The last season of the hit HBO series “Game of Thrones” (based on George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” book series) has been controversial at times, but I think we can all agree on one point – it’s over. But don’t despair – your library is here to fill the dragon-shaped hole in your life.
If you want to stay in the realm (heh) of acclaimed fantasy novels adapted for prestige television, read the Philip Pullman series “His Dark Materials.” There are no dragons, but there are polar bears and prophecies, and Lyra is one of the most memorable characters you’ll ever spend time with. The first season of the show will premiere on HBO later this year. Lin-Manuel Miranda is in it!
Maybe you want to start another fantasy series with superb world building and a villain you can love to hate. “The Kingkiller Chronicle,” by Patrick Rothfuss, is well-written and propulsive and you’ll want to pick up the second book as soon as you close the first. However, this series and “A Song of Ice and Fire” have something else in common – neither series has had a book published since 2011. “The Kingkiller Chronicle” is also being adapted into a movie. Lin-Manuel Miranda is writing it! Continue reading ““Game of Thrones” Is Dead. Long Live “Game of Thrones”!”
The Missouri, Kansas, Texas Railroad Heritage Locomotive on display at Kansas City, Missouri Union Station for the 2018 Katy Railroad Historical Society Convention. Photo by Tyler Silvest Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)
If you enjoy some of the wonderful trails that Columbia has to offer, the letters “MKT” might sound a bit familiar. Long before it was a recreational trail, the MKT was actually a railroad line that spanned the states of Missouri, Kansas, and Texas – hence the name MKT. On Wednesday, May 22 at 7:00 pm, the Columbia Public Library will host John Wilke from the Mid-Missouri Rail Fans organization for a program about the Columbia branch of the MKT Railroad and how it connected Mid-Missouri to the rest of the country.
The MKT railroad, also known as the “Katy”, started in 1865 in Kansas and was a valuable link between the Midwest and Texas. It is known for being the first railroad to pass through Indian Territory, what is now the state of Oklahoma. The line actually began as the southern branch of the Union Pacific Railway and was intended to run from Junction City, Kansas to New Orleans, Louisiana. However, those ambitions were never quite realized and the MKT line ran from St. Louis, Missouri to San Antonio, Texas at it’s peak with stops in Kansas City, Topeka, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, and Galveston, among other
towns. Continue reading “The History of the MKT Railroad”
Posted on Wednesday, May 15, 2019 by Reading Addict
The Algonquin Round Table – Portrait of Art Samuels, Charlie MacArthur, Harpo Marx, Dorothy Parker and Alexander Woollcott, circa 1919“Excuse my dust” was Dorothy Parker’s self-chosen epitaph. “What fresh hell is this?” is how she is said to have answered the door/telephone. She had a way with words.
Dorothy Parker was born Dorothy Rothschild in 1893 but she was quick to point out it was not THOSE Rothschilds. Her mother died when she was five and she had a difficult relationship with her father before he also died, leaving her to fend for herself. One of her most famous quotes is “I’d like to have money. And I’d like to be a good writer. These two can come together, and I hope they will, but if that’s too adorable, I’d rather have money.” A lot of her writing can be read as fictionalized biography and you can hear the stress in her voice.
The majority of Parker’s writing, both poetry and short stories, is available in “The Portable Dorothy Parker” which turns 75 on May 15th. My personal copy is the Viking Portable Library edition printed in 1944 as part of a series of books written for WWII servicemen overseas. It includes an introduction by Somerset Maugham and is one of only three of the Viking series that has never been out of print. This is not the version available at the library but you can listen to the audio book with Hoopla, one of our digital downloading services. You can also read one of my favorite short stories, “The Waltz,” in “The 50 funniest American Writers.” Continue reading “Excuse My Dust — 75 Years of “The Portable Dorothy Parker””
“Foe” by Iain Reid is a book meant to be blazed through in a single sitting. It’s a short novel, it immediately introduces a big old mystery, and answers to the story’s questions seem to be just barely obscured, so that if, like the novel’s narrator, you drill a spy hole into your bathroom wall, maybe all will become clear. But it turns out it takes more than a creepy hole to answer your questions: just like in life, eventually a representative from a massive corporation will make things horrifyingly clear.
The story begins with a representative (Terrance) from a corporate/government entity showing up to inform our narrator he’s won a lottery and he might be going to space to work on a habitat for humanity. Terrance makes it cheerfully clear that there is no choice in the matter: if Junior wins the lottery, he’s going to be a space worker for a some years. Not to fear though, the corporation will benevolently provide a companion for his wife while he’s away. Junior doesn’t like the sound of that, and he’s not mollified when he finds out his replacement will basically be a 3D-printed replica of himself. Continue reading “The Gentleman Recommends: Iain Reid”
This summer, allow your imagination to soar among the stars as the Daniel Boone Regional Library celebrates a “Universe of Stories.” This year’s Summer Reading theme channels the explorer and dreamer in all of us. Our annual program launches May 22, and we have versions for all ages. The following book selections will inspire children and teens to look up at the sky with wonder and curiosity.
