The Librarians' Bedside Table

OSCAR GRADY PUBLIC LIBRARY

THE LIBRARIANS’

BEDSIDE TABLE What your friendly librarians have been listening, reading, watching & MUCH MORE!

At the Oscar Grady Library

summer means reading!

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:

A Discovery of Witches (All Souls Series Book #1)

by Deborah Harkness Witch and Yale historian Diana Bishop discovers an enchanted manuscript, attracting the attention of 1,500-year-old vampire Matthew Clairmont. The orphaned daughter of two powerful witches, Bishop prefers intellect, but relies on magic when her discovery of a palimpsest documenting the origin of supernatural species releases an assortment of undead who threaten, stalk, and harass her.

Shadow of Night (All Souls Series Book #2)

by Deborah Harkness A follow-up to the best-selling A Discovery of Witches finds Oxford scholar and reluctant witch Diana and vampire geneticist Matthew Clairmont in Elizabethan London, where Diana seeks a magical tutor and Matthew confronts elements from his past at the same time the mystery of Ashmole 782 deepens.

The Book of Life (All Souls Series Book #3)

by Deborah Harkness After traveling through time in Shadow of Night, the second book in Deborah Harkness's enchanting series, historian and witch Diana Bishop and vampire scientist Matthew Clairmont return to the present to face new crises and old enemies. At Matthew's ancestral home at Sept-Tours, they reunite with the cast of characters from A Discovery of Witches--with one significant exception.

Time’s Convert (All Souls Series Book #4)

by Deborah Harkness Set in contemporary Paris and London, and the American colonies during the upheaval and unrest that exploded into the Revolutionary War, a sweeping story that braids together the past and present.

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

My Life as a Zucchini

(DVD & Blu-Ray) Directed by Claude Barras After losing his mother, a young boy is sent to a foster home with other orphans his age where he begins to learn the meaning of trust and true love.

Provided by publisher.

Sugar Drops (Vinyl Album)

By Davina and the Vagabonds 2019 release. Sugar Drops is the first album on Red House Records from Davina and the Vagabonds and marks the first time singer/songwriter/pianist Davina Sowers entered a proper studio to record an album.

The Minneapolis-based artist holed up in Nashville's Compass Sound Studio with producer (and Compass Records co-founder) Garry West, along with her trumpeter, string arranger and husband, Zack Lozier, and a rotating cast of powerhouse players including Todd Phillips (David Grisman, Robbie Fulks) on bass, Doug Lancio (Patty Griffin, John Hiatt, Tom Jones) on guitar and Reese Wynans (Stevie Ray Vaughan, Joe Bonamassa) on Hammond B3. Sugar Drops is distillation of bluesy barroom baritone and bravado, graveyard jazz grooves, and noir-ish confessional lyricism backed by boisterous piano, guitar, and strings. Eclectic, engaging and instilled with a deep respect and knowledge for the Great American Songbook. Provided by publisher.

Some of the titles listed in these pages are

available in electronic format through the Libby app. Check it out!

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

You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey by Amber Ruffin and Lacey Lamar Writer and performer on Late Night with Seth Meyers Amber Ruffin writes with her sister Lacey Lamar with humor and heart to share absurd anecdotes about everyday experiences of racism. Now a writer and performer on Late Night with Seth Meyers and host of The Amber Ruffin Show, Amber Ruffin lives in New York, where she is no one's First Black Friend and everyone is, as she puts it, "stark raving normal." But Amber's sister Lacey?

She's still living in their home state of Nebraska, and trust us, you'll never believe what happened to Lacey. From racist donut shops to strangers putting their whole hand in her hair, from being mistaken for a prostitute to being mistaken for Harriet Tubman, Lacey is a lightning rod for hilariously ridiculous yet all-too-real anecdotes. She's the perfect mix of polite, beautiful, petite, and Black that apparently makes people think "I can say whatever I want to this woman." And now, Amber and Lacey share these entertainingly horrifying stories through their laugh-out-loud sisterly banter. Painfully relatable or shockingly eye-opening (depending on how often you have personally been followed by security at department stores), this book tackles modern-day racism with the perfect balance of levity and gravity. Provided by publisher.

