In our Today In History Reading List feature, we take the events of a particular day in history and try to give you a work of fiction and a work of non-fiction relating to those events. 1685 James Scott Duke of Monmouth declares himself King sparking the Monmouth Rebellion James Scott was Charles II’s illegitimate…
I have a vague recollection of watching the Academy Award-winning film adaptation of this novel, possibly on television, and possibly not all the way through, start to finish, but certainly a long time ago. Likely it was for the best that I did not seek out the novel at that time; I wouldn’t have appreciated…
The Peabody Institute of Danvers not only has superhero graphic novels, but a growing collection of non-fiction titles. These books use sequential art to make complex topics more accessible. They work especially well with reluctant readers. Make no mistake; these books are complex, funny, and smart. Several of the titles have even made it onto…
Sometimes you can judge a book by its cover. The cover was the main reason I picked up Buckley’s The Judge Hunter a couple of weeks ago. The parrot and the feel of the dust jacket just sucked me right in and it really paid off. The Judge Hunter is set in 1664 after the…
Summary: Once upon a time, Beatrice and her five best friends were the cool kids, the beautiful ones. Then the shocking death of Jim changed everything. One year after graduation, Beatrice is returning to Wincroft hoping she’ll get to the bottom of Jim’s death. But as the night plays out in a haze of stilted…
These new titles and many more will be available in the Teen Room. Neverworld Wake – Marisha Pessl “Once upon a time, back at Darrow-Harker School, Beatrice Hartley and her five best friends were the cool kids, the beautiful ones. Then the shocking death of Jim–their creative genius and Beatrice’s boyfriend–changed everything. One year after…
Summary: In the fall of 2010, Abby Norman was repeatedly hospitalized in excruciating pain, but doctors insisted it was a urinary tract infection and sent her home with antibiotics. Norman ultimately dropped out of college and embarked on what would become a years-long journey to discover what was wrong with her, and it wasn’t until she…
Picture this: you’re a shy high school student who suddenly receives an invitation to a 3 day long party on an island, hosted by your school’s most popular students. Things start out well enough but then slowly the people around you start dying in the most suspicious of ways. What a terrifying nightmare, right? Well…
Books have a way of finding me. I don’t really ever have a moment when I don’t know what to read. I have moments when I can’t decided between the plethora of options I have to read. The Roads to Sata is a good example of books finding me. A few weeks ago I came…
In our Today In History Reading List feature, we take the events of a particular day in history and try to give you a work of fiction and a work of non-fiction relating to those events. 1430 Joan of Arc Captured by the Burgundians During the Hundred Years War, Burgundians, allied with the English, laid…
“Is vocabulary destiny? Why do clocks “talk” to the Nahua people of Mexico? Will A.I. researchers ever produce true human-machine dialogue? In this mesmerizing collection of essays, Daniel Tammet answers these and many other questions about the intricacy and profound power of language. In Every Word Is a Bird We Teach to Sing, Tammet goes…
A small sample of the many new history book titles arriving at the library in June The Secret Token: Myth, Obsession, and the Search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke by Andrew Lawler A sweeping account of a four-hundred-year-old mystery, the archeologists racing to unearth the answer, and what the Lost Colony reveals about America–from…
“In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child–not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power–the power of witchcraft, which can transform…
April showers bring May flowers. This year April and May bring four new Roleplaying games to the Peabody Institute of Danvers. Call of Cthulhu, a horror RPG with strong ties to the New England Area. FATE, a unique rules light system that focuses on the narrative of the game. Monster of the Week, another rules…
Jeffery Cox’s Morning Star, Midnight Sun is what I tend to think of as a “learning curve” study. A campaign, in this case the Guadalcanal campaign, or a theater of operations is presented to the reader as a bit of a shambles and then we watch as the participants slowly work out how to fight…
These new titles and many more will be available in the Teen Room. On the Come Up – Angie Thomas “Sixteen-year-old Bri wants to be one of the greatest rappers of all time. Or at least get some streams on her mixtape. As the daughter of an underground rap legend who died right before he…
“In 1965 writer-activist-monk Thomas Merton fulfilled a twenty-four-year dream and went to live as a hermit beyond the walls of his Trappist monastery. Seven months later, after a secret romance with a woman half his age, he was in danger of losing it all. Yet on the very day that his abbot uncovered the affair,…
