Month: February 2022

Hi everyone, welcome to our Suggested Listening posting for this week!

Suggested Listening postings are published on Fridays; and our next Suggested Listening posting will be out on Friday,

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And here are the 10 recommended songs of the week!

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Car Wheels On A Gravel Road by Lucinda Williams (Genre: Singer-Songwriter)

From The Album: Car Wheels On A Gravel Road (1998)

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I Feel The Earth Move by Carole King (Genre: Singer-Songwriter)

In honor of the 80th birthday of this very talented lady, which was this week!

Carole was born February 9, 1942.

From The Album: Tapestry (1971).

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Homeward Bound by Fleetwood Mac (Genre: Rock, Seventies Rock)

From The Album: Bare Trees (1972)

And as a bonus, since Bare Trees is not as well known an album as it should be in the U.S. – here is the title track too:

Bare Trees by Fleetwood Mac (Genre: Rock, Seventies Rock)

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Homeward Bound by Simon & Garfunkel (Genre: Singer-Songwriter, Folk-Rock)

From The Album: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme (1966)

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I Got Friday On My Mine by The Easy Beats (Genre: Classic Rock)

From The Album: Friday On My Mind (1967)

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Let Up by Abbey Lincoln with the Max Roach Quartet (Genre: Vocal, Jazz)

From The Album: Abbey At Midnight (1959)

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Livin’ It Up (Friday Night) by Bell & James (Genre: Vintage Seventies!)

From The Album: Bell & James (1979)

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Midnight Train To George by Gladys Knight & The Pips (Genre: R&B, Vocal, Pop)

From The Album: Imagination (1973)

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Rainy Night In Georgia by Brooks Benton (Genre: R&B, Vocal, Pop)

From The Album: Today (1970).

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A Swingin’ Safari by Bert Kaempfert And His Orchestra (Genre: Instrumental)

From The Album: Swingin Safari / Wonderland By Night (2018)

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Hoopla Recommend Album of the Week

Sheryl Crow (1996) by Sheryl Crow (Genre: Rock)

And from the album the song

Ordinary Morning

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Have a great weekend,

Linda Reimer, SSCL

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REFERENCES:

Print References

The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits by Joel Whitburn

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Online Catalog Links:

StarCat

The catalog of physical materials, i.e. print books, DVDs, audiobooks on CD, etc.

–

The Digital Catalog, web version of Libby

The catalog of e-books, downloadable audiobooks and a handful of streaming videos.

–

The Libby App

Libby is the companion app to the Digital Catalog and may be found in the Apple & Google app.

–

Hoopla

A catalog of instant check out items, including eBooks, downloadable audiobooks, comic books, TV shows and movies for patrons of the Southeast Steuben County Library.

–

Tech Talk is a Southeast Steuben County Library blog.

Hi everyone, here is the latest edition of Library Connections, our weekly readers’, viewers’ and listeners’ advisory videocast.

The next Library Connections video will be posted on Tuesday, February 15, 2022.

Library Connections videos may also be accessed via the Southeast Steuben County Library’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/SESTEUBENCOLIBRARY

Have a great week!
Linda Reimer, SSCL

Hi everyone, here are our recommended reads for the week.

Format Note: Under each book title you’ll find a list of all the different formats that specific title is available in; including: Print Books, Large Print Books, CD Audiobooks, eBooks & Downloadable Audiobooks from the Digital Catalog (Libby app) and Hoopla eBooks & Hoopla Downloadable Audiobooks (Hoopla app).

*More information on the three catalogs is found at the end of the list of recommended reads*

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Weekly Suggested Reading postings are usually published on Tuesdays; sorry this one is a bit late – I was bit swamped yesterday!

The next Suggested Reading posting will be published on Tuesday, February 15, 2022.

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The Agony of the Ghost and Other Stories by Hasan Azizul Huq and Bhaskar Chattopadhyay

(Available Formats: Print Book)

Hasan Azizul Huq is known for his stories that bring a powerful social consciousness to bear on the lives of ordinary people in contemporary Bangladesh—but doing so with surprising twists to what we think of as the typical grounds of realistic fiction. The Agony of the Ghost gathers twelve remarkable stories from his large oeuvre that offer a sense of the range of his insights and approaches. In “Without Name or Lineage,” a man returns home in search of his wife and son after the war, only to find them in ways both unexpected and expected. “The Sorcerer” finds a sorcerer dying without revealing his secrets to three brothers who had been trying to compel him to tell—and strange deaths follow. In “ Throughout the Afternoon,” a disarmingly simple story, a young boy awaits his grandfather’s death. In all the stories, the lives of the most disadvantaged people in Bengali society are revealed in harrowing, unforgettable detail.