The Killings at Kingfisher Hill

by Sophie Hannah The world’s greatest detective, Hercule Poirot — legendary star of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile — returns to solve a fiendish new mystery.

Hercule Poirot is travelling by luxury passenger coach from London to the exclusive Kingfisher Hill estate. Richard Devonport has summoned him to prove that his fiancée, Helen, is innocent of the murder of his brother, Frank.

There is one strange condition attached to this request: Poirot must conceal his true reason for being there from the rest of the Devonport family.

On the coach, a distressed woman leaps up, demanding to disembark. She insists that if she stays in her seat, she will be murdered. A seat-swap is arranged, and the rest of the journey passes without incident. But Poirot has a bad feeling about it, and his fears are later confirmed when a body is discovered in the Devonports' home with a note that refers to ‘the seat that you shouldn’t have sat in’.

Could this new murder and the peculiar incident on the coach be clues to solving mystery of who killed Frank Devonport? And can Poirot find the real murderer in time to save an innocent woman from the gallows? Provided by publisher.

Last Pick, Vol 1-3

by Jason Walz (graphic novel) From the Kirkus Review, Aug. 20, 2018 Last Pick, Vol 1 Aliens invade, abducting almost everyone.

In this high-octane graphic novel series opener, creepy extraterrestrials have overrun Earth, deploying gargantuan robot "scoopers," collecting people ages 16 to 65.

However, in addition to leaving children and the elderly, the aliens have also left behind anyone they deem useless, like the “disabled.” Sixteen-year-old Sam and her twin brother, Wyatt, are in hiding, trying to rebuild the aliens' abandoned technological devices in order to ascertain where their parents might be located. With the help of a rough-and-tumble band of senior citizens, the twins make their way through an eerily analogous—albeit alien-run—landscape.

Though never explicitly stated, Wyatt is seemingly on the spectrum. While sister Sam has always served as his protector, in a dramatic turn of events at one point in the story, it is up to Wyatt to become the hero. Cartoonist and teacher Walz tells his reader, "you might be surprised to find that whatever the world sees as 'different' is exactly what the world needs more of." Here he has created a masterful sci-fi tale with relatable characters, skillful worldbuilding, and cinematically designed illustrations that convey his message. Colorist Proctor has employed a muted earth-toned palette, using color to help easily distinguish flashbacks from present action. Sam and Wyatt are both white and fair -haired. Secondary characters are widely diverse in physical ability, age, and skin color.

Can I Recycle This?: A Guide to Better Recycling and How to Reduce Single-Use Plastics

by Jennie Romer "The book that answers the age-old question: Can I Recycle This? Since the dawn of the recycling system, men and women the world over have stood by their bins, holding an everyday object, wondering, 'can I recycle this?' This simple question reaches into our concern for the environment, the care we take to keep our homes and our communities clean, and how we interact with our local government. Recycling rules seem to differ in every municipality, with exceptions and caveats at every turn, leaving the average American scatching her head at the simple act of throwing something away. Taking readers on a quick but informative tour of how recycling actually works (setting aside the propaganda we were all taught as kids), Can I Recycle This gives straightforward answers to whether dozens of common household objects can or cannot be recycled, as well as the information you need to make that decision for anything else you encounter. Jennie Romer has been working for years to help cities and states across America better deal with the waste we produce, helping draft meaniful legislation to help communities better process their waste and produce less of it in the first place. She has distilled her years of experience into this non-judgmental, easy-to-use guide that will change the way you think about what you throw away and how you do it"-- Provided by publisher.

Hope would like to recommend these titles:

WARRIORS by Erin Hunter My 10-year-old grandson has read 36 books in this series and intends to continue on the next set of five books.

