Tech & Book Talk at SSCL

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, December 23, 2022.

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And here are the 10 recommended songs of the week!

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The Bell by Shannen Moser (Genre: Pop/Rock)

From The Album: The Sun Still Seems to Move (2022)

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Blackbyrd by Donald Byrd (Genre: Jazz)

From The Album: Live: Cookin’ with Blue Note at Montreux, July 5, 1973 (2022)

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Blues Run The Game by Bert Jansch (Genre: Folk)

From The Album: Bert at the BBC (2022)

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Boogie Woogie Mama by Tommy Ridgley (Genre: Swing, R&B)

The Tommy Ridgley Collection 1949-61 (2012)

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In The Misty Moonlight by Dean Martin (Genre: Vocal)

From The Album: Dino: The Essential Dean Martin (2004)

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I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen (and Yellow Stripes) by the Sons of the Pioneers (Genre: Country, Folk, Americana)

From The Soundtrack: Rio Grande (1950/2006)

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Mooses Come Walking by Pete Seeger & Arlo Guthrie (Genre: Folk)

From The Album: More Together Again in Concert, Vol. 1 (1994)

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A More Perfect Union by Pete Seeger & Lorre Wyatt (Genre: Folk)

From The Album: A More Perfect Union (2012)

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Soon It’s Gonna Rain by Barbara Streisand (Genre: Vocal)

From The Album: Live at the Bon Soir, Greenwich Village, NYC – Nov. 5, 1962 (2022)

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You’ve Got To Love Her With A Feeling by Freddie King (Genre: Blues, Vocal)

From The Album: The Complete King Federal Singles Set (2013)

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Hoopla Recommend Album of the Week

Wade In The Water (1966) by The Ramsey Lewis Trio (Genre: Jazz)

And from the album, the song:

Money In Pocket by The Ramsey Lewis Trio

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Have a great weekend,

Linda Reimer, SSCL

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Online Catalog Links:

StarCat

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

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The Digital Catalog, web version of Libby

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

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The Libby App

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

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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.

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Tech Talk is a Southeast Steuben County Library blog.

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

 

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

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Weekly Suggested Reading postings are now published on Wednesdays.

And we are getting closer to the end of the year (how did that happen so fast?!), the suggested reading posts for this month will feature some of the most popular and critically acclaimed titles published in 2022.

And the next Suggested Reading posting will be published on Wednesday, December 21, 2022.

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Afterlives by Abdulrazak Gurnah

(Available Formats: Print Book & eBook)

The latest novel from Nobel laureate Gurnah resists categorization. As a breathtaking historical account, this underscores decades-long horrors of war, displacement, slavery, and colonial conquest. Yet Gurnah also intimately captures luminous facets of humanity through unique characters, each with a rich personal background and attention-grabbing, often humorous, sometimes disturbing idiosyncrasies. Ultimately, in this story of a love that transcends pain, suffering, tragedy, and misfortune, Gurnah constructs a remarkable portrait of tenderness, deep affection, and longing that stretches over time and across continents. Set in colonial East Africa in the early twentieth century, the book centers on Hamza, who volunteers as an askari (local soldier) fighting for German colonial troops. After recovering from a debilitating injury, Hamza flees to his old home. He secures work and meets Afiya, who was rescued by her brother, Ilyas, from a terrifyingly abusive childhood and a life of oppressive and violent servitude. As Hamza and Afiya begin their courtship and find love, Ilyas, who also volunteered as an askari, has disappeared, perhaps as a casualty of war. While Ilyas’ whereabouts remain unknown, Afiya discovers, through Hamza’s old war contacts, priceless information regarding her long-lost but never-forgotten brother. Absorbing, powerful, and enduring, Afterlives is an extraordinary reading experience by one of the great writers of our time. –Booklist Review

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The Atlas Paradox by Olivie Blake

(Available Formats: Print Book)

Following the events of The Atlas Six (2020), Blake returns readers to the elite Alexandrian Society’s second year of study for the strongest, most powerful medeians in the world. Libby Rhodes is gone, and the five initiates who remain have promised to find her. Their search for Libby is not as straightforward as it seems when it appears the question is not where Libby Rhodes is but when. Between a sentient library with an agenda of its own, shifting alliances, and a caretaker who is increasingly hostile to the initiates, the group struggles to come together to find Libby and reestablish their own lives in the outside world, all while being hunted by the mysterious Forum, the Alexandrian Society’s rival. The society’s initiates are incredibly powerful yet incredibly flawed human beings, demonstrating Blake’s masterful skills at characterization. Fantasy fans will not be disappointed by the complex and varied magic system that relies more on solid scientific principals than do other series treading similar ground. Blake has built a unique and interesting dark-academia fantasy full of intrigue and suspense. HIGH-

DEMAND BACKSTORY: Dark academia is hot right now, and readers have been clamoring for more since 2020’s viral, best-selling The Atlas Six, so expect lots of holds. –Booklist Reivew

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Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson

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

Wilkerson debuts with a shining family saga that stretches from the 1960s Caribbean to present-day Southern California. After septuagenarian Eleanor Bennett dies, her lawyer plays a lengthy message she has recorded for her children Byron and Benny. The siblings have made for uneasy company with each other since a rift grew between them—Byron, the oldest, is laser-focused on his career, while his sister Benny is drifting. They knew their mother as a stern presence and an accomplished swimmer from somewhere in the Caribbean (who was also known to bake a rum and port soaked “black cake” from an old family recipe), but neither is prepared for what they learn from the recording. Eleanor is in fact Coventina “Covey” Lyncook, who was married off to a gangster named Little Man in 1965 by her debt-ridden father. At the wedding, Little Man drops dead, poisoned. Covey runs from the scene and, knowing she will be suspected of murder, swims away from the island. At first shocked by the revelations, Byron and Benny reconcile, and their mother’s instructions to share a black cake she’d left in the freezer “when the time is right” take on great poignancy. Wilkerson offers superb descriptions of Covey’s homeland, from the tension between those who speak patois and those who believe in the superiority of standard English, to sensual descriptions of food, surfing, and coastal terrain. Readers will adore this highly accomplished effort from a talented new writer. –Publishers Weekly Review

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Carrie Soto Is Back by Taylor Jenkins-Reid