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The Beirut Hellfire Society: A Novel by Rawi Hage

(Available Formats: Print Book & Hoopla instant checkout audiobook)

Although the characters in this novel are fictitious, the final sentence of Hage’s (Carnival, 2013) spectacular novel acknowledges, this is a book of mourning for the many who witnessed senseless wars, and for those who perished in those wars. For the Lebanon-born, Canadian-domiciled, International IMPAC Dublin Award winner Hage, real-life experiences surely drive his fiction, for he witnessed nine of the 15-plus years of the Lebanese Civil War. What he’s undoubtedly accepted is that life’s only certainty is death. For second-generation Beirut undertaker Pavlov, death is his inherited livelihood. Like his late father, Pavlov enables the final journey for outcast cadavers no one else will touch. After his father’s death, Pavlov, too, is visited by the Hellfire Society, whose libertine members, with Pavlov’s cooperation, will likely return to ashes and dust in a remote mountainous crematorium. Between his undertaking care of drug dealers and drug takers, murderers and mourners, Pavlov navigates a surreal reality of dropping bombs, brutal family feuds, dangerous liaisons, occasional companionship with a gentle (albeit murderous) prostitute, the ephemeral Lady of the Stairs, and his loyal (if ghostly) dog. Death binds them all, Hage’s visceral reminder that beyond money, power, religion, and war, we are nothing more than corpses to either let rot or set aflame. Starred Booklist Review

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Color of the Sea by John Hammaura

(Available Formats: Print Book)

Born in Hawaii to Japanese parents, Sam Hamada is not destined to follow in his father’s footsteps as a mere plantation worker. Education, both traditional schooling and martial arts training, is Sam’s ticket out, leading him to college on the mainland, where he meets Keiko, the fetching, willful daughter of Japanese immigrants. Yet while Keiko and Sam are falling in love, their adopted and native lands are preparing for war. Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Keiko’s family is incarcerated in internment camps while Sam is drafted into the U.S. Army, where he unwittingly plays a key role in the bombing of Hiroshima, still home to his mother and siblings. To be a Japanese American in mid-twentieth-century America was to be perceived as neither Japanese nor American, and it is this conflict that informs Hamamura’s ambitious coming-of-age novel, in which the fate of two people amid the devastation of war reveals how the promises of honor and the security of love can rescue souls and restore faith. Booklist Review

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Daughters of the North by Sarah Hall

(Available Formats: Print Book & Hoopla instant checkout eBook)

From prison, a woman tells us she has been Sister for the last three years; her former name is simply gone. So is the Britain we might have recognized in this futuristic tale set in the semitropical Britain of the authority, where seasons blur and people mourn the loss of March hail and even January cold. Flooded ports and lowlands, residents crammed together, Baghdad-style power outages, Soviet-style deprivation, civilian travel banned and cars, without fuel, long abandoned, nationalized resources, weapons in the hands of a dictatorial government that mandates contraception all parts of a 10-year official recovery that compels the narrator, after practicing for a month, to slip away with the rucksack she has hidden in an alleyway alcove. With food, water, clothes, and a World War II rifle, she seeks Carhullan, a women’s commune of presumed terrorists and Furies, on a dangerous journey into the distant mountains. Halls compelling writing recalls Atwood and Lessing, resonating beyond obvious current parallels and never softening her vision of a dismal, hellish future and exalted, albeit transient, rebellion. Booklist Review

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Donorboy by Brendan Halpin

(Available Formats: Print Book & Hoopla instant checkout eBook)

Rosalind is mourning the deaths of both her moms, and Sean is working on his own issues—the only thing they have in common is a little DNA

When both of Rosalind’s mothers die, she moves in with the donor father she never knew. Fifteen, angry, and feeling completely alone, Ros refuses to speak to her biological father, Sean, sharing her feelings only with her journal. But through a series of emails and text messages, Ros and Sean slowly get to know each other.
Sweet, comic, honest, and moving, Donorboy is the story of two people who seem to have nothing more than genes in common stumbling toward a shared future. Brendan Halpin has crafted a thoroughly modern take on love, family, and figuring it all out.

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Guapa: A Novel by Saleem Haddad

(Available Formats: Print Book)

The titular Guapa is a dive bar in an unnamed city in the Middle East that has the feel of present-day Cairo. Guapa offers its habitues an escape from the watchful eye of a hard-line regime. Protagonist Rasa, a young, educated (in America) gay man, is a visitor to the underground club, where he meets friends and his lover, Taymour. At the start of this affecting novel, Rasa’s indomitable grandmother Teta, with whom he’s lived since the death of his father and the disappearance of his mother, discovers him and Taymour in flagrante delicto in Rasa’s room. This threatens to end his relations with Taymour, and for the rest of the novel Rasa attempts to patch things up with his lover while wondering about his existence as a gay man in a traditional society. Haddad, born in Kuwait City of a Lebanese Palestinian father and an Iraqi German mother and now residing in London, has served as an aid worker for Doctors Without Borders in several Middle Eastern countries. Here he opens a window onto a man coming to terms with his sexuality in a repressive society during the recent upheavals in the Arab world.

