My LINKcat AccountI believe Booky, the library's prognosticating Badger was correct. Spring has arrived early and seems somewhat determined to stay even with basketball playoffs looming in the not-to-distant future. The leading indicator of spring for me is the return of the red-winged blackbirds. I noticed them on the afternoon of Friday, the 6th which is about a week earlier than last year's arrival. Another indicator of spring is the end of the Winter Reading Program. True, it ended on February 28th, but all the tallying wasn't done until now. I shall now regale you with those rather impressive numbers. 139 participants logged a total of 7, 256 books! They also completed 368 activities, wrote 68 reviews, and earned 1,467 prizes. Some of those prizes included dragon dollars that were donated to one of three charities. Dragon dollars which I committed personally to change into U.S. dollars. During this Winter Reading Program $335 were donated to the DeForest Area Public Library's endowment fund; $315 to the Dane County Humane Society; and $288 to the DeForest Area Needs Network (D.A.N.N.). I shall be making those donations in the not-too-distant future. In the meantime, books in the publishers' spring lists continue to arrive. Below you will find a sampling of few of the new titles which have recently arrived. Enjoy!
New Non-Fiction
“The Age of Football: Soccer and the 21st Century” by David Goldblatt. The "Game of Our Lives" podcaster and author of the best-selling The Ball Is Round presents a wide-reaching exploration of soccer and society that charts the sport's global cultural ascent, economic transformation and deep politicization.
“Animalkind: Remarkable Discoveries About Animals and the Remarkable Ways We Can Be Kind to Them” by Ingrid Newkirk & Gene Stone. The founder and president of PETA and a bestselling author pair their tour of the astounding lives of animals with a guide to the exciting new tools that allow humans to avoid using or abusing animals as we once did.
“The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis” by Christiana Figueres & Tom Rivett-Carnac. In a cautionary but optimistic book, the architects of the 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement tackle arguably the most urgent and consequential challenge humankind has ever faced: the world’s changing climate and the fate of humanity.
“Brain Wash: Detox Your Mind for Clearer Thinking, Deeper Relationships, and Lasting Happiness” by David & Austin Perlmutter. The #1 New York Times best-selling author of Grain Brain and his son, also a medical doctor, explore how modern culture threatens to rewire our brains and damage our health, offering a practical plan for healing.
“A Delayed Life: The True Story of the Librarian of Auschwitz” by Dita Kraus. A Holocaust survivor and the real-life Librarian of Auschwitz finally tells the riveting story of her harrowing life.
“John Adams Under Fire: The Founding Father’s Fight for Justice in the Boston Massacre Murder Trial” by Dan Abrams & David Fisher. The best-selling authors of Lincoln's Last Trial draw on the second American President's spoken words and trial transcripts in an account of John Adams's future-risking agreement to represent British soldiers implicated in five colonist murders.
New Fiction
“My Dark Vanessa” by Kate Elizabeth Russell. Asked to help defend an older high school English teacher with whom she had an affair at age 15, Vanessa struggles to choose between her romantic teen illusions and harrowing adult perceptions.
“Careless Whiskers, No. 12 (Cat in the Stacks)” by Miranda James. When his lead-actress daughter is wrongly accused of poisoning a fading, drama-prone actor during a local stage production, Charlie teams up with feline sidekick, Diesel, to identify the true killer.
“A Perfect Explanation” by Eleanor Anstruther. A debut novel based on true events from the author's grandmother's life follows the experiences of an aristocratic woman who abandons her family and life of privilege in search of something to claim as her own.
“Apeirogon” by Colum McCann. Two fathers, a Palestinian and an Israeli, navigate the physical and emotional checkpoints of their conflicted world before devastating losses compel them to work together to use their grief as a weapon for peace. By the best-selling author of “Transatlantic”.
“The Lost Diary of M” by Paul Wolfe. A reimagining of the life of Georgetown socialite Mary Pinchot Meyer traces her marriage to a CIA chief, presidential affair and LSD experiments before her baffling murder a year after JFK's assassination.
“The Night Watchman” by Louise Erdich. A historical novel based on the life of the National Book Award-winning author's grandfather traces the experiences of a Chippewa Council night watchman in mid-19th-century rural North Dakota who fights Congress to enforce Native American treaty rights.
“Sharks in the Time of Saviors” by Kawai Strong Washburn. Folds the legends of Hawai’ian gods into an engrossing family saga; a story of exile and the pursuit of salvation.