Librarians Bedside Table

OSCAR GRADY PUBLIC LIBRARY

THE LIBRARIANS’

BEDSIDE TABLE What your friendly librarians have been reading and MUCH MORE!

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:

home body by Rupi Kaur From publisher: Rupi Kaur constantly embraces growth, and in home body, she walks readers through a reflective and intimate journey visiting the past, the present, and the potential of the self. home body is a collection of raw, honest conversations with oneself reminding readers to fill up on love, acceptance, community, family, and embrace change. Illustrated by the author, themes of nature and nurture, light and dark, rest here."

The Trouble with Poetry and Other Poems by Billy Collins From publisher: A collection of poetry by American poet Billy Collins which reflects themes on boyhood, jazz, love, the passage of time, and writing.

Debra Jo, Library Assistant and ILL Specialist would like to recommend the following title:

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah This novel is a trip to another time, a very different place, a reality unlike any I've ever known. The Great Alone is an emotional page turner that I struggled to set down. Kristin Hannah set the stage perfectly with the first paragraph- it drew me in immediately.

Vivid description of the setting combined with a wild, suspenseful, almost outlandish story line transported me to Alaska alongside main character, Leni, each time I picked up the book.

I journeyed from the suburbs of Washington State to the rugged recesses of Alaska. I lived off the grid, in search of "freedom" thanks to the sudden, ill-planned decision made by Leni's father. I tumbled through puberty while simultaneously being caged with Leni and her mother. The cage a reality of an abusive household resulting, in part, by the demons Leni's father brought home after serving in the Vietnam War. In spite of all the darkness and danger Leni traverses her story is one of personal growth, acceptance and hope. It speaks to the resilience of humans, the strength of community, and the lessons learned through love and loss. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more by the author.

Hope, our Collection Developer would like to recommend these titles:

The Lost Man by Jane Harper From publisher: Two brothers meet at the remote fence line separating their cattle ranches in the lonely outback. In an isolated belt of Western Australia, they are each other's nearest neighbor, their homes four hours' drive apart. The third brother lies dead at their feet. Something caused Cam, the middle child who had been in charge of the family homestead, to die alone in the middle of nowhere. So the eldest brother returns with his younger sibling to the family property and those left behind.

But the fragile balance of the ranch is threatened.

Amidst the grief, suspicion starts to take hold, and the eldest brother begins to wonder if more than one among them is at risk of crumbling as the weight of isolation bears down on them all.

The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey From publisher: Melanie is a very special girl. Dr. Caldwell calls her "our little genius."

Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant Parks keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don't like her. She jokes that she won't bite, but they don't laugh.

Melanie loves school. She loves learning about spelling and sums and the world outside the classroom and the children's cells. She tells her favorite teacher all the things she'll do when she grows up. Melanie doesn't know why this makes Miss Justineau look sad.

The Girl With All the Gifts is a genre-defying, emotionally charged thriller that will shatter your expectations of the classic zombie novel.

Martin, our Collection Developing and Adult Services Coordinator would like to recommend these titles:

In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin “The world reveals itself to those who travel on foot” _ Werner Herzog.

In this book originally published in 1977, we are invited to take a trip to one of the most fascinating (and isolated) regions of earth as it is the southern Argentinean & Chilean Patagonia, through the eyes and words of Mr. Chatwin, who for many it is considered one of the most influential travel writers of the last half of the 20th century.

Full of anecdotic accounts collected during the six months Mr. Chatwin spent walking, sailing, hitchhiking and wandering through the Patagonia, surrounded by a place not only rich in its almost mythical (and mystical) history and among characters (alive and dead) that fill the pages with colorful stories, this book will for sure awake your sense of wanderlust.

NOMAD, In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin, a film by Werner Herzog In of the latest films from Herzog, we take a look not only to different snippets on the life of travel writer and adventurer Bruce Chatwin, but also we are offered a window into a great friendship as it was Chatwin-Herzog’s, something that becomes pretty clear from early on in this film, which in the words of Mr. Herzog was not intended as a biographical documentary, but instead as a sort of tribute to his friend who passed away forty years ago and with whom he shared a desire to travel to the most obscure corners of the world, still discovering what has not been seen and in the process, discovering themselves. A must watch for anyone who loves to travel and what traveling does to oneself.

Rita would like to recommend these titles:

Caste The Origins of Our Discontents (2020) by Isabel Wilkerson gives readers a description of how America today, and throughout its history, has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings and division. The hierarchy of caste is about power—which groups have it, and which do not.

Linking the caste systems of America, India and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their out-cast of the Jews (also see James Q. Whitman’s “Hitler’s American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law” (Princeton, 2017), or for a quicker read, refer to .” How American Racism Influenced Hitler | The New Yorker, published 30 April 2018); she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about costs of caste; and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive divisions in society, toward hope in our common humanity.

How do caste systems work? Wilkerson explains, “A caste system relies on dehumanization to lock the marginalized outside of the norms of humanity so that any action against them is seen as reasonable…. It is harder to dehumanize a single individual that you have gotten the chance to know.

Which is why people and groups who seek power and division do not bother with dehumanizing an individual. Better to attach a stigma, a taint of pollution to an entire group. Dehumanize the group, and you have completed the work of dehumanizing any single person within it.”

Readers are reminded, “The tyranny of caste is that we are judged on the very things we cannot change: a chemical in the epidermis, the shape of one’s facial features, the signposts on our bodies of gender and ancestry – superficial differences that have nothing to do with what we are inside.”