Long before the specter of terrorism haunted the public imagination, a serial bomber stalked the streets of 1950s New York. The race to catch him would give birth to a new science called criminal profiling. The most interesting chapter of Incendiary: The Psychiatrist, the Mad Bomber, and the Invention of Criminal Profiling was its epilogue, when…
“Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers and Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley are forced to confront the past as they try to solve a crime that threatens to tear apart the very fabric of a quiet, historic medieval town in England The cozy, bucolic town of Ludlow is stunned when one of its most revered and respected citizens–Ian…
Collected Poems in English – Joseph Brodsky “One of the greatest and grandest advocates of the literary vocation, Joseph Brodsky truly lived his life as a poet, and for it earned eighteen months in an Arctic labor camp, expulsion from his native country, and the Nobel Prize in Literature. Such were one man’s wages. Here,…
“Ernt Allbright, a former POW, comes home from the Vietnam war a changed and volatile man. When he loses yet another job, he makes an impulsive decision: he will move his family north, to Alaska, where they will live off the grid in America’s last true frontier. Thirteen-year-old Leni, a girl coming of age in…
“Selected by Ross Gay as winner of the inaugural Jake Adam York Prize, Analicia Sotelo’s debut collection of poems is a vivid portrait of the artist as a young woman. In Virgin, Sotelo walks the line between autobiography and mythmaking, offering up identities like dishes at a feast. These poems devour and complicate tropes of femininity―of…
Hillary Clinton reveals what she was thinking and feeling during one of the most controversial and unpredictable presidential elections in history. Free from the constraints of running, she speaks about the challenges of being a strong woman in the public eye; the criticism over her voice, age, and appearance; and the double standard confronting women…
Collected Poems – Edna St. Vincent Millay’ “Alongside Robert Frost, T.S. Eliot, Marianne Moore, and E. E. Cummings, Millay remains among the most celebrated poets of the early twentieth century for her uniquely lyrical explorations of love, individuality, and artistic expression. This invaluable compendium of her work is not only an essential addition to any…
Winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize * Poet Laureate of the United States * * A New York Times Notable Book of 2011 and New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice * * A New Yorker, Library Journal and Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year * “With allusions to David Bowie and interplanetary travel, Life on Mars imagines a soundtrack for the universe to…
“That’s what great poetry is. A superb serenity in the face of chaos. Wise enough to play the fool.” [From “Reading Philosophy at Night”] “The poem is an attempt at self-recovery, self-recognition, self-remembering, the marvel of being again.” [From “Notes on Poetry and Philosophy”] “Good poetry has never swerved from its purpose as an inexhaustible…
So one Saturday I was emptying the book drop and Claire North’s The End of the Day was on the top of the pile of books. I looked at the dust jacket and thought it sounded intriguing. There was work to be done though so I checked it in and put it on the shelving…
Selected Poems – Thom Gunn “Thom Gunn was an Elizabethan poet in modern guise, though there’s nothing archaic, quaint, or sepia-toned about his poetry. His method was dispassionate and rigorous, uniquely well suited for making a poetic record of the tumultuous time in which he lived. Gunn’s dozens of brilliantly realized poems about nature, friendship,…
Ready Player One is generating a lot of 80s nostalgia. And we’ve got the solution. Fiction King, Stephen Cujo Summary: Outside a peaceful town in central Maine, a monster is waiting. Cujo is a two-hundred-pound Saint Bernard, the best friend Brett Camber has ever had. One day Cujo chases a rabbit into a bolt-hole –…
“This highly-anticipated debut boldly confronts addiction and courses the strenuous path of recovery, beginning in the wilds of the mind. Poems confront craving, control, the constant battle of alcoholism and sobriety, and the questioning of the self and its instincts within the context of this never-ending fight.” Kaveh Akbar shares and recommends poetry on Twitter,…
These new titles and many more will be available in the Teen Room. Dread Nation – Justina Ireland “Jane McKeene was born two days before the dead began to walk the battlefields of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania—derailing the War Between the States and changing the nation forever. In this new America, safety for all depends on the…
Poems – Elizabeth Bishop “Elizabeth Bishop is one of America’s greatest writers, and her art is loved and admired by readers and fellow poets alike. The poems that make up Bishop’s small and select body of work display honesty and humor, grief and acceptance, observing nature and human nature with painstaking accuracy. Her poems often…
