Ginger Schweikert is a Columbia, MO author whose debut book is “Columbia Trails: Over 300 miles of Hiking, Biking, and Horsing Around in Mid-Missouri.” It’s a guidebook for hikers, trail runners, bicyclists and equestrians in Mid-Missouri featuring over 300 miles of trails within 30 minutes of Columbia. Born and raised in Columbia, Schweikert has had many jobs and hobbies, including registered nurse, seamstress, circus performer and clothing designer. She was kind enough to take the time to be interviewed via email. Continue reading “Q&A With Ginger Schweikert, Author of “Columbia Trails””
“The Perfect Scoop” contains 200 recipes for ice cream and other frozen desserts including toppings. I especially liked that he provides several options to make homemade ice cream that stays soft in the freezer. I prefer to avoid cooking ice cream mixes, so I’m going to alter most of the recipes, leaving out the eggs and reducing the fat (although these 2 ingredients will improve storage in a home freezer). But there are lots of interesting flavors — so far I only made honey ice cream (leaving out the lavender). I am really interested in trying the sesame seed brittle and the chocolate shell.
Three words that describe this book: ice cream recipes
You might want to pick this book up if: You like to make homemade ice cream.
-Anonymous
This reader review was submitted as part of Adult Summer Reading. We will continue to share reviews throughout the year.
Two simple activities can help your personal pursuit of wellness: journaling and walking. Journaling allows us to explore our thoughts and emotions while walking rejuvenates us physically and mentally. Together, they offer transformative experiences and improved well-being.
Journaling serves as a tool for introspection and provides a space to untangle emotions, understand ourselves better and track personal growth. Whether through free writing or structured prompts, journaling helps us make sense of our experiences and navigate life’s complexities. It can aid in goal-setting and problem-solving, clarifying priorities and devising action plans. Journaling empowers us to turn dreams into reality by tracking progress and envisioning our desired future.
During the six-week process of “Living the Artist’s Way,” participants learn to trust a higher power through daily writing for guidance. In previous works, Julia Cameron taught us to start the day by writing three “morning pages.” In this work, readers learn how to ask for guidance and to trust the answers they receive. Continue reading “Literary Links: Journaling Your Journey”
It’s been over 10 years since “Gone Girl” by Gillian Flynn hit the shelves giving readers a taste of (spoiler alert!) one of the most unreliable narrators ever. In the years since several authors have tried their hand at keeping readers on the edge of their seats using the same technique, some more successfully than others. Here are few I’ve come across recently that I can recommend.
Freida McFadden is one of the hot new authors in the thrillers and suspense genre. I put off giving her a try until recently and am sorry I did. My first venture into her work, “The Coworker,” will certainly not be my last! Dawn Schiff and Natalie Farrell are coworkers who have nothing in common. Dawn is the company accountant and is incredibly detail-oriented and deliberate in her work. She is also quite quirky and a bit of an outcast in the office. Natalie, on the other hand, is the company’s most successful sales rep and highly popular with her colleagues. One day Dawn, who is always punctual and reliable, doesn’t show up at work. Curious, Natalie goes to Dawn’s house and discovers a horrible crime scene. With Dawn presumed murdered, Natalie is soon under suspicion — it turns out that Natalie was quite the bully towards Dawn. I became very caught up in the story’s many twists and turns — and not just because Natalie was not quite what she seems, but because Dawn has some secrets of her own! Continue reading “Who Can You Trust? Books with Unreliable Narrators”
If you don’t normally read high-intensity suspense or thrillers, hold onto your socks (and your passwords) before you pick up the First Thursday Book Discussion book for May.
I listened to Ruth Ware’s “Zero Days,” while I was traveling last weekend. The audiobook was so intense and the narration so convincing that it spilled over into my mental state. Suddenly, I felt like I was on the run instead of just driving myself to the airport. Thinking that this was a little more zest than I needed, I told myself, “I’ll turn it off as soon as I see how she gets out of this jam.”
An hour and several close calls later, I was still listening, and I kept listening.
Suspense is a genre I rarely, if ever, dip my toe into, so this was a big stretch for me — and it was intense. Ware keeps the twists, scrapes and scrambles coming one after another, resulting in a book that is indeed hard to put down or turn off. But that’s not all Ware has in store. Her novel brings some interesting modern dilemmas and issues to the forefront, and if you’re less than fluent in tech terms, you might find yourself learning something, too.
Is Ware the ‘new Agatha Christie,’ as the publisher’s teaser claims?
Read “Zero Days,” and bring your thoughts to the next First Thursday Book Discussion on May 2, at noon in the Children’s Programming Room at the Columbia Public Library.
Here is a new DVD list highlighting various titles recently added to the library’s collection.
“Poor Things” – Website / Reviews
This Oscar nominated film is the tale of a woman brought back to life by a brilliant and unorthodox scientist. Seeking the worldliness she is lacking, Bella runs off on a whirlwind adventure across the continents.
“The Color Purple” – Website / Reviews
Based on the stage musical of the same name, which in turn draws inspiration from Alice Walker’s 1982 novel, this film is a decades-spanning tale of one woman’s journey to independence.
“Dream Scenario” – Website / Reviews
In this comedic drama, an ordinary family man (Nicholas Cage) finds his life turned upside down when millions of strangers suddenly see him in their dreams and his newfound stardom takes a nightmarish turn.
“Immediate Family” – Website / Reviews
From the director of “The Wrecking Crew,” this documentary follows legendary 1970s session musicians who found success while performing with iconic singers Phil Collins, James Taylor, Carole King and others.
