Here is a new DVD list highlighting various titles recently added to the library’s collection.
“Faces Places”
Website / Reviews
This Oscar-nominated documentary showed earlier this year at Ragtag Cinema and focuses on two unique French artists. 89-year old Agnes Varda, one of the leading figures of the French New Wave, and 33-year-old French photographer and muralist JR team up to co-direct this enchanting road movie. Together the artists travel and meet locals in French villages, learning their stories and produce epic-size portraits of them. Continue reading “New DVD List: Faces Places, Handmaid’s Tale & More”
The ability to manage debt and make good financial decisions can have a lasting impact on our lives, and yet many Americans struggle with financial literacy. Each stage of life, from starting a new career, to beginning life with a new baby or contemplating retirement can take a different financial toll. For that reason, financial literacy is something we have to work on throughout our lives. April is designated as Financial Literacy Month in this country and would be a good time to visit the library for a wide variety of books on the topic that can help no matter what stage you’re at financially.
Author John Bryant acknowledges that building financial stability when you start in an impoverished state can seem impossible. He shares the lessons he learned on his own journey out of poverty in “The Memo: Five Rules for Your Economic Liberation.” Bryant explores how a person’s inner capital works in combination with their life’s outer situation to bring them to financial success or failure. Inner capital includes your own knowledge, personal relationships and drive, and it can ultimately shape how you handle situations. Bryant advises readers on how to build inner capital to work through roadblocks that life and society can place in our way.
Continue reading “Literary Links: Financial Literacy”
I may be a little weird (aren’t we all?), but I tend to read a lot of nonfiction, and I actually love reading essays. I don’t usually make the time to sit down with a magazine to read the articles, but it seems different to me if they are collected in a book format. I also find college essay anthologies to be appealing because I can just skim (or skip) the ones I’m not particularly interested in and linger over the ones I like. And if I need to put it down and walk away for a while, it’s easy to come back to later.
If you are participating in the Read Harder 2018 Challenge, task #22 read an essay anthology, and here are some of my favorites:
“The Fire Next Time” by James Baldwin is a classic and is just as relevant today as it was when he wrote it in 1963. I love reading and listening to James Baldwin. I have seen interviews with him that just floored me. It’s a small book of a letters to Baldwin’s nephew and an essay on America’s “racial nightmare.” Continue reading “Read Harder Essay Anthologies”
Editor’s note: This review was submitted by a library patron during the 2017 Adult Summer Reading program. We will continue to periodically share some of these reviews throughout the year.
“H is for Hawk” is a book about the inner world of the author. Helen Macdonald opens herself up deeply and honestly. She talks about many different things (including the process of taming her hawk, Mabel), but everything she talks about is deeply processed by her soul, as if she is constantly searching for meaning in things — even when she talks about landscapes and trees. This way of approaching life was probably intensified by the death of her very much loved father. The loss felt so intense that things lost meaning and “nothing made sense.” Everything had to be reprocessed, the world brought from ashes, a new world, where her father physically doesn’t exist. Even though Helen’s speculations about death look to me as “Death 101” level, it was very interesting to listen. Nothing is shallow or artificial in this book. And, of course, the main thing of this book is just a detailed description of falconry, which was a kind of “outside the box” reading for me and very interesting.
Also, in the course of the book, the writer is connecting to another writer of the past, who wrote about his story of goshawk training. This kind of connection feels to me as time bending, connecting past to the future to a point of melting. A similar kind of thing was described in the book “The Goldfinch” by Donna Tartt and is a very unique way to experience life.
Three words that describe this book: Honest, deep, interesting
You might want to pick this book up if: You are tired of dystopias.
-Larisa
There are so many exciting debuts that came out in March that it was difficult to decide which ones to highlight. If you’re interested in the longer list please visit our catalog.
“Tangerine” by Christine Mangan
After the death of her first husband, Alice escapes her past by marrying again and accompanying her new husband to Tangier, Morocco in the early 1950s. But her past finds her again when her former best friend and college roommate Lucy shows up in Tangier.
Upon learning that Alice is unhappy in her new marriage, Lucy is determined to reestablish her relationship — and her control — over fragile Alice, who she had obsessively loved in college. As Lucy begins to manipulate Alice, more about their tragic past is revealed and it’s hinted that an equally tragic future may be in store for them.
Movie rights have already been sold with George Clooney set to produce and Scarlett Johansson to star as Alice. Continue reading “Debut Author Spotlight: March 2018”
Here is a quick look at the most noteworthy nonfiction titles being released in April. Visit our catalog for a more extensive list.
