September 2016 – Page 2 – Tech & Book Talk at SSCL

Daily Print & Digital Suggested Reads: Thursday, September 15, 2016

September 15, 2016September 15, 2016 Linda Reimer

Hi everyone, here are our suggested daily recommended titles in print and digital formats.

Our Digital Catalog suggested title for today is the

supernatural thriller e-book:

Dark Heart of Magic by Jennifer Estep:

Something Wicked This Way Comes . . .

As a thief, I stick to the shadows as much as possible. But when the head of the Sinclair Family picks me to compete in the Tournament of Blades, there’s no escaping the spotlight–or the danger.

Even though he’s my competition, Devon Sinclair thinks I have the best shot at winning what’s supposed to be a friendly contest. But when the competitors start having mysterious “accidents,” it looks like someone will do anything to win–no matter who they hurt.

As if I didn’t have enough to worry about, mobster Victor Draconi is plotting against Devon and the rest of my friends, and someone’s going around Cloudburst Falls murdering monsters. One thing’s for sure. Sometimes, humans can be more monstrous than anything else.

Here’s a link to the description page in the Digital Catalog:

https://stls.overdrive.com/media/2198294

And our Print Book Suggested Read for today is National Book Award

nominated fiction title:

The Throwback Special by Chris Bachelder

A slyly profound and startlingly original novel about the psyche of the American male, The Throwback Special marks the return of one of the most acclaimed literary voices of his generation.

Winner of the Paris Review’s Terry Southern Prize for Humor.

Here is the absorbing story of twenty-two men who gather every fall to painstakingly reenact what ESPN called “the most shocking play in NFL history” and the Washington Redskins dubbed the “Throwback Special”: the November 1985 play in which the Redskins’ Joe Theismann had his leg horribly broken by Lawrence Taylor of the New York Giants live on Monday Night Football.

With wit and great empathy, Chris Bachelder introduces us to Charles, a psychologist whose expertise is in high demand; George, a garrulous public librarian; Fat Michael, envied and despised by the others for being exquisitely fit; Jeff, a recently divorced man who has become a theorist of marriage; and many more. Over the course of a weekend, the men reveal their secret hopes, fears, and passions as they choose roles, spend a long night of the soul preparing for the play, and finally enact their bizarre ritual for what may be the last time. Along the way, mishaps, misunderstandings, and grievances pile up, and the comforting traditions holding the group together threaten to give way.

The Throwback Special is a moving and comic tale filled with pitch-perfect observations about manhood, marriage, middle age, and the rituals we all enact as part of being alive.

You can request the book by clicking on the following link to StarCat:

https://goo.gl/1rrjQh

Or by calling the library at: 607-936-3713 x 502.

Have a great day!
Linda, SSCL

Online Catalog Links:

StarCat: The catalog of physical materials, i.e. print books, DVDs, audiobooks on CD etc. http://starcat.stls.org/

The Digital Catalog: The catalog of e-books, downloadable audiobooks and a handful of streaming videos: https://stls.overdrive.com/

Freegal Music Service: This music service is free to library card holders and offers the option to download, and keep, three free songs per week and to stream three hours of commercial free music each day: http://stlsny.freegalmusic.com/

Zinio: Digital magazines on demand and for free! Back issues are available and you can even choose to be notified by email when the new issue of your favorite magazine is available: https://www.rbdigital.com/stlschemungcony

About Library Mobile Apps:

You can access digital library content on PCs, Macs and mobile devices. For mobile devices simply download the OverDrive, Freegal or Zinio app from your app store to get started. If you have questions call the library at: 607-936-3713 and one of our Digital Literacy Specialists will be happy to assist you.

Daily Print & Digital Suggested Reads: Wednesday, September 14, 2016

September 14, 2016 Linda Reimer

Hi everyone, here are our suggested daily recommended titles in print and digital formats.