VERDICT Warmly recommended to all readers who are interested in issues of diversity and the Middle East. –Library Journal Review

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Homeland by Barbara Hambly

(Available Formats: Print Book)

Two women, one a Northerner with a husband fighting for the Confederacy, and one a Southerner yearning to attend art school in Philadelphia, exchange letters and find in their unlikely friendship the strength to survive the Civil War, and though shades of Scarlett O’Hara occasionally pop up, Hambly manages a mostly original take on a much-covered era. Newly wed to Tennessean Emory Poole, Cora Poole retreats to Deer Isle, Maine, to remain true to her husband among friends and relatives who abhor his allegiance and suspect hers. In Greene County, Tenn., Emory’s neighbor, Susanna Ashford, dabbles in the arts while facing an increasingly dire reality. The correspondents share feelings, views of current events and accounts of their respective tribulations: Susanna nurses the wounded, hunts and sews to pay for her sister’s midwife. Cora raises her infant daughter, cares for her demented mother and also sews as the war exhausts resources. The leads are three-dimensional, occasionally surprising and always sympathetic as they find in their unlikely friendship the strength to accept the loss of their ways of life and to seek new ways where they both might thrive. Publishers Weekly Review

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In All Good Faith: A Novel by Liza Nash Taylor

(Available Formats: Print Book & Hoopla instant checkout eBook)

May Craig and Dorrit Sykes have nothing in common. May is a well-off wife and mother who helps run the family farm and business. Dorrit is a shy teenager, living in a cramped Boston tenement with her father Roy and older brother. However, the summer of 1932 finds them and the rest of the nation struggling. For May, the family businesses are barely holding on. While they are lucky that May’s husband gets a job in DC, it does mean he will be away from their family during the week. Roy is a WWI veteran who, like many veterans that summer, travels to Washington to pressure Hoover and Congress for early payment of war bonuses. He takes Dorrit with him, starting a chain of events that changes everyone’s lives. In this stand-alone sequel to her first novel, Etiquette for Runaways (2020), Taylor delivers a well-researched and deftly written historical fiction novel. The Bonus March is not often covered in historical fiction and Taylor brings to life the desperation of those veterans. Both May and Dorrit pop off the page and their dual narratives shine a light on the struggles women faced during the Great Depression. Highly recommended for all libraries. Starred Booklist Review

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The Next Ship Home: A Novel of Ellis Island by Heather Webb

(Available Formats: Hoopla instant checkout eBook)

When thinking of Ellis Island, some envision freedom and new beginnings. For Alma and Francesca, it represents corruption, unwanted advances, and manipulation. Taking a job at Ellis Island, Alma gets an inside view of how immigrants are treated when they arrive in the States. On Alma’s first day, she meets Francesca, who came from Italy to escape her abusive father. Francesca desperately wants to stay in New York but needs Alma’s help to make that happen. Inspectors, food vendors, and matrons take liberties with the immigrants they work with every day. Reports of corruption start to surround Ellis Island, and the government calls for change. Bonded by friendship and secrets, Alma and Francesca fight back against an unethical system. Webb (Three Words for Goodbye with Hazel Gaynor, 2021) tells the story of female friendship and strength with great historical detail. She stresses the need for barriers between the classes to be broken. With compelling detail, she weaves in suspense with secrets and the risk of danger due to riots, deportation, and an upset society. This is a great historical read. Library Journal Review

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The Water Rat of Wanchai by Ava Lee

(Available Formats: Print Book)

Chinese Canadian Ava Lee, forensic accountant, chafes at being office bound. She and her business partner, “Uncle,” instead find Mission Impossible-style assignments. They rescue business owners who, through careless or naive transactions, have been scammed. (Incidentally, getting large sums of money back to their rightful owners might require somewhat illegal maneuvers by Lee.) In this outing, Ava must recover several million dollars that went missing through an international seafood operation. Moving globally, she homes in on her target when she discovers the ringleader is holed up in Guyana, a country not conducive to a smooth operation. But Ava’s quick thinking helps her emerge victorious.

VERDICT Although other titles in this Canadian run (The Disciple of Las Vegas: The Wild Beasts of Wuhan; The Red Pole of Macau) have been released here, fans won’t want to miss this series launch. Ava Lee is a must add.

Spoiler alert: it’s a crime novel, not a murder mystery, geared for readers who savor elaborate traps meant to ensnare bad guys with abundant action involved. While not as comedic as Colin Cotterill’s Jimm Juree series, it carries similar appeal with a strong Asian female lead and large ensemble cast. Library Journal Review

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Have a great week!

Linda Reimer

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*Information on the Three Catalogs*

Digital Catalog: https://stls.overdrive.com/

The Digital Catalog, is an online catalog containing eBooks, downloadable audiobooks, digital magazines and a handful of streaming videos. The catalog, which allows one to download content to a PC, also has a companion app, Libby, which you can download to your mobile device; so you can enjoy eBooks and downloadable audiobooks on the go!

All card holders of all Southern Tier Library System member libraries can check out items from the Digital Catalog.

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Hoopla Catalog: https://www.hoopladigital.com/

The Hoopla Catalog features instant checkouts of eBooks, downloadable audiobooks, comic books, albums, movies and TV series. Patron check out limit is 6 items per month.

Hoopla is a Southeast Steuben County Library service available to all Southeast Steuben County Library card holders.

The Hoopla App is available for Android or Apple devices and most smart TVs & media streaming players.

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StarCat: The catalog of physical/traditional library materials: https://starcat.stls.org

Card holders of all Southern Tier Library System member libraries can access StarCat to search for and request materials available at libraries through out the Southern Tier Library System.

The StarCat app is called Bookmyne and is available for Apple and Android devices.

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Note: Book summaries are from the respective publishers unless otherwise specified.

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Have questions or want to request a book?

Feel free to call the library! Our telephone number is 607-936-3713.