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

A retired tennis player returns to the game to defend her Grand Slam record. Carrie Soto is the best tennis player in the world, and she knows it. Her father, Javier, is a former tennis champion himself, and he’s dedicated his life to coaching her. By the time she retires in 1989, she holds the record for winning 20 Grand Slam singles titles. But then, in 1994, Nicki Chan comes along. Nicki is on the verge of breaking Carrie’s record, and Carrie decides she can’t let that happen: She’s coming out of retirement, with her father coaching her, to defend her record…and her reputation. Carrie was never a friendly player, preferring to focus on both a brutal game and brutal honesty, and now the media has a field day with her return to the sport as a 37-year-old. At times, it seems like everyone is waiting for her to fail, but when Carrie wants something, she doesn’t give up easily. Along the way, she reconnects with Bowe Huntley, a 39-year-old tennis player she once had a fling with. Now they need to help each other train, but Carrie quickly realizes she might need him for more than just tennis–if she can let herself be vulnerable for the first time in her life. Reid writes about the game with suspense, transforming a tennis match into a page-turner even for readers who don’t care about sports. Will Carrie win? And, more importantly, will she finally make time for a life outside of winning? Reid has scored another victory and created another memorable heroine with Carrie Soto, a brash, often unlikable character whose complexity makes her leap off the page. Sports commentators may call her “The Battle Axe” or worse, but readers will root for her both on and off the court. A compulsively readable look at female ambition. –Kirkus Review

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Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan

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

DEBUT Tan’s epic fantasy (the first in a duology) draws on the mythology of Chang’e, the Chinese goddess of the moon. Protagonist Xingyin has only ever known a life of solitude on the moon with her mother and trusted servants. She’s unaware that her mother is in exile, for stealing the Celestial Emperor’s elixir of life and transforming into the Moon Goddess. Xingyin’s existence has been kept hidden, until her magic flares and the Emperor investigates; she’s forced to run away to the beautiful, secretive Celestial Kingdom. Hiding her identity becomes second nature to Xingyin, even when she becomes study partner and servant to the Celestial Crown Prince. As Xingyin searches for a way to free her mother from exile, she must also face battles of honor, love, and sacrifice; following her heart could destroy the kingdom she has been trained to protect.

VERDICT An exquisitely detailed fantasy with a strong, vulnerable protagonist. The intimate prose makes Tan’s wonderful debut an immersive experience; share with fans of Shelley Parker-Chan and Katherine Arden. –Starred Library Journal Review

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Horse by Geraldine Brooks

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

In this powerful story from the Pulitzer Prize-winning Brooks, an enslaved groom named Jarrett leads the bay foal he’s bonded with to record-shattering racing victories across the 1850s South. During the Civil War, the two meet up dangerously with an itinerant artist who’s won fame with his many paintings of the stunning racehorse. A gallery owner in 1950s New York becomes fascinated with the paintings, but it’s not until 2019 that a Nigerian American art historian uncovers the true story of the horse and groom and links up with a Smithsonian scientist who’s studying the horse’s bones to learn the secret of its extraordinary endurance. Based on the true story of a racehorse named Lexington and sure to attract a wide range of readers. –Library Journal Review

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If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery

(Available Formats: Print Book & Downloadable Audiobook)

Escoffery’s vibrant and varied debut, a linked collection, chronicles the turbulent fate of a Jamaican American family in Miami. Trelawny, the main character in most of the entries, is the younger of two sons. He questions where his light skin places him within America’s racial categories and where he fits into family hierarchy: “You want to prove your father bet on the wrong son,” Trelawny narrates in the title story, addressing his father’s favorable treatment of his older brother, Delano, an arborist and musician. “In Flux” recounts Trelawny’s liberal arts education as he leaves Miami and attends college in the colder, and more racially homogenous, Midwest. “Odd Jobs,” “Independent Living,” and the title story center on the strange and ethically dubious gigs Trelawny takes to survive, including a running stint as a voyeur for a rich Miami couple, asking himself all the while: “What kind of employee are you? And just what kind of man?” Two stories exert a thrilling dramatic pull: In “Splashdown,” Trelawny’s cousin Cukie learns the lobster trapping trade, and something darker, from his estranged father; and “If He Suspected He’d Get Someone Killed…” follows Delano rushing to secure a bucket truck and a tree-trimming contract before a dangerous storm arrives. This charged work keeps a tight hold on the reader. –Starred Publishers Weekly Review

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An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong

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

Pulitzer-winning journalist Yong (I Contain Multitudes) reveals in this eye-opening survey animals’ world through their own perceptions. Every animal is “enclosed within its own unique sensory bubble,” he writes, or its own “perceptual world.” Yong’s tour covers vision (mantis shrimp have “12 photoreceptor classes”), sound (birds, researchers suggest, hear in a similar range as humans but they hear faster), and nociception, the tactile sense that sends danger signals (which is so widespread that it exists among “creatures separated by around 800 million years of evolution”). There are a wealth of other senses outside the standard five: sea turtles have two magnetic senses, electric fish generate currents to “sense their surroundings” as well as to communicate with each other, and the platypus’s sensitive bill gives it what scientists think may be “electrotouch.” Yong ends with a warning against light and sound pollution, which can confuse and disturb animals’ lives, and advocation that “natural sensescapes” ought to be preserved and restored. He’s a strong writer and makes a convincing case against seeing the world as only humans do: “By giving in to our preconceptions, we miss what might be right in front of us. And sometimes what we miss is breathtaking.” This is science writing at its best. – Publishers Weekly Review

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Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn

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

Edgar finalist Raybourn (the Speedwell series) makes a dazzling excursion out of the Victorian era with this uproarious contemporary thriller. Billie, Mary Alice, Natalie, and Helen have been a cozy quartet of “avenging goddesses” for more than 40 years, one of the “most elite assassin squads on earth,” recruited in late 1978 by an “extra governmental” organization called the Museum. Soon after they’re forced to go on an all-expenses-paid retirement cruise in the Caribbean, they discover they’ve apparently been targeted for death by the Museum board. They immediately go into investigative overdrive, relying on their expert training and experiences to uncover the means and motives behind their potential demise. Flashbacks to several of their high-profile cases, including a Zanzibar hit on an aging baroness that comes back to haunt Billie, keep the reader guessing. Colorful regional details and vividly portrayed secondary characters flesh out this rollicking tale. Fans of Helen Tursten and Richard Osman will relish watching these badass women in their 60s (“no one notices you unless you want them to,” Billie observes) swing into action. Raybourn has outdone herself. –Publishers Weekly Review

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Things We Never Got Over by Lucy Score

(Available Formats: Print Book)

Bearded, bad-boy barber Knox prefers to live his life the way he takes his coffee: Alone. Unless you count his basset hound, Waylon.

Knox doesn’t tolerate drama, even when it comes in the form of a stranded runaway bride.

Naomi wasn’t just running away from her wedding. She was riding to the rescue of her estranged twin to Knockemout, Virginia, a rough-around-the-edges town where disputes are settled the old-fashioned way with fists and beer. Usually in that order.

Too bad for Naomi her evil twin hasn’t changed at all. After helping herself to Naomi’s car and cash, Tina leaves her with something unexpected. The niece Naomi didn’t know she had. Now she’s stuck in town with no car, no job, no plan, and no home with an 11-year-old going on thirty to take care of.