Our Digital Catalog suggested title for today is the e-book:

The Angels’ Share, Bourbon Kings Series, Book 2 by J.R. Ward:

#1 New York Times bestselling author J. R. Ward delivers the second novel in her Bourbon Kings series—a sweeping saga of a Southern dynasty struggling to maintain a façade of privilege and prosperity, while secrets and indiscretions threaten its very foundation…

In Charlemont, Kentucky, the Bradford family is the crème de la crème of high society—just like their exclusive brand of bourbon. And their complicated lives and vast estate are run by a discrete staff who inevitably become embroiled in their affairs. This is especially true now, when the apparent suicide of the family patriarch is starting to look more and more like murder…

No one is above suspicion—especially the eldest Bradford son, Edward. The bad blood between him and his father is known far and wide, and he is aware that he could be named a suspect. As the investigation into the death intensifies, he keeps himself busy at the bottom of a bottle—as well as with his former horse trainer’s daughter. Meanwhile, the family’s financial future lies in the perfectly manicured hands of a business rival, a woman who wants Edward all to herself.

Everything has consequences; everybody has secrets. And few can be trusted. Then, at the very brink of the family’s demise, someone thought lost to them forever returns to the fold. Maxwell Bradford has come home. But is he a savior…or the worst of all the sinners?

Here’s a link to the description page in the Digital Catalog:

https://stls.overdrive.com/media/2517175

And our Print Book Suggested Read for today is:

Barbara Crooker: Selected Poems by Barbara Crooker:

This collection brings together 102 poems from Barbara Crooker’s previous ten chapbooks of poetry, two of which won national prizes, with a handful of uncollected poems at the end. Of Crooker’s work, William Matthews has written, “Barbara Crooker’s poems have been written with a deft touch and with that affection for their textures and pacings that we’re accustomed to call, a little dryly, ‘technical skill.’ It’s a form of love, actually, and since she’s expended it on her poems, we can, too.” Janet McCann, writing in the Foreword, says, “The poems in this collection come mostly from chapbooks, collections which cluster around a theme, such as loss of a parent or friend, raising a child with autism, travel, art. Crooker’s collections are remarkable for their unity; their poems, epigraphs, even covers have a thematic thrust that collects and directs the work, making each a coherent work of art…. Reading the work from beginning to end provides an experience of Crooker’s world, that place of work and sadness balanced by art and love. It also provides vignettes of growing up in the fifties and sixties and shows what it was like to come of age as a woman in those years—the expectations, the hopes, the barriers that had to be overcome. Even in poems of loss, the energy persists, giving us the sense that Crooker is truly in the current of life, feeling its verve—what Wallace Stevens called ‘the intensity of love’ that he identified with ‘the verve of earth.’”

You can request the book by clicking on the following link to StarCat:

https://goo.gl/Ob3H0A

Or by calling the library at: 607-936-3713 x 502.

Have a great day!
Linda, SSCL

Online Catalog Links:

StarCat: The catalog of physical materials, i.e. print books, DVDs, audiobooks on CD etc. http://starcat.stls.org/

The Digital Catalog: The catalog of e-books, downloadable audiobooks and a handful of streaming videos: https://stls.overdrive.com/

Zinio: Digital magazines on demand and for free! Back issues are available and you can even choose to be notified by email when the new issue of your favorite magazine is available: https://www.rbdigital.com/stlschemungcony

About Library Mobile Apps:

Daily Print & Digital Suggested Reads: Tuesday, September 13, 2016

September 13, 2016 Linda Reimer

Hi everyone, here are our suggested daily recommended titles in print and digital formats.

Our Digital Catalog suggested title for today is the e-book:

Wild Cards, Wild Cards Series, Book 1 by George R.R. Martin:

The alien virus arrived on Earth just after World War II—and the world was never the same. For those who become infected, there are two results: death, or transformation. And depending on the recipient, death is sometimes the preferable outcome. Only a few lucky ones become super-human “aces” as a side effect of the virus; the rest are turned into horrible, grotesque “jokers.” It’s a strange and wonderful, terrible and terrifying world where anything can go. A world that, in a twist of fate, could lie just outside your door. A world of Wild Cards.

