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, August 19, 2022.

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And here are the 10 recommended songs of the week!

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The Best Is Yet To Come by Nancy Wilson (Genre: Jazz)

From The Album: Yesterday’s Love Songs, Today’s Blues (1963)

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Blues March by Art Blakey (Genre: Jazz)

From The Album: Moanin’ (1958)

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Dancing in the Dark by Cannonball Adderley (Genre: Jazz)

From The Album: Something Else (1958)

And as a bonus, just because it is a great song with the same title

Dancing In The Dark by Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band (Genre: Rock, Singer-Songwriter)

From The Album: Born In The U.S.A. (1984)

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How High The Moon by Ella Fitzgerald (Genre: Jazz)

From The Album: Live At Zardi’s (1956)

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In The Midnight Hour by Wilson Pickett (Genre: R&B)

From The Album: In The Midnight Hour (1965)

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Moanin’ At Midnight by Howlin’ Wolf (Genre: Blues)

From The Album: Moanin’ In The Moonlight (1959)

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A New Era (Theme from the 2022 Downton Abbey movie) by John Lunn & The Chamber Orchestra Of London (Genre: Soundtrack, Instrumental)

From The Album: Downton Abbey: A New Era Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (2022)

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Pink Panther Theme composed by Henry Mancini & performed by The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra (Genre: Soundtrack, Instrumental)

From The Album: 100 Greatest Film Themes (2007)

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Summer Nights by John Travolta & Olivia Newton-John (Genre: Soundtrack, Pop/Rock)

From The Original Motion Picture SoundtracK: Grease (1978)

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Wrap Your Troubles In Dream by Frank Sinatra (Genre: Vocal)

From The Album: Swing Easy (1954)

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Hoopla Recommend Album of the Week

Grease Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1978)

And from the album the song

We Go Together by John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John & cast

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Have a great weekend,

Linda Reimer, SSCL

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REFERENCES:

Online References

AFI’s 100 YEARS OF FILM SCORES

99 Songs for a Classic Cocktail Hour Mood

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/mar/18/readers-recommend-midnight-songs

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Print References

The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits by Joel Whitburn

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Online Catalog Links:

StarCat

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

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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; a few days later than usual as it has been a busy week – and just in time for the weekend!

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*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 usually published on Tuesdays.

And the next Suggested Reading posting will be published on Tuesday, 19, 2022.

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And Now She’s Gone by Rachel Hall

(Available Formats: Print Book & eBook)

Newbie L.A. PI Gray Sykes, the 39-year-old heroine of this smart, razor-sharp novel from Thriller Award finalist Hall (They All Fall Down), reluctantly accepts her first independent assignment from her boss, Nick Rader, a friend of hers since she was 15 and on whom she now has a crush: to locate physician Ian O’Donnell’s missing girlfriend, Isabel Lincoln, who may not want to be found. As Gray searches for Isabel, she discovers that self-professed nice guy Ian abused Isabel, and that Isabel even attempted suicide, revelations that resonate with Gray, who was abused as a child growing up in the foster care system. Then Isabel herself starts to text Gray, who eight years earlier went under another name, to tell her to stop investigating, and it becomes clear that Isabel’s own strange history mirrors Gray’s in the way Isabel has shifted identities. A final plot twist puts Gray’s life in peril just as she’s getting closer to Nick. Full of wry, dark humor, this nuanced tale of two extraordinary women is un-put-downable. Starred Publishers Weekly Review

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Between Us: How Cultures Create Emotions by Batja Mesquita

(Available Formats: Print Book)