TOP PICKS
The Apollo 8 mission is the subject of “Rocket Men” by Robert Kurson. Less well known than the later Apollos 11 and 13, this 1968 voyage into space marked the first time mankind orbited the moon. Set against the backdrop of a country in turmoil and a tense race against the USSR, Kurson tells the riveting story of Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders, three astronauts who dared to go where no one had gone before. Continue reading “Nonfiction Roundup: April 2018”
March is Women’s History Month, and what better way to celebrate than to read books with awesome female characters?! For those of you participating in Book Riot’s 2018 Read Harder challenge, this could be the perfect time to check off task #23: a book with a female protagonist over the age of 60. I highlight here a few books featuring female characters “of a certain age,” some who have made history, others who have been there to bear witness to it.
Now, the term protagonist is most frequently used to refer to the central character of a fictional text, but can be used more broadly to refer to prominent figures in real contexts. I just had to make use of this latter definition to include “Grandma Gatewood’s Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail.” At age 67, Emma Gatewood told her family that she was going for a walk; surely they assumed she’d be taking a leisurely stroll around the block. Nope! Gatewood’s walk was the entire length of the Appalachian Trail, and she became the first woman to complete this journey solo. Becoming something of a hiking celebrity, she later was the first person to walk the trail twice, and then three times. Talk about determination! Continue reading “Books With Female Protagonists Over Age 60: Read Harder 2018”
Cities can inspire hopes and dreams, so it’s no surprise that they also can inspire fantasy lives as well. This collection of documentaries offers up a unique blend of facts and fantasies involving cities in Canada.
“Seth’s Dominion” (2016)
Director Luc Chamberland sheds light on the cartoonist Seth, mixing insightful biography with vivid animation and exploring his model city named Dominion that Seth has been building for the last 10 years. In this deft portrait, Seth proves to be a wry and engaging narrator of his life story and artistic process. Continue reading “Northern Lights: Docs Featuring Canadian Cities”
March is Women’s History Month, but here at the Know Your Dystopias underground bunker I am always looking to the future — the depressing, bleak future. So I will recognize this occasion with a roundup of (mostly) recent contributions to dystopian lit written by women that specifically envision what the future might hold for women. During these “history months” we are supposed to reflect on the lessons of the past, and the past 
informs the present. Dystopian literature is often inspired or informed by the past, but it is ultimately about the present. As Margaret Atwood said in a recent interview, “Prophecies are really about now. In science fiction it’s always about now.”
Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” is a story about subjugated women in a patriarchal society. The book was published 33 years ago, but is still an essential read in this genre because of both its lasting influence and continued relevance. A television adaptation premiered last year and won critical praise and awards. The story is about the former United States of America — now the Republic of Gilead — where a religious military dictatorship rules based on judicial laws from the Old Testament. Women’s rights have been removed, and a class of women known as “handmaids” are kept exclusively for reproductive purposes. The book primarily follows a handmaid named Offred, and the reader learns about this world through her experiences. Continue reading “Know Your Dystopias: Women’s History Month Edition”
Everyone has a favorite type of book … it could be the genre, a certain style of writing, a particular setting or book theme. The Read Harder Challenge asks you to step out of your comfort zone (or as I like to call it — my rut) and try a different type of book. One of the challenges is to read the first book in a new-to-you young adult or juvenile series — a collection that I have never been drawn to, except for Harry Potter, of course! (Don’t ask me how many times I have read those books!) I have selected a few for you to try out. You can also look at the list in our catalog for other options.
Whether or not you are a fan of fantasy, Maggie Stiefvater’s first novel in the Raven Cycle series is sure to please. 
One of my struggles with fantasy is often the characters don’t seem believable. However, it was easy for me to connect with Stiefvater’s characters and the plot line in the first book of the series, “The Raven Boys.” Blue, the main character, comes from a family of clairvoyants with her only talent being that she can increase the gifts of others with her special energy. The story takes off when she meets Gansey and his group of friends who attend a private boy’s school in town. She is drawn to Gansey and his quest to find a specific ley line to the resting place of Glendower. It is rumored that if he wakes Glendower one wish will be granted. Also central to the story is Blue’s curse: if she kisses her true love he will die, which makes her attraction for Gansey fraught with tension. Continue reading “YA and Middle Grade Book Series: Read Harder Challenge 2018”