Here’s a link to the description page in the Digital Catalog:

https://stls.overdrive.com/media/11107

And our Print Book Suggested Read for today is:

This Must Be the Place: A Novel by Maggie O’Farrell:

An irresistible love story, an unforgettable family. Best-selling author Maggie O’Farrell captures an extraordinary marriage with insight and laugh-out-loud humor in what Richard Russo calls “her breakout book.” Perfect for readers of Where’d You Go, Bernadette.

Meet Daniel Sullivan, a man with a complicated life. A New Yorker living in the wilds of Ireland, he has children he never sees in California, a father he loathes in Brooklyn, and a wife, Claudette, who is a reclusive ex–film star given to pulling a gun on anyone who ventures up their driveway. Claudette was once the most glamorous and infamous woman in cinema before she staged her own disappearance and retreated to blissful seclusion in an Irish farmhouse.

But the life Daniel and Claudette have so carefully constructed is about to be disrupted by an unexpected discovery about a woman Daniel lost touch with twenty years ago. This revelation will send him off-course, far away from wife, children, and home. Will his love for Claudette be enough to bring him back?

You can request the book by clicking on the following link to StarCat:

http://goo.gl/HEQYDd

Or by calling the library at: 607-936-3713 x 502.

Have a great day!
Linda, SSCL

Online Catalog Links:

StarCat: The catalog of physical materials, i.e. print books, DVDs, audiobooks on CD etc. http://starcat.stls.org/

The Digital Catalog: The catalog of e-books, downloadable audiobooks and a handful of streaming videos: https://stls.overdrive.com/

About Library Mobile Apps:

Daily Print & Digital Suggested Reads: Monday, September 12, 2016

September 12, 2016 Linda Reimer

Hi everyone, here are our suggested daily recommended titles in print and digital formats.

Our Digital Catalog suggested title for today is the e-book:

Time Travel: A History by James Gleick

From the acclaimed author of The Information and Chaos, here is a mind-bending exploration of time travel: its subversive origins, its evolution in literature and science, and its influence on our understanding of time itself.

The story begins at the turn of the previous century, with the young H. G. Wells writing and rewriting the fantastic tale that became his first book and an international sensation: The Time Machine. It was an era when a host of forces were converging to transmute the human understanding of time, some philosophical and some technological: the electric telegraph, the steam railroad, the discovery of buried civilizations, and the perfection of clocks. James Gleick tracks the evolution of time travel as an idea that becomes part of contemporary culture—from Marcel Proust to Doctor Who, from Jorge Luis Borges to Woody Allen. He investigates the inevitable looping paradoxes and examines the porous boundary between pulp fiction and modern physics. Finally, he delves into a temporal shift that is unsettling our own moment: the instantaneous wired world, with its all-consuming present and vanishing future.

Here’s a link to the description page in the Digital Catalog:

https://stls.overdrive.com/media/2650947

And our Print Book Suggested Read for today is:

The Course of Love: A Novel by Alain de Botton

The long-awaited and beguiling second novel from Alain de Botton that tracks the beautifully complicated arc of a romantic partnership, from the internationally bestselling author of How Proust Can Change Your Life. De Botton’s essay “Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person” (The New York Times, May 28, 2016), which draws from The Course of Love, was the #1 most emailed article for days.

We all know the headiness and excitement of the early days of love. But what comes after? In Edinburgh, a couple, Rabih and Kirsten, fall in love. They get married, they have children—but no long-term relationship is as simple as “happily ever after.” The Course of Love is a novel that explores what happens after the birth of love, what it takes to maintain love, and what happens to our original ideals under the pressures of an average existence. You experience, along with Rabih and Kirsten, the first flush of infatuation, the effortlessness of falling into romantic love, and the course of life thereafter. Interwoven with their story and its challenges is an overlay of philosophy—an annotation and a guide to what we are reading.

This is a Romantic novel in the true sense, one interested in exploring how love can survive and thrive in the long term. The result is a sensory experience—fictional, philosophical, psychological—that urges us to identify deeply with these characters and to reflect on his and her own experiences in love. Fresh, visceral, and utterly compelling, The Course of Love is a provocative and life-affirming novel for everyone who believes in love.