“Many of the answers about emotions are not to be found in our insides, but importantly, in our social contexts,” contends Mesquita, a psychology professor at the University of Leuven, Belgium, in her dazzling debut. Arguing that “we primarily have emotions in order to adjust to changes in our relationship with the (social) world,” the author uses social psychology and eye-opening case studies to examine the cultural, political, and economic factors that influence what people feel. Mesquita lays out two ways of thinking about emotions: MINE (“Mental, INside the person, and Essentialist”) and OURS (“OUtside the person, Relational, and Situated”). She suggests that Western cultures tend to take the MINE approach while OURS predominates everywhere else, and she cites a study that found Japanese Olympic athletes emphasized the relational aspect of emotions more than their American counterparts in interviews. Exploring how parents instruct children in emotional norms, Mesquita describes how Minangkabau people in West Sumatra shame kids when they break a norm and how Bara people in Madagascar teach the young to fear displeasing ancestral spirits so that the children comply with authority. The bounty of case studies captivates and makes a strong argument that social conditions have the power to dictate how one expresses and experiences emotions. The result is a bracing and bold appraisal of how feelings develop. – Starred Publishers Weekly Review

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Boundary Waters by William Kent Krueger

(Available Formats: Print Book & eBook)

Krueger follows up his sure-handed debut novel, Iron Lake (1998), with an equally effective second thriller featuring former Chicago cop, now former local sheriff Cork O’Connor and his adventures in the warm-spirited little town of Aurora, Minn., and the harsh wilderness that surrounds it. The durable O’Connor, who used to watch over the territory as sheriff until he was voted out of office in a personal and professional meltdown, now tends a burger stand but still has a reputation as a go-to guy when trouble arises. It does so in the form of William Raye, an aging country singer who’s looking for his daughter, Shiloh, a famous rock musician who disappeared several months earlier into the Boundary Waters, the thickly forested, lake-dotted area to the north. O’Connor isn’t looking for work, but he takes the case because Shiloh is an Aurora native, and O’Connor hopes someone would do the same for him if any of his three kids were lost. Before he can even head into the woods, FBI agents show up, as well as an old casino gangster from Las Vegas. They, too, all want Shiloh found, but none will say exactly why. O’Connor, accompanied by two agents plus Raye, and a father and son from the local Anishinaabe tribe, packs up and heads out by canoe in what becomes a gritty, bloody adventure of considerable emotional depth. The action is deftly interspersed with glimpses of the terror Shiloh is enduring in the wilderness–at the hands of those who would bury an old crime–and with tense scenes back in Aurora, where O’Connor’s family and other townsfolk worry about the operation’s success. Krueger’s writing, strong and bold yet with the mature mark of restraint, pulls this exciting search-and-rescue mission through with a hard yank.

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Dirt Creek: A Novel by Hayley Scrivenor

(Available Formats: Print Book)

Australian author Scrivenor’s stunning debut blends a taut psychological thriller with a suspenseful police procedural. During Christmas week 2001, amid a summer so hot that the “edges of the road crumbled,” Det. Sgt. Sarah Michaels and her partner, Det. Constable Wayne Smith, investigate the disappearance of 12-year-old Esther Bianchi in the gritty town of Durton. Esther’s BFF, Veronica Thompson, may have been the last one to see her after she left school but didn’t return home. Or maybe it was their 11-year-old friend, Lewis Kennard, who was bullied at school and telling lies to protect secrets. Progress is stymied with media attention and police support drawn to a high-profile case of missing twins “elsewhere in the state.” The cases may be linked and connected to a drug ring. Betrayals, domestic violence, festering family secrets, and fractured friendships delineate clashes among spouses, parents, children, and extended relatives. Scrivenor does a superb job laying out Sarah and Wayne’s backgrounds and their working relationship as the well-crafted plot builds to a powerful conclusion. Fans of Liane Moriarty and Jane Harper won’t want to miss this page-turner. Publishers Weekly

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Into the Narrowdark by Tad Williams

(Available Formats: Print Book)

The New York Times bestselling world of Osten Ard returns in the third Last King of Osten Ard novel, as threats to the kingdom loom…

The High Throne of Erkynland is tottering, its royal family divided and diminished. Queen Miriamele has been caught up in a brutal rebellion in the south and thought to have died in a fiery attack. Her grandson Morgan, heir to the throne, has been captured by one of Utuk’ku’s soldiers in the ruins of an abandoned city. Miriamele’s husband, King Simon, is overwhelmed by grief and hopelessness, unaware that many of these terrible things have been caused by Pasevalles, a murderous traitor inside Simon’s own court at the Hayholt.