Tech Talk is a Southeast Steuben County Library blog.

Hi everyone, here is the weekly list of New York Times Bestsellers.

Each title is followed by a listing of which formats it is available in for check out within the three catalogs: StarCat (Print, Large Print & CD Audiobook), The Digital Catalog (eBook & Downloadable Audiobook) and the Hoopla Catalog (Hoopla instant checkout eBook & Hoopla Audiobook).

For more information on the three catalogs skip to the section below the bestselling titles*

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New York Times Bestseller blog posts are published on Sundays, and the next  New York Times Bestseller post will be published on Sunday, February 13, 2022.

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FICTION

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CALL US WHAT WE CARRY  by Amanda Gorman

(Available Formats: Print Book & eBook)

A debut collection of poems on identity and history by the presidential inaugural poet who wrote “The Hill We Climb.”

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CLOUD CUCKOO LAND by Anthony Doerr

(Available Formats: Print Book, Large Print, CD Audiobook, eBook & downloadable audiobook)

An interconnected cast of dreamers and outsiders are in dangerous and disparate settings past, present and future.

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DEVIL HOUSE by John Darnielle

(Available Formats: Print Book)

A crime writer re-examines his work after moving into a house where a pair of briefly notorious murders took place.

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HORSEWOMAN by James Patterson and Mike Lupica

(Available Formats: Print Book & CD audiobook)

As the Paris Olympics draw near, a mother and daughter, who are champion horse riders, compete against each other.

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IT ENDS WITH US by Colleen Hoover

(Available Formats: Print Book & downloadable audiobook)

A battered wife raised in a violent home attempts to halt the cycle of abuse.

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THE JUDGE’S LIST by John Grisham

(Available Formats: Print Book, eBook & downloadable audiobook)

The second book in the Whistler series. Investigator Lacy Stoltz goes after a serial killer and closes in on a sitting judge.

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THE LAST THING HE TOLD ME by Laura Dave

(Available Formats: Print Book, Large Print, CD audiobook, eBook & audiobook)

Hannah Hall discovers truths about her missing husband and bonds with his daughter from a previous relationship.

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THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY by Amor Towles

(Available Formats: Print Book, Libby eBook & audiobook)

Two friends who escaped from a juvenile work farm take Emmett Watson on an unexpected journey to New York City in 1954.

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LOVE HYPOTHESIS by Ali Hazelwood

(Available Formats: Print Book, eBook & downloadable audiobook)

A young professor agrees to pretend to be a third-year Ph.D. candidate’s boyfriend.

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MAGNOLIA PALACE by Fiona Davis

(Available Formats: Print Book)

An English model stumbles upon messages that might uncover the truth behind a decades-old murder in the Frick family.

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THE MAID by Nita Prose 

(Available Formats: Print Book & eBook)

When a wealthy man is found dead in his room, a maid at the Regency Grand Hotel becomes a lead suspect.

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THE MIDNIGHT LIBRARY by Matt Haig

(Available Formats: Print Book, Libby eBook & audiobook)

Nora Seed finds a library beyond the edge of the universe that contains books with multiple possibilities of the lives one could have lived

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ONE STEP TOO FAR by Lisa Gardner

(Available Formats: Print Book & eBook)

The second book in the Frankie Elkin series. Frankie searches for a young man who went missing during a bachelor party camping trip.

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SAVAGE ROAD by Christine Feehan

(Available Formats: Print Book)

The seventh book in the Torpedo Ink series. Seychelle is committed to Savage, who is a sadist in the bedroom.

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THE SEVEN HUSBANDS OF EVELYN HUGO by Taylor Jenkins Reid

(Available Formats: Print Book, Large Print & Libby eBook & audiobook)

A movie icon recounts stories of her loves and career to a struggling magazine writer.

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THE STRANGER IN THE LIFEBOAT by Mitch Albom

(Available Formats: Print Book, Large Print, CD Audiobook & eBook)

After a ship explodes, 10 people struggling to survive pull a man who claims to be the Lord out of the sea

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UGLY LOVE by Colleen Hoover

(Available Formats: Print Book)

Tate Collins and Miles Archer, an airline pilot, think they can handle a no strings attached arrangement. But they can’t.

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VERITY by Colleen Hoover

(Available Formats: Print Book & eBook)

Lowen Ashleigh is hired by the husband of an injured writer to complete her popular series and uncovers a horrifying truth.

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VIOLETA by Isabel Allende

(Available Formats: Print & CD audiobook)

A woman whose life spans 100 years recounts personal and historical events through letters to someone she loves.

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WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING by Delia Owens

(Available Formats: Print Book, Large Print, CD audiobook, eBook & downloadable audiobook)

In a quiet town on the North Carolina coast in 1969, a young woman who survived alone in the marsh becomes.

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WISH by Nicholas Sparks

(Available Formats: Print Book, Large Print, CD audiobook, eBook & downloadable audiobook)

Maggie Dawes, a renowned travel photographer, struggles with a medical diagnosis over Christmas.

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WISH YOU WERE HERE by Jodi Picoult

(Available Formats: Print Book, CD Audiobook, eBook & Libby/OverDrive Audiobook)

Diana O’Toole re-evaluates her seemingly perfect life when a pandemic disrupts her vacation in the Galápagos Islands.