There’s a reason Knox doesn’t do complications or high-maintenance women, especially not the romantic ones. But since Naomi’s life imploded right in front of him, the least he can do is help her out of her jam. And just as soon as she stops getting into new trouble he can leave her alone and get back to his peaceful, solitary life. At least, that’s the plan until the trouble turns to real danger.

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Have a great day!

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.

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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).

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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 usually published each Sunday. And the next New York Times blog post will be published on Sunday, December 18, 2022.

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FICTION

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THE BOYS FROM BILOXI by John Grisham

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

Two childhood friends follow in their fathers’ footsteps, which puts them on opposite sides of the law.

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THE CHOICE by Nora Roberts

(Available Formats: Print Book & CD Audiobook)

The third book in the Dragon Heart Legacy series. Breen Siobhan Kelly confronts darkness during her first Christmas in both Talamh and Ireland.

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DEMON COPPERHEAD by Barbara Kingsolver

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

A reimagining of Charles Dickens’s “David Copperfield” set in the mountains of southern Appalachia.

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DESERT STAR by Michael Connelly

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

Ballard and Bosch bury old resentments as they go after two killers.

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DREAMLAND by Nicholas Sparks

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

Musicians from different backgrounds are attracted to each other and a mother flees with her son from an abusive husband.

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FAIRY TALE by Stephen King

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

A high school kid inherits a shed that is a portal to another world where good and evil are at war.

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GOING ROGUE by Janet Evanovich

(Available Formats: Print Book & CD audiobook)

The 29th book in the Stephanie Plum series. The man who abducted the office manager at Vinnie’s Bail Bonds demands a mysterious coin in exchange for her.

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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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IT STARTS WITH US by Colleen Hoover

(Available Formats: Print Book)

In the sequel to “It Ends With Us,” Lily deals with her jealous ex-husband as she reconnects with her first boyfriend.

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LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY by Bonnie Garmus

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

A scientist and single mother living in California in the 1960s becomes a star on a TV cooking show.

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MAD HONEY by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan

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

After returning to her hometown, Olivia McAfee’s son gets accused of killing his crush.

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NO PLAN B by Lee Child and Andrew Child

(Available Formats: Print Book & Large Print)

The 27th book in the Jack Reacher series. Reacher goes after a killer but is unaware of the bigger implications.

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OUR MISSING HEARTS by Celeste Ng

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

Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner goes on a quest to find his mother, a Chinese American poet whose work he was taught to disavow.

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THE SEVEN HUSBANDS OF EVELYN HUGO by Taylor Jenkins Reid

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

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

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TOMORROW, AND TOMORROW, AND TOMORROW by Gabrielle Zevin

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

Two friends find their partnership challenged in the world of video game design.

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TRIPLE CROSS by James Patterson

(Available Formats: Print Book & CD audiobook)

Detective Alex Cross and the true-crime author Thomas Tull search for a serial killer known as the Family Man.

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UGLY LOVE by Colleen Hoover

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

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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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 a murder suspect.

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THE WHITTIERS by Danielle Steel

(Available Formats: Print Book & CD audiobook)

After tragedy strikes, six adult children return to the family home without their parents for the first time.

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A WORLD OF CURIOSITIES by Louise Penny

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

The 18th book in the Chief Inspector Gamache series. When an attic room that was sealed off 160 years ago is opened, an old enemy returns.

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NON-FICTION:

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AND THERE WAS LIGHT by Jon Meacham

(Available Formats: Print Book

The Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer portrays the life of Abraham Lincoln.

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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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CINEMA SPECULATION by Quentin Tarantino

(Available Formats: Not yet available in any catalog)

The filmmaker shares his love of cinema with special attention given to key American films of the 1970s.

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COMEDIANS IN CARS GETTING COFFEE BOOK by Jerry Seinfeld

(Available Formats: Print Book)

Behind-the-scenes photos and stories of the streaming series about the art of comedy.

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FRIENDS, LOVERS, AND THE BIG TERRIBLE THING by Matthew Perry

(Available Formats: Print Book)

The actor, known for playing Chandler Bing on “Friends,” shares stories from his childhood and his struggles with sobriety.

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A HEART THAT WORKS by Rob Delaney

(Available Formats: Not yet available in any catalog)

The comedian describes moving his family to London and dealing with tragedy.

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AN IMMENSE WORLD by Ed Yong

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

The Pulitzer Prize–winning science writer explains the sensory perceptions and ways of communication used by a variety of animals.

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I’M GLAD MY MOM DIED by Jennette McCurdy

(Available Formats: Print Book & downloadable audiobook)

The actress and filmmaker describes her eating disorders and difficult relationship with her mother.

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THE LIGHT WE CARRY by Michelle Obama

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

The former first lady shares personal stories and the tools she uses to deal with difficult situations.

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MOSQUITO BOWL by Buzz Bissinger

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

The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist depicts the service of college football players who served in the Marines during World War II.

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PHILOSOPHY OF MODERN SONG by Bob Dylan

(Available Formats: Print Book)

In a collection of more than 60 essays, the musician and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature explores the nature of popular music.

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RADIO’S GREATEST OF ALL TIME by Rush Limbaugh with Kathryn Adams Limbaugh and David Limbaugh

(Available Formats: eBook)

A collection of the late conservative commentator’s on-air moments, with memories from his widow and brother.

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THE REVOLUTIONARY by Stacy Schiff

(Available Formats: Print Book)

The Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer details Samuel Adams’s contributions to the American Revolution.

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SO HELP ME GOD by Mike Pence

(Available Formats: Coming soon in print book format)

The former vice president gives an account of his career, including his time in the Oval Office and during the Jan. 6 insurrection.

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SONG OF THE CELL by Siddhartha Mukherjee

(Available Formats: Print Book)

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author chronicles the discovery of cells and describes how modern medicine uses them.

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SURRENDER by Bono

(Available Formats: Print Book)

The lead singer of the Irish rock band U2 offers details of his life, career and activism.

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WHAT IF? 2 by Randall Munroe

(Available Formats: Print Book)

The creator of the web comic “xkcd” and former NASA roboticist looks into hypothetical and oddball scenarios.

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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.

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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, December 16, 2022

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And here are the 10 recommended songs of the week!