Meanwhile, a deadly army of Norns led by the ageless, vengeful Queen Utuk’ku, has swept into Erkynland and thrown down the fortress of Naglimund, slaughtering the inhabitants and digging up the ancient grave of Ruyan the Navigator. Utuk’ku plans to use the Navigator’s fabled armor to call up the spirit of Hakatri, the evil Storm King’s brother.

Even the Sithi, fairy-kin to the Norns, are helpless to stop Utuk’ku’s triumph as her armies simultaneously march on the Hayholt and force their way into the forbidden, ogre-guarded valley of Tanakirú—the Narrowdark—where a secret waits that might bring Simon’s people and their Sithi allies salvation—or doom.

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The Misinformation Age: How False Beliefs Spread by Cailin O’Connor

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

“We live in an age of misinformation–an age of spin, marketing, and downright lies.” So write two professors of logic and the philosophy of science in this sober study of the “important mechanisms by which false beliefs spread.”Today, with the broad reach of the internet and social media, both individuals and institutions are vulnerable to fake news and manipulation, with far-reaching consequences. As O’Connor and Weatherall (The Physics of Wall Street, 2013), who teach at the University of California, Irvine, contend, if “you make decisions on the basis of [false] beliefs, then those decisions are unlikely to yield the outcomes you expect and desire.” In this fresh addition to the groaning shelf of recent books about fake news, the authors thoroughly examine nearly every facet of this phenomenon, which may seem new but is not. Fleshing out examples running from the 1898 explosion of the USS Maine through the Pizzagate nonsense in 2016, the authors comb through the historic peaks of fake news and propaganda, demonstrating its potential to not only swing elections, but also inspire killing sprees and even ignite wars. Giving ample space to the ongoing problem of misleading scientific reportage, the book explores big tobacco’s cancer links in the 1950s through today’s purposefully ignorant discussion of climate change. While social media often blames algorithms for the viral spread of false information, the authors write, “organizations like Facebook, Twitter, and Google are responsible for the rampant spread of fake news on their platforms for the past several years–and, ultimately, for the political, economic, and human costs that resulted.” The most significant question? “Can democracy survive in an age of fake news?” For starters, the authors demand more editorial discretion, fact checking, and investment. “The challenge,” they write, “is to find new mechanisms for aggregating values that capture the ideals of democracy, without holding us all hostage to ignorance and manipulation. “Empowering and thoroughly researched, this book offers useful contemporary analysis and possible solutions to one of the greatest threats to democracy. Kirkus Review

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Out of This Furnace by Thomas Bell

(Available Formats: Print Book)

The novel begins in the mid-1880s with the naive blundering career of Djuro Kracha. It tracks his arrival from the old country as he walked from New York to White Haven, his later migration to the steel mills of Braddock, Pennsylvania, and his eventual downfall through foolish financial speculations and an extramarital affair. The second generation is represented by Kracha’s daughter, Mary, who married Mike Dobrejcak, a steel worker. Their decent lives, made desperate by the inhuman working conditions of the mills, were held together by the warm bonds of their family life, and Mike’s political idealism set an example for the children. Dobie Dobrejcak, the third generation, came of age in the 1920s determined not to be sacrificed to the mills. His involvement in the successful unionization of the steel industry climaxed a half-century struggle to establish economic justice for the workers.

Out of This Furnace is a document of ethnic heritage and of a violent and cruel period in our history, but it is also a superb story. The writing is strong and forthright, and the novel builds constantly to its triumphantly human conclusion.

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Spook Street by Mick Herron

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

In Herron’s terrific, and terrifically funny, fourth Slough House novel (after 2016’s Real Tigers), London’s intelligence teams are on full alert after a suicide bomber kills dozens in a mall. But at Slough House, the home of British spies put out to pasture, the immediate need is to investigate the possible murder of one of its own, River Cartwright, apparently shot while seeing to his grandfather David Cartwright, a former powerful member of the Service, now a paranoid old man. Those in charge quickly figure out the people responsible for the bombing but don’t understand the motive. Meanwhile, the Slough House team, led by the despicable Jackson Lamb, tries to figure out who would go after River. The search leads to France and a recently torched commune, an odd ménage of Americans, Russians, and children. The two plot lines slowly converge amid a heady mixture of deadpan humor, deft characterizations, and acute insight (“A loose bullet rips a hole in normality”). The title refers to a suspicious state of mind: “When you lived on Spook Street you wrapped up tight: watched every word, guarded every secret.” – Starred Publishers Weekly Review

