My LINKcat AccountThe Summer Reading Program began on Thursday, June 6th and what a kick off it was! Gee Funny Farm brought all sorts of animals which (mostly) could be handled or petted by the public. There was a sheep (who looked like it needed shearing), a miniature horse, a porcupine, a chocolate-morph skunk (descented), an armadillo, ducklings, a cockatoo, an African gray parrot, and a sloth. The sloth, named Abish, was the star of the show. Due to the cold weather conditions (she needs temperatures to be at least 75-- she does come from equatorial rainforests, after all) she was in the story hour room with a couple of space heaters. At least 600 folks stop by to see Abish, pet her on the back, and take pictures with her. The lines were reminiscent of the lines we have for Santa. Indeed, I started calling her Santa Sloth, but she didn’t seem to like that name. Now that the Summer Reading Program is officially underway, please start checking out books, reading them, and logging them. There are badges to be earned, community challenges to help meet, and dragon dollars to be gotten. Remember, those dragon dollars can be spent in the library’s store or be put towards one of three charities -- The Dane County Humane Society, the DeForest Area Needs Network, and the Library’s Endowment Fund. I will convert those dragon dollars and make a donation to the charity. Programs that are part of the summer reading fun are already underway. Concerts at the Rocks began this week and continue at 1 p.m. every Tuesday through July 2nd. There are many activities throughout the week to attend. Check out the calendar on the library website for more details. In the meantime, below you will find some of the books which recently arrived at the library. Enjoy! And remember, as the summer reading theme says, “Adventure Begins at the Library”.
New Non-Fiction
“Patton’s Prayer: A True Story of Courage, Faith, and Victory in World War II” by Alex Kershaw. The “New York Times” bestselling author of “Against All Odds” takes us back to December 1944 where General George Patton, a devout Christian in desperate need of a miracle, printed and distributed a prayer to the 250,000 men under his command to help turn the tide of the war.
“Left For Dead: Shipwreck, Treachery, and Survival at the Edge of the World” by Eric Jay Dolin. A best-selling and award-winning maritime historian presents this true story of five castaways –three British sailors and two Americans—abandoned on the Falkland Islands for a year and a during the War of 1812, showing individuals in wartime under great duress acting both nobly and atrociously as they struggle to survive.
“The Situation Room: The Inside Story of Presidents in Crisis” by George Stephanopoulos with Lisa Dickey. A former senior advisor to President Clinton, and for more than 20 years, the anchor of “This Week” and the co-anchor of “Good Morning America”, takes us into the White House Situation Room, the epicenter of crisis management where decisions are made that affect the lives of every person on this planet.
“Voices From Gettysburg: Letters, Papers, and Memoirs from the Greatest Battle of the Civil War” by Allen Guelzo. America’s foremost Civil War scholar collects powerful and rare original documents, many never-before published, to create an inventive day-by-day eyewitness account of the Battle of Gettysburg in the words of the commanders, soldiers, politicians and civilizations from both the North and the South who witnessed the changing course of the Civil War firsthand.
New Fiction
“Last House” by Jessica Shattuck. Spanning multiple generations and nearly 80 years, this emotional tour de force follows one American family, during the radical movement of the 1968 against Big Oil, as they are forced to reckon with the consequences of the resource that built their fortune and fueled their greatest tragedy.
“The Passionate Tudor: A Novel of Queen Mary I” by Alison Weir. Allowed to return to court as King Henry VIII’s default heir after being declared a bastard, Mary, the first female queen to rule Britain, embarks on a ruthless campaign to force Catholicism on the English by burning hundreds of Protestants at the stake, earning her the name Bloody Mary.
“The Shadow of War: A Novel of the Cuban Missile Crisis” by Jeff Shaara. From a best-selling author comes the story of rising conflict between the super-powers that gripped the world, a global war that almost happened: The Cuban Missile Crisis.
“Goddess of the River” by Vaishnavi Patel. A powerful reimagining of the story of Ganga, goddess of the river, and her doomed mortal son.
“The Lost Letters of Martha’s Vineyard” by Michael Callahan. A novel about two women bound by blood but divided by a long-buried secret and about the island that holds the key to the fateful summer that changed everything forever.
“The Stolen Child” by Ann Hood. An unlikely duo ventures through France and Italy to solve the mystery of a child’s fate.
“Disturbing the Dead, No. 3 (Tip Through Time Novels)” by Kelley Armstrong. A modern-day homicide detective trapped in the body of an 1860s housemaid investigates when the body discovered in an unwrapped mummy is not very old, in the third novel of the series following “The Poisoner's Ring”.
“The Last Hope (Maggie Hope)” by Susan Ella MacNeal. Ordered by British Intelligence to assassinate the physicist behind Nazi Germany’s nuclear program, Maggie Hope teams up with couturier and spy Coco Chanel, but as the war reaches a fever pitch and the stakes keep rising, the choices she makes will reverberate around the globe and touch everyone she loves.
“First Frost, No.20 (Longmire Mysteries)” by Craig Johnson. Sheriff Walt Longmire tries to manage his increasingly complicated personal life while staving off the violent underworld that is encroaching on the Old West in the twentieth novel of the series following “The Longmire Defense”.
“Lights, Camera, Bones” by Carolyn Haines. When the heir to a wealthy and influential political family in Greenville, MS, goes missing while filming his family’s heroic efforts during the 1927 flood, Sarah Booth and Tinkie, when a severed foot is found, must discover if this is a freak bull shark attack or a killer with a bite.