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Blues Garage by Blues Caravan (Genre: Blues)

From The Album: Blues Caravan 2022 (Live) (Ruf Records)

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Bourbon Street by Malaya Blue (Genre: Blues)

From The Album: Bourbon Street (2014)

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Do It Again by The Kinks (Genre: Rock, Classic Rock)

From The Album: Word of Mouth (1984)

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Soul Man by Sam & Dave (Sam Moore & Dave Prater) (Genre: R&B)

From The Album: The Best Of Sam and Dave (1990)

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Lean On by David Crosby and the Lighthouse Band (Genre: Pop-Rock, Folk, Singer-Songwriter)

From The Album: Live at the Capitol Theatre (2022)

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Reconsider Baby by The Million Dollar Quartet (Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis & Johnny Cash) (Genre: Traditional Rock)

From The Album: The Complete Million Dollar Quartet (2006)

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Soul Sauce by Cal Tjader (Genre: Jazz, Easy Listening)

From The Album: Soul Sauce (1964)

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Walking In Memphis by Marc Cohn (Genre: Pop-Rock)

From The Album: Marc Cohn (1911)

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Wang Dang Doodle by Koko Taylor with Little Walter (Genre: Blues)

Studio Version From The Album: Koko Taylor (1969)

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Yulesville by Edd Kookie Byrnes

From The Album: Christmas Jukebox Hits by Various Artists (2021)

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Hoopla Recommend Album of the Week

Live At The Fillmore 1997 (2022) by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers (Genre: Pop/Rock)

And From The Album:

Lucille by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

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Have a great weekend,

Linda Reimer, SSCL

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Online Catalog Links:

StarCat

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

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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.

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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.

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Tech Talk is a Southeast Steuben County Library blog.

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

The next Library Connections video will be posted on Wednesday, December 14, 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!

 

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

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Weekly Suggested Reading postings are published on Wednesdays.

And as it is already December (how did that happen so fast?!), the suggested reading posts for this month will feature some of the most popular and critically acclaimed titles published in 2022.

The next Suggested Reading posting will be published on Wednesday, December 14, 2022.

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The Choice by Nora Roberts

(Available Formats: Print Book)

Bestseller Roberts expertly weaves threads from the previous two books of her Dragon Heart Legacy series into an epic climax and gratifying grand finale (following The Becoming). Life continues in the magical world of Talamh in the aftermath of the Battle of the Dark Portal: fallen loved ones are honored, couples wed, babies are born, and the wheel of the year turns. But the shadow of the evil god Odran, who hopes to crush Talamh and rule all the worlds, still looms, and series protagonist Breen and her found family prepare for a final confrontation between the forces of light and darkness. The world and characters are comfortably established by this point, allowing readers to be swept away by waves of events as the battle intensifies. Though the broad outcomes are easily anticipated, Roberts raises the stakes enough to keep readers guessing from moment to moment. Add in a little romance to round out the tale, and the result is a rewarding outing for old and new fans alike. -Publishers Weekly Review

Reader’s Note: The Choice is the third title in the Dragon Heart Legacy series. If you’d like to start reading the series from the beginning check out book one: The Awakening.

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Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

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

“A kid is a terrible thing to be, in charge of nothing.” So says young Damon Fields, who’s destined to be known as Demon Copperhead, a hungry orphan in a snake-harboring holler in Lee County, Virginia, where meth and opioids kill and nearly everyone is just scraping by. With his red hair and the “light-green eyes of a Melungeon,” Damon’s a dead-ringer for his dead father, whom he never met. More parent to his mother than she was to him, he’s subjected to hellish foster situations after her death, forced into hard labor, including a stint in a tobacco field, which ignites one of many righteous indictments of greed and exploitation. Damon funnels his dreams into drawings of superheroes, art being one of his secret powers. After risking his life to find his irascible grandmother, he ends up living in unnerving luxury with Coach Winfield and his smart, caustic, motherless daughter. Kingsolver’s capacious, ingenious, wrenching, and funny survivor’s tale is a virtuoso present-day variation on Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield, and she revels in creating wicked and sensitive character variations, dramatic trials-by-fire, and resounding social critiques, all told from Damon’s frank and piercing point of view in vibrantly inventive language. Every detail stings or sings as he reflects on nature, Appalachia, family, responsibility, love, and endemic social injustice. Kingsolver’s tour de force is a serpentine, hard-striking tale of profound dimension and resonance. -Booklist Review

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Fairy Tale by Stephen King

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

King’s latest novel follows Charlie, a teen boy who befriends local recluse Mr. Bowditch and his elderly dog, Radar. Soon after, Mr. Bowditch passes away, leaving everything to Charlie, including a cassette tape that reveals the existence of a portal to another world in an old garden shed. Hoping to use the magic of this other world to restore Radar’s youth, Charlie enters Empis and becomes drawn into a desperate struggle to prevent this already sick and dying world from being finally destroyed. King’s fantasy otherworld, which some characters posit is the source of many fairy-tale or fantastic stories, is by its nature a bit of a hodgepodge of various existing references, with some occasional striking images of its own (millions of monarch butterflies, a telepathic cricket). While this novel certainly doesn’t break new ground for King or for the fantasy genre, it should please King’s existing fans, especially those who enjoyed the more complex otherworlds of the Dark Tower series or King’s earlier fantasy work, The Eyes of the Dragon (1987).

HIGH DEMAND BACKSTORY: A new novel from King means lots of interest and lots of holds. -Booklist Review

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Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor by Kim Kelly

(Available Formats: Print Book)

Labor journalist Kelly looks back to the early days of U.S. industrialization in this freshly inclusive review of the country’s labor history. Beginning with the mill girls of Rhode Island and Massachusetts in 1824, she moves forward chronologically, providing insightful glimpses into dozens of strikes, union actions, and bloody confrontations. Kelly purposefully highlights events involving often overlooked groups, including Indigenous, Black, Hispanic, and Asian American women. Readers will also find famous episodes covered, such as the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire and the Haymarket massacre, but the emphasis is on people and events that remain relatively unknown. Kelly’s well-documented research and straightforward writing style allow her to pack an enormous amount of material into these pages, but the narrative never reads as dull or dense. Moving from one topic to another–miners to harvesters to cleaners–she provides a concise but comprehensive narrative that serves as an excellent entry point for new understanding of work in America. With union movements enjoying renewed support and influence, readers will find a lot of value in this previously “”untold”” history. -Booklist Review

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French Braid by Anne Tyler

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

Tyler (Redhead by the Side of the Road) returns with a dry and well-crafted look at a family that inexplicably comes apart over several decades. Serena Drew, a 20-something Baltimore grad student traveling with her boyfriend, James, thinks she recognizes her cousin, Nicholas Garrett, in the crowd at a Philadelphia train station in 2010, but she can’t say for sure because she hasn’t seen him for years. “You guys give a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘once removed,’ ” James says, and wonders if “some deep dark secret” might explain why Serena rarely sees her aunt Alice or her uncle David, Nicholas’s father. But the explanation, as it happens, is not so simple. This also turns out not to be Serena’s story, as Tyler leaves the young couple for late 1950s Baltimore, where Alice; Serena’s mother, Lily; and David are raised by their mismatched parents, a socially awkward plumber named Robin and begrudging housewife Mercy, who wants to be an artist. Once the parents become empty nesters, Mercy spends most of her days and nights in her neighboring studio. There are no big reveals, but Tyler’s focus on character development proves fruitful; a reunion organized by the wistful Robin in the ’90s is particularly affecting, as is a coda with David during the Covid-19 pandemic. As always, Tyler offers both comfort and surprise. -Publishers Weekly Review