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Two Trees Make a Forest: In Search of My Family’s Past Among Taiwan’s Mountains and Coasts by Jessica Lee

(Available Formats: Print Book coming & audiobook)

In this latest work, Lee (Turning) offers a touching memoir-cum-travelog that connects the physical environment and history of Taiwan to the story of her family. As a child growing up in Canada, Lee was not very familiar with the maternal Chinese/Taiwanese side of her family. Her window into that world was visits to her grandparents’ home where she communicated with them in limited Mandarin. The death of her grandfather sparked an interest to learn about their lives, and to gain a better understanding of her identity. Her grandfather’s letters, discussions with her grandmother and mother, as well as a sojourn to Taiwan helped her put together some of the pieces. This book alternates between various time lines, telling the story of her grandparents’ lives from China to Taiwan to Canada, while also describing the author’s exploration of the flora and fauna of Taiwan’s mountains and coasts. VERDICT A poignant and beautifully written account of family, time, and place. Readers of Rowan Hisayo Buchanan’s Go Home!, which discusses home and belonging from the perspective of the Asian diaspora, or Anna Sherman’s The Bells of Old Tokyo, which explores a place alternately in the present and the past, will also enjoy. – Library Journal Review

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The Unkept Woman: A Sparks & Bainbridge Mystery

(Available Formats: Print Book)

The friendship of Gwen Bainbridge and Iris Sparks, the “intelligent and resourceful” owners of the Right Sort Marriage Bureau, is tested in Montclair’s exemplary fourth mystery set in post-WWII London (after 2021’s A Rogue’s Company). When someone is shot to death in Iris’s flat, where an ex-boyfriend of hers has been living as a renter, Iris’s ability to be fully frank with Scotland Yard is limited by the connection of the victim to her previous life as a British intelligence operative. Iris decides to investigate on her own and asks Gwen to help search for the killer. The case comes at a fraught time for Gwen, who attempted suicide in 1944 after learning her husband was killed in battle; she was subsequently institutionalized in an asylum. Gwen is in the process of petitioning to end the guardianship controlling her life, which could be jeopardized if she once again probes a murder. The solution to the crime is both surprising and fair to the careful reader. Montclair’s capable, funny, and fully developed leads set a gold standard for the amateur sleuth subgenre. Dorothy Sayers’s fans will hope this series has a long run. – Starred Publishers Weekly Review

Readers’ Note: If you’d like to start reading the Sparks & Bainbridge series from the beginning, check out book 1 The Right Sort of Man.

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Have a great weeknd!

Linda Reimer

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*Information on the Three Catalogs*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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 latest edition of Library Connections, our weekly readers’, viewers’ and listeners’ advisory videocast.

The next Library Connections video will be posted on Tuesday, August 16, 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 is the weekly list of New York Times Bestsellers.

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

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

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New York Times Bestseller blog posts are published on Sundays. The next New York Times Bestseller list will be published to this blog on Sunday, August 15, 2022.

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FICTION

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6:20 MAN by David Baldacci

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

When his ex-girlfriend turns up dead in his office building, an entry-level investment analyst delves into the halls of economic power.

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ALL YOUR PERFECTS by Colleen Hoover

(Available Formats: Print Book & downloadable audiobook)

Quinn and Graham’s marriage depends on past promises.

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BOOK LOVERS by Emily Henry

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

While on vacation in North Carolina, a literary agent keeps running into an editor.

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EVERY SUMMER AFTER by Carley Fortune

(Available Formats: Print Book & eBook)

The love story of Percy and Sam is told over the course of six summers and one weekend.

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HOTEL NANTUCKET by Elin Hilderbrand

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

The new general manager of a hotel far from its Gilded Age heyday deals with the complicated pasts of her guests and staff.