You can request the book by clicking on the following link to StarCat:

http://goo.gl/IaXxkY

Or by calling the library at: 607-936-3713 x 502.

And just FYI for anyone who would like to check it – here’s a link to the New York Times article mentioned in the book summary:

Have a great day!
Linda, SSCL

Online Catalog Links:

StarCat: The catalog of physical materials, i.e. print books, DVDs, audiobooks on CD etc. http://starcat.stls.org/

The Digital Catalog: The catalog of e-books, downloadable audiobooks and a handful of streaming videos: https://stls.overdrive.com/

About Library Mobile Apps:

Daily Print & Digital Suggested Reads: Saturday, September 10, 2016

September 10, 2016 Linda Reimer

Hi everyone, here are our suggested daily recommended titles in print and digital formats.

Our Digital Catalog suggested title for today is the e-book:

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: Parts One and Two: The Official Script Book of the Original West End Production by J. K. Rowling, John Tiffany & Jack Thorne

“The Eighth Story. Nineteen Years Later.

Based on an original new story by J.K. Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany, a new play by Jack Thorne, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the eighth story in the Harry Potter series and the first official Harry Potter story to be presented on stage. The play will receive its world premiere in London’s West End on July 30, 2016.

It was always difficult being Harry Potter and it isn’t much easier now that he is an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic, a husband and father of three school-age children.

While Harry grapples with a past that refuses to stay where it belongs, his youngest son Albus must struggle with the weight of a family legacy he never wanted. As past and present fuse ominously, both father and son learn the

Here’s a link to the description page in the Digital Catalog:

https://stls.overdrive.com/media/2706505

And our Print Book Suggested Read for today is:

The Shattered Tree: A Bess Crawford Mystery (Bess Crawford Mysteries)

by Charles Todd

World War I battlefield nurse Bess Crawford goes to dangerous lengths to investigate a wounded soldier’s background—and uncover his true loyalties—in this thrilling and atmospheric entry in the bestselling “vivid period mystery series” (New York Times Book Review).

At the foot of a tree shattered by shelling and gunfire, stretcher-bearers find an exhausted officer, shivering with cold and a loss of blood from several wounds. The soldier is brought to battlefield nurse Bess Crawford’s aid station, where she stabilizes him and treats his injuries before he is sent to a rear hospital. The odd thing is, the officer isn’t British—he’s French. But in a moment of anger and stress, he shouts at Bess in German.

When Bess reports the incident to Matron, her superior offers a ready explanation. The soldier is from Alsace-Lorraine, a province in the west where the tenuous border between France and Germany has continually shifted through history, most recently in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, won by the Germans. But is the wounded man Alsatian? And if he is, on which side of the war do his sympathies really lie?

Of course, Matron could be right, but Bess remains uneasy—and unconvinced. If he was a French soldier, what was he doing so far from his own lines . . . and so close to where the Germans are putting up a fierce, last-ditch fight?

When the French officer disappears in Paris, it’s up to Bess—a soldier’s daughter as well as a nurse—to find out why, even at the risk of her own life.

You can request the book by clicking on the following link to StarCat:

http://goo.gl/Pxm9vi

Or by calling the library at: 607-936-3713 x 502.

Have a great day!

Linda, SSCL

Online Catalog Links:

StarCat: The catalog of physical materials, i.e. print books, DVDs, audiobooks on CD etc. http://starcat.stls.org/

The Digital Catalog: The catalog of e-books, downloadable audiobooks and a handful of streaming videos: https://stls.overdrive.com/

About Library Mobile Apps:

Daily Print & Digital Suggested Reads: Thursday, September 8, 2016

September 9, 2016 Linda Reimer

Hi everyone, here are our suggested daily recommended titles in print and digital formats.

Our Digital Catalog suggested title for today is the downloadable audiobook:

The Forgotten Room by Lincoln Child

A long-lost experiment of unknown intent. . .
A hidden room in a vast seaside estate. . .
An investigator marked for danger. . .