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NON-FICTION:

1619 PROJECT edited by Nikole Hannah-Jones, Caitlin Roper, Ilena Silverman and Jake Silverstein

(Available Formats: Print Book)

Viewing America’s entanglement with slavery and its legacy, in essays adapted and expanded from The New York Times Magazine.

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ALL ABOUT LOVE by bell hooks

(Available Formats: Hoopla instant checkout eBook)

The late feminist icon explores the causes of a polarized society and the meaning of love.

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BETRAYAL OF ANNE FRANK by Rosemary Sullivan

(Available Formats: Print Book)

New technology was used to investigate who revealed the location of Anne Frank and her family to the Nazis.

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BLOOD IN THE GARDEN by Chris Herring

(Available Formats: Not yet available in any catalog)

A senior writer for Sports Illustrated gives a history of the New York Knicks during the 1990s.

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THE BODY KEEPS THE SCORE by Bessel van der Kolk

(Available Formats: Print Book, CD Audiobook, eBook & Downloadable Audiobook)

How trauma affects the body and mind, and innovative treatments for recovery.

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BRAIDING SWEETGRASS by Robin Wall Kimmerer

(Available Formats: Print Book, CD audiobook, eBook, downloadable audiobook, Hoopla instant checkout eBook & audiobook)

A botanist and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation espouses having an understanding and appreciation of plants and animals.

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CRYING IN H MART by Michelle Zauner

(Available Formats: Print Book, eBook & downloadable audiobook)

The daughter of a Korean mother and Jewish-American father, and leader of the indie rock project Japanese Breakfast, describes creating her own identity after losing her mother to cancer.

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ENOUGH ALREADY by Valerie Bertinelli

(Available Formats: Print Book, CD audiobook & eBook)

The actress and TV personality describes her personal setbacks and difficult journey to self-acceptance.

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GREENLIGHTS by Matthew McConaughey

(Available Formats: Print Book, CD audiobook, eBook & downloadable audiobook)

The Academy Award-winning actor shares snippets from the diaries he kept over the last 35 years.

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HOW TO BE PERFECT by Michael Schur

(Available Formats: Print Book)

The creator of “The Good Place” incorporates works by various philosophers to examine ethical questions and moral issues.

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The REAL ANTHONY FAUCI by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

(Available Formats: Hoopla instant checkout eBook)

The anti-vaccine advocate gives his take on the chief medical advisor to the president.

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RED-HANDED by Peter Schweizer

(Available Formats: Not yet available in any catalog)

The author of “Profiles in Corruption” portrays a conspiracy of how the Chinese government might infiltrate American institutions.

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SOUTH TO AMERICA by Imani Perry

(Available Formats: Print Book)

A wide-ranging collection of stories and histories based in the American South that also illuminate the country as a whole.

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THE STORYTELLER by Dave Grohl

(Available Formats: Print Book, CD audiobook & Libby eBook)

A memoir by the musician known for his work with Foo Fighters and Nirvana.

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TASTE by Stanley Tucci

(Available Formats: Print Book, Libby eBook & audiobook)

The award-winning actor reflects on his career, Italian-American heritage, meals and mishaps.

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UNTAMED by Glennon Doyle

(Available Formats: Print Book, Large Print, CD audiobook, eBook & downloadable audiobook)

The activist and public speaker describes her journey of listening to her inner voice.

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UNTHINKABLE by Jamie Raskin

(Available Formats: Print Book coming soon)

The Maryland congressman describes leading the impeachment effort against the former president shortly after his son’s death by suicide and the insurrection at the Capitol.

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WILL by Will Smith with Mark Manson

(Available Formats: Print Book)

The actor, producer and musician tells his life story and lessons he learned along the way.

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Happy reading!

Linda Reimer, SSL

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*Information on the Three Catalogs*

Digital Catalog: https://stls.overdrive.com/

The Digital Catalog has two companion apps, Libby & OverDrive. Libby is the app for newer devices and the OverDrive app should be used for older devices and Amazon tablets.

All card holders of all Southern Tier Library System member libraries can check out items from the Digital Catalog.

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Hoopla Catalog: https://www.hoopladigital.com/

The Hoopla Catalog features instant check outs of eBooks, downloadable audiobook, comic books, albums and streaming videos. Patron check out limit is 4 items per month.

Hoopla is a Southeast Steuben County Library service available to all Southeast Steuben County Library card holders.

The Hoopla App is available for Android or Apple devices and most smart TVs & media streaming players.

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StarCat: The catalog of physical/traditional library materials: https://starcat.stls.org

Card holders of all Southern Tier Library System member libraries can access StarCat to search for and request materials available at libraries through out the Southern Tier Library System.

The StarCat app is called Bookmyne and is available for Apple and Android devices.

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Also of Note: If a New York Times Bestseller isn’t yet available in any of the three catalogs; you can contact the library and request to be notified when it becomes available.

Southeast Steuben County Library Tel: 607-936-3713

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Tech Talk is a Southeast Steuben County Library blog.

Hi everyone, welcome to our Suggested Listening posting for this week!

Suggested Listening postings are published on Fridays; and our next Suggested Listening posting will be out on Friday, February 11, 2022.