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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 GIRL by Ruth Ware

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

A decade after her first year at Oxford, an expectant mother looks into the mystery of her former best friend’s death.

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LAST THING HE TOLD ME by Laura Dave

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

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

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THE LAST TO VANISH by Megan Miranda

(Available Formats: Print Book)

The manager of a resort in the mountains of North Carolina looks into unsolved disappearances.

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THE MEASURE by Nikki Erlick

(Available Formats: Print Book & eBook)

People around the world receive a small wooden box telling them the exact number of years they will live.

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THE MIDNIGHT LIBRARY by Matt Haig

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

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

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NOVEMBER 9 by Colleen Hoover

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

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

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PARIS APARTMENT by Lucy Foley

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

Jess has suspicions about her half-brother’s neighbors when he goes missing.

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PEOPLE WE MEET ON VACATION by Emily Henry

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

Opposites Poppy and Alex meet to vacation together one more time in hopes of saving their relationship.

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PORTRAIT OF AN UNKNOWN WOMAN by Daniel Silva

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

The 22nd book in the Gabriel Allon series. Allon becomes an art forger to uncover a multibillion-dollar fraud.

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RISING TIGER by Brad Thor

(Available Formats: eBook & CD audiobook)

The 21st book in the Scot Harvath series. The American spy faces dangers on a mission in an unfamiliar culture.

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SEA OF TRANQUILITY by Emily St. John Mandel

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

A detective investigating in the wilderness discovers that his actions might affect the timeline of the universe.

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THE SEVEN HUSBANDS OF EVELYN HUGO by Taylor Jenkins Reid

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

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

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SHATTERED by James Patterson and James O. Born

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

he 14th book in the Michael Bennett series. When an F.B.I. abduction specialist disappears, Bennett goes outside his jurisdiction.

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SPARRING PARTNERS by John Grisham 

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

Three novellas “Homecoming,” “Strawberry Moon” and “Sparring Partners.”

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TOMORROW, AND TOMORROW, AND TOMORROW by Gabrielle Zevin

(Available Formats: Print Book)

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

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UGLY LOVE by Colleen Hoover

(Available Formats: Print Book & eBook)

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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NON-FICTION:

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ALL ABOUT LOVE by bell hooks

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

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

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AN IMMENSE WORLD by Ed Yong

(Available Formats: Print Book & eBook

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

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BATTLE FOR THE AMERICAN MIND by Pete Hegseth with David Goodwin

(Available Formats: Not yet available in any catalog)

The “Fox & Friends Weekend” host makes his case for what he calls classical Christian education.

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THE BIG LIE by Jonathan Lemire

(Available Formats: Print Book & eBook)

The MSNBC host and White House bureau chief at Politico examines Donald Trump’s continuing influence over the Republican Party.

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THE BODY KEEPS THE SCORE by Bessel van der Kolk

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

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

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BORN A CRIME by Trevor Noah

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

A memoir about growing up biracial in apartheid South Africa by the host of “The Daily Show.”

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BRAIDING SWEETGRASS by Robin Wall Kimmerer

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

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

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CRYING IN H MART by Michelle Zauner

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

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

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EDUCATED by Tara Westover

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

The daughter of survivalists, who is kept out of school, educates herself enough to leave home for university.

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FINDING ME by Viola Davis

(Available Formats: Print Book & downloadable audiobook)

The multiple award-winning actress describes the difficulties she encountered before claiming her sense of self and achieving professional success.

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GREENLIGHTS by Matthew McConaughey

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

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

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HAPPY-GO-LUCKY by David Sedaris

(Available Formats: Print Book & CD audiobook)

The humorist portrays personal and public upheavals of his life in its seventh decade and the world in the time of a pandemic.

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I’D LIKE TO PLAY ALONE, PLEASE by Tom Segura

(Available Formats: Print Book & CD audiobook)

The stand-up comedian and podcaster shares stories of parenting and strange encounters

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KILLING THE KILLERS by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard

(Available Formats: Print Book & CD audiobook)

The 11th book in the conservative commentator’s Killing series gives an account of the global war against terrorists.

