February 2017 – Page 2 – Tech & Book Talk at SSCL

FYI Daily Reading & Weekly Music Postings Postponed

February 20, 2017 Linda Reimer

Hi everyone, just a quick update. Due to the installation of new computer equipment at the library system level StarCat is not currently allowing patrons to place requests.

So the daily recommended reads for this week are postponed. As are the weekly music recommendations for both last week and this week.

I can of course post recommend titles for you to read and listen too; however, as you can’t request any titles through StarCat you can’t place a request for any of those titles.

As soon as the StarCat request system is working again I will post the the back log of suggested reads and listens I’ve got ready to go!

Have a good day,

Linda, SSCL

Suggested Print & Digital Reads For The Week Of February 13 – 17, 2016

February 16, 2017February 13, 2017 Linda Reimer

Hi everyone, here are our suggested daily recommended titles in print or media and digital formats for the entire week – five print recommendations followed by five e-book recommendations:

E-Books:

E-Book Suggestion 1:

Flying Lessons & Other Stories by Ellen Oh:

Whether it is basketball dreams, family fiascos, first crushes, or new neighborhoods, this bold anthology—written by the best children’s authors—celebrates the uniqueness and universality in all of us.

In a partnership with We Need Diverse Books, industry giants Kwame Alexander, Soman Chainani, Matt de la Peña, Tim Federle, Grace Lin, Meg Medina, Walter Dean Myers, Tim Tingle, and Jacqueline Woodson join newcomer Kelly J. Baptist in a story collection that is as humorous as it is heartfelt. This impressive group of authors has earned among them every major award in children’s publishing and popularity as New York Times bestsellers.

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

https://stls.overdrive.com/media/2841614

E-Book Suggestion 2:

The Gate to Women’s Country by Sheri S. Tepper:

Classic fantasy from the amazing Sheri S. Tepper. Women rule in Women’s Country. Women live apart from men, sheltering the remains of civilization. They have cut themselves off with walls and by ordinance from marauding males. Waging war is all men are good for. Men are allowed to fight their barbaric battles amongst themselves, garrison against garrison. For the sake of his pride, each boy child ritualistically rejects his mother when he comes of age to be a warrior. But all the secrets of civilization are strictly the possession of women. Naturally, there are men who want to know what the women know! And when Stavia meets Chernon, the battle of the sexes begins all over again. Foolishly, she provides books for Chernon to read. Before long, Chernon is hatching a plan of revenge against women!

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

https://stls.overdrive.com/media/274610

E-Book Suggestion 3:

The Wild Robot by Peter Brown:

Can a robot survive in the wilderness?

When robot Roz opens her eyes for the first time, she discovers that she is alone on a remote, wild island. She has no idea how she got there or what her purpose is–but she knows she needs to survive. After battling a fierce storm and escaping a vicious bear attack, she realizes that her only hope for survival is to adapt to her surroundings and learn from the island’s unwelcoming animal inhabitants.

As Roz slowly befriends the animals, the island starts to feel like home–until, one day, the robot’s mysterious past comes back to haunt her.

From bestselling and award-winning author and illustrator Peter Brown comes a heartwarming and action-packed novel about what happens when nature and technology collide.

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

https://stls.overdrive.com/media/2335671

E-Book Suggestion 4:

Queen Sugar: A Novel by Natalie Baszile:

The inspiration for the acclaimed OWN TV series produced by Oprah Winfrey, directed by Ava DuVernay (Selma), and starring Rutina Wesley (True Blood) and Greg Vaughan.

“Smart and heartfelt and highly recommended.” —Karen Joy Fowler, author of The Jane Austen Book Club

Readers, booksellers, and critics alike are embracing Queen Sugar and cheering for its heroine, Charley Bordelon, an African American woman and single mother struggling to build a new life amid the complexities of the contemporary South.

When Charley unexpectedly inherits eight hundred acres of sugarcane land, she and her eleven-year-old daughter say goodbye to smoggy Los Angeles and head to Louisiana. She soon learns, however, that cane farming is always going to be a white man’s business. As the sweltering summer unfolds, Charley struggles to balance the overwhelming challenges of a farm in decline with the demands of family and the startling desires of her own heart.

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

https://stls.overdrive.com/media/1343926

E-Book Suggestion 5:

The Tower by Alessandro Gallenzi:

A thoroughly researched historical novel about Giordano Bruno and the Inquisition, and a technological thriller dealing with the topical issues of digitization, mass control, and espionage.

Amman, Jordan. As an ambitious digitization project gathers pace in a vast building outside Amman, some unpublished writings by Giordano Bruno–flawed genius of the late Renaissance, renegade philosopher, occultist with a prodigious memory–disappear together with the Jesuit priest sent by the Vatican to study them.

When the priest is found dead and a series of mysterious threats ensues, it becomes clear that the stakes are high for all the parties openly or covertly involved. What dangerous ideas were contained in the stolen manuscripts? What was the ultimate secret that Bruno tried to hide from the Holy Inquisition, even as he was persecuted, imprisoned, tortured and finally burnt alive in Rome?

In this riveting, meticulously researched new novel, Alessandro Gallenzi draws on his experience as a publisher in the digital era and casts a light on the darker side of our modern technological world, while revealing how a well-kept secret can change the course of history forever.