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And here are the 10 recommended songs of the week; this week an all folk edition – enjoy!

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Black Is the Color of My True Love’s Hair by Joan Baez

From The Album: Joan Baez In Concert, Part 1 (1962)

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G Bop by Alison Brown

From The Album: Alison Brown Quartet (1996)

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January Thaw by Lui Collins

From The Album: Baptism of Fire (1980)

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Martin’s Waltz by Luke & Jenny Anna Bulla

From The Album: Luke And Jenny Anne Bulla (1992)

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My Own Native Land by Cherish The Ladies

From The Album: The Back Door (1993)

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Renaissance Fair by The Byrds

From The Album: Younger Than Yesterday (1967)

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Set You Free This Time by Gene Clark

From The Album: Echoes (1967)

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Singing In The Bathtub by The Cheap Suite Serenaders

From The Album: Singing In The Bathtub (1993)

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Squire Wood’s Lamentation on Ye / Refusal of His Halfpence by Derek Bell

From The Album: Carolan’s Receipt (1988)

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Waltzing With You by Jay Ungar and Molly Mason

From The Album: Waltzing With You (1998)

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Hoopla Recommend Album of the Week

Live In Japan (1967) by Peter, Paul & Mary

And from the album the song If I Had A Hammer

(although a different concert – Newport 1965)

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Have a great weekend,

Linda Reimer, SSCL

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REFERENCES:

Print References

The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits by Joel Whitburn

–

Online Catalog Links:

StarCat

The catalog of physical materials, i.e. print books, DVDs, audiobooks on CD, etc.

–

The Digital Catalog, web version of Libby

The catalog of e-books, downloadable audiobooks and a handful of streaming videos.

–

The Libby App

Libby is the companion app to the Digital Catalog and may be found in the Apple & Google app.

–

Hoopla

A catalog of instant check out items, including eBooks, downloadable audiobooks, comic books, TV shows and movies for patrons of the Southeast Steuben County Library.

–

Tech Talk is a Southeast Steuben County Library blog.

Hi everyone, here is the latest edition of Library Connections, our weekly readers’, viewers’ and listeners’ advisory videocast.

The next Library Connections video will be posted on Tuesday, February 8, 2022.

Library Connections videos may also be accessed via the Southeast Steuben County Library’s YouTube channel.

Have a great week!
Linda Reimer, SSCL

Hi everyone, here are our recommended reads for the week.

Format Note: Under each book title you’ll find a list of all the different formats that specific title is available in; including: Print Books, Large Print Books, CD Audiobooks, eBooks & Downloadable Audiobooks from the Digital Catalog (Libby app) and Hoopla eBooks & Hoopla Downloadable Audiobooks (Hoopla app).

*More information on the three catalogs is found at the end of the list of recommended reads*

–

Weekly Suggested Reading postings are published on Tuesdays.

And the next Suggested Reading posting will be published on Tuesday, February 8, 2022.

–

The Beauty of Humanity Movement by Camilla Gibb

(Available Formats: Print Book & Hoopla instant checkout audiobook)

Much like Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, this novel takes a journey into the past for answers, giving us a fictional account of real political upheaval. Maggie Ly travels to Vietnam in an attempt to find out anything about her father’s disappearance many years ago. Relying on her own fragments of memory, she meets up with Hung, an elderly street vendor who may have known her father. She also becomes involved with one of Hung’s loyal customers, Tu, who represents the new Vietnam and the type of person Maggie might have become had her family not moved to America. Through a series of scenes moving back and forth in time, Gibb (Sweetness of the Belly) unravels the mystery of Maggie’s past and creates futures for all the characters involved. VERDICT Well written and engaging, with characters that represent the participants and consequences of a country in the middle of great change, this work is recommended where Tan and similar authors are appreciated.—Library Journal Review

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Harrison Squared by Daryl Gregory

(Available Formats: Print Book)

Gregory (Afterparty) delivers a thoroughly entertaining novel built on H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos. The titular Harrison Harrison lost the lower part of one leg in the same boating accident that killed his father. Now 16, he’s moving with his research scientist mother to the Massachusetts town of Dunnsmouth. The other children in school are eerily quiet, the town has no cell phone coverage, and a fish-boy steals his comics. Things go from strange to tragic when his mother is lost in another boating accident two days after moving. Refusing to believe his mother is dead, Harrison investigates with the help of a girl named Lydia and the aforementioned fish-boy, Lub. They encounter enemies including a knife-wielding maniac known as the Scrimshander and a monstrous fish-woman intent on destroying the world. Gregory delivers an enthralling and exciting tale that should intrigue both readers unfamiliar with Lovecraft and longtime fans of the stories. The occasional in-jokes (buoys named after Lovecraft, Poe, King, and Straub, and of course Dunnsmouth itself) are subtle enough to not distract from the rich tale, and the YA vibe ensures a broad audience. Publishers Weekly Review

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Her Hidden Genius by Marie Benedict