He says the books are about four clans of cats that live in a forest. Each client has a leader with the last name Star. Each leader has nine lives. A deputy assists each leader. The older cats train the young kittens who are at least six years old to be apprentices. Every full moon represents approximately one year in a cat's life. So to be an apprentice, a kitchen must be six moons old.

Prophecies are made and fulfilled about every six books.

Miss Julie, our Children Librarian would like to recommend this title:

Whoopty Whoop (Audio CD)

by KOO KOO KANGA ROO Koo Koo Kanga Roo are like the Happy Meal of music - fun for little kids, big kids, and grown-ups who never quite grew up! The album accompanies the band's recent forays into workout DVDs, kids' books, and interactive comedy TV shows. House Party, their recent dance-a-long workout DVD, gives Zumba a run for its money, and their Unicorns R Real picture book has infiltrated first-grade book reports across the country.

Description from Monarch Catalog.

Lynn, our Cataloging and Circulation Services Specialist, would like to recommend these titles:

The Prayer Box by Lisa Wingate When Iola Anne Poole, an old-timer on Hatteras Island, passes away in her bed at ninety-one, the struggling young mother in her rental cottage, Tandi Jo Reese, finds eighty-one carefully decorated prayer boxes, one for each year, spanning from Iola's youth to her last days. Hidden in the boxes is the story of a lifetime, written on random bits of paper. Provided by publisher.

Maggie B. , our YA Program Coordinator, would like to recommend the following titles:

We Need New Stories

by Nesrine Malik "A rigorous examination of six political myths used to deflect and discredit demands for social justice. In 2016, presidential candidate Donald Trump declared: "I think the big problem this country has is being politically correct."

Reeling from his victory, Democrats blamed the corrosive effect of "identity politics." When banned from Twitter for inciting violence, Trump and his supporters claimed that the measure was an assault on "free speech."

In We Need New Stories, Nesrine Malik explains that all of these arguments are political myths-variations on the lie that American values are under assault.

Exploring how these and other common political myths function, she breaks down how they are employed to subvert calls for equality from historically disenfranchised groups. Interweaving reportage with an incendiary analysis of American history and politics, she offers a compelling account of how calls to preserve "free speech" are used against the vulnerable; how a fixation with "wokeness," "political correctness," and "cancel culture" is in fact an organized and well-funded campaign by elites; and how the fear of racial minorities and their "identity politics" obscures the biggest threat of all-white terrorism. What emerges is a radical framework for understanding the crises roiling American contemporary politics"-- Provided by publisher.

City So Real (DVD) Directed by Steve James Academy Award nominated filmmaker Steve James' fascinating and complex portrait of contemporary Chicago delivers a deep, multifaceted look into the soul of a quintessentially American city, set against the backdrop of its history-making 2019 mayoral election, and the tumultuous 2020 summer of COVID-19 and social upheaval following the police killing of George Floyd. Provided by publisher.

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

Madhouse at the End of the Earth

by Julian Sancton The harrowing true survival story of an early polar expedition that went terribly awry-with the ship frozen in ice and the crew trapped inside for the entire sunless, Antarctic winter-in the tradition of David Grann, Nathaniel Philbrick, and Hampton Sides. In August 1897, the young Belgian commandant Adrien de Gerlache set sail for a three year expedition aboard the good ship Belgica with dreams of glory. His destination was the uncharted end of the earth: the icy continent of Antarctica.

Drawing on the diaries and journals of the Belgica's crew and with exclusive access to the ship's logbook, Sancton brings novelistic flair to a story of human extremes, one so remarkable that even today NASA studies it for research on isolation for future missions to Mars. Equal parts maritime thriller and gothic horror, Madhouse at the End of the Earth is an unforgettable journey into the deep"-- Provided by publisher.

WORLD TRAVEL:

An Irreverent Guide

by Anthony Bourdain & Laurie Woolever "Anthony Bourdain saw more of the world than nearly anyone. His travels took him from the hidden pockets of his hometown of New York to a tribal longhouse in Borneo, from cosmopolitan Buenos Aires, Paris, and Shanghai to Tanzania's utter beauty and the stunning desert solitude of Oman's Empty Quarter--and many places beyond. In World Travel, a life of experience is collected into an entertaining, practical, fun and frank travel guide that gives readers an introduction to some of his favorite places--in his own words.