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

https://stls.overdrive.com/media/2569845

Print Books:

Print Book Suggestion 1:

Truffle Boy: My Unexpected Journey Through the Exotic Food Underground by Ian Purkayastha:

Ian Purkayastha is New York City’s leading truffle importer and boasts a devoted clientele of top chefs nationwide, including Jean-Georges Vongerichten, David Chang, Sean Brock, and David Bouley. But before he was purveying the world’s most expensive fungus to the country’s most esteemed chefs, Ian was just a food-obsessed teenager in rural Arkansas–a misfit with a peculiar fascination for rare and exotic ingredients.

The son of an Indian immigrant father and a Texan mother, Ian learned to forage for wild mushrooms from an uncle in the Ozark hills. Thus began a single-track fixation that led him to learn about the prized but elusive truffle, the king of all fungi. His first taste of truffle at age 15 sparked his improbable yet remarkable adventure through the strange–and often corrupt–business of the exotic food trade.

Rife with tales from the hidden underbelly of the elite restaurant scene, Truffle Boy chronicles Ian’s high stakes dealings with a truffle kingpin in Serbia, meth-head foragers in Oregon, crooked businessmen and maniacal chefs in Manhattan, gypsy truffle hunters in the forests of Hungary, and a supreme adventure to find “Gucci mushrooms” in the Himalayan foothills–the land of the gods. He endures harsh failures along the way but rebuilds with tremendous success by selling not just truffles but also caviar, wild mushrooms, rare foraged edibles, Wagyu beef, and other nearly unobtainable ingredients demanded by his Michelin-starred clients.

Truffle Boy is a thrilling coming-of-age story and the incredible but true tale of a country kid who grows up to become a force in the world of fine dining.

Here’s a link to the request page in StarCat:

https://goo.gl/F0cqoz

Print Book Suggestion 2:

The Evening Road by Laird Hunt:

Two women, two directions: one dark, extraordinary day.

Meet Ottie Lee Henshaw, a startling, challenging beauty in small-town Indiana. Quick of mind, she navigates a stifling marriage, a lecherous boss, and on one day in the summer of 1930 an odyssey across the countryside to witness a dark and fearful celebration.

Meet Calla Destry, a determined young woman desperate to escape the violence of her town and to find the lover who has promised her a new life.

On this day, the countryside of Jim Crow-era Indiana is no place for either. It is a world populated by frenzied demagogues and crazed revelers, by marauding vigilantes and grim fish suppers, by possessed blood hounds and, finally, by the Ku Klux Klan itself. Reminiscent of the works of Louise Erdrich, Edward P. Jones, and Marilynne Robinson, The Evening Road is the story of two remarkable women on the move through an America riven by fear and hatred, and eager to flee the secrets they have left behind.

Here’s a link to the request page in StarCat:

https://goo.gl/8nPsQw

Print Book Suggestion 3:

Little Deaths: A Novel by Emma Flint:

It’s 1965 in a tight-knit working-class neighborhood in Queens, New York, and Ruth Malone–a single mother who works long hours as a cocktail waitress–wakes to discover her two small children, Frankie Jr. and Cindy, have gone missing. Later that day, Cindy’s body is found in a derelict lot a half mile from her home, strangled. Ten days later, Frankie Jr.’s decomposing body is found. Immediately, all fingers point to Ruth.

As police investigate the murders, the detritus of Ruth’s life is exposed. Seen through the eyes of the cops, the empty bourbon bottles and provocative clothing which litter her apartment, the piles of letters from countless men and Ruth’s little black book of phone numbers, make her a drunk, a loose woman–and therefore a bad mother. The lead detective, a strict Catholic who believes women belong in the home, leaps to the obvious conclusion: facing divorce and a custody battle, Malone took her children’s lives.

Pete Wonicke is a rookie tabloid reporter who finagles an assignment to cover the murders. Determined to make his name in the paper, he begins digging into the case. Pete’s interest in the story develops into an obsession with Ruth, and he comes to believe there’s something more to the woman whom prosecutors, the press, and the public have painted as a promiscuous femme fatale. Did Ruth Malone violently kill her own children, is she a victim of circumstance–or is there something more sinister at play?

Inspired by a true story, Little Deaths, like celebrated novels by Sarah Waters and Megan Abbott, is compelling literary crime fiction that explores the capacity for good and evil in us all.

Here’s a link to the request page for the print version in StarCat:

https://goo.gl/Gxjw6F

Print Book Suggestion 4:

A Perilous Undertaking by Deanna Raybourn:

Veronica Speedwell returns in a brand new adventure from Deanna Raybourn, the New York Times bestselling author of the Lady Julia Grey mysteries…

London, 1887. Victorian adventuress and butterfly hunter Veronica Speedwell receives an invitation to visit the Curiosity Club, a ladies-only establishment for daring and intrepid women. There she meets the mysterious Lady Sundridge, who begs her to take on an impossible task—saving society art patron Miles Ramsforth from execution. Accused of the brutal murder of his artist mistress Artemisia, Ramsforth will face the hangman’s noose in a week’s time if Veronica cannot find the real killer.