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Benedict adeptly brings forward another accomplished, intriguing, and unjustly overlooked or oversimplified real-life woman in a welcoming and involving historical novel. Here she returns to the realm of science, where she began with The Other Einstein (2016), to fictionalize the life of English chemist and X-ray crystallographer Rosalind Franklin. Readers are privy to Rosalind’s inner world as she refuses to be deterred by family objections to her nontraditional life or derailed by the sexism she encounters in academia. She thrives in a congenial lab in Paris, where she makes extraordinary breakthroughs, falls in problematic love, and ignores cautions about working with radiation. Back in England, Rosalind, as Benedict so vividly elucidates, makes groundbreaking discoveries of the molecular structure of viruses and DNA, only to have Francis Crick and James Watson take credit for her work. Benedict subtly foreshadows Rosalind’s death at 37 from ovarian cancer while conveying her vitality, conviction, and passion as she designs and conducts exacting experiments, writes and presents numerous significant papers, travels, and climbs mountains. Tough, forthright, and assiduous, Rosalind insists on doing science right and for the right reasons. Readers inspired to learn more about Franklin will enjoy Howard Markel’s biography, The Secret of Life (2021). Booklist Review

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Native Believer: A Novel by Ali Eteraz

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This poignant and profoundly funny first novel follows a young, lapsed Muslim in post-9/11 Philadelphia, a city on edge long after the attacks. The narrator, M., struggles with familiar grumblings at the workplace and romantic quirks in his marriage, until an uncomfortable encounter with his new boss leaves him abruptly unemployed, with a strong suspicion that religious discrimination influenced his firing. His newfound free time frustrates his wife, Marie-Anne, and infuriates his friend, Richard, who insists on filing a lawsuit. Eteraz, the author of Children of Dust (2009), a memoir about his childhood in Pakistan and young adulthood in the U.S., draws on enough autobiography to make M. relatable and reliable as the faith of his forefathers resurfaces in his life. Ambigious at times, Eteraz atones for his wordiness with a plethora of metaphors, such as comparing the divine lips of a French actress to the hull of a prophetic ark or the arc of a perfect plot. Eteraz combines masterful storytelling with intelligent commentary to create a nuanced work of social and political art. Booklist Review

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New Charity Blues by Camille Griep

(Available Formats: Print Book)

Griep dives into the dystopian genre in this outstanding novel, which challenges preconceptions of the genre. After a plague ravages a once-thriving world, a harsh rivalry emerges between two immune communities: the decaying City, and the idyllic New Charity. Cressyda, a New Charitan fleeing her former life, is caught up in a political struggle when she returns to New Charity in the wake of her father’s mysterious death. Cressyda clashes with her childhood friends, Len and Cas Willis, as she tries to understand the dangerous thrall New Charity is under. Griep’s writing is fresh and intense, imbued with suspense. She excels at the rich imagining of a world where magic, science, and politics intertwine. The spunky heroine is doubtful and questioning, and those who are vital to the oligarchical power structure might also topple it. Most vividly, Griep plumbs questions of what home means, and what it means to have a safe place in the midst of chaos. Publishers Weekly Review

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Pandemonium by Daryl Gregory

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In Gregory’s alternate world, the 1950s saw the emergence of a new phenomenon in which ordinary people began to be possessed not by demons from Hell but by archetypes straight from the collective unconsciousness. Among these are the Kamikaze, who drives its hosts to spectacular acts of suicide or assassination; the Truth, who destroys liars; and the Little Angel, a young girl in a nightgown, who visits the dying and whose kiss speeds them to their inevitable end. Since he was five, Del Pierce has been possessed by the Hellion, a creature part Dennis the Menace, part total destructive mayhem. To all appearances, Del is now free of the “demon,” and his family simply believes that he has been mentally ill. But Del knows that the Hellion is still trapped within his body, always on the edge of breaking his host’s eroding control. Rising sf/fantasy star Gregory, winner of the Asimov’s Reader’s Award for his novelette “Second Person, Present Tense,” demonstrates his skill at full-length storytelling in a debut novel that breaks new ground while paying homage to some of the genre’s most iconoclastic authors, A.E. Van Vogt and Philip K. Dick. Most libraries should introduce sf fans to this bright new voice of the 21st century. Starred Library Journal Review

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People of the Moon by W. Michael Gear & Kathleen Gear

(Available Formats: Print Book)

They were called the Chaco Anasazi. They built thirty-foot-wide roads that crossed miles of mountains and mesas and constructed five story buildings which had more than 800 rooms. Their priests and warriors presided over the conquered populations of Chaco Canyon via an extensive system of signal towers that could send messages across the vast distances day or night. Messages could be sent easily, and warriors could be dispersed to quell any rebellion within hours of the start of an uprising.

The Anasazi believed their destiny was charted in the paths of the moon, sun, and stars. The moon had reached its maximum three times since the Chacoans conquered the First Moon People. The Chaco matrons had built their Great House high atop First Moon Mountain, and their red-shirted warriors stalked arrogantly through the villages, taking what they pleased. But the gods can only stand so much human arrogance.

Young Ripple of the first Moon People had no desire to become a Dreamer, but when Cold Bringing Woman, the goddess of winter, appears at his high mountain camp, she sends him on a perilous quest to destroy the hated Chacoans. But Ripple will not face the task alone; he is aided by his stalwart friends on this mission.

