Matthew
Armchair Travel Around the World
Sometimes it is difficult to getting away…except when reading a book! This month we asked our staff for suggestions of books that take place in a specific location, have a strong sense of place or contain travel. This is what they gave us.
Fiction
Death at La Fenice
By Donna Leon
Grapes of Wrath
By John Steinbeck
Gulliver’s Travels
By Jonathan Swift
Book/Overdrive eBook/Hoopla eBook/Hoopla Audiobook/Hoopla Graphic Novel
Less
By Andrew Sean Greer
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Mary Ann Shaffer and Anne Barrows
Independent People
Halldór Laxness
A long Petal of the Sea
Isabel Allende
The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency
Alexander McCall Smith
The Poisonwood Bible
Barbara Kingsolver
The River
Peter Heller
Red Sorghum
Mo Yan
Kids
Maisy Goes to London
By Lucy Cousins
Nonfiction
125 Wacky Roadside Attractions
National Geographics
Born a Crime
By Trevor Noah
Devil in the White City
By Erik Lareson
Book/Large Print/Audio CD/Overdrive eBook/Overdrive Audiobook
Everything & Everywhere
By Marc Martin
National Park Adventures
By Noah Adams
Perfect Poolside Perusals
Summer is here so we asked our staff what are some of their favorite books to read while soaking up the sun. Click on the title to find summaries and reviews on Goodreads.com.
All Grown Up
by Jami Attenberg
People We Meet on Vacation
by Emily Henry
Live and Let Chai
by Bree Baker
The Vacation: A Novel
by T.M. Logan
Pillars of the Earth
by Ken Follett
Leave the World Behind
by Ruman Alaam
Tracy Flick Can’t Win
by Tom Perrotta
Nightcrawling
by Leila Mottley
Out East
by John Glynn
Concrete Rose
by Angie Thomas
Poetry Month
April is National Poetry Month and to celebrate we asked our staff to recommend their favorite poets. As a bonus we also have a few haikus written by our staff.
Librarian Haiku #1
Reading Sends You to
Faraway Places Even
When You Can’t Leave Home
Librarian Haiku #2
Words Crowd on the Page
“We’re Revolting” They Say As
They Form a New Draft
Librarian Haiku #3
Toss Waste onto Ground
Lazy Humans Trash Our Earth
Be Bold! Pick it Up!
- Rabindranath Tagore
- e. e. cummings
- Book in verse: Starfish by Lisa Fipps
- Book in verse: Crossover by Kwame Alexander
Museum Pass Spotlight: National Liberty Museum
Learn more about all the Museum Passes the library has to offer HERE!
TED Talks
Our Favorite TED Talks
TED is a global community, welcoming people from every discipline and culture who seek a deeper understanding of the world. They believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and, ultimately, the world. We asked our staff to share their favorite TED Talks and paired them a few books that may help you expand your understanding on the topic. This is what they came up with. (Click on the book covers to find the books in our catalog)
Matt Walker: Why Sleep Matters Now More Than Ever
Wim Hof: Standing the Ice with Our Minds
Amy Tan: Where Does Creativity Hide
Rita Pierson: Every Kid Needs a Champion
Dr. Mark Holder: Three Words That Will Change Your Life
Pamela Meyer: How to Spot a Liar
Temple Grandin: The World Needs All Kinds of Minds
Other TED Talks We Like (With Dewey Locations of Books on Similar Topics)
- Michael Sandel: What’s the Right Thing to do? / 172.2 and 301.417 and 320
- Mariana Atencio: What makes you special? / 155.4 and 158
- Simon Sinek : How great leaders inspire action / 303.34 and 658.4
- Brené Brown : The power of vulnerability / 158
- Tim Urban : Inside the mind of a master procrastinator / 155.2
- Julian Treasure : How to speak so that people will listen / 658.45 and 808.51
- Robert Waldinger : What makes a good life? Lessons from the longest study on happiness / 158.1 and 170.44
- Chimamanda Adichie : The danger of a single story / 305.8 and 372.21
- Angela Lee Duckworth : Grit: The power of passion and perseverance / 179.9, 155.4 and 158.1
- Elif Shafak : The revolutionary power of diverse thought / 321.8 and 331.4133
January Staff Picks: Tsundoku
Tsundoku (積ん読): A Japanese word and characters that translate as “pile up” + “read”. We asked our staff what has been piling up on their to-be-read list. Here are their answers.