But Lady Sundridge is not all that she seems, and unmasking her true identity is only the first of the many secrets Veronica must uncover. Together with her natural historian colleague Stoker, Veronica races against time to find the true murderer—a ruthless villain who not only took Artemisia’s life in cold blood but is happy to see Ramsforth hang for the crime. From a Bohemian artists’ colony to a royal palace to a subterranean grotto with a decadent history, the investigation proves to be a very perilous undertaking indeed….

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

https://goo.gl/jpr2xS

Print Book Suggestion 5:

The Ornatrix by Kate Howard:

The passionate and elegantly dark tale of desire, obsession, and deceit by a talented new author

In this exquisitely dark debut, Kate Howard delivers a stirring tale on the cost of beauty, packed with suspense and period detail worthy of Kate Mosse, Jessie Burton, and Tracy Chevalier.

Cursed from birth by the bird-shaped blemish across her face, Flavia spends much of her life hidden from the outside world. Lonely and alienated even from her family, she sabotages her sister’s wedding in a fit of jealous rage and is exiled to serve in the convent of Santa Giuliana. Soon she finds that another exile dwells in the convent: a former Venetian courtesan named Ghostanza whose ostentatious appearance clashes with the otherwise austere convent and sparks gossip throughout the town. When Ghostanza claims Flavia as her ornatrix―her personal hairdresser and handmaid―Flavia is pulled into a world of glamor and concealment where admiration is everything and perfection is the ultimate, elusive goal. And she soon finds that with beauty in her grasp, in the form of the poisonous but stunning white lead cerussa, Flavia will do anything to leave her marked face behind.

Rich in description and character, Kate Howard’s stunning novel is painted against a vivid historical landscape with themes and characters relevant today, tackling issues of belonging, female identity, and the perception of beauty.

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

https://goo.gl/LYPd1w

Have a great 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/

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: Week of Februrary 13, 2017

February 13, 2017 Linda Reimer

Hi, everyone, STLS, that is the main hub of ths is upgrading equipment this week. The process will take several days and while it is going on you will not be able to place requests for items through StarCat. The upgrade is scheduled to be completed by Thursday.

So…

Since you can’t place requests through StarCat until Thursday I am not going to post individual suggested read postings this week.

On Thursday I will post all the suggested items for the week, in one posting – five print book suggestions and five e-book suggestions.

And if for some reason the upgrade process takes longer I will post an update on this site.

Have a great week!

Linda, SSCL

Daily Print & Digital Suggested Reads: Friday, February 10, 2017

February 10, 2017February 6, 2017 Linda Reimer

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

Our digital suggestion for today is the e-book:

Huck Out West: A Novel by Robert Coover:

Our leading postmodernist novelist turns his iconoclastic eye to a great American classic in this sequel to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

At the end of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, on the eve of the Civil War, Huck and Tom Sawyer decide to escape “sivilization” and “light out for the Territory.” In Robert Coover’s Huck Out West, also “wrote by Huck,” the boys do just that, riding for the famous but short-lived Pony Express, then working as scouts for both sides in the war.

They are suddenly separated when Tom decides he’d rather own civilization than leave it, returning east with his new wife, Becky Thatcher, to learn the law from her father. Huck, abandoned and “dreadful lonely,” hires himself out to “whosoever.” He rides shotgun on coaches, wrangles horses on a Chisholm Trail cattle drive, joins a gang of bandits, guides wagon trains, gets dragged into U.S. Army massacres, suffers a series of romantic and barroom misadventures.

He is eventually drawn into a Lakota tribe by a young brave, Eeteh, an inventive teller of Coyote tales who “was having about the same kind of trouble with his tribe as I was having with mine.” There is an army colonel who wants to hang Huck and destroy Eeteh’s tribe, so they’re both on the run, finding themselves ultimately in the Black Hills just ahead of the 1876 Gold Rush.

This period, from the middle of the Civil War to the centennial year of 1876, is probably the most formative era of the nation’s history. In the West, it is a time of grand adventure, but also one of greed, religious insanity, mass slaughter, virulent hatreds, widespread poverty and ignorance, ruthless military and civilian leadership, huge disparities of wealth. Only Huck’s sympathetic and gently comical voice can make it somehow bearable.

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

https://stls.overdrive.com/media/2833413

And our physical format suggestion for today is the print book:

Born on Third Base: A One Percenter Makes the Case for Tackling Inequality, Bringing Wealth Home, and Committing to the Common Good by Chuck Collins and Morris Pearl:

As inequality grabs headlines, steals the show in presidential debates, and drives deep divides between the haves and have nots in America, class war brews. On one side, the wealthy wield power and advantage, wittingly or not, to keep the system operating in their favor―all while retreating into enclaves that separate them further and further from the poor and working class. On the other side, those who find it increasingly difficult to keep up or get ahead lash out―waging a rhetorical war against the rich and letting anger and resentment, however justifiable, keep us from seeing new potential solutions.

But can we suspend both class wars long enough to consider a new way forward? Is it really good for anyone that most of society’s wealth is pooling at the very top of the wealth ladder? Does anyone, including the one percent, really want to live in a society plagued by economic apartheid?

It is time to think differently, says longtime inequality expert and activist Chuck Collins. Born into the one percent, Collins gave away his inheritance at 26 and spent the next three decades mobilizing against inequality. He uses his perspective from both sides of the divide to deliver a new narrative.

Collins calls for a ceasefire and invites the wealthy to come back home, investing themselves and their wealth in struggling communities. And he asks the non-wealthy to build alliances with the one percent and others at the top of the wealth ladder.