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The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family by Kerri K. Greenidge

(Available Formats: Print Book)

Tufts University historian Greenidge (Black Radical) delivers a revelatory study of the Grimke family and their complicated involvement in the fight for racial equality. Quaker sisters Sarah and Angelina Grimke, suffering from spiritual guilt over slavery—yet willing to receive financial support from their slaveholding relatives—relocated from Charleston, S.C., to Philadelphia in the 1820s and became influential abolitionists and women’s rights activists who emphasized the detrimental effects of the “peculiar institution” on white women’s souls. After the Civil War, they learned that their brother Henry had fathered three sons by an enslaved woman, and Greenidge incisively details how the sisters’ relationships with their nephews, Archibald, Francis, and John Grimke, got tangled up in assumptions of white privilege and assertions of Black freedom. Also spotlighted are Francis Grimke’s wife, Charlotte Forten Grimke, a writer and teacher whose paternal grandmother and aunts cofounded one of America’s first abolitionist women’s organizations and frequently clashed with white women over ideology and tactics, and Archibald’s daughter, Harlem Renaissance playwright Angelina Weld Grimke, who promoted the concept of racial uplift, popular among middle- and upper-class Blacks as they distanced themselves from the poor and uneducated in pursuit of racial equality. Greenidge offers no tidy or optimistic conclusions about the long shadow of slavery, but readers will be riveted by how she brings these complex figures and their era to life. This is a brilliant and essential history. -Starred Publishers Weekly Review

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Haven by Emma Donoghue

(Available Formats: Print Book, Large Print, CD Audiobook

Skellig Michael, a steep, rocky island off the southwestern Irish coast, is the setting for this atmospheric work, an imagined story about its early human inhabitants. In the seventh century, Artt, a scholar-priest guided by a dream, asks two monks to join him on a pilgrimage to an empty isle “less tainted by the world’s breath.” Excited at achieving a greater life purpose, the elderly Cormac, a talented storyteller and mason, agrees to go, as does Trian, a lanky, adventurous younger man. From the days-long boat journey through their mission to establish an island settlement and worship God appropriately, their work is arduous. Donoghue’s (The Pull of the Stars, 2020) prose glimmers with images of the pristine natural world, including many varieties of sea birds, but as Artt’s sanctimonious piety increasingly challenges common sense, Cormac and Trian wonder if their vows of obedience will doom them. As always, Donoghue extracts realistic emotions from characters interacting within close quarters and delicately explores the demands of faith. This evocative historical novel also works as a cautionary tale about the dangers of religious control.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Donoghue’s readers and all lovers of thought-provoking literary fiction will be looking for this quietly dramatic tale. -Booklist Review

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The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell

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

Following the critically acclaimed Hamnet (2020), O’Farrell creates another mesmerizing portrait of a Renaissance-era woman whose life is shrouded in mystery. “My Last Duchess,” Robert Browning’s poem about Lucrezia de’ Medici (1545-61), gave voice to the longstanding rumors that its subject was murdered by her husband, Alfonso, duke of Ferrara. Was she, and if so, why? A member of Florence’s large ruling family, Lucrezia, a restless dreamer who adores animals and creating art, is devastated to learn, at age 12, about plans for her to wed her late sister’s fiance. While Alfonso appears charming, she later witnesses his cruel streak. O’Farrell shines at instilling elegantly described scenes with human feeling, such as Lucrezia’s wedding preparations and her sense of inner strength while viewing the sunrise transform the sky at Alfonso’s country villa. The author proves equally skilled at evoking suspense. This she accomplishes by alternating between Lucrezia’s earlier life and the time when Alfonso brings Lucrezia, his 16-year-old bride, to an isolated stone fortress–perhaps to kill her. The potential motive won’t surprise anyone familiar with noblewomen’s dynastic roles. Historical-fiction readers will love the cultural details, while Lucrezia’s plight speaks to modern themes of gaslighting and women’s agency. The leitmotif of “underpainting,” hiding truths beneath the surface, echoes throughout this poetically written, multilayered novel.- Booklist Review

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Nights of Plague by Orhan Pamuk

(Available Formats: Print Book)

The bubonic plague afflicts a remote outpost of the Ottoman empire, inflaming old tensions but also presenting an opportunity for radical political change. In the stormy Mediterranean, somewhere between Rhodes and Alexandria, lies Pamuk’s imagined island, Mingheria, the “Pearl of the Levant.” The Quarantine Authority has well-rehearsed protocols to limit the spread of disease (and squelch unhelpful news reports). But the Ottoman “sick man of Europe” is fading, and the illness that sweeps the land in 1901 is unusually cruel. The island’s Greek and Muslim elders jostle for position. But the Sultan’s investigator, Bonkowski Pasha, has been murdered under mysterious circumstances, and a new Mingherian nationalism is ascendant. For the patriotic Major Kamil and his young wife, Zehnap, history calls. Deftly blending rich realism and wry social commentary, Turkish Nobel laureate Pamuk (My Name Is Red, 2017) delivers an invented history that leverages the all-too-familiar experience of a deadly pandemic to return to one of his cherished topics: Ottoman bureaucratic and social reform. The continued volatility of the Turkish political environment and the potency of Pamuk’s allegory were underscored when, upon this novel’s Turkish publication in 2021, Pamuk faced a criminal inquiry for allegedly besmirching Turkey’s founder, Ataturk. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Pamuk is always a must-read, and the potency and timeliness of this novel will stir even more interest. -Booklist Review

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The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka

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

Otsuka (The Buddha in the Attic) delivers a quick and tender story of a group of swimmers who cope with the disruption of their routines in various ways. The regulars at a pool range in age, ability, and swimming habits, and are connected by an incessant need to swim. When a crack shows up in the deep end of lane four, the swimmers all grows nervous about the pool’s future. While the “nonswimmers” in their lives (also known as “crack deniers”) dismiss the swimmers’ concerns, the swimmers collectively discover how the crack “quietly lodges itself, unbeknownst to you, in the recesses of your mind”—except for cheerful Alice, who has swum in the pool for 35 years and now has dementia. Some members stop going to the pool out of fear, while others try to get close to the crack. Just before the pool is closed, Alice determines to get in “Just one more lap.” Otsuka cleverly uses various points of view: the swimmers’ first-person-plural narration effectively draws the reader into their world, while the second person keenly conveys the experiences of Alice’s daughter, who tries to recoup lost time with her mother after Alice loses hold of her memories and moves into a memory care facility. It’s a brilliant and disarming dive into the characters’ inner worlds. -Starred Publishers Weekly Review

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Have a great day!

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.

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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).