Featuring essential advice on how to get there, what to eat, where to stay and, in some cases, what to avoid, World Travel provides essential context that will help readers further appreciate the reasons why Bourdain found a place enchanting and memorable. Supplementing Bourdain's words are a handful of essays by friends, colleagues, and family that tell even deeper stories about a place, including sardonic accounts of traveling with Bourdain by his brother, Christopher; a guide to Chicago's best cheap eats by legendary music producer Steve Albini, and more. Additionally, each chapter includes illustrations by Wesley Allsbrook. For veteran travelers, armchair enthusiasts, and those in between, World Travel offers a chance to experience the world like Anthony Bourdain."-Provided by publisher.

ICEBOUND by Andrea Pitzer The human story has always been one of perseverance--often against remarkable odds. The most astonishing survival tale of all might be that of 16th-century Dutch explorer William Barents and his crew of sixteen, who ventured farther north than any Europeans before and, on their third polar exploration, lost their ship off the frozen coast of Nova Zembla to unforgiving ice. The men would spend the next year fighting off ravenous polar bears, gnawing hunger, and endless winter. In Icebound, Andrea Pitzer masterfully combines a gripping tale of survival with a sweeping history of the great Age of Exploration--a time of hope, adventure, and seemingly unlimited geographic frontiers.

Provided by publisher.

Rita would like to recommend these titles:

When the Stars Go Dark (2021) by Paula McLain is a thriller set in California in 1993. Anna Hart, a missing persons detective who has recently experienced a lifealtering trauma, returns to Mendocino, the town where she spent the happiest years of her childhood. She is asked to help the Sheriff’s Department find out what happened to Cameron, a teenaged girl who appears to have been lured from her home. As Anna investigates, other girls (some fictional, some not) are found dead, and she is reminded of the violent, unsolved murder of one of her friends many years ago. Anna uses her personal and professional background, as well as some sort of psychic connection to victims to try to save Cameron before it is too late. Along the way, Anna works to heal and forgive herself.

The subject matter of When the Stars Go Dark is disturbing, and McLain points out that in the U.S., a child becomes a victim of sexual assault every 9 minutes. Readers may feel the use of actual victims within the story is exploitative. In her Author’s Note, McLain defends such use, stating, “It began to feel imperative that I tell their stories as bluntly and factually as possible, as a way to honor their lives and dignify their deaths and disappearances.” Perhaps so, perhaps not.

The Women with Silver Wings: The Inspiring True Story of the Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II (2020) by Katherine Sharp Landdeck details the history of the Women Airforce Service (WASP) program, from inception to disbandment, by focusing on the stories of some of its pilots. Landdeck reminds readers, “By December 1944, 1,102 women were wearing the silver wings that denoted a WASP. The WASPs had flown more than seventy-seven different types of planes and had covered over 60 million miles. They had served as test pilots, flown personnel, and trained ground gunners to find plans as they strafed them. With the exception of combat flying, the women were doing every single type of assignment their male counterparts performed.

Thirty-eight of them had given their lives.” Despite their remarkable performance, these pilots were never militarized. They served as civilians, although in a military capacity, wearing uniforms and being subjected to military discipline. Civilian status meant the WASP were disbanded with no rank and none of the benefits other veterans received.

The WASP were finally granted retroactive military status in 1977 and were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 2010. It was long-delayed and much-deserved compensation and recognition for these extraordinary women who served their country with honor.

Tyler, our Library Services Assistant would like to recommend these titles:

VICTORY AT SEA (DVD) Directed by M. Clay Adams The most famous historical war series ever made. A sweeping record of the naval battles of World War II.

Alone in the Wilderness (DVD) Original footage by Dick Proenneke The account of the day-to-day explorations and activities of Dick Proenneke as he built a cabin in the remote wilderness of the Twin Lakes Region of Alaska.

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