Stories told along the way explore the roots of advantage, show how taxpayers subsidize the wealthy, and reveal how charity, used incorrectly, can actually reinforce extreme inequality. Readers meet pioneers who are crossing the divide to work together in new ways, including residents in the author’s own Boston-area neighborhood who have launched some of the most interesting community transition efforts in the nation.

In the end, Collins’s national and local solutions not only challenge inequality but also respond to climate change and offer an unexpected, fresh take on one of our most intransigent problems.

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

https://goo.gl/YFx4cB

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, February 9, 2017

February 9, 2017February 6, 2017 Linda Reimer

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

Our digital suggestion for today is the e-book:

Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese-American Family Caught Between Two Worlds by Pamela Rotner Sakamoto:

Meticulously researched and beautifully written, the true story of a Japanese American family that found itself on opposite sides during World War II—an epic tale of family, separation, divided loyalties, love, reconciliation, loss, and redemption—this is a riveting chronicle of U.S.–Japan relations and the Japanese experience in America.

After their father’s death, Harry, Frank, and Pierce Fukuhara—all born and raised in the Pacific Northwest—moved to Hiroshima, their mother’s ancestral home. Eager to go back to America, Harry returned in the late 1930s. Then came Pearl Harbor. Harry was sent to an internment camp until a call came for Japanese translators and he dutifully volunteered to serve his country. Back in Hiroshima, his brothers Frank and Pierce became soldiers in the Japanese Imperial Army.

As the war raged on, Harry, one of the finest bilingual interpreters in the United States Army, island-hopped across the Pacific, moving ever closer to the enemy—and to his younger brothers. But before the Fukuharas would have to face each other in battle, the U.S. detonated the atomic bomb over Hiroshima, gravely injuring tens of thousands of civilians, including members of their family.

Alternating between the American and Japanese perspectives, Midnight in Broad Daylight captures the uncertainty and intensity of those charged with the fighting as well as the deteriorating home front of Hiroshima—as never told before in English—and provides a fresh look at the dropping of the first atomic bomb. Intimate and evocative, it is an indelible portrait of a resilient family, a scathing examination of racism and xenophobia, an homage to the tremendous Japanese American contribution to the American war effort, and an invaluable addition to the historical record of this extraordinary time.

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

https://stls.overdrive.com/media/2216977

And our physical format suggestion for today is the print book:

Muslim Girl: A Coming of Age by Amani Al-Khatahtbeh:

Required reading from the founder of MuslimGirl.com—a harrowing and candid memoir about coming of age as a Muslim American in the wake of 9/11, during the never-ending war on terror, and through the Trump era of casual racism.

At nine years old, Amani Al-Khatahtbeh watched from her home in New Jersey as two planes crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. That same year, she heard her first racial slur. At age eleven, when the United States had begun to invade Iraq and the television was flooded with anti-Muslim commentary, Amani felt overwhelmed with feelings of intense alienation from American society. At thirteen, her family took a trip to her father’s native homeland of Jordan, and Amani experienced firsthand a culture built on pure religion, not Islamic stereotypes.

Inspired by her trip and after years of feeling like her voice as a Muslim woman was marginalized and neglected during a time when all the media could talk about was, ironically, Muslim women, Amani created a website called MuslimGirl. As the editor-in-chief, she put together a team of Muslim women and started a life dedicated to activism.

This is the extraordinary account of Amani’s journey through adolescence as a Muslim girl, from the Islamophobia she’s faced on a daily basis, to the website she launched that became a cultural phenomenon, to the nation’s political climate in the 2016 election cycle with Donald Trump as the Republican nominee. While dispelling the myth that a headscarf makes you a walking target for terrorism, she shares both her own personal accounts and anecdotes from the “sisterhood” of writers that serve as her editorial team at MuslimGirl. Amani’s honest, urgent message is fresh, timely, and a deeply necessary counterpoint to the current rhetoric about the Middle East.

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

https://goo.gl/7O9WZu

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:

New Weekly Series Of Recommended Listens!

February 8, 2017 Linda Reimer

Today, we’re kicking off a new weekly posting series that will focus on recommended music you can listen to both through the library’s digital Freegal Music Service*, which allows you to listen to and download songs to a PC, Mac or mobile device, and via the library’s compact disc collection.

You can think of these postings as an audio version of the traditional reader’s advisory services public libraries provide – instead of suggesting that next great book for you to read – we’re going to recommend that next great song, album or artist you can listen to!

For 2017 our music theme will be sixties rock. Each month we’ll focus on a genre of sixties rock and each week we’ll focus on three artists or groups that fall under the umbrella of our monthly genre of sixties rock.

Each weeks posting will have four sections:

1. Freegal Music Recommendations: These suggestions will feature music available to stream or download from the Freegal Music Catalog (which is free – library card required!). You can stream three hours of commercial free music per day from Freegal so it is a good way to check out artists and groups and expand your musical horizons!

To access Freegal Music from a desktop or laptop simply click on the following link:

http://stlsny.freegalmusic.com/

The STLS Freegal Music Catalog homepage will display — it looks like this:

The Freegal Music app can be found in your app store and it looks like this:

2. Compact Discs Recommendations: These recommendations will feature songs and albums found in the library’s compact disc collection and available for check out at the library.