On a sprawling estate on the coast of Rhode Island, at the nation’s oldest and most prestigious think tank, an unfathomable tragedy takes place. No one knows what to make of the disturbing evidence left behind. Then reports begin to surface of increasingly bizarre behavior among the organization’s distinguished scientists.

Called upon to investigate these strange happenings, history professor and analyst of inexplicable phenomena Jeremy Logan comes across an ingeniously concealed room in a long-dormant wing of the mansion. What he discovers within may provide answers—and, in the process, unleash a new wave of catastrophe.

Here’s a link to the description page in the Digital Catalog:

https://stls.overdrive.com/media/1901996

And our Print Book Suggested Read for today is:

Surrender, New York: A Novel by Caleb Carr:

Caleb Carr, bestselling author of The Alienist and The Angel of Darkness, has created a contemporary psychological thriller haunted by the shadowy hands of established power.

In rural, impoverished Burgoyne County, New York, a pattern of strange deaths begins to emerge: adolescent boys and girls are found murdered, their corpses left hanging in gruesome, ritualistic fashion. Senior law enforcement officials are quick to blame a serial killer, yet their efforts to apprehend this criminal are peculiarly ineffective.

Meanwhile, in the county’s small town of Surrender, Trajan Jones, a psychological profiler (and the world’s leading expert on the life and work of one Dr. Laszlo Kreizler), and Michael Li, a trace evidence expert, once famed advisors to the New York City Police Department, teach online courses in profiling and forensic science from Jones’s family farm. Alone and armed mainly with their wits, protected only by farmhands and Jones’ unusual “pet,” the outcast pair are secretly called in to consult on the case.

Jones and Li immediately discern that the various victims were all “throwaway children,” a new state classification given to young people who are neither orphans, runaways nor homeless, but victims of a terrible phenomenon sweeping America’s poor: abandoned by their families, the throwaways are left to fend for themselves. One of these throwaways, Lucas Kurtz, along with his blind older sister, cross paths with Jones and Li, offering information that could blow the case wide open.

Racing against the case’s mounting stakes, Jones and Li find that they are battling not only to unravel the mystery of how the throwaways died, but also to defend themselves and the Kurtz siblings from the threats of shadowy but powerful agents who want to stop them from uncovering the truth. It is a truth that, Jones believes, leads away from their world and back to the increasingly wealthy city where both he and his long-dead intellectual guide, Dr Kreizler, did their greatest work. But will they be able to trace the case to New York before they fall victim to the murderous forces that stalk them?

Moving at the same rapid pace as his earlier books, yet with the same depth of historical and scientific research, Carr creates another rollercoaster ride of ideas and emotions. Like The Alienist, Surrender, New York brings to life the grim underbelly of a prosperous nation – and those most vulnerable to its failings.

You can request the book by clicking on the following link to StarCat:

http://goo.gl/72iRCn

Or by calling the library at: 607-936-3713 x 502.

Have a great day!

Linda, SSCL

Online Catalog Links:

StarCat: The catalog of physical materials, i.e. print books, DVDs, audiobooks on CD etc. http://starcat.stls.org/

The Digital Catalog: The catalog of e-books, downloadable audiobooks and a handful of streaming videos: https://stls.overdrive.com/

About Library Mobile Apps:

Daily Print & Digital Suggested Reads: Wednesday, September 7, 2016

September 7, 2016 Linda Reimer

Hi everyone, here are our suggested daily recommended titles in print and digital formats.

Our Digital Catalog suggested title for today is the e-book:

The Hare in March by Vin Packer

A MURDER BEGINS AND ENDS this story of scandal and tragedy in a college town. You’ll meet some memorable characters here-most of them hair-raising-as novelist Vin Packer spins out a sinister excursion with the cool, campy kids of Far Point College, New York. It’s a wild, wild joyride-from Thunderbird to Bluebird, from classroom to Cheetah, with stops on the way at rent-by-the-hour motel rooms. You’ll watch in horror as the Pucci-Plantagenet crowd burns up the roads, heading for that sickening, inevitable crash . . . that jolting confrontation with the reality they can’t escape . . . with THE HARE IN MARCH.

