My LINKcat AccountWe are in the second full week of June and counting down to a couple of what-have-come-to-be-traditional summer events. Those two "events" would be better characterized as series. The Concerts in the Park (Fireman's) series starts on Tuesday, June 11th with the Madison Wind Ensemble (I hope I am not your only source for information about library events since, if you were depending on me you would have missed the first concert! Apologies.) followed by the Prairie Thunder Cloggers on June 18th, and Mr. Steve, Master Facilitator of Fun, on June 25th. This will get you through the month of June as far Concerts in the Park are concerned and hopefully get you checking our website or following us on Facebook or Twitter or, a really radical idea, coming into the library and picking up a flyer or bookmark with all this information on it! The second series is Movies in the Park (Fireman's) which also starts this week. The June movies - start this Friday, June 14th at dusk, with "Escape from Planet Earth". On June 21st the movie will be "Madagascar 3" and Beverly Hills Chihuahuas 3 will be shown on June 28th. More information about the rest of both series which go into the first week of August with a little break around the 4th of July is available at the library, on the library's website, on Facebook and Twitter, and on posters around town. Hope to see you all at these many events. These events are made possible through sponsorships. While waiting for all this free entertainment to come your way, there are lots of good books arriving almost daily at the library. Below are just a few titles available for your reading enjoyment. Check them out!
New Non-Fiction
High price : a neuroscientist's journey of self-discovery that challenges everything you know about drugs and society by Carl Hart. A groundbreaking neuroscientist, who, escaping a life of crime and drugs, helps to save the lives of addicts, examines the relationship between drugs and pleasure, choice and motivation, shedding new light on common ideas about race, poverty and drugs and why current policies are failing.
The tao of Martha : my year of LIVING, or why I'm never getting all that glitter off of the dog / by Jen Lancaster. Searching for domestic bliss, the "New York Times" best-selling author of "Jeneration X" embraces the word of Martha Stewart and attempts to follow her in all things, from closet organization to stain removal, to laughably disastrous results.
Straight flush : the true story of six college friends who dealt their way to a billion-dollar online poker empire-- and how it all came crashing down / by Ben Mezrich. Follows a group of hard-partying frat brothers who turned a weekly poker game in the basement of a local Missoula bar into one of the largest online poker companies in the world--and who became fugitives on the run after the Feds shut down their operation.
Act of Congress : how America's essential institution works, and how it doesn't / by Robert Kaiser. Revealing the inner workings of congress, a longtime "Washington Post" reporter documents the dramatic journey of a financial reform bill in the wake of the 2008 economic collapse by focusing on two of the major players behind the legislation--Congressman Barney Frank and Senator Christopher Dodd.
Last train to Zona Verde : my ultimate African safari / by Paul Theroux. An acclaimed travel writer and novelist describes his journey across Africa, from Cape Town to Cape Province and into Namibia, riding elephants, meeting Bushmen and discussing the changes that have taken place since his first visit 50 years ago.
Whole : rethinking the science of nutrition / by T. Colin Campbell. Picking up where "The China Study" left off, this fascinating journey through cutting-edge thinking on nutrition answers why a whole-food, plant-based diet provides optimal nutrition and demonstrates how far the scientific reductionism of the nutrition orthodoxy has gotten off track.
New Fiction
Zero hour / by Clive Cussler & Graham Brown. When a scientist discovers a possible way to tap an unlimited energy source using machines that cause massive earthquakes, Kurt Austin, Joe Zavala and their NUMA teammates race against time to locate the scientist's machines underground and in a vast ocean trench to prevent catastrophic disasters.
The fall of Arthur / by J.R.R. Tolkien & Christopher Tolkien, editor. The beloved author of the high fantasy works "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings" delves into the legend of King Arthur in an epic, but unfinished, poem written in Old English alliterative meter.
Earth Afire : the first formic war / by Orson Scott Card. Traces the events of the First Formic War a century before the events of "Ender's Game", following the unsuccessful attempt of Victor Delgado to warn skeptical Earth governments of an imminent alien invasion and the efforts of Mazer Rackham and the Mobile Operations Police to meet unprecedented threats.
Bad monkey / by Carl Hiaasen. Anticipating his retirement from the Key West Police, Andrew Yancy tackles a murder case involving a human arm in his freezer, an investigation that pits him against a twitchy widow, a clueless real estate developer and a voodoo witch with a string of hapless lovers. By the best-selling author of "Star Island".
Ladies night : a novel / by Mary Kay Andrews. Cut off from her palatial home and checking account after an act of post-divorce rage forces her to move in with her widowed mother and attend court-mandated group therapy, rising media star Grace Stanton bonds with three fellow patients who she helps plot respective pursuits of justice and closure.
Norwegian by night / by Derek Miller. After witnessing a murder in Olso, elderly former Marine sniper and watch repairman, Sheldon Horrowitz , flees to safety with the newly orphaned son of the victim and becomes haunted by memories of his own son who died in Vietnam.
We need new names : a novel / by NoViolet Bulawayo. Follows 10-year-old Zimbabwe native, Darling, as she escapes the closed schools and paramilitary police control of her homeland in search of opportunity and freedom with an aunt in America.
Beautiful fools : the last affair of Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald : a novel / by R. Clifton Spargo. A meticulously detailed story inspired by the passionate but dysfunctional relationship between F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald is set in 1939 and follows a virulently alcoholic and indebted Scott's endeavors to heal his fractured marriage to Zelda throughout a dangerously intense trip to Cuba.