3. Videos: This section fill feature short videos found online, mostly on YouTube, of each spotlighted artist.

4. References: This section will include links to the references used to create each weeks posting – so if you want to know more about an artist or song – just click a link!

With that in mind, our February category of Sixties Rock Suggested Listens is Twangy Guitars. And with our guitars in hand, or at least in mind, we’ll enjoy listening to some of the most popular and influential guitarists of the early 1960s (think pre-Beatles guitarists).

And for this first full week of February our three recommended twangy guitar players are Duane Eddy, Lonnie Mack and Link Wray.

FREEGAL MUSIC RECOMMENDATIONS:

Recommended Guitarist 1) Duane Eddy

Album: The Complete US & UK Singles and EP’s A’s & B’s 1955-62:

This album includes a number of Duane Eddy’s best known songs including: Rebel RouserAKA Rebel-‘rouser, Along Came Linda, Caravan, Pt 2, Cannonball, Peter Gunn, Night Train To Memphis and more!

Here’s the link to the album:
https://goo.gl/ebXHd9

Recommended Guitarist 2) Lonnie Mack

Album: Roadhouses and Dance Halls:

This one was Mack’s last solo album, released in 2001 and it is the only full album of Mack’s material found in the Freegal catalog. Having said that, this is a solid album and you can hear that Rockabilly player that he was Mack never ventured too far from his country music roots.

The album includes the songs: Plain Jane (In A Mustang0, Honkey Tonk Man, Riding the Blinds, Hard Life and more. And my favorite song on this album is Lucille which despite the title is not the tune of Little Richard fame but instead a neat song that those of us of a certain age will certainly appreciate – one of the main lines in the song goes “My get up and go, got up and went with Lucille!”

Here’s the link to the album:
https://goo.gl/2fZnxp

Recommended Guitarist 3) Link Wray & The Wraymen:

Album: Link Wray & The Wraymen: The Definitive Edition

(Bonus Track Version):

This album features most of Link’s classic era songs including Rumble & Raw-Hide. In addition to those songs I’m also very fond of the tune Golden Strings which is based on a Chopin Etude and has a nice, and unexpected, piano player alternating his playing with Link’s guitar playing.

Here’s a the link to the album:
https://goo.gl/qJsB20

Week 1 Freegal Wild Card Pick:

Album: Moochin’ Abouts Stateside Hitlist 1962, Vol. 1 by Various Artists

I know I said not all Wild Card picks of the weeks for this year would focus on sixites rock, and indeed the CD Wild Card pick doesn’t; however, this is a really nice collection of popular hits form 1962 including The Night Has A Thousand Eyes by Bobby Vee, I Can’t Stop Loving You by Ray Charles, The Stripper by David Rose & His Orchestra, Snap Your Fingers by Joe Henderson, Ramblin’ Rose by Nat King Cole and many, many more – I just couldn’t resists as it is a really fun collection of songs!

Here’s a link to the album:
https://goo.gl/OtZLEw

COMPACT DISC RECOMMENDATIONS:

1) The Very Best of Duane Eddy by Duane Eddy:

This three disc set features all of Eddy’s most popular hits including Rebel Rouser, Because They’re Young, Moon River, Shazam!, Ring of Fire, John Henry, Forty Miles of Bad Road, Cannonball & more!

Here’s a link to the request page in StarCat:
https://goo.gl/7mSSA0

2) The Wham of that Memphis Man by Lonnie Mack:

Lonnie Mack’s seminal debut LP featuring the songs: Wham!, Suzie Q, Farther on Down The Road, Chicken Pickin’, Memphis, Why and more!

Here’s a link to the request page in StarCat:
https://goo.gl/CSJxef

3) Rumble! The Best of Link Wray by Link Wray:

This album features 20 of Wray’s best songs including: Rumble, The Swag, Raw-Hide, Dixie-Doodle, Ramble, Deuces Wild, Batman Theme, Ace of Spades and more!

Here’s a link to the request page in StarCat:
https://goo.gl/tzIbjx

Week 1 CD Wild Card Pick:

Sidewinder by Lee Morgan:

Carried by its almost impossibly infectious eponymous opening track, The Sidewinder helped foreshadow the sounds of boogaloo and soul-jazz with its healthy R&B influence and Latin tinge. While the rest of the album retreats to a more conventional hard bop sound, Morgan’s compositions are forward-thinking and universally solid. Only 25 at the time of its release, Morgan was accomplished (and perhaps cocky) enough to speak of mentoring the great Joe Henderson, who at 26 was just beginning to play dates with Blue Note after getting out of the military. Henderson makes a major contribution to the album, especially on “Totem Pole,” where his solos showed off his singular style, threatening to upstage Morgan, who is also fairly impressive here. Barry Harris, Bob Cranshaw, and Billy Higgins are all in good form throughout the album as well, and the group works together seamlessly to create an album that crackles with energy while maintaining a stylish flow. – AllMusic Review by Stacia Proefrock

Here’s a link to the request page in StarCat:
https://goo.gl/OdyGL5

And if you have ten minutes to spare – here’s a link to YouTube where you can listen to one of the most engaging songs on the album Totem Pole:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12srcPirMeM

Video Clips:

Duane Eddy:

Rebel Rouser – From the Night Beech-Nut Show. July 19, 1958.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8uZutr1avs

Duane Eddy – The Theme from Peter Gunn – live in Glastonbury 2011
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhVFK9tYu84

Lonnie Mack:

Memphis – the original version from the album The Wham of that Memphis Man – this video features photos of the early sixties but does not show Lonnie Mack himself; however, the sound quality of the song is good!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExRdQtqHyac

Memphis – this version is from the 1980s and shows Lonnie playing a slightly mellower version of Memphis than the original:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOlEYLEvkXk

Wham – with another great guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughn – from 1986:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbfgBlkSoqc

Link Wray:

Rumble!