A Little Book on Form: An Exploration into the Formal Imagination of Poetry – Robert Haas “From the former U.S. Poet Laureate, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winner, an illuminating dissection of poetic form, traditional and modern, for students, enthusiasts, and newcomers alike In addition to his magisterial poetry, Robert Hass is beloved for his…
A small sample of the many new history book titles arriving at the library in April Patriot Number One: American Dreams in Chinatown by Lauren Hilgers. “Nearly three years ago, journalist Lauren Hilgers received an unexpected call. Hello, Lauren! a man shouted in halting Mandarin. We might be seeing you in New York again soon! The voice belonged to…
Genre Blending (also called Genre Crossing, Genre Mixing, Cross-Genre) is when an author mixes together aspects of two or more genre styles in the same work. In this case Historical Fiction, SciFi or Fantasy. That’s my rather simplistic definition of Genre Blending. I can’t decide if there have been more of these books coming out…
Do you know what it’s like to be kept a secret? Do you know how it feels to hide part of your identity from the world? For Tanner Scott and Sebastian Brother, this is just part of their daily lives as they navigate the intricacies of living in Provo, Utah, a town comprised mainly of…
In our Today In History Reading List feature, we take the events of a particular day in history and try to give you a work of fiction and a work of non-fiction relating to those events. 44BC Julius Caesar Murdered Yes it is the Ides of March! Julius Caesar, then dictator of Rome after the…
“From award-winning, New York Times bestselling author Kelly Barnhill comes a stunning first collection of acclaimed short fictions, teeming with uncanny characters whose stories unfold in worlds at once strikingly human and eerily original. When Mrs. Sorensen’s husband dies, she rekindles a long-dormant love with an unsuitable mate in “Mrs. Sorensen and the Sasquatch.” In…
In honor of Women’s History Month we offer a selection of books of Historical Fiction and History featuring women. These books are located on our Read This Book Display in the library and many others in our Fiction and Non-fiction collections. Historical Fiction Jump to Non-Fiction History Thomas, Sherry A conspiracy in Belgravia Summary:Being shunned…
One of my main literary pleasures is pulp fiction, the serialized magazines from the early 20th century. Printed on cheap paper, pulps comprised one of the larger popular literature movements in the United States. At only ten cents an issue the demand for these periodicals far outstripped the supply. While they touched on most genres,…
Did you know that there is a debate going on as to whether Italy should exist? We take the nation state of Italy for grated but not so long ago it didn’t exist. Prior to the formation of the Kingdom of Italy in 1860 the very concept of “Italy” was in a constant state of…
These new titles and many more will be available in the Teen Room. Children of Blood and Bone – Tomi Adeyemi “Zélie Adebola remembers when the soil of Orïsha hummed with magic. Burners ignited flames, Tiders beckoned waves, and Zélie’s Reaper mother summoned forth souls. But everything changed the night magic disappeared. Under the orders…
For anyone who has ever felt just slightly out of place in a world where society dictates how we must look, what we must like, and who we must love in order to fit in, The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli breaks the mold. For Albertalli’s protagonist, Molly Peskin-Suso, this is a life she is painfully…
First published in 1974, Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is the predecessor to electronic role-playing games like Diablo, Skyrim, World of Warcraft, and more. In a game of D&D one person takes the role of the Dungeon Master, acting as storyteller and referee. Characters and monsters controlled by the Dungeon Master are called Non-Player Characters or…
Conant, Jennet. A covert affair : Julia Child and Paul Child in the OSS Summary:A stunning account of Julia Child’s early life as an OSS agent in the Far East. Prud’homme, Alex France is a feast : the photographic journey of Paul and Julia Child Summary:Through intimate and compelling photographs taken by her husband Paul…
The Apocalypse of Elena Mendoza – Shaun David Hutchinson “Sixteen-year-old Elena Mendoza is the product of a virgin birth. This can be scientifically explained (it’s called parthenogenesis), but what can’t be explained is how Elena is able to heal Freddie, the girl she’s had a crush on for years, from a gunshot wound in a…
It’s the 14th century. Two brothers, William and John, are walking home through the hellscape that is the Devon countryside in the grip of the black death. As they walk past piles of bodies, it becomes clear that they too are dying. They are given a choice, by who they don’t really know, go home…
Creators, Conquerors, and Citizens: A History of Ancient Greece by Robin Waterfield In his latest book, independent scholar and translator Waterfield (Taken at the Flood: The Roman Conquest of Greece, 2014, etc.) sets a daunting task: to cover in one compact volume roughly 750 years of history, in an area from Sicily to Syria, through three eras:…