“Dreaming Whilst Black” – Season 1 – Website / Reviews
A comedy series that follows an aspiring London filmmaker trapped in his recruitment job. When an old friend fixes him an opportunity, he must decide between going all in or giving up his dream entirely.
Continue reading “New DVD List: April 2024”
“History is written by the victors.”
-Winston Churchill (attributed)
What If… ?
The hallmark of sapience, from which we derive our taxonomic name homo sapiens, is hypothesis. The ability to plot possible effects from our choices is the greatest strength our enlarged frontal lobe grants us; to be able to plan for possibilities allows us to be proactive rather than relying on instinctual reaction. This intellectual capability leads to planning, planning leads to action, and the possible futures collapse into the single arc of cause and effect that makes up history.
Of course, this forethought can also be turned retrograde; it is a preeminent preoccupation of a hypothetical mind not to wonder about what has happened, but what could have happened. For most of the choices we make throughout life, though, this question is moot, as we cannot change what has already happened. Yet, we still delight in (or, perhaps, dread) this retroactive hypothesis to the point that there is an entire niche of stories that spans across fantasy, science fiction, and historical fiction that speculates on this very idea. What if we had, like Robert Frost’s much-misread poem, taken that road less traveled by? Continue reading “The Roads Less Traveled: A Survey of Speculative Fiction’s Alternate Histories”
This is the ninth Unbound Book Festival that Columbia has hosted and the festival keeps getting better and better. Emily St. John Mandel will be this year’s keynote speaker Friday, April 19, 2024 at The Missouri Theatre at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are available through Unbound’s website and are, thankfully, free — as is the entire festival. Mandel is the author of our past 2015 One Read title, “Station Eleven” which was a finalist for a National Book award and a Pen/Faulkner award and won the 2015 Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Toronto Book Award, and the Morning News Tournament of Books. It has also been made into an HBO mini-series. Mandel’s newest book is “Sea of Tranquility” which will take you on a journey across the Atlantic by steamship, across the Canadian wilderness, around the world, and to the moon. Continue reading “Unbound Book Festival: April 18-21, 2024”
Below I’m highlighting some nonfiction books coming out in April. All of the mentioned titles are available to put on hold in our catalog and will also be made available via the library’s Overdrive website on the day of publication in eBook and downloadable audiobook format (as available). For a more extensive list of new nonfiction books coming out this month, check our online catalog.
Top Picks
“The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook” by Hampton Sides (Apr 9)
On July 12, 1776, Captain James Cook, already lionized as the greatest explorer in British history, set off on his third voyage in his ship the HMS Resolution. Two-and-a-half years later, on a beach on the island of Hawaii, Cook was killed in a conflict with native Hawaiians. How did Cook, who was unique among captains for his respect for Indigenous peoples and cultures, come to that fatal moment? Hampton Sides’ bravura account of Cook’s last journey both wrestles with Cook’s legacy and provides a thrilling narrative of the titanic efforts and continual danger that characterized exploration in the 1700s. Cook was renowned for his peerless seamanship, his humane leadership, and his dedication to science — the famed naturalist Joseph Banks accompanied him on his first voyage, and Cook has been called one of the most important figures of the Age of Enlightenment. He was also deeply interested in the native people he encountered. In fact, his stated mission was to return a Tahitian man, Mai, who had become the toast of London, to his home islands. On previous expeditions, Cook mapped huge swaths of the Pacific, including the east coast of Australia, and initiated first European contact with numerous peoples. He treated his crew well, and endeavored to learn about the societies he encountered with curiosity and without judgment. Yet something was different on this last voyage. Cook became mercurial, resorting to the lash to enforce discipline, and led his two vessels into danger time and again. Uncharacteristically, he ordered violent retaliation for perceived theft on the part of native peoples. This may have had something to do with his secret orders, which were to chart and claim lands before Britain’s imperial rivals could, and to discover the fabled Northwest Passage. Whatever Cook’s intentions, his scientific efforts were the sharp edge of the colonial sword, and the ultimate effects of first contact were catastrophic for Indigenous people around the world. The tensions between Cook’s overt and covert missions came to a head on the shores of Hawaii. His first landing there was harmonious, but when Cook returned after mapping the coast of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, his exploitative treatment of the Hawaiians led to the fatal encounter. Continue reading “Nonfiction Roundup: April 2024”
…for reading this blog; for being here, on the library’s website, for including us in your knowledge-seeking journeys, for participating in our community of library people, for sticking with me through this long-winded sentence… for trusting that I will eventually get to a point — one that will add value to your day, that will be worth the read (I will do my best); for engaging with the library’s content (We have so much to share with you!), for allowing us to be part of your lives, in ways big and small. Thank you!
When’s the last time you wrote a thank you note? Maybe it was after a gathering, to thank people for their attendance or gifts. Maybe it was for work, as was the case for Gina Hamadey, whose story starts when she was tasked with handwriting individual thank you notes to fundraiser donors. Hamadey experienced something interesting while writing those notes: “I felt hopeful, optimistic, and present — a mood that would carry into my day.” She found the process so uplifting that she didn’t stop at the end of the work assignment. Instead she made a goal: to write one thank you note every day for a year, to incorporate gratitude into her life in a lasting way. So she did! And then she wrote a book about it: “I Want to Thank You: How a Year of Gratitude Can Bring Joy and Meaning in a Disconnected World.” Continue reading “I Want to Thank You”
