jen and Eric's third conversation
Black cursive & BLACK BLOCK = Jen and Eric's final conversation So, if you endeavor to read this book, (and I would highly recommend that you do!), my suggestion is that you read the actual Book of Theseus through first with only Eric's pencil notes. Then, once you have a grasp of the story that Jennifer and Eric are discussion, go back and read through their conversations in the order I've listed above. When it's all said and done you will have "read" each page five times, but it will be worth it! Good luck!
Hope would like to recommend this title:
Hold the Dream by Barbara Taylor Bradford This book was a sequel to “A Woman of Substance” which was my alltime favorite book. The book picks up on Emma Hart as she is approaching age 80. Emma’s grandchildren, her lifelong friend Blackie and his grandchildren play a large part in the rest of Emma’s life. Emma passes the torch to Paula her most reliable granddaughter. There are many twists and turns in this story of social life, business affairs and romance. Once I reached the second part of the book, it became unputdownable.
Lynn, our Cataloging and Circulation Services Specialist, would like to recommend these titles:
Easy Food for Kids It is often difficult to get children to eat the nutritious meal you have lovingly prepared for them. Easy Food for Kids is packed with more than 100 easy recipes for good, honest food that children will love to eat, and which don't demand lots of your time. Whether the little ones are off to school or the whole family is having a lie-in on the weekend, there's a recipe in the Breakfast & Brunch chapter to get everyone off to a great start. Publisher's description
The Language of Sycamores by Lisa Wingate When a woman's whole life falls apart, she finds refuge in the home she left behind in this touching novel in the Tending Roses series from the New York Times bestselling author of Before We Were Yours.Karen Sommerfield has been hiding from the big questions of her life--the emotional distance in her marriage, her inability to have children, and her bout with cancer. Getting lost in her high-powered career provides the sense of purpose she yearns for. Until the day she's downsized out of her job and the doctor tells her the cancer may be back. It's a double blow that would send anyone reeling.It sends Karen to Grandma Rose's old farm, where her sister has made a seemingly perfect life. Opening herself to the unexpected, Karen finds a lonely child in need of nurturing and insights into her family's past. In the quiet of the Missouri Ozarks, where the sycamore leaves whisper their soft, secret language, she begins to discover answers-and a joy to make her life complete. Publisher's description
Some of the titles listed in these pages are available in electronic format through the Libby & RBDigital apps. Check it out!
Maggie B. , our YA Program Coordinator, would like to recommend the following title:
GRAPHIC Mak V.1 Makino, Aoi.
Not Your Idol (V. 1). 2018. Nina Kamiyama had it all. She attained fame and recognition as a member of an idol in a girl pop group, the Pure Club. But after being attacked by a fan, Nina left the group, cut her hair, changed the way she dressed, and went back to high school in an attempt to put the past behind her. But when fellow student Hikaru recognizes her, it turns out that they might both be hiding secrets. This is the first in a shojo series with an edge, with volume 2 already on our shelves!
TV ON DVD Pen Sea.1. Pennyworth. 2020. Before the Bat, there was a butler. Alfred Pennyworth, known for his devotion to Bruce Wayne in comics and on film, finally gets the fleshed-out backstory he deserves. The series begins with Alfred just out of British military service and in the process of starting his own security company. This throws him into the path of American billionaire Thomas Wayne (and the Queen!) as well as making him the target of a secret society conspiring to overthrow the government. An action-packed, anachronistic, 60’s style-thriller in the best of ways.
Martin, our Collection Developing and Adult Services Coordinator would like to recommend these titles:
Super Host by Kate Russo "Bennett Driscoll is a Turner Prize-nominated artist who was once a rising star. Now, at age fifty-five, his wife has left him, he hasn't sold a painting in two years, and his gallery wants to stop selling his work, claiming they'll have more value retrospectively...when he's dead. So, left with a large West London home and no income, he's forced to move into his artist's studio in the back garden and list his house on the popular vacation rental site, AirBed. A stranger now in his own home, with his daughter, Mia, off at art school, and any new relationships fizzling out at best, Bennett struggles to find purpose in his day-to-day. That all changes when three different guests--lonely American Alicia; tortured artist Emma; and cautiously optimistic divorc©♭e Kirstie-unwittingly unlock the pieces of himself that have been lost to him for too long. Warm, witty, and utterly humane, Super Host offers a captivating portrait of middle age, relationships, and what it truly means to take a new chance at life"-Provided by publisher.
The Headmaster’s Wife
by Thomas Christopher Greene “Found wandering naked and mentally traumatized in Central Park, the headmaster of an elite boarding school imparts a story that is shaped by complicated memories, the evolution of a loving relationship, and a tragedy he cannot comprehend. “ Provided by publisher. From the author of “The Perfect Liar”., another one of his books worth recommending.
Rita would like to recommend these titles:
The Unwinding of the Miracle: A Memoir of Life, Death, and Everything that Comes After (2019) by Julie Yip-Williams is the forthright memoir of a young woman, wife and mother who is suddenly confronted with the diagnosis of Stage IV metastatic colon cancer. Written from the time of diagnosis to near the end of her life, YipWilliams reveals the evolution of emotions, medical options, and planning as her cancer progresses. At times, the reader may feel like a voyeur, as Yip-Williams does not sugar-coat her feelings, pain, and fears. Yip-Williams was born blind in Vietnam, and later learned her grandmother tried to have her euthanized as an infant. Yip-Williams and her family escaped to Hong Kong on a heavily loaded refugee boat when she was two, and eventually they resettled in the U.S. With partial sight having been restored by a surgeon at UCLA, Yip-Williams became a Harvard-educated lawyer, working for a prestigious law firm in New York. At 37 years old, Yip Williams seemed to be living the American dream when she was diagnosed with Stage IV metastatic colon cancer. This memoir chronicles her heartbreaking journey as the miracle of her remarkable life unwinds.