Loving Vincent – Nominated for an Academy Award (Animated Feature Film) “On 27th July 1890 a gaunt figure stumbled down a drowsy high street at twilight in the small French country town of Auvers. The man was carrying nothing; his hands clasped to a fresh bullet wound leaking blood from his belly.This was Vincent van…
In our Today In History Reading List feature, we take the events of a particular day in history and try to give you a work of fiction and a work of non-fiction relating to those events. 1788 Sydney Australia Established by Arthur Phillip The British First Fleet under Governor Arthur Phillip arrived at Port Jackson…
Here’s the thing: I can’t remember the last book that made me laugh so hard, so often. And I’m talking out loud, tear-producing laughter. The kind of laughter that prompts whoever is nearest to inquire in a suspect manner, Is it really that funny? A question that, due to residual laughter, can only be answered with…
Silk Roads is the History Book Group title for January. I tend to devour books on the silk road. There’s something about towns with names like Samarkand and Merv and Bukhara that just ignites my inner adventurer. That said, this is not that book. At least not entirely. This book largely explores the roll that…
Cruel Prince – Holly Black “Jude was seven years old when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially…
I’ve always been fascinated by how commerce worked in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Like how do you move a hundred pounds of cloth from Yorkshire to Europe so you can sell it? How do you take out a loan when interest is considered a mortal sin? There is something simultaneously otherworldly and familiar about…
Personal History – Katharine Graham “In this bestselling and widely acclaimed memoir, Katharine Graham, the woman who piloted the Washington Post through the scandals of the Pentagon Papers and Watergate, tells her story—one that is extraordinary both for the events it encompasses and for the courage, candor, and dignity of its telling. Here is the awkward child…
There are so many good movies, novels, and nonfiction works coming out in 2018! Here are my most anticipated… January 9 Nice Try, Jane Sinner by Lianne Oelke After being expelled from high school, seventeen-year-old Jane signs up for a student-run reality show while attending a local community college. As the show grows from a…
Today’s society is one of avid movie-goers, Netflix bingers, and people who stay up all night for the midnight release of the next Star Wars film. So it makes sense that after inundating our lives with all forms of multimedia, that we have begun to take an interest in the variety of edibles displayed in…
We asked our staff for the titles of books they read and loved this year. Here are the ones they shared. Happy reading! The Hate You Give – Angie Thomas “Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between…
When Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012 there was mixed reaction among fans. Some were concerned about changes Disney might make, others looked forward to new hands on the franchise. In 2014 Star Wars fandom felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I…
Get in the spirit with a cozy mystery! Print the list below or keep reading for summaries of each title.
At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson is the book for this month’s History Book Group (December 20 at 7pm if you are interested in coming). As with a lot of the books for the History Book Group, I find myself rushing at the last minute to get them read. This…
In 2015 Marvel Comics began releasing a series of Star Wars comics under two core titles: Star Wars and Darth Vader. These have been expanded to cover characters from Star Wars Rebels and The Force Awakens. Star Wars: Darth Vader Taking place between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, these graphic novels show…
Several books found their way into the hands of Frank Castle & company in Marvel’s latest Netflix offering. If you want to read along, here are the titles you’ll need to check out: Moby Dick – Herman Melville “Ignoring prophecies of doom, the seafarer Ishmael joins the crew of a whaling expedition that is an…
Ever thought that if classics were read along with biographies of the people who wrote them they would be easier to understand? We have. So we’ve put together a reading list and a display pairing famous authors’ books with their biographies Doyle, Arthur Conan, Sir A study in scarlet Summary:In 1887, a young Arthur Conan…
“In this unique and lovingly detailed biography of a literary family that has enthralled readers for nearly two centuries, Victorian literature scholar Deborah Lutz illuminates the complex and fascinating lives of the Brontës through the things they wore, stitched, wrote on, and inscribed. By unfolding the histories of the meaningful objects in their family home…
Yeah it’s been 40 years since A New Hope premiered in movie theaters! I can’t believe it, either. But I am digressing from my digression. I discovered this book while listening to a podcast called Pop Culture Happy Hour hosted by Linda Holmes. For those of you who aren’t already fans, this show, as the name…