Rawhide (Wray and his band are introduced by Dick Clark!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fn5hl2IA7_s

References & Brief Artists Description:

Brief Artists Bios:
Duane Eddy (4/26/1938): As many of you will know Duane Eddy has a local connection. He was born in Corning Hospital, the one on Denison Parkway that they are tearing down now, on April 26, 1938 and lived in the Corning area until he was seven. Eddy began his career in the 1950s, picked up steam in the 1960s and continues to play today.
His twangy guitar riffs were heard on 15 top 40 hits released between 1958 and 1963. And his music has been featured in a number of films over the years including Forrest Gump.

Some of Eddy’s best known songs include: Rebel Rouser, Peter Gunn, Movin’ and Groovin’ and one of my favorites John Henry with its cool hammer sounds interspersed with Eddy’s guitar riffs.

Lonnie Mack (7/18/1941-4/21/2016): The great Rockabilly guitarist Lonnie Mack was born Lonnie McIntosh in Harrison, Indiana on July 18, 1941. Mack is best known for his debut album The Wham Of That Memphis Man released in 1964. Also of cool note, Mack played rocking blues solo on the Door’s song Roadhouse Blues. Two of Mack’s best known songs are Wham and his version of Chuck Berry’s Memphis – both found on his debut album.

Link Wray (5/2/1929-11/5/2005): Power Chord pioneer Link Wray was born on May 2, 1929 in Dunn, North Carolina and came to guitar prominence in the late fifties and early sixties. His known for a number of instrumental classics including Rumble and Raw-Hide. Wray’s music came back into pop culture awareness in the nineties when film makers including Roland Emmerich (Independence Day), Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction) and Robert Rodriquez (Desperado) used his music in their films.

References:

General References:

Santelli, Robert. Sixties Rock: A Listener’s Guide. Contemporary Books. Chicago. 1985.

Sidewinder by Lee Morgan, review by Stacia Proefrock, AllMusic.
http://www.allmusic.com/album/the-sidewinder-mw0000241127

Whitburn, Joel. The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits. Billboard Books. New York. 2009.

Duane Eddy References:

100 Greatest Guitarists #64: Duane Eddy. Rolling Stone.
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/100-greatest-guitarists-20111123/duane-eddy-20111122

Duane Eddy Biography. LastFM. http://www.last.fm/music/Duane+Eddy/+wiki
Duane Eddy. AllMusic.

http://www.allmusic.com/artist/duane-eddy-mn0000171637

Play Like Duane Eddy by Jesse Gress, Guitar Player. http://www.guitarplayer.com/artists/1026/10-things-you-gotta-do-to-play-like-duane-eddy/22245

Lonnie Mack References:
Lonnie Mack. AllMusic. http://www.allmusic.com/artist/lonnie-mack-mn0000274822/biography

Lonnie Mack, Singer and Guitarist Who Pioneered Blues-Rock, Dies at 74 by William Grimes, New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/23/arts/music/lonnie-mack-singer-and-guitarist-who-pioneered-blues-rockdies-at-74.html?_r=0

Link Wray References:
Link Wray (Artist Overview). AllMusic.
http://www.allmusic.com/artist/link-wray-mn0000240311

Link Wray, 76, a Guitarist With Raw Rockabilly Sound, Dies by Ben Sisario. New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/22/arts/link-wray-76-a-guitarist-with-raw-rockabilly-sound-dies.html

Have a great week!

Linda, SSCL

*You must have a library card at a Southern Tier Library System member library to enjoy the Freegal Music Service. Your card can be from any library in the system, and the system includes all public libraries in Steuben, Chemung, Yates, Schuyler and Allegheny Counties and including our own Southeast Steuben Count Library in Corning, New York. Library cards are free and at our library you can obtain one by visiting the Circulation Desk and presenting staff with a form of ID that features both your name and your current address.

Daily Print & Digital Suggested Reads: Wednesday, February 8, 2017

February 8, 2017February 6, 2017 Linda Reimer

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

Our digital suggestion for today is the streaming video:

1984:

George Orwell’s landmark novel is the basis of this eerie, darkly satiric tale whose futuristic world is divided into three sections following an atomic war. London, capital of the Oceania sector, is where Edmond O’Brien is a clerk for “Big Brother,” the totalitarian government that keeps a close watch with all of its subjects. When O’Brien carries on a forbidden love affair with Jan Sterling, officials try to brainwash the couple into abandoning their free will. With Donald Pleasence, Michael Redgrave; directed by Michael Anderson (“Around the World in 80 Days”).