The Unwinding of the Miracle is available through Monarch and Libby.
The novel, The Four Winds (2021) by Kristin Hannah, takes place in the economic and environmental devastation of the 1930s. Elsa Wolcott, sheltered by her family because of her health and lack of beauty, gets restless, gets pregnant, and then is forced by her family into marriage. She and her younger husband live with his parents on a productive farm in the Texas panhandle. As the environment changes and the farm is destroyed by the ravages of drought and dust, Elsa’s husband takes off, leaving her awith her loving in-laws and two children. When it becomes clear her son’s health is becoming endangered by the dust storms, Elsa gathers her teenaged daughter, Loreda, and young son, Ant, and sets off for the dream of greener pastures in California. When Elsa and her young family arrive in California, they are treated with derision and find their life even more precarious in California than in Texas. Eventually finding work picking cotton that, by economic necessity, required her children to pick as well, Elsa and others are mistreated by the landowners. Eventually getting involved with Communist party to improve worker pay and living conditions, Elsa and Loreda risk their lives in the fight for living wages. Told through the eyes of Elsa and Loreda, The Four Winds looks at the inequitable distribution of resources and power during the Great Depression. The Four Winds is not as powerful as Hannah’s The Nightingale or The Great Alone, but it is an interesting, female-character-focused treatment of the migrant worker story.
The Four Winds is available through Monarch and Libby.
Every week new books get added to our collections for your enjoyment. This week, Miss Julie is happy to share her book shelf, full of books that have just hit our shelves. To see them and request them, click on the following:
Miss Julie’s BOOKSHELF and click/tap on each title to learn more about them. Check it out!
JOIN US! for our VIRTUAL ADULT BOOK DISCUSSION ON WEDNESDAY, APRIL 21ST AT 11 AM A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW by AMOR TOWLES This event will take place virtually. An invite with a Zoom link will be emailed one week prior to the discussion, to the email address you provide with your registration. To register click on the following link: h t t p s : / / f o r m s . g l e / NGYhr3PnTpUoTrdb9 In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery. Brimming with humor, a glittering cast of characters, and one beautifully rendered scene after another, this singular novel casts a spell as it relates the count’s endeavor to gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a man of purpose. (Soon to be adapted as a limited series starring Kenneth Branaugh) Copies of the book are available to check out at the Oscar Grady Public Library, or by placing a request through www.monarchcatalog.org.
NOW ON OUR SHELVES! Adding to the multiple resources available to our patrons, we are happy to offer new titles from the Great Courses curriculum. From "How to Paint" to "Container Gardening" and much more, these courses offer a great way to learn different skills or enhance previously acquired ones from the comfort of your home and at your own pace.
Here you can find and request some of the titles available now! Discovering Your Roots: An Introduction to Genealogy/ Conducted by John Phillip Colletta, PH. D
Unlock the secrets of your family's long-forgotten past with this course that teaches you the research skills and methodologies of professional genealogists.
This course of 15 half-hour lectures by Professor Colletta presents different procedures for locating sources of ancestors' records in America.
How to Play Chess: Lessons from an International Master/ Conducted by Jeremy Silman Learn chess from an international master and renowned teacher in these intensively illustrated, easy-to-understand lessons for players at all levels. Jeremy Silman is an International Master and a world-class chess teacher, writer, and player who has won the U.S. Open, The National Open, and the American Open.
How to Grow Anything/ Conducted by Melinda Myers Learn to grow fresh food right outside-or inside-your home with these 12 lessons full of tips and tricks for novice gardeners and green thumbs alike. Get started right away! From sprouts and microgreens to windowsill herb gardens and other edible container gardens, you can begin growing your own delicious foods any time of year. Discover the many benefits of growing your own fresh food, and learn what supplies you'll need and how to arrange your plants.
How to Draw/ Conducted by Professor David Brody
"Discover your own artistic ability and experience the joy of drawing, a skill anyone can learn. Create landscapes, portraits, still lifes, and more"-
Practicing Mindfulness/ Conducted by Mark W. Muesse This course is a practical guide to developing the skill of mindfulness and applying it to every aspect of daily life. Do you control your mind, or does your mind control you? Investigate how the mind operates and the condition of "mindlessness"-the pervasive swirl of thoughts and judgments that separate you from the world around you.
It Happened in Wisconsin: Join us for a virtual discussion around the book:
Wisconsin Death Trip By Michael Lesy First published in 1973, this remarkable book about life in a small turn-of-the-century Wisconsin town has become a cult classic. Lesy has collected and arranged photographs taken between 1890 and 1910 by a Black River Falls photographer, Charles Van Schaik. THIS PROGRAM WILL BE CONDUCTED VIRTUALLY. REGISTRATION REQUIRED. To register, click or tap in the following link
https://forms.gle/E9W2ujiHMbHmRgZF8 or sign up at our desk.
Limited copies available for check out. Calling all history buffs to join us for “It Happened in Wisconsin”, our very own history club at the library dedicated to the history of our state.
Now around town! Books for everyone. The Oscar Grady Library with the support of The Friends of the Oscar Grady Library has purchased three Little Free Libraries, which have been installed at three convenient locations: Quade Park, The Oscar Grady Library, and Village Hall. Check them out! Love them, enjoy them, treasure them.
COMING SOON!
www.oscargradylibrary.org