I fell down a bit of a Holy Roman Empire reading rabbit hole (as one does). It started with an obligatory read of a Martin Luther biography and went from there. Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet by Lyndal Roper. Ok technically I’ve already read this book. This was the pick for the November History Book…
What inspires you? That’s the simple, but profound question posed to forty-six renowned authors in LIGHT THE DARK. Each writer begins with a favorite passage from a novel, a song, a poem—something that gets them started and keeps them going with the creative work they love. From there, incredible lessons and stories of life-changing encounters…
“We tell ourselves stories to live…” It’s a boon if you’ve dipped into Joan Didion’s oeuvre prior to watching The Center Will Not Hold (directed by Didion’s nephew Griffin Dunne), but is it necessary? In my opinion, no. As a journalist or in her essays, Didion covered several impactful events in recent history, and this documentary…
November is National Novel Writing Month and folks will be working feverishly to write 50,000 words in thirty days. I would like to suggest some alternate forms of digital writing. A novel need not be a collection of text; images and other media can be used to tell a story. This article is the first…
Aliens: The World’s Leading Scientists on the Search for Extraterrestrial Life By Jim Al-Khalili Is there anybody out there? Are we all alone in the cosmos? Science hasn’t answered this question yet, but it’s not for lack of trying. This book contains essays from some of the world’s leading astrophysicists, cosmologists, geneticists and NASA planetary…
This look at the near future presents the story of Offred, a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, once the United States, an oppressive world where women are no longer allowed to read and are valued only as long as they are viable for reproduction. The Handmaid’s Tale feels like a fresh take on the…
As anyone knows who frequents this blog I love reading all things spy related. But I have a particular soft spot for Elizabethan espionage. So here are some fiction and non-fiction titles that I have either read or am looking forward to reading. Fiction A Column of Fire by Ken Follett. In 1558, the ancient…
Deep down, we like to believe that we’re safest when we’re tucked away inside of our homes with the doors and windows securely shut and locked and though this may be true for the reader, for Makani Young and her fellow students at Osborne High School this couldn’t be further from the truth. When the…
If you are in the mood for something magical to read for the month of October, I recommend The Witches of New York by Ami McKay. Set in 1880’s New York, the author gives us a glimpse of the world of magic, realism, fantasy, and witchcraft. Beatrice Dunn, one of the main characters, is looking…
Archer, Jeffrey And thereby hangs a tale Summary:Fifteen short pieces are set in various world regions and include “Members Only,” in which a young man’s life is transformed by a Christmas cracker. Barry, Kevin Dark lies the island Summary:This is a collection of stories about love and cruelty, crimes, desperation, and hope from the man…
Louise Penny’s latest book, Glass Houses, debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. If you’re a fan of Inspector Gamache, but are still waiting for your copy, here are some series to try in the meantime. Guido Brunetti mysteries by Donna Leon Donna Leon writes the Guido Brunetti mysteries, whose protagonist is…
A Single Spy by William Christie. This book was inspired by my reading of Legacy of Spies. Set during World War II rather than the Cold War and Russians vs Germans rather than Russians/Germans vs English, it is a very different book from Legacy of Spies but very in enjoyable. Aleksi Ivanovich Smirnov, an orphan…
What better way to celebrate than with a new YA novel, but if you’re not sure which to pick up next, we have a few suggestions: Reserve John Green’s Turtles All the Way Down and we’ll let you know when a copy is available for you. “It’s quite rare to find someone who sees the…
“For years, America’s national parks have provided public breathing spaces in a world in which such spaces are steadily disappearing, which is why close to 300 million people visit the parks each year. Now, to honor the centennial of the National Park Service, Terry Tempest Williams, the author of the beloved memoir When Women Were…
Three years ago an event destroyed the small city of Poughkeepsie, forever changing reality within its borders. Uncanny manifestations and lethal dangers now await anyone who enters the Spill Zone. The Spill claimed Addison’s parents and scarred her little sister, Lexa, who Addison provides for by photographing the Zone’s twisted attractions on illicit midnight rides. When an…
I had kind of gone off John le Carre in the past few years. There was just something about his style of writing that, for me at least, didn’t translate well from Cold War to War on Terror. Maybe it was just the fact that its easier for me to read spy fiction about a…
Released in 2015, the 100th Anniversary of the birth of Frank Sinatra, this sensitively written yet honest and raw portrayal of the life of the great entertainer is a real page turner for Sinatra fans. Tina Sinatra (Frank’s youngest daughter) brings the reader back in time to her father’s past as he attempted to gain…