Nonfiction
Tunnel 29: The True Story of an Extraordinary Escape Beneath the Berlin Wall
By Helena Merriman
It’s summer, 1962, and Joachim Rudolph, a student, is digging a tunnel under the Berlin Wall. Waiting on the other side in East Berlin – dozens of men, women and children; all willing to risk everything to escape.
Book
Hallucinations
by Oliver Sacks
Have you ever seen something that wasn’t really there? Heard someone call your name in an empty house? Sensed someone following you and turned around to find nothing?
Book/Audiobook CD/Overdrive eBook
Where the Deer and the Antelope Play: The Pastoral Observations of One Ignorant American Who Loves to Walk Outside
by Nick Offerman
A humorous and rousing tour of America’s nature spots as well as a mission statement about loving, protecting, and truly experiencing the outdoors, inspired by three journeys undertaken by actor, humorist, and New York Times bestselling author Nick Offerman
Book/Overdrive eBook/Overdrive Audiobook
Fiction
Under the Whispering Door
by TJ Klune
When a reaper comes to collect Wallace Price from his own funeral, Wallace suspects he really might be dead.
Book/Overdrive eBook/Overdrive Audiobook
Get a Life, Chloe Brown
by Talia Hibbert
Chloe Brown is a chronically ill computer geek with a goal, a plan, and a list. After almost—but not quite—dying, she’s come up with seven directives to help her “Get a Life”, and she’s already completed the first: finally moving out of her glamorous family’s mansion. The next items?
Book/Overdrive eBook/Hoopla eBook/Hoopla Audiobook
The Library of the Dead
by T.L. Huchu
When a child goes missing in Edinburgh’s darkest streets, young Ropa investigates. She’ll need to call on Zimbabwean magic as well as her Scottish pragmatism to hunt down clues. But as shadows lengthen, will the hunter become the hunted?
Books
One Last Stop
by Casey McQuiston
For cynical twenty-three-year-old August, moving to New York City is supposed to prove her right: that things like magic and cinematic love stories don’t exist, and the only smart way to go through life is alone. She can’t imagine how waiting tables at a 24-hour pancake diner and moving in with too many weird roommates could possibly change that. And there’s certainly no chance of her subway commute being anything more than a daily trudge through boredom and electrical failures.
But then, there’s this gorgeous girl on the train.
Overdrive eBook
Walk on Earth a Stranger
by Rae Carson
Lee can sense gold in the world around her. Veins deep in the earth. Small nuggets in a stream. Even gold dust caught underneath a fingernail. She has kept her family safe and able to buy provisions, even through the harshest winters. But what would someone do to control a girl with that kind of power? A person might murder for it.
Book/Hoopla eBook/Hoopla Audiobook
Light from Uncommon Stars
by Ryka Aoki
Shizuka Satomi made a deal with the devil: to escape damnation, she must entice seven other violin prodigies to trade their souls for success. She has already delivered six.
Book
Little Fires Everywhere
by Celeste Ng
Little Fires Everywhere explores the weight of secrets, the nature of art and identity, and the ferocious pull of motherhood–and the danger of believing that following the rules can avert disaster.
Book/Audiobook CD/Overdrive eBook/Overdrive Audiobook
War and Peace
by Leo Tolstoy
In Russia’s struggle with Napoleon, Tolstoy saw a tragedy that involved all mankind. Greater than a historical chronicle, War and Peace is an affirmation of life itself, `a complete picture’, as a contemporary reviewer put it, `of everything in which people find their happiness and greatness, their grief and humiliation’.
Book/Audiobook CD/Overdrive eBook/Hoopla eBook/Hoopla Audiobook
1Q84
by Haruki Murakami
A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver’s enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84 —“Q is for ‘question mark.’ A world that bears a question.” Meanwhile, an aspiring writer named Tengo takes on a suspect ghostwriting project. He becomes so wrapped up with the work and its unusual author that, soon, his previously placid life begins to come unraveled.
Book/Audiobook CD/Overdrive eBook
Les Miserables
by Victor Hugo
A thrilling tale of narrow escapes, romance in the midst of a revolution, and battlefield heroism, Victor Hugo’s sprawling 1862 novel focuses on the Parisian underworld.
Book/Overdrive eBook/Hoopla eBook/Hoopla Audiobook
Young Adult
We are Inevitable
by Gayle Forman
While his friends have gone to college and moved on with their lives, Aaron’s been left behind in the Cascade Mountains of Washington State, running a failing bookshop with his dad, Ira. What he needs is a lucky break, the good kind of inevitable.
And then he meets Hannah. Incredible Hannah
Book
In the Wild Light
by Jeff Zentner
Life in a small Appalachian town is not easy. Cash lost his mother to an opioid addiction and his Papaw is dying slowly from emphysema. Dodging drug dealers and watching out for his best friend, Delaney, is second nature. He’s been spending his summer mowing lawns while she works at Dairy Queen.