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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 usually published each Sunday. And the next New York Times blog post will be published on Sunday, December 11, 2022.

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FICTION

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THE BOYS FROM BILOXI by John Grisham

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

Two childhood friends follow in their fathers’ footsteps, which puts them on opposite sides of the law.

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A CHRISTMAS MEMORY by Richard Paul Evans

(Available Formats: Print Book)

In 1967, the joy of the holiday season seems out of reach to a boy whose brother died in the Vietnam War and father lost his job.

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DEMON COPPERHEAD by Barbara Kingsolver

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

A reimagining of Charles Dickens’s “David Copperfield” set in the mountains of southern Appalachia.

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DESERT STAR by Michael Connelly

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

Ballard and Bosch bury old resentments as they go after two killers.

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DREAMLAND by Nicholas Sparks

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

Musicians from different backgrounds are attracted to each other and a mother flees with her son from an abusive husband.

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FAIRY TALE by Stephen King

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

A high school kid inherits a shed that is a portal to another world where good and evil are at war.

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GOING ROGUE by Janet Evanovich

(Available Formats: Print Book & CD audiobook)

The 29th book in the Stephanie Plum series. The man who abducted the office manager at Vinnie’s Bail Bonds demands a mysterious coin in exchange for her.

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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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IT STARTS WITH US by Colleen Hoover

(Available Formats: Print Book)

In the sequel to “It Ends With Us,” Lily deals with her jealous ex-husband as she reconnects with her first boyfriend.

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LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY by Bonnie Garmus

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

A scientist and single mother living in California in the 1960s becomes a star on a TV cooking show.

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MAD HONEY by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan

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

After returning to her hometown, Olivia McAfee’s son gets accused of killing his crush.

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NO PLAN B by Lee Child and Andrew Child

(Available Formats: Print Book & Large Print)

The 27th book in the Jack Reacher series. Reacher goes after a killer but is unaware of the bigger implications.

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NOVEMBER 9 by Colleen Hoover

(Available Formats: Print Book, eBook & Downloadable Audiobooks)

Is Ben using his relationship with Fallon as fodder for his novel?

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OUR MISSING HEARTS by Celeste Ng

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

Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner goes on a quest to find his mother, a Chinese American poet whose work he was taught to disavow.

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THE SEVEN HUSBANDS OF EVELYN HUGO by Taylor Jenkins Reid

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

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

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TRIPLE CROSS by James Patterson

(Available Formats: Print Book & CD audiobook)

Detective Alex Cross and the true-crime author Thomas Tull search for a serial killer known as the Family Man.

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UGLY LOVE by Colleen Hoover

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

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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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 a murder suspect.

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THE WHITTIERS by Danielle Steel

(Available Formats: Print Book & CD audiobook)

After tragedy strikes, six adult children return to the family home without their parents for the first time.

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NON-FICTION:

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AND THERE WAS LIGHT by Jon Meacham

(Available Formats: Print Book

The Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer portrays the life of Abraham Lincoln.

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BIBI by Benjamin Netanyahu

(Available Formats: Print Book)

An autobiography by the former prime minister of Israel.

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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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A BOOK OF DAYS by Patti Smith

(Available Formats: Not yet available in any catalog)

More than 365 images and reflections by the National Book Award–winning author and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee.

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CINEMA SPECULATION by Quentin Tarantino

(Available Formats: Not yet available in any catalog)

The filmmaker shares his love of cinema with special attention given to key American films of the 1970s.

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COMEDIANS IN CARS GETTING COFFEE BOOK by Jerry Seinfeld

(Available Formats: Print Book)

Behind-the-scenes photos and stories of the streaming series about the art of comedy.

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FRIENDS, LOVERS, AND THE BIG TERRIBLE THING by Matthew Perry

(Available Formats: Print Book)

The actor, known for playing Chandler Bing on “Friends,” shares stories from his childhood and his struggles with sobriety.

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I’M GLAD MY MOM DIED by Jennette McCurdy

(Available Formats: Print Book & downloadable audiobook)

The actress and filmmaker describes her eating disorders and difficult relationship with her mother.

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THE LIGHT WE CARRY by Michelle Obama

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

The former first lady shares personal stories and the tools she uses to deal with difficult situations.

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PHILOSOPHY OF MODERN SONG by Bob Dylan

(Available Formats: Print Book)

In a collection of more than 60 essays, the musician and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature explores the nature of popular music.

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THE QUEEN by Andrew Morton

(Available Formats: Print Book)

A biography of Queen Elizabeth II, which explores her influence on Britain and the rest of the world.

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THE REVOLUTIONARY by Stacy Schiff

(Available Formats: Print Book)

The Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer details Samuel Adams’s contributions to the American Revolution.

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SO HELP ME GOD by Mike Pence

(Available Formats: Coming soon in print book format)

The former vice president gives an account of his career, including his time in the Oval Office and during the Jan. 6 insurrection.

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SONG OF THE CELL by Siddhartha Mukherjee

(Available Formats: Print Book)

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author chronicles the discovery of cells and describes how modern medicine uses them.

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SURRENDER by Bono

(Available Formats: Print Book)

The lead singer of the Irish rock band U2 offers details of his life, career and activism.

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WHAT IF? 2 by Randall Munroe

(Available Formats: Print Book)

The creator of the web comic “xkcd” and former NASA roboticist looks into hypothetical and oddball scenarios.

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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.

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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, here are our streaming recommendations for December 2022.

The next streaming recommendation post will be out on Saturday, January 7, 2023.

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Scrooge: A Christmas Carol (Netflix) (Dec. 7)

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Slow Horses, Season 2 (Apple TV Plus) (Dec. 2)

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Sr. (Netflix) (Dec. 2)

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His Dark Materials, Season 3 (HBO Max) (Dec. 5)

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Emancipation (Apple TV Plus) (Dec. 9)

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Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (Netflix) (Dec. 9)

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Kindred (Hulu) (Dec. 14)

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1923 (Paramount+) (Dec. 18)

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Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, Season 3 (Prime Video) (Dec. 21)

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Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (Netflix) (Dec. 23)

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Hoopla Streaming Pick of the Month

To checkout Moonstruck, you can search for the Hoopla app for your smart TV, download the Hoopla app to

your mobile device, or click the following link to visit the Hoopla website and watch the movie on your

computer: https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/11805960

And here’s the Moonstruck trailer:

Have a great weekend,

Linda

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References

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, December 9, 2022.

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And here are the 10 recommended songs of the week!