This book opens with an attempted terrorist attack in the early 2000s. A mail bomb intended to blow up over Chicago. The attack was foiled but the package containing the bomb was addressed to a man dead for hundreds of years: Reynald de Chatillon a knight who lived most of his life fighting Muslims (and…
In 1946 something amazing happened in the world of comics and pop-culture. The Golden Age of Comics was coming to a close. In less than a decade Fredric Wetham’s Seduction of the Innocent would demonize the industry. Comic books would be smeared as leading to delinquency and fascism. Wertham must have been unaware of the…
Amy, one of our junior pages, really enjoyed these books (especially the first one on the list!), and thought that a young reader in your home might, too. Trumpet of the Swan – E. B. White “Like the rest of his family, Louis is a trumpeter swan. But unlike his four brothers and sisters, Louis…
COMICS, GRAPHIC NOVELS, AND POPULAR CULTURE Most of us have heard of comics and graphic novels, but what are they really? Comics and graphic novels are a form of Sequential Art. They are a series of illustrations read in a specific order. Manga is a form of sequential art that is read left to…
Since the Golden Age of Comics heroes have been plagued by an army of unusual and bizarre foes. Jon Morris has collected the best of the worst in The Legion of Regrettable Super Villains. These rogues are organized by era, running from the Golden Age to Modern Age of Comics. If you are thinking about…
In our Today In History Reading List feature, we take the events of a particular day in history and try to give you a work of fiction and a work of non-fiction relating to those events. 1282 Peter III of Aragon Intervenes in the War of the Sicilian Vespers In 1266 a French Army under…
One of the lesser known benefits of working in a library is getting to empty the book drop. This means you get to see some of the books that are trending within your community. That is how home came across A Death in Brittany by Jean-Luc Bannalec. I checked it in and noticed the beautiful…
“To the River is the story of the Ouse, the Sussex river in which Virginia Woolf drowned in 1941. One midsummer week over sixty years later, Olivia Laing walked Woolf’s river from source to sea. The result is a passionate investigation into how history resides in a landscape – and how ghosts never quite leave…
The Armchair Scientist: A quarterly roundup of the latest updates to our science collection with a spotlight on: The Science of Self-Care. Are You Getting Enough Sleep? The mystery of sleep: why a good night’s rest is vital to a better, healthier life Written by Meir Kryger, M.D., The Mystery of Sleep offers an up close and personal look…
In many respects the world that my generation grew up in has changed for the better. Gone are the days of enforced segregation, slavery, and Jim Crow laws. And while the society we have created is not nearly close to perfect, it is a far cry from the social injustices that people of color have…
Everyone loves new books! Here are some new titles in history that will be showing up in the library’s New Books Room over the next couple of months. Bettencourt Affair: The World’s Richest Woman and the Scandal that Rocked Paris by Tom Sancton Liliane Bettencourt is the world s richest woman and the eleventh wealthiest…
It’s August and the Sun is Shining. C’mon Get Happy! From Ivy League towers to your local public library, books on the elusive science of happiness have been hitting the shelves. It looks like most people could use a little boost in the happiness department… but why is it that we all feel that way?…
The month of August marks the 127th birthday of New England author H.P. Lovecraft. As an amateur antiquarian, Lovecraft used his passion for local history to merge the travel writing and horror genres. Many of his tales are set in New England, with several taking place on the North Shore. To give his fictional locales…
I can actually remember the first time I heard about the Battle of Crete, albeit obliquely. I was a kid watching the old 60s Gregory Peck, David Niven and Anthony Quinn movie Guns of Navarone. Peck’s character Mallory’s major credential as a special operations soldier is the fact that he is a mountaineer and survived…
One of my main interests is how pop-culture impacts and reflects the society in which it is produced. While some might devalue comic books and cartoons as juvenile literature, they can be complex, and give a greater insight into the public mindset. Marc DiPaolo’s book War, Politics and Superheroes: Ethics and Propaganda in Comics and…
In our Today In History Reading List feature, we take the events of a particular day in history and try to give you a work of fiction and a work of non-fiction relating to those events. 1553 Jane Grey Deposed as Queen of England Jane Grey was a great-granddaughter of Henry VII and a cousin…
Anthony Horowitz’s ode to Golden Age detective novels handily lends itself to a long list of readalike titles. Whether you’re in the mood for another mystery, one with a similar tone to tide you over until Magpie‘s queue turns in your favor, or for a little background information on the authors who excelled in visiting…