Hi everyone, here are our five suggested reads of the week!
We’re offering a thematic collection of titles this week – that compliment the fall season.
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The Library of Lost and Found by Phaedra Patrick
Martha Storm, a volunteer librarian for a small village library, is unable to say no. She has filled her house with projects she’s taken on for friends and colleagues and is beginning to be a bit of a hoarder. However, when a book of fairy stories arrives on her doorstep, her world begins to change. The volume is inscribed to her by her grandmother, believed to have died years ago. But did she? Clues in the book lead Martha on a quest to discover the truth about her beloved grandmother and realities about her family that have been long hidden. The deeper she digs, the wider the world opens for her, bringing new experiences and joys beyond her wildest imagination.
VERDICT Patrick (Rise and Shine, Benedict Stone; The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper) has once again crafted a heartwarming and tender tale of growth and redemption. Martha is a charming character whose journey of becoming is welcomed by all around her. Curl up by the fire with a cup of tea and a biscuit and be entranced by this delightful story. –Starred Library Journal Review
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The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George
Monsieur Perdu can prescribe the perfect book for a broken heart. But can he fix his own?
Monsieur Perdu calls himself a literary apothecary. From his floating bookstore in a barge on the Seine, he prescribes novels for the hardships of life. Using his intuitive feel for the exact book a reader needs, Perdu mends broken hearts and souls. The only person he can’t seem to heal through literature is himself; he’s still haunted by heartbreak after his great love disappeared. She left him with only a letter, which he has never opened.
After Perdu is finally tempted to read the letter, he hauls anchor and departs on a mission to the south of France, hoping to make peace with his loss and discover the end of the story. Joined by a bestselling but blocked author and a lovelorn Italian chef, Perdu travels along the country’s rivers, dispensing his wisdom and his books, showing that the literary world can take the human soul on a journey to heal itself.
Internationally bestselling and filled with warmth and adventure, The Little Paris Bookshop is a love letter to books, meant for anyone who believes in the power of stories to shape people’s lives.
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The Music of Bees by Eileen Garvin
It would not take a trained therapist (although she has one) to determine that Alice Holtzman is desperately seeking a new community. At 44, she has already lost both parents and her husband in fairly close succession, and now even her long-standing job at the county planning department is in jeopardy. So Alice seeks solace in the bees she is raising, finding permanence in their supremely structured lives that eludes her own. She’d like to expand her nascent honey business, but she’ll need help. Enter Jake and Harry, two physically and emotionally damaged young men who are seeking the very same sense of belonging and stability. Jake was left paraplegic during his senior year of high school after a girl-impressing stunt went horribly wrong, while newly homeless Harry is trying to atone for the misguided, friend-impressing caper that put him jail. There are quirks to be worked out as these three fragile beings find common ground caring for Alice’s bees and each other, but their journey is rich with possibility. Both buoyant and bittersweet, Garvin’s impressive first novel, a luscious paean to the bonds of friendship and limitations of family, is the kind of comforting yet thought-provoking tale that will appeal to fans of Anne Tyler and Sue Miller. –Starred Booklist Review
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The Patron Saint of Liars by Ann Patchett
St. Elizabeth’s, a home for unwed mothers in Habit, Kentucky, usually harbors its residents for only a little while. Not so Rose Clinton, a beautiful, mysterious woman who comes to the home pregnant but not unwed, and stays. She plans to give up her child, thinking she cannot be the mother it needs. But when Cecilia is born, Rose makes a place for herself and her daughter amid St. Elizabeth’s extended family of nuns and an ever-changing collection of pregnant teenage girls. Rose’s past won’t be kept away, though, even by St. Elizabeth’s; she cannot remain untouched by what she has left behind, even as she cannot change who she has become in the leaving.
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Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
One of Ray Bradbury’s best-known and most popular novels, Something Wicked This Way Comes, now featuring a new introduction and material about its longstanding influence on culture and genre.
For those who still dream and remember, for those yet to experience the hypnotic power of its dark poetry, step inside. The show is about to begin. Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show has come to Green Town, Illinois, to destroy every life touched by its strange and sinister mystery. The carnival rolls in sometime after midnight, ushering in Halloween a week early. A calliope’s shrill siren song beckons to all with a seductive promise of dreams and youth regained. Two boys will discover the secret of its smoke, mazes, and mirrors; two friends who will soon know all too well the heavy cost of wishes…and the stuff of nightmares.
Few novels have endured in the heart and memory as has Ray Bradbury’s unparalleled literary masterpiece Something Wicked This Way Comes. Scary and suspenseful, it is a timeless classic in the American canon.
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Happy reading!
Linda Reimer, SSCL
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Note: Book summaries are from the respective publishers unless otherwise specified.
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Information on the four library catalogs
The Digital Catalog aka Libby: https://stls.overdrive.com/
The Digital Catalog, is an online catalog containing eBooks, eAudiobooks, and digital magazines. You can use your library card and checkout content on a PC; you can also use the companion app, Libby, to access titles on your mobile devices; so you can enjoy eBooks and eAudiobooks 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 on demand checkouts of eBooks, eAudiobooks, comic books, albums, movies and TV shows. Patron check out limit is 10 items per month.
Hoopla is a Southeast Steuben County Library service available to all Southeast Steuben County Library card holders.
The Hoopla companion app, also called Hoopla is available for mobile devices, smart TVs & media streaming players.
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Kanopy Catalog: https://www.kanopy.com/en
The Kanopy Catalog features thousands of streaming videos available on demand.
The Kanopy Catalog is available for all Southern Tier Library System member library card holders, including all Southeast Steuben County Library card holders!
You can access the Kanopy Catalog through a web browser, or download the app to your phone, tablet or media streaming player (i.e. Roku, Google or Fire TV).
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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.
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Have questions about how to access Internet based content (i.e. eBooks, eAudios)? Feel free to drop by the Reference Desk or call the library and we will assist you! The library’s telephone number is: 607-936-3713.
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Tech & Book Talk is a Southeast Steuben County Library blog.