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Leadership: Six Studies in World Strategy by Henry Kissinger

(Available Formats: Not yet available in any catalog)

The former secretary of state profiles the statecraft strategies of Richard Nixon, Margaret Thatcher and others.

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THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVITUDE by Mark Leibovich

(Available Formats: Print Book)

A staff writer at The Atlantic details how some Republicans shifted their loyalty to Donald Trump.

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THEY WANT TO KILL AMERICANS by Malcolm Nance

(Available Formats: Not yet available in any catalog)

The author of “The Plot to Hack America” examines radicalization and terror threats within the United States.

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THINK AGAIN by Adam Grant

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

An examination of the cognitive skills of rethinking and unlearning that could be used to adapt to a rapidly changing world.

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THIS IS YOUR MIND ON PLANTS by Michael Pollan

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

A look at arbitrary beliefs surrounding opium, caffeine and mescaline, which are derived from plants.

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UNTAMED by Glennon Doyle

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

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

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WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU? by Bruce D. Perry and Oprah Winfrey

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

An approach to dealing with trauma that shifts an essential question used to investigate it.

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Happy reading!

Linda Reimer, SSL

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*Information on the Three Catalogs*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Southeast Steuben County Library Tel: 607-936-3713

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Tech Talk is a Southeast Steuben County Library blog.

Hi everyone, here are our streaming recommendations for August.

The next streaming recommendation post will be out the first Saturday, September 3 – the first Saturday in September.

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Darby and Joan, Season 1 (Available August 8, Acorn TV)

“The new series, which stars Bryan Brown and Greta Scacchi, is an Australian road trip drama that follows a retired Australian homicide detective Jack Darby, played by Brown, and a recently widowed English nurse Joan Kirkhope, played by Scacchi, as they trek across the Australian landscape in Darby’s RV. The duo, brought together by chance, are certainly an odd pair.” Collider Overview

Darby and Joan, Season 1 Trailer

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The End Is Nye (Available August 25, Peacock)

“Bill Nye (the science guy) is just as concerned about the state of the planet as you are. That’s why he’s unrolling this new six-part series dedicated to covering all of the potential natural disasters that could possibly wipe us out. Think viruses, volcanos, asteroids and chemical warfare, among other catastrophic topics to explore.” – Spy Overview

The End Is Nye Trailer

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Home Before Dark, Season 3 (August 12, Apple TV+ )

“Young investigative journalist Hilde Lisko moves with her family to the small town her father left behind, only to unearth shocking secrets in her pursuit of the truth.”  -Rotten Tomatoes

Apple does not have tailor for Season 3, however, if you haven’t seen this fun series, the first two seasons of which are available through Apple TV+ now, here is the trailer for season 1 which gives you an idea of what the series is about!

Home Before Dark Series Trailer

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House of the Dragon, Season 1 (August 21, HBO)

Based on George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood, this series takes the “historical” book and goes deeper to showcase what really happened nearly 300 years before Daenerys Targaryen hatched her way into the hearts of Game of Thrones lovers. Matt Smith, Paddy Considine, Olivia Cooke, Emma D’Arcy, Steve Toussaint and Eve Best star.” Spy Overview

House of The Dragon, Season 1 Trailer

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The Lost City (Amazon Prime, already available)

“ Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum and Daniel Radcliffe star in this comedy adventure about a successful romance novelist who, after being kidnapped by a villainous treasure hunter, is forced to team up with her cover model to survive.” – CNN overview

The Lost City Trailer

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Samaritan (August 26, Amazon Prime)

“Sylvester Stallone may be 76, but Sly is still in top form as an aging superhero in Prime Video’s latest action thriller. Here he plays the mythical character Samaritan, who was thought to have disappeared more than two decades ago after an epic battle. But when a boy discovers the legend is still around and kicking, Samaritan’s cover is blown. Martin Starr, Javon Walton, Dascha Polanco and Pilou Asbæk also star.” – CNN Overview

Samaritan Trailer

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The Sandman (August 5, Netflix)