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Christmas Tears by Freddie King (Genre: Blues)

From The Album: 17 Greatest Hits (2001)

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Cool Yule by Louis Armstrong (Genre: Jazz)

From The Album: Louis Wishes You A Cool Yule (2022)

And as a bonus, another song from the same album:

Christmastime in New Orleans (Genre: Jazz)

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It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry by Bob Dylan (Genre: Singer-Songwriter, Folk, Folk-Rock)

From The Album: Highway 61 Revisited (1965)

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Oh, Pretty Woman by Roy Orbison (Genre: Rock, Vocal)

From The Album: The Essential Roy Orbison (2006)

And as a bonus, a second song from the great Roy Orbison

She’s A Mystery To Me (Genre: Rock, Vocal)

From The Album: Mystery Girl (1989)

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Seventy-Six Trombones by the Music Man 2022 Broadway Cast featuring Hugh Jackman & Sutton Foster (Genre: Musical, Show Tunes)

From The Album: The Music Man (The 2022 Broadway Cast Recording)

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Tingings: This Side By Fireside Theatre (Genre: Comedy)

From The Album: Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers (1970)

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Tweeter and the Monkey Man by The Traveling Wilburys (Genre: Rock)

From The Album: The Traveling Wilburys (1988)

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Uptown Girl by Billy Joel (Genre: Rock)

From The Album: An Innocent Man (1983)

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You Make Loving Fun by Fleetwood Mac (Genre: Pop/Rock)

From The Album: Rumors (1977)

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You Need A Mess Of Help To Stand Alone (Live At Carnegie Hall) by The Beach Boys (Genre: Classic Rock)

From The Album: Sail On Sailor Deluxe Edition (2022)

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Hoopla Recommend Album of the Week

Rumours (1977) by Fleetwood Mac (Genre: Rock)

And from the album the hopeful classic:

Don’t Stop

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Have a great weekend,

Linda Reimer, SSCL

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Online Catalog Links:

StarCat

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

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The Digital Catalog, web version of Libby

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

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The Libby App

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

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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.

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Tech Talk is a Southeast Steuben County Library blog.

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

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

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Weekly Suggested Reading postings are now published on Wednesdays. Unless Linda is swamped, and them, occasionally, they are published on Thursdays as it the case today!

And the next Suggested Reading posting will be published on Wednesday, December 7, 2022

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Before Your Memory Fades by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

(Available Formats: eBook & Hoopla instant check out audiobook)

Kawaguchi returns with the heart-warming third installment of his internationally best-selling series (following Before the Coffee Gets Cold and Tales from the Cafe). Instead of taking place at the small Tokyo caf Funiculi Funicula, this story occurs at caf Donna Donna in Hakodate, a city on the island of Hokkaido. As at Funiculi Funicula, Donna Donna customers are given the opportunity to travel back in time, but they must follow a list of rules, the most important one being they must return to the present before their cup of coffee gets cold. Like the two previous books, this title follows four new customers wanting to travel back in time: a daughter, a comedian, a sister, and a young man in love. The first and last stories, “The Daughter” and “The Young Man,” are the standouts in this book.

VERDICT Fans of Kawaguchi’s series will enjoy this latest installment. While the stories are similar to previous ones, readers will enjoy reading about a new group of customers and seeing some familiar faces. Kawaguchi’s comforting and thought-provoking book is perfect reading for cold winter nights.-Library Journal Review

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The Call of the Wrens Jenni L. Walsh

(Available Formats: Hoopla instant check out eBook & audiobook)

Walsh (Becoming Bonnie) offers an enticing story of two Englishwomen serving their country during both world wars. In 1917, Marion Hoxton ages out of the orphanage she was raised in and joins the Women’s Royal Naval Service (the “Wrens”), while her best friend Eddie Smith joins the Royal Navy. As they each make their way toward the front lines in France, their friendship develops into romance. Meanwhile, Marion works as a dispatch rider and helps her new friend Sara train carrier pigeons to send and retrieve messages. In a parallel narrative set in 1940, well-to-do Evelyn Fairchild joins the Wrens, desperate to prove she’s overcome a childhood disability impacting one of her legs by serving as a motorcycle driver. Evelyn and Marion’s paths cross when Marion returns to be a leader in the new Wrens, her romance with Eddie having turned out not as they’d hoped. Marion also harbors a secret about Evelyn’s true parentage, as Evelyn’s parents failed to disclose she was adopted. Walsh expertly contrasts the lives of orphaned Marion with privileged Evelyn to expose their common desire to show their value outside societal labels. Historical fiction fans will be riveted. – Publishers Weekly Review

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Death on a Winter Stroll by Francine Mathews

(Available Formats: Print Book & eBook)

In December, Nantucket would be desolate and bleak, except for the Christmas Stroll event—the first since Covid began—which lends the town a festive air in Mathews’s knotty seventh Merry Folger mystery (after 2020’s Death on Tuckernuck). Two disparate groups arrive on the island: the Secretary of State and her family, and a cast and crew filming a murder mystery TV show. Merry, recently promoted to police chief, is tasked with assisting the security detail for Madam Secretary and keeping the Stroll running smoothly. When two dead bodies are found, Merry and Howie Seitz, recently promoted to Merry’s old detective job, must uncover the web of connections among the murder victims, the many visitors, and island denizens, including a National Geographic photographer-naturalist. The solve depends on a fairly simple, conventional clue, but many of the character motivations are both complex and coherent. The Secretary’s seemingly feckless stepson befriends the TV star’s daughter, and their tender, genuine relationship steals the emotional show. Fresh, well-wrought prose brings the setting of Nantucket to life. Mathews consistently entertains. – Publishers Weekly Review

Reader’s Note: As mentioned in the review, Death on a Winter Stroll is the seventh book in the Merry Folger series, if you’d like to start reading the series from the beginning checkout book one: Death in the Off Season.

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The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks by Gwendolyn Brooks

(Available Formats: eBook)

Discover the most enduring works of the legendary poet and first black author to win a Pulitzer Prize—now in one collectible volume

“If you wanted a poem,” wrote Gwendolyn Brooks, “you only had to look out of a window. There was material always, walking or running, fighting or screaming or singing.” From the life of Chicago’s South Side she made a forceful and passionate poetry that fused Modernist aesthetics with African-American cultural tradition, a poetry that registered the life of the streets and the upheavals of the 20th century. Starting with A Street in Bronzeville (1945), her epoch-making debut volume, The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks traces the full arc of her career in all its ambitious scope and unexpected stylistic shifts.

“Her formal range,” writes editor Elizabeth Alexander, “is most impressive, as she experiments with sonnets, ballads, spirituals, blues, full and off-rhymes. She is nothing short of a technical virtuoso.” That technical virtuosity was matched by a restless curiosity about the life around her in all its explosive variety. By turns compassionate, angry, satiric, and psychologically penetrating, Gwendolyn Brooks’ poetry retains its power to move and surprise.