Ages 0-5: Our youngest summer readers will enjoy “Where Is the Rocket?” by Harriet Ziefert and illustrated by Barroux (Blue Apple Books, 2014). This brightly colored picture book uses space-themed imagery to introduce opposites and directional words, making it perfect for babies and toddlers.
What would you do if the electricity went out in your house on a hot summer night? “Blackout” by John Rocco (Disney/Hyperion Books, 2011) tells the story of a busy family who finds connection with one another and their neighbors after a city-wide power outage. The book’s illustrations, which are laid out like comic book panels, show the deep contrast between the night sky and the glow of candles, flashlights and stars. Continue reading “Literary Links: Summer Reading 2019”
Here is a new DVD list highlighting various titles recently added to the library’s collection.
“My Brilliant Friend” Season 1 Website / Reviews Based on the bestselling Neapolitan novel series by author Elena Ferrante. When the most important friend in her life seems to have disappeared without a trace, Elena Greco, a now-elderly woman immersed in a house full of books, turns on her computer and starts writing the story of their friendship. “Bumblebee” Website / Reviews
Charlie Watson, a teenager trying to find her place in the world, discovers and repairs a battle-scarred robot named Bumblebee, who’s disguised as a Volkswagen Beetle. As the Decepticons hunt down the surviving Autobots with the help of a secret agency led by Agent Burns, the transformer and Charlie team up to protect the world in an action-packed adventure that’s fun for the whole family. Continue reading “New DVD List: My Brilliant Friend & More”
Life can be a lot sometimes. Simply being a human comes with so many responsibilities, stressors, and heartache that it can be hard to process. There are many tried and true habits for maintaining good mental health such as exercising, meditating, and getting enough sleep, but there is one that often goes overlooked.
Time and time again, behavioral health experts have reported that journaling can help people cope with anxiety, stress, and depression. What makes journaling so effective? It gives you a chance to process your emotions and put your thoughts and feelings on paper. Like Dumbledore’s Pensieve, you get to pull the troubling thoughts out of your head and set them somewhere else. You get to be creative without fear of scrutiny. Continue reading “The Therapeutic Effects of Journaling”
Before there was “tourism” and souvenir ashtrays became “kitsch,” the Lake of the Ozarks was a Shangri-La for middle-class Midwestern families on vacation. It was there that author Bill Geist spent summers in the Sixties during his school and college years working at Arrowhead Lodge. What may have seemed just a summer job became, upon reflection, a transformative era where a cast of eccentric, small-town characters and experiences shaped (some might suggest “slightly twisted”) Bill into the man he is today. In “Lake of the Ozarks,” Emmy Award-winning CBS Sunday Morning Correspondent Bill Geist reflects on his coming of age in the American Heartland and traces his evolution as a man and a writer. Continue reading “Nonfiction Roundup: May 2019”
April showers bring May flowers and an abundance of exciting new books by debut fiction authors. There are so many interesting titles being published this month that it was difficult to choose which ones to highlight, so make sure you visit our catalog to see all the ones I couldn’t fit into this post.
All of London is abuzz with the scandalous case of Frannie Langton, accused of the brutal double murder of her employers, renowned scientist George Benham and his eccentric French wife, Marguerite. Crowds pack the courtroom, eagerly following every twist, while the newspapers print lurid theories about the killings and the mysterious woman being tried at the Old Bailey.
The testimonies against Frannie are damning. She is a seductress, a witch, a master manipulator, a whore.
But Frannie claims she cannot recall what happened that fateful evening, even if remembering could save her life. She doesn’t know how she came to be covered in the victims’ blood. But she does have a tale to tell: a story of her childhood on a Jamaican plantation, her apprenticeship under a debauched scientist who stretched all bounds of ethics, and the events that brought her into the Benhams’ London home—and into a passionate and forbidden relationship.
Though her testimony may seal her conviction, the truth will unmask the perpetrators of crimes far beyond murder and indict the whole of English society itself. Continue reading “Debut Author Spotlight: May 2019”
Space. What’s out there, and is there any end to it? Is there life on other planets? These questions have driven many developments in science, and led to the creation of lot of fantastic literature. Which makes it a snap to meet the 2019’s Read Harder challenge number six, a book by an author of color set in or about space.
Margo Lee Shetterley’s 2016 nonfiction book, “Hidden Figures,” shows us that behind every successful space launch is a bevy of smart, hard-working Black women performing the mathematical calculations to make it possible. If you’ve only seen the movie, I recommend reading the book as well. It provides many more layers to the stories of the women’s lives.
In the realm of science fiction, “The Three-Body Problem” by Liu Cixin won the Hugo, the Nebula, and several other literary awards. The story begins in the 1960s, during China’s Cultural Revolution, and moves decades into the future. Translator Ken Liu provides a few short footnotes to help western readers understand the cultural context. Even without additional explanations, it’s easy enough to grasp the premise of the book. How would humans, individually and as a society, react to news of alien creatures on their way to colonize our planet? Continue reading “Read Harder 2019: A Book by an Author of Color Set in or About Space”
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