Here’s a link to the description page in the Digital Catalog:

https://stls.overdrive.com/media/721474

And our Print Book Suggested Read for today is:

Killer Look by Linda Fairstein:

New York Times bestselling author Linda Fairstein delivers a heart-pounding thriller that explores the dark secrets of Manhattan’s iconic fashion scene in her latest Alexandra Cooper novel.

New York City is one of the fashion capitals of the world, well-known for its glamour and style. Nowhere is this more apparent than on the runway, where American haute couture continually astounds with its creativity, daring, and innovation in the name of beauty. Yet high fashion means high stakes, as Alex Cooper quickly discovers when businessman and designer Wolf Savage is found dead in an apparent suicide, mere days before the biggest show of his career. When the man’s daughter insists Savage’s death was murder, the case becomes more than a media sensation: It is a race to find a killer in a world created entirely out of fantasy and illusion.

With her own job at the DA’s office in jeopardy, and the temptation to self-medicate her PTSD with alcohol almost too strong to resist, Alex is not anyone’s first choice for help. But she is determined to uncover the grime—and the possible homicide—beneath the glitz. Along with detectives Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace, Alex must penetrate the twisted roots and mixed motives among the high-profile players in the Garment District. The investigation takes the trio from the missing money in Wolf Savage’s international fashion house to his own recovery from addiction; from the role of Louisiana Voodoo in his life to his excessive womanizing; and to the family secrets he kept so well-hidden, even from those closest to him—just as things are about to get deadly on the catwalk.

You can request the book by clicking on the following link to StarCat:

http://goo.gl/72iRCn

Or by calling the library at: 607-936-3713 x 502.

Have a great day!
Linda, SSCL

Online Catalog Links:

StarCat: The catalog of physical materials, i.e. print books, DVDs, audiobooks on CD etc. http://starcat.stls.org/

The Digital Catalog: The catalog of e-books, downloadable audiobooks and a handful of streaming videos: https://stls.overdrive.com/

About Library Mobile Apps:

Daily Print & Digital Suggested Reads: September 6, 2016

September 6, 2016 Linda Reimer

Hi everyone, here are our suggested daily recommended titles in print and digital formats.

Our Digital Catalog suggested title for today is the audiobook:

Bullseye: Michael Bennett Series, Book 9 by James Patterson, Michael Ledwidge & Danny Mastrogiorgio:

Caught in the crosshairs of a deadly standoff, Detective Michael Bennett must kill…or be killed.

Snow blankets the avenues of Manhattan’s exclusive Upper West Side. The storm is the perfect cover for a fashionable, highly trained team of lethal assassins as they prowl the streets, hunting their prey. But their first hit is simply target practice. Their next mission may very well turn the Cold War red-hot once again.

Stepping directly into the line of fire, the president of the United States is in New York for a summit at the United Nations with his Russian counterpart. Pulled away from his family and pressed into service, Detective Michael Bennett must trace the source of a threat that could rip the country apart–and ignite a war the likes of which the world has never seen. With allegiances constantly in doubt and no one above suspicion, only Bennett can save the president–and the country–before the assassins’ deadly kill shot hits its mark.

Here’s a link to the description page in the Digital Catalog:

https://stls.overdrive.com/media/2636884

And our Print Book Suggested Read for today is:

Death at the Boston Tea Party: An 18th Century Mystery

by Deryn Lake:

A new business opportunity in America leads to a case of cold-blooded murder for Apothecary John Rawlings

1773. Following a long and perilous journey, John Rawlings has arrived in Boston, Massachusetts, to pursue a new business venture. He finds the place riven with tension and unrest. There are many who feel it’s time the colonies sought freedom from British rule, and the seething resentment erupts into outright rebellion during the notorious Boston Tea Party. But has someone taken advantage of the chaos to commit cold-blooded murder?

Called in to examine a body fished out of Boston Harbour, Rawlings recognizes one of his fellow travellers from England. If he could unearth the truth about the victim’s past and the reason why they’d come to Boston, he would be one step closer to catching the killer. But has Rawlings become a pawn in an altogether bigger game?