Wilkerson concludes, “In a world without caste, being male or female, light or dark, immigrant or native-born, would have no bearing on what anyone was perceived as being capable of. In a world without caste, we would all be invested in the well-being of others in our species [and beyond? See Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the ... - Robin Wall Kimmerer - Google Books] if only for our own survival, and recognize that we are in need of one another more than we have been led to believe. We would join forces with indigenous people around the world raising the alarm as fires rage and glaciers melt. We would see that, when others suffer, the collective human body is set back from the progression of our species.”

Caste, like Wilkerson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Warmth of Other Suns, is well-researched and will give readers another lens through which they can look at racial history and politics in the United States.

BEGIN AGAIN by Eddie S. Glaude Jr. explores similarities between author James Baldwin’s experiences after civil rights gains in the 1960s and the tense racial reality we are currently experiencing. Glaude refers to such times as “after times.” After times are when people use any means, including violence, to reverse racial gains in society. By examining Baldwin’s life, Glaude suggests we can find hope and guidance through our own after times. Begin Again mixes biography with history, memoir, and incisive analysis of the current moment. In this book, Glaude, like Baldwin, bears witness to the difficult truth of race in America today.

For James Baldwin, the after times came in the wake of the civil rights movement, when racial political and social progress was answered with the murders of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. In those years, spanning from the publication of Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time in 1963 to that of No Name in the Street in 1972, Baldwin transformed into a more overtly political writer, a change that came at great professional and personal cost. But from his struggles during that time, Baldwin emerged determined to push forward in the face of disillusionment and despair.

To chart a path through the after times, Baldwin believed we must understand the actions that have brought us to the current moment of crisis. “We don’t begin again as if there is nothing behind us or beneath our feet. We carry that history with us. Baldwin spoke about America’s aversion to history and how the stories the country told itself about its past corrupted any genuine understanding of the present. ‘…in the effort to deny from whence we came,’ Baldwin declared, ‘we’ve had to make up a series of myths about it.’”

Glaude agrees with Baldwin and states, “…it is critical we examine the banal fact of racism in our daily lives and our willful refusal to acknowledge who benefits and suffers from it.” Why is a factual common understanding of history important? Glaude elucidates, “George Santayana, the Spanish-born American philosopher, was right to point out that ‘those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’ But what he didn’t say is that those who willfully refuse to remember become moral monsters.”

Baldwin and Glaude offer hope for the future, if racism is acknowledged. Baldwin’s New Jerusalem and the Glaude’s third American founding express dreams for a world and a society that reflects the value that all human life, no matter the color of one’s skin, zip code, gender, or who one loves, is sacred.

Eddie S. Glaude Jr. is the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, where he is also the Chair of the Center for African American Studies and the Chair of the Department of African American Studies.

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MOVIES, BOOKS, MUSIC, INTERNET, COMPUTERS, and much more!

There’s nothing like new love– except perhaps a new book!

Check out the latest YA romances, all new in 2021.

Happily Ever Afters by Elise Bryant Tessa writes romance stories, but mainly keeps them to herself.

Now enrolled in a new arts school, she’s forced to share her work for critique– which triggers major writer’s block. To pull Tessa out of this writing slump friend Caroline comes up with a seemingly perfect plan—jolt her creativity back into action by inserting herself into classic romance scenarios. But the plan soon has Tessa questioning what she should truly value in a love interest.

Love Is A Revolution by Renee Watson Nala finds herself instacrushing on Tye when she meets him at an open mic night. Wanting to impress him , Nala tells a few small lies to seem to have more in common with Tye, who volunteers in their community. The more time they spend together, the harder it becomes to keep up the lie, to Tye and herself.

A complicated love story set in space

by Shaun David Hutchinson, Noa, DJ on a space ship, with no clue as to how they got there. After saving the vessel from exploding they have to face murder, aliens, and perhaps the scariest thing of all– falling in love.

Be Dazzled by Ryan La Sala Raffy loves crafting, cosplay, and cons. When all of this is combined in a competition that would land him a scholarship to art school , he is unexpectedly thrown back into the sphere of his ex, Luca. Forced to work together after having his heart broken, the pair grapples with insecurities and perfectionism to make their art, their way.

A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow

By Laura Taylor Namey England was never part of Lila Reyes plan, but when everything she had envisioned post-graduation falls apart ,her parents decide three months of r & r with family friends in the UK is exactly what she needs.

Once there she meets teashop clerk Orion, and she can’t help but find herself charmed not only by Orion, but by England itself. A new plan starts to form in Lila’s mind—but it might mean leaving everything else behind.

Looking for some fun crafts to make at home?

Check with us next time you visit us or simply visit our website at www.oscargradylibrary.org for our TAKE & MAKE projects page to find family fun projects you can do at home.

Want to know what's new on titles from our Children's Department?

Several books are added to the Children's collection each month.

Here are some the most recent titles.

Click on the word BOOKSHELF below

to access this selection built by Miss Julie.

BOOKSHELF Once you access the bookshelf, click on the book for more information or to request a copy!

COMING SOON!

We would like you to know that our newly re-organized SPECIAL HISTORY collection related to Wisconsin will be full of titles related to many aspects of the Badger State for you to enjoy, learn and share.

Check it out next time you visit us.

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.

www.oscargradylibrary.org