But when Delaney manages to secure both of them full rides to an elite prep school in Connecticut, Cash will have to grapple with his need to protect and love Delaney, and his love for the grandparents who saved him and the town he would have to leave behind.
Book
Juvenile Fiction
The Girl Who Drank the Moon
by Kelly Barnhill
Every year, the people of the Protectorate leave a baby as an offering to the witch who lives in the forest. They hope this sacrifice will keep her from terrorizing their town. But the witch in the forest, Xan, is kind and gentle. She shares her home with a wise Swamp Monster named Glerk and a Perfectly Tiny Dragon, Fyrian. Xan rescues the abandoned children and deliver them to welcoming families on the other side of the forest, nourishing the babies with starlight on the journey.
One year, Xan accidentally feeds a baby moonlight instead of starlight, filling the ordinary child with extraordinary magic. Xan decides she must raise this enmagicked girl, whom she calls Luna, as her own. To keep young Luna safe from her own unwieldy power, Xan locks her magic deep inside her. When Luna approaches her thirteenth birthday, her magic begins to emerge on schedule–but Xan is far away. Meanwhile, a young man from the Protectorate is determined to free his people by killing the witch. Soon, it is up to Luna to protect those who have protected her–even if it means the end of the loving, safe world she’s always known
Book/Overdrive eBook/Overdrive Audiobook/Hoopla eBook/Hoopla Audiobook
The Amelia Six
by Kristin L. Gray
Amelia Earhart’s famous aviator goggles go missing and eleven-year-old Millie has to find them before the night is over
Book
The Beatryce Prophecy
Kate DiCamillo
From two-time Newbery Medalist Kate DiCamillo and two-time Caldecott Medalist Sophie Blackall comes a fantastical meditation on fate, love, and the power of words to spell the world.
Book/Overdrive eBook
National Hobby Month: Books, Books, Books
Books for Your New Hobby
Tired of being online? Want to cozy up with a book in your hand to learn a new hobby? Or get more info on a favorite pastime you already have? We’ve gathered some book suggestions for you. Whether you enjoy painting, photography, collecting, building, or crafting, the library has books for you!
The Encyclopedia of Jewelry-making Techniques by Jinks McGrath
Scrapbooking Techniques for Beginners by Rebekah Meier
Watercolor is for Everyone: Simple Lessons to Make Your Creative Practice a Daily Habit by Kateri Ewing
Filmmaking for Dummies by Bryan Stoller
iPhone Photography by Mark Hemmings
Digital Photography by Julie Adair King
Hand Lettering 101: An Introduction to the Art of Creative Lettering by Chalkfulloflove
Rosie O’Donnell’s Crafty U: 100 Easy Projects the Whole Family Can Enjoy All Year Long by Rosie O’Donnell
Generation T: 108 Ways to Transform a T-shirt by Megan Nicolay
Home Made, Best Made: Hundreds of Ways to Make All Kinds of Useful Things by Reader’s Digest
The Complete Guide to Drones: Build & Choose & Fly & Photograph by Adam Juniper
Playing with Trains: a Passion Beyond Scale by Sam Posey
Guitar All-in-One by Jon Chappell
How to Bake Everything: Simple Recipes for the Best Baking by Mark Bittman
Rocks and Minerals by Chris Pellant
Would you prefer EBooks or Audio books?
The library has Overdrive (also known as Libby) for eBooks and audiobooks, and Hoopla which offers both eBooks and audiobooks, as well as streaming movies and television shows. So there’s always something to choose from wherever there’s internet access or when transporting a physical book is not possible. Look for these logos in your app store.
National Hobby Month on Hoopla
There are tons of streaming options available for all sorts of hobbies. Check out these which we found on Hoopla or look for some on your own!
Candle Making: From Beginner to Business by Rachel Larsen
Stream or download this eBook
A To Z How To Make Wine At Home For Total Beginners by Lisa Bond
The Complete Photo Guide to Jewelry Making by Tammy Powley
Beginner’s Guide To Making Mosaics by Delphine Lescuyer
Leathercraft As A Hobby by Clifford Pyle
Hobby Boss: Turn Your Passion Into Profits Online by Steve Mastroianni
Sketching as a Hobby by Arthur L. Guptill
Hobby Farming for Dummies by Theresa Husarik
Easy WordPress Blogging for Beginners by Rawee M.
Write That Book Tips for New Authors by Michelle G. Cameron