You can request the book by clicking on the following link to StarCat:

http://goo.gl/Msfg35

Or by calling the library at: 607-936-3713 x 502.

Have a great day!
Linda, SSCL

Online Catalog Links:

StarCat: The catalog of physical materials, i.e. print books, DVDs, audiobooks on CD etc. http://starcat.stls.org/

The Digital Catalog: The catalog of e-books, downloadable audiobooks and a handful of streaming videos: https://stls.overdrive.com/

About Library Mobile Apps:

Daily Print & Digital Suggested Reads & Watches: Thursday & Friday, September 1 & 2, 2016

September 1, 2016September 1, 2016 Linda Reimer

Hi everyone, as we are having issues with StarCat today – here are two suggested Digital Catalog items you might like to check out!

The e-book Marrow Island by Alexis M. Smith

What would you give to save the thing you love the most?

It has been twenty years since Lucie Bowen left the islands. Twenty years ago, the May Day Quake set loose catastrophic waves along the west coast, from Alaska to California, shattering thousands of lives. Twenty years ago, Lucie’s father disappeared in an explosion at the Marrow Island oil refinery, a tragedy that destroyed the island’s ecosystem and sent Lucie and her mother to the mainland to start anew. Twenty years ago, Lucie and her best friend, Katie, were just Puget Sound children, tucked up under their desks, hovering under mylar sheets, hoping to survive.

Now, Katie writes with strange and miraculous news. Marrow Island is no longer uninhabitable, no longer abandoned. She is part of a community, a mysterious Colony, that has, somehow, conjured life again from Marrow’s soil. Lucie returns. Her journalist instincts tell her there’s more to the Colony and their charismatic leader—a former nun with an all-consuming plan—than its members want her to know. The island’s astonishing rebirth seems to have come at great cost—perhaps to the colonists themselves. As she uncovers their secrets, will Lucie endanger more than their mission? What price will she pay for the truth?

I was always a part of you, and you were always a part of me, Katie writes. And in this marvelously spun story Alexis Smith reaches into the depths of our connections to our pasts, our loved ones, our devotions. Our choices may bring us to the brink, but within our promises to each other and our hopes for the future, at the intersection of science and faith and grace, there may well be miracles in the making.

Here’s a link to the description page in the Digital Catalog:

https://stls.overdrive.com/media/2287357

And our second Digital Catalog suggestion is a streaming video for all those Calvin & Hobbes fans out there!

Dear Mr. Watterson

Calvin & Hobbes took center stage immediately when it appeared in newspaper comics across the country in 1985. The funny pages were a big part of popular culture, and it was hard to find a comics reader who didn’t like Calvin & Hobbes. A decade later, when Bill Watterson retired his strip, millions of readers felt the void left by the sudden departure of Calvin and his tiger, and many fans would never find a satisfactory replacement. In his retirement, as he did during his career, Mr. Watterson has steadfastly declined to license his beloved Calvin and Hobbes characters for any wider commercial purposes, a principled decision that left perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars on the table. It has now been 18 years since the end of the Calvin & Hobbes era. Bill Watterson has kept an extremely low profile during this time, living a very private life in Ohio. Despite his quiet lifestyle, he is remembered and appreciated daily by fans who still enjoy his amazing collection of work. Dear Mr. Watterson is not a quest to find Bill Watterson, or to invade his privacy. It is an exploration to discover why his ‘simple’ comic strip has made such an impact on so many readers, and why it still means so much to us today.

Here’s a link to the description page in the Digital Catalog:

https://stls.overdrive.com/media/1420957

Have a great holiday weekend!

Linda, SSCL

Online Catalog Links:

StarCat: The catalog of physical materials, i.e. print books, DVDs, audiobooks on CD etc. http://starcat.stls.org/

The Digital Catalog: The catalog of e-books, downloadable audiobooks and a handful of streaming videos: https://stls.overdrive.com/

About Library Mobile Apps:

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