But the blessed Chacoan Sun Webworm and his Dragonfly Clan matrons will brook no insurgency. In retaliation, Chacoan war chief Leather Hand and his warriors embark on a campaign of terror so gruesome it remains unrivaled in the annals of prehistory. It all comes to a climax atop the mountain we now know as Chimney Rock. In the white light of the lunar maximum, the Pueblo gods will dance–and an empire will be engulfed in flames and mayhem.

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The Saints of Swallow Hill by Donna Everhart

(Available Formats: Hoopla instant checkout eBook & audiobook)

During the Great Depression, some who are desperate for work end up at the Swallow Hill Turpentine Camp in Georgia. It’s hard work tapping the pine trees for the resin that will make turpentine, but Del Reese needs a new job after getting caught sleeping with his former employer’s wife. Rae Lynn Cobb is also on the run after killing her husband and gets a job at the camp by pretending to be a man. Crow, a sadistic boss, has it in for Del and Rae Lynn, who are white, since he takes offense to them working with Black colleagues. After rescuing Rae Lynn from one of Crow’s horrific punishments and then finding out she’s a woman, Del soon begins to fall for her. Cornelia, whose abusive husband owns the camp commissary, nurses Rae Lynn back to health, and they agree to join Del at his family homestead in North Carolina, where they slowly begin to contemplate a better future.

VERDICT Everhart’s (The Moonshiner’s Daughter) latest Southern historical novel is full of tragedy and abuse with characters who initially aren’t easy to like, but the story becomes much more appealing as Del and Rae Lynn grow into protagonists to root for, in a unique setting. Library Journal Review

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Trouble At The Top by Charles Bracelen Flood

(Available Formats: Print Book)

You are President of the United States.

…You have fallen into a secret and passionate entanglement with the beautiful young wife of

Senator Augustus Owen, your most powerful foe. Across the hall from you bedroom in the White House, your eighteen-year-old daughter is defiantly carrying on a startling love affair.

There are days when you the think that those are the least of your problems. In Mexico, a revolutionary party, the Sword of Justice, is turning that country into another Vietnam. American youths are flocking south to fight beside the Mexican guerrillas in the Che Guevara Brigade. There are generals and congressmen who are urging you to send Green Berets south of the border to support the Mexican government and fight the guerrillas, while other voices, equally strong, are demanding that the United States keep its hands off.

In the midst of this, you learn from secret service reports that the guerrillas may be setting up short-range nuclear missiles on the border, pointed at the nearest American cities. Racing against time, taking the responsibility of avoiding public panic by restricting the public’s knowledge, you fly to Mexico and a last-ditch truce talk between the Mexican government and the Sword of Justice. During the delicate and dramatic negotiations, you learn that a member of your own delegation is leaking top-secret information to the guerrillas—and you cannot find out who is doing it.

This is the setting of Trouble at the Top, a hurtling tale of politics, espionage, and love. Written by a superb storyteller who has worked as a reporter in both Vietnam and Mexico, its resolution is an authentic tour de force.

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We Love You, Charlie Freeman: A Novel by Kaitlyn Greenidge

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When Laurel, an African-American mother from Boston’s South Side, accepts a position to teach sign language to a chimpanzee named Charlie at a private ape research facility in the verdant Berkshire Mountains, she unwittingly introduces her two young daughters to a disturbing world of mystery and misogyny, racism and retaliation. The institute’s first director in the 1920s used racial profiling to horrific effect, conducting clandestine experiments on black men and seducing a lonely black woman into posing for compromising drawings all allegedly in the name of science. Some 70 years later, Laurel’s teenage daughter, Charlotte, and her youngest daughter, Callie, will find themselves caught in a struggle that pits their own blossoming desire for identity and belonging against their mother’s mania for Charlie’s attention and a society that has yet to acknowledge the insidious ways bigotry and discrimination undermine its most basic institutions. Greenidge’s wondrous first novel pits the sins of the past against the desire for the future in a multifaceted narrative that challenges concepts of culture and communication. Starred Booklist Review

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Have a great week!

Linda Reimer

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*Information on the Three Catalogs*

Digital Catalog: https://stls.overdrive.com/

The Digital Catalog, is an online catalog containing eBooks, downloadable audiobooks, digital magazines and a handful of streaming videos. The catalog, which allows one to download content to a PC, also has a companion app, Libby, which you can download to your mobile device; so you can enjoy eBooks and downloadable audiobooks on the go!

All card holders of all Southern Tier Library System member libraries can check out items from the Digital Catalog.

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Hoopla Catalog: https://www.hoopladigital.com/

The Hoopla Catalog features instant checkouts of eBooks, downloadable audiobooks, comic books, albums, movies and TV series. Patron check out limit is 6 items per month.

Hoopla is a Southeast Steuben County Library service available to all Southeast Steuben County Library card holders.

The Hoopla App is available for Android or Apple devices and most smart TVs & media streaming players.

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StarCat: The catalog of physical/traditional library materials: https://starcat.stls.org

Card holders of all Southern Tier Library System member libraries can access StarCat to search for and request materials available at libraries through out the Southern Tier Library System.

The StarCat app is called Bookmyne and is available for Apple and Android devices.

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Note: Book summaries are from the respective publishers unless otherwise specified.

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Have questions or want to request a book?

Feel free to call the library! Our telephone number is 607-936-3713.

Tech Talk is a Southeast Steuben County Library blog.