“Neil Gaiman’s epic, best-selling graphic novel, The Sandman, has long been considered unfilmable. Huge names have taken a stab at it, but none have succeeded, until now. “They were trying to make a 3,000-page story happen in two hours of film time,” Gaiman told BBC News. “And nobody ever cracked that because it was uncrackable.” It’s a complicated story, but essentially Tom Sturridge (On the Road) leads as the titular Sandman, also known as Dream or Morpheus, who must journey across multiple worlds and timelines to make amends for previous mistakes, after being held captive for a century. Featuring a bumper star-studded cast, including Gwendoline Christie, Jenna Coleman, Boyd Holbrook, Stephen Fry, Patton Oswalt, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, David Thewlis and Vivienne Acheampong, Netflix will be banking on this grown-up fantasy wooing subscribers. ” BBC Overview

The Sandman Trailer

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Star Trek Movies 2- 6 (Amazon Prime)

Follow the adventures of the original cast, in the films Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Start Trek V: The Final Frontier and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn Trailer

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock Trailer

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country Trailer

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Tiny World, Seasons 1 & 2 (Apple TV+)

“A nature show, focused on small creatures, narrated by Ant-Man himself, Paul Rudd. Absolute genius.

Like seemingly every single one of these modern nature documentaries, Tiny World is gorgeously shot and brilliantly compelling.” – CNET Overview

Tiny World Series Trailer

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Hoopla Five

Avanti! (1972)

In this hilarious romantic comedy from writer/director Billy Wilder and screenwriter I.A.L. Diamond, wealthy American Wendell Armbruster, Jr. (Jack Lemmon) discovers true love when he is summoned to Italy after a car accident claims the lives of his father and his father’s secret mistress. As the mistress’ daughter (Juliet Mills) also arrives in town, the bodies of both of their parents disappear, and the two instant foes are brought together in a baffling mystery… and an affair of the heart!

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Magic In The Mountains (2022)

Magic in the Mountains tells the remarkable underdog story of how Squaw Valley, a little-known ski area in California, won the bid for the 1960 Winter Olympics and, with the help of Walt Disney, changed the Olympics forever.

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Maigret, Season 1 (1992)

Part of the Maigret series (French dialog with English subtitles)

Sporting his pipe that seems a nod to Sherlock Holmes, the pragmatic Maigret investigates murders in his unurried manner and inevitably discovers the truth. Against a backdrop of 1950s Paris and the surrounding French countryside, these original feature-length films pay homage to one of the most brilliant detective minds of the twentieth century.

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The New Zealanders, Season 1 (2022)

The New Zealanders is a beautifully shot travelogue series introducing us to some of the quirkiest locations and heart-warming characters throughout New Zealand. Meet New Zealand’s most remote family who lives 100km from the nearest shop, and at 68 years old, the Taranaki grandmother who is a 4th Dan black belt in Taekwondo. Former oil field worker Mike is a collector of classic Mustang cars, yet wheelchair-bound Shirley prefers her collection of more than 2,000 horse ornaments. Local celebrities, The Patea Maori Club, also appear and talk about “Poi E,” the song that put them on the map. The series also covers conservation in New Zealand, with a couple who built their own house, complete with a grass roof in central Otago. Self-confessed tree-hugger Bob created his own forest while another family built their own power station. And finally, take a tour with a smaller island’s sole policeman, and meet the Air Chathams’ chief pilot who owns a 1950s flight simulator the size of a house. On the even more remote Pitt Island, visit the country’s most isolated school and a 7th generation farming family, the Gregory-Hunts, who raised eleven children there.

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Have a great, and hopefully cool, weekend!