And here’s a link to the checkout page in the Digital Catalog:

https://stls.overdrive.com/media/2016736

And the physical item for today is the print book:

Under the Midnight Sun by Keigo Higashino:

From the acclaimed international bestseller Keigo Higashino (The Devotion of Suspect X) comes a sweeping novel in the tradition of Les Miserables and Crime and Punishment. This is the compelling story of a brutal crime and the two teenagers―Ryo, the son of the murdered man, and Yukiho, the daughter of the main suspect―whose lives remain inextricably linked over the twenty-year search for the truth behind the crime.

In Osaka in 1973, the body of a murdered man is found in an abandoned building. Investigating the crime, Detective SasagakI is unable to find the killer. Over the next twenty years, through the lens of a succession of characters, Higashino tells the story of two teens, Ryo and Yukiho, whose lives are most affected by the crime, and the obsessed detective, Sasagaki, who continues to investigate the murder, looking for the elusive truth.

Under the Midnight Sun is a complex, psychological novel about crime and its after-effects by one the most read and most accomplished contemporary mystery author. A twisting, compelling work that will astonish and delight Higashino’s old fans and new readers alike.

Here’s a link to the request page for the print version in StarCat:

https://goo.gl/L7Cl1y

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: Tuesday, February 7, 2017

February 7, 2017February 6, 2017 Linda Reimer

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

Our digital suggestion for today is the e-book:

Forty Autumns: A Family’s Story of Courage and Survival on Both Sides of the Berlin Wall by Nina Willner:

In this illuminating and deeply moving memoir, a former American military intelligence officer goes beyond traditional Cold War espionage tales to tell the true story of her family—of five women separated by the Iron Curtain for more than forty years, and their miraculous reunion after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Forty Autumns makes visceral the pain and longing of one family forced to live apart in a world divided by two. At twenty, Hanna escaped from East to West Germany. But the price of freedom—leaving behind her parents, eight siblings, and family home—was heartbreaking. Uprooted, Hanna eventually moved to America, where she settled down with her husband and had children of her own.

Growing up near Washington, D.C., Hanna’s daughter, Nina Willner became the first female Army Intelligence Officer to lead sensitive intelligence operations in East Berlin at the height of the Cold War. Though only a few miles separated American Nina and her German relatives—grandmother Oma, Aunt Heidi, and cousin, Cordula, a member of the East German Olympic training team—a bitter political war kept them apart.

In Forty Autumns, Nina recounts her family’s story—five ordinary lives buffeted by circumstances beyond their control. She takes us deep into the tumultuous and terrifying world of East Germany under Communist rule, revealing both the cruel reality her relatives endured and her own experiences as an intelligence officer, running secret operations behind the Berlin Wall that put her life at risk.

A personal look at a tenuous era that divided a city and a nation, and continues to haunt us, Forty Autumns is an intimate and beautifully written story of courage, resilience, and love—of five women whose spirits could not be broken, and who fought to preserve what matters most: family.

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

https://stls.overdrive.com/media/2552640

And the physical item for today is a print book:

The Mexican Flyboy by Alfredo Véa Jr.:

Abandoned as a child, brooding and haunted as an adult, Simon Vegas, “the Mexican Flyboy,” toils for years to repair a time machine that fell into his hands in Vietnam. With the help of his friend, eccentric Hephaestus Segundo, Simon uses the device to fly through time. Wherever acts of human cruelty take place, in the past or in the present, the machine lets him lift the suffering away and deliver them to a utopian afterlife. Blending magical realism, science fiction, history, and comic-book fantasy, The Mexican Flyboy swoops readers from the jungles of Southeast Asia to the vineyards of Northern California, from Ethel Rosenberg’s execution to Joan of Arc’s pyre, in a tale of justice, trauma, regret, and redemption.

The dead pass through the narrative in a parade at once heartbreaking and hopeful, among them Vincent van Gogh and Malcolm X, Ernest Hemingway and Amadou Diallo. But the living—Simon’s pregnant wife, Elena, his old friend Ezekiel Stein, prisoner Lenny Hudson—all throw doubt onto Simon’s story. Is Simon truly a “magus,” transporting martyrs to a shared community in paradise? Or is he just a man broken by loss, guilt, and the trauma of war, hopelessly lost in an illusion of his own making?

Crossing genres and blending comedy with tragedy, Alfredo Véa imagines a world where we can rewrite our pasts and heal the wounds inflicted by history. Inviting comparisons to the work of James Joyce and Jorge Luis Borges, Junot Díaz and Michael Chabon, this powerful book is like nothing else you have ever read.

Here’s a link to the request page in StarCat:

https://goo.gl/YaQuhI

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, February 6, 2017

February 6, 2017 Linda Reimer

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

Our digital suggestion for today is the e-book:

Dust Bowl Girls: The Inspiring Story of the Team That Barnstormed Its Way to Basketball Glory by Lydia Reeder:

In the early 1930s, during the worst drought and financial depression in American history, Sam Babb began to dream. Like so many others, this charismatic Midwestern basketball coach wanted a reason to have hope. Traveling from farm to farm near the tiny Oklahoma college where he coached, Babb recruited talented, hardworking young women and offered them a chance at a better life: a free college education in exchange for playing on his basketball team, the Cardinals.

Despite their fears of leaving home and the sacrifices that their families would face, the women joined the team. And as Babb coached the Cardinals, something extraordinary happened. These remarkable athletes found a passion for the game and a heartfelt loyalty to one another and their coach–and they began to win.