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The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories by Jamil Jan Kochal:

(Available Formats: eBook)

In this captivating collection, Afghan writer Kochai (99 Nights in Logar) paints intimate portraits of Afghans and Afghan Americans. In turns amusing and devastating, the stories are rich with vivid scenes and distinct narrative voices, and are mostly set in California or Logar. “Playing Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain,” told in an engaging second-person narration, follows a teenage boy in California who plays video game set during the Soviet-Afghan War in order to connect with his father, a former mujahid. In “Enough,” an aging woman reflects on her past as she loses her grip on reality. “Occupational Hazards” tells an Afghan man’s life story in the form of a CV, with overlapping pastoral experiences chronicled under “Shepherd” and “Grade School Student” in Logar in the 1960s and ’70s giving way to a harrowing stint under “Mujahid” from 1980 – 1981 (“Duties included: transporting a rewired Soviet bomb that had landed in the center of Hajji Alo’s compound without exploding; avoiding Communist kill squads and Soviet airpower”), and culminating with a beautiful reveal. Many of these stories end in violence or tragedy, but on the whole, the collection is far from repetitive; the range of framing and styles keeps the reader on their toes and delivers emotional impact in one hard-hitting entry after another. Readers won’t want to miss this. – Starred Publishers Weekly Review

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The Hero of This Book by Elizabeth McCracken

(Available Formats: Print Book & Large Print)

McCracken (The Souvenir Museum) blurs fiction and memoir with a mischievous and loving portrait of her late mother. The unnamed narrator dislikes memoirs, and her mother, Natalie, whom she revered, “distrusted” them. So the narrator turns to fiction, claiming that all it takes to leap from the dreaded realm of grief memoirs is to make a few things up, such as the desk clerk at the London hotel she checks in to in 2019, a year after Natalie’s death, to sort through her thoughts and feelings. Despite her avowed opposition to memoir, she unleashes a flood of details about Natalie while wandering around London, describing how the short Jewish woman’s cerebral palsy made walking a struggle, and how she had to cultivate a stubborn nature to ignore the “muttering” of those who doubted her potential. (She ended up a beloved magazine editor in Boston.) The narrator lists a few made-up details that diverge from McCracken’s own life: “the fictional me is unmarried, an only child, childless,” and she notes how novelists are free to kill off characters as needed. What emerges alongside this love letter to the restive Natalie is an engaging character study of a narrator who views everything through the lens of fiction (“Your family is the first novel that you know”). It’s a refreshing outing, and one that sees McCracken gleefully shatter genre lines. – Publisher Weekly Review

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Jackal: A Novel by Erin. E. Adams

(Available Formats: Print Book & eBook)

Liz Rocher, the Black narrator of Adams’s stellar debut, an unforgettable gut punch of a horror thriller, returns reluctantly home to Johnstown, Pa., a largely white rust belt town, for the wedding of her white best friend, Mel Parker. When Mel’s mixed-race daughter, Caroline, disappears in the woods, Liz’s attempts to find Caroline lead her to the discovery of years of police cover-ups of the deaths of Black girls in the woods, their hearts neatly removed, and the revival of her own memories of hiding in the woods the night a fellow Black teen was murdered. Adams’s careful plotting impresses with the subtle organic feel of embedded clues primed to emerge as relevant much later. The girls’ thoughts are included at various points, and the reader is thrown off balance when the narrative shift to the point of view of the supernatural killer at the moment of violence. At the same time, Adams skillfully presents changing theories about the possible humans involved as Liz struggles with who to trust and navigates dreamscapes that seem increasingly real. This novel is a masterful and emotionally wrenching gem of Black storytelling. – Starred Publishers Weekly Review

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Red-Rose Chain by Seanan McGuire

(Available Formats: Print Book & eBook)

It should have been a happy time for half-fae knight October (Toby) Daye: she’s planning her wedding to King of Cats Tybalt and is in the good graces of Arden, the new Queen of the Mists. But when the former holder of that title decides she wants her kingdom back and convinces a neighboring kingdom to declare war on the Mists, Arden sends Toby to negotiate peace. It’s a compelling choice, as Toby is much more likely to stir up trouble wherever she goes. In the Kingdom of Silences, she finds a realm ruled by a tyrannical king who loathes changelings such as Toby.

VERDICT Sustaining a series over nine volumes is not an easy feat, and McGuire keeps things fresh by allowing Toby to grow while keeping her core values of protecting the weak and the innocent. This new entry (after The Winter Long) takes Toby away from her usual stomping ground and limits her allies, giving the dangerous situation extra tension. – Library Journal Review

Reader’s Note: This is the ninth book in the October Daye series, if you’d like to start reading from the beginning check out book one: Rosemary And Rue.

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The Secret Keepers of Old Depot Grocery by Amanda Cox

(Available Formats: Print Book, eBook & Hoopla instant check out eBook & audiobook)

Cox follows The Edge of Belonging (2020) with a novel that portrays three generations of women and dramatizes the ways the impact of family misunderstandings are passed down over and over again. After tragically losing her husband, Sarah Ashby returns to Brighton, Tennessee, and Old Depot Grocery, which her family has maintained for decades. Her mother, Rosemary, is desperate to sell the store, but keeps her true motive hidden while Sarah’s grandmother, Glory Ann, finds solace there, squeaky floorboards and all, since the store gave her a second chance at life long ago. While Sarah plays peacemaker and seeks healing within the familiar aisles, she uncovers a long-buried secret. Masterfully told from each woman’s perspective and across two time lines, Cox’s tale articulates the emotional trauma each woman experiences while also weaving in forgiveness and hope. Readers will fall in love with Old Depot Grocery and its women as Cox explores themes of loneliness and isolation and highlights mother-daughter relationships and the strength of the female spirit. Cox is a writer to turn to for emotionally rich and redemptive fiction. – Starred Booklist Review

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What We Found in Hallelujah by Vanessa Miller

(Available Formats: Hoopla instant checkout eBook & audiobook)

Two sisters reunite with their mother in Hallelujah, S.C., in the satisfying latest from Miller (Something Good). The death of family patriarch Henry Reynolds followed by the disappearance of his youngest daughter, 14-year-old Trinity, fractured the relationships among the remaining family members: Henry’s wife, Ruby, and daughters Faith and Hope. Eighteen years later, Hope lives in California and Faith lives in Atlanta, dealing with her strained marriage and obstinate teenage daughter, Crystal. Ruby convinces Hope and Faith to come home, citing an unwise business deal she’s made that’s put their beachfront home at risk of repossession, but their visit is tense and painful. As Hope confronts Ruby about a devastating family secret that’s kept them estranged, Faith starts to suspect that Crystal has been suffering from the same mental illness that ailed Trinity. With a hurricane approaching Hallelujah, Ruby must confront how her stubbornness and distance from God have kept her from having fulfilling relationships with her daughters. A dramatic plot and uplifting resolution make up for the occasionally stilted dialogue. The result is a potent testament to the power of faith and family in the face of tragedy. – Publishers Weekly 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.

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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).

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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.