Combining exhilarating sports writing and exceptional storytelling, Dust Bowl Girls takes readers on the Cardinals’ intense, improbable journey all the way to an epic showdown with the prevailing national champions, helmed by the legendary Babe Didrikson. Lydia Reeder captures a moment in history when female athletes faced intense scrutiny from influential figures in politics, education, and medicine who denounced women’s sports as unhealthy and unladylike. At a time when a struggling nation was hungry for inspiration, this unlikely group of trailblazers achieved much more than a championship season.

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

https://stls.overdrive.com/media/2577682

And the physical item for today is a print book:

4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster:

Paul Auster’s greatest, most heartbreaking and satisfying novel―a sweeping and surprising story of birthright and possibility, of love and of life itself.

Nearly two weeks early, on March 3, 1947, in the maternity ward of Beth Israel Hospital in Newark, New Jersey, Archibald Isaac Ferguson, the one and only child of Rose and Stanley Ferguson, is born. From that single beginning, Ferguson’s life will take four simultaneous and independent fictional paths. Four identical Fergusons made of the same DNA, four boys who are the same boy, go on to lead four parallel and entirely different lives. Family fortunes diverge. Athletic skills and sex lives and friendships and intellectual passions contrast. Each Ferguson falls under the spell of the magnificent Amy Schneiderman, yet each Amy and each Ferguson have a relationship like no other. Meanwhile, readers will take in each Ferguson’s pleasures and ache from each Ferguson’s pains, as the mortal plot of each Ferguson’s life rushes on.

As inventive and dexterously constructed as anything Paul Auster has ever written, yet with a passion for realism and a great tenderness and fierce attachment to history and to life itself that readers have never seen from Auster before. 4 3 2 1 is a marvelous and unforgettably affecting tour de force.

Here’s a link to the request page in StarCat:

https://goo.gl/pK4zdM

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: Friday, February 3, 2017

February 3, 2017January 30, 2017 Linda Reimer

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

Our digital suggestion for today is the e-book:

The Ludwig Conspiracy by Oliver Pötzsch:

A bold new thriller from the best-selling author of The Hangman’s Daughter series
In 1886, Ludwig II, the Fairy-tale King of Bavaria, was deposed after being declared insane by doctors who had never met him. He died mysteriously soon thereafter, his eccentric and beautiful castles his only legacy. In The Ludwig Conspiracy, master of historical suspense Oliver Pötzsch brings the Mad King back to life.

An encoded diary by one of Ludwig’s confidants falls into the hands of modern-day rare-book dealer Steven Lukas, who soon realizes that the diary may bring him more misery than money. Lukas teams up with a beautiful art detective, Sara Lengfeld, to investigate each of Ludwig’s three famous castles for clues to crack the diary’s code as mysterious thugs and Ludwig’s fanatical followers chase them at every step. Just what in the diary could be so explosive?

“This gripping thriller brings together the present and the past with high-action adventure in a bold, entertaining storyline.” —Shepherd Express (Milwaukee)

“Pötzsch makes clever use of Bavaria’s equivalent of the Kennedy assassination in this excellent stand-alone . . . Pötzsch’s sophisticated plotting and good use of a real-life historical puzzle place this far ahead of most Da Vinci Code wannabes.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

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

https://stls.overdrive.com/media/1425517

And our physical format suggestion for today is the print book:

The New Odyssey: The Story of the Twenty-First Century Refugee Crisis

by Patrick Kingsley:

In the humane tradition of Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers comes a searing account of the international refugee crisis.

On the day of his son’s fourteenth birthday, Hashem al-Souki lay somewhere in the Mediterranean, crammed in a wooden dinghy. His family was relatively safe―at least for the time being―in Egypt, where they had only just settled after fleeing their war-torn Damascus home three years prior. Traversing these unforgiving waters and the treacherous terrain that would follow was worth the slim chance of securing a safe home for his children in Sweden. If he failed, at least he would fail alone.?

Hashem’s story is tragically common, as desperate victims continue to embark on deadly journeys in search of freedom. Tracking the harrowing experiences of these brave refugees, The New Odyssey finally illuminates the shadowy networks that have facilitated the largest forced exodus since the end of World War II.

The Guardian’s first-ever migration correspondent, Patrick Kingsley has traveled through seventeen countries to put an indelible face on this overwhelming disaster. Embedding himself alongside the refugees, Kingsley reenacts their flight with hundreds of people across the choppy Mediterranean in the hopes of better understanding who helps or hinders their path to salvation. From the starving migrants who push through sandstorms with children strapped to their backs to the exploitive criminals who prey on them, from the smugglers who dangerously stretch the limits of their cargo space to the volunteers who uproot their own lives to hand out water bottles―what emerges is a kaleidoscope of humanity in the wake of tragedy. By simultaneously tracing the narrative of Hashem, who endured the trek not once but twice, Kingsley memorably creates a compassionate, visceral portrait of the mass migration in both its epic scope and its heartbreaking specificity.

Exposing the realities of this modern-day odyssey as well as the moral shortcomings evident in our own indifference, the result is a crucial call to arms and an unprecedented exploration of a world we too often choose not to know.

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

https://goo.gl/mWK7AU

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:

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