Linda

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References

Carson, E. (2022, August 3). Apple TV Plus: Every New TV Show Arriving in August. CNET. Retrieved August 3, 2022, from https://www.cnet.com/culture/entertainment/apple-tv-plus-all-new-tv-shows-arriving-this-august/

Charles, A. (n.d.). 10 of the best TV shows to watch in August. BBC Culture. Retrieved August 3, 2022, from https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20220729-11-of-the-best-tv-shows-to-watch-in-august

Dowling, A. (2022, July 29). What to Watch in August: The 19 Best New Streaming Releases on HBO Max, Paramount+, Disney+ and Netflix. Spy. Retrieved August 3, 2022, from https://spy.com/feature/new-streaming-releases-1202830372/

Egan, T., & Volk, P. (2022, August 4). The 15 best movies new to Netflix, HBO Max, Hulu: August 2022. Polygon. Retrieved August 3, 2022, from https://www.polygon.com/what-to-watch/23283825/best-movies-watch-new-on-netflix-hbo-hulu-august-2022

Home Before Dark. (n.d.). Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved August 3, 2022, from https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/home_before_dark

Remley, H. (2022, July 17). Retirees Hit the Outback and Solve Crime in “Darby and Joan” Trailer. Collider. Retrieved August 3, 2022, from https://collider.com/darby-and-joan-series-trailer-bryan-brown-greta-scacchi/ See What’s Streaming in August. (2022, July 29). CNN. Retrieved August 3, 2022, from

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,

–

And here are the 10 recommended songs of the week!

–

Break On Through by The Doors (Genre: Classic Rock)

From The Album: The Doors (1967)

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The Er-i-e Canal by The Weavers (Genre: Folk)

From The Album: Classics (1990)

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Hello Susan Brown by The Chad Mitchell Trio (Genre: Folk)

From The Album: The Chad Mitchell Collection (2007)

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I Put A Spell On You by Nina Simone (Genre: Vocal, Jazz)

From The Album: I Put A Spell On You (1965)

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Dear Prudence by The Beatles (Genre: Rock)

From The Album: The Beatles (AKA The White Album, 1968)

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Little Honda by The Beach Boys (Genre: Classic Rock, Surf Rock)

From The Album: U.S. Singles Collection: The Capitol Years 1962 – 1965 (1990)

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Pictures of Lily by The Who (Genre: Classic Rock)

From The Album: The Who Sell Out (1967)

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Snowman, Master 1 by Tintern Abby (Genre: Classic Rock)

From The Album: Beeside: The Complete Recordings (2021)

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Surf Beat by Dick Dale & His Del-Tones (Genre: Classic Rock, Surf Rock)

From The Album: Surfer’s Choice (1962)

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Take Five by Dave Brubeck (Genre: Jazz)

From The Album: Time Out (1959)

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Hoopla Recommend Album of the Week

Rumors (Super Deluxe) (2013) by Fleetwood Mac (Genre: Rock)

And from the album the song

Don’t Stop

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Have a great weekend,

Linda Reimer, SSCL

–

Online Catalog Links:

StarCat

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

–

The Digital Catalog, web version of Libby

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

–

The Libby App

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

–

Hoopla

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

–

Tech Talk is a Southeast Steuben County Library blog.

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

The next Library Connections video will be posted on Tuesday, August 9, 2022.

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

Have a great week!
Linda Reimer, SSCL

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

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

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

–

Weekly Suggested Reading postings are published on Tuesdays.

And the next Suggested Reading posting will be published on Tuesday, August 9, 2022.

–

Blood of the Four by Christopher Golden

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

This hefty sword-and-sorcery adventure from frequent collaborators Golden and Lebbon (The Shadow Men) leaves room to bring its large, entangled cast of characters to a wider stage. At the beginning, the kingdom of Quandis is at peace. The study of magic has been left to the priesthood and largely ignored. Cunning and ruthless Princess Phela sees the awful effects of her mother’s addiction to magical lore, but once Phela becomes queen, she can’t resist the temptation of supernatural power. Meanwhile, Demos, the studly betrothed of Phela’s younger sister, is sold into slavery after his father is executed for blasphemy; Blane, a young member of the Bajuman caste (hereditarily lower than any slave) who doesn’t believe in the gods, stealthily trains as a priest but unwillingly begins to suspect that the gods and their magic are real; and Blane’s supposedly dead sister, Daria, becomes a swashbuckling admiral in the Quandian fleet. There’s something for everyone here, including some subtly feminist themes and several spectacular displays of magical conflict. This novel is an expert crowd-pleaser. Publishers Weekly Review

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Dark Earth: A Novel by Rebecca Stott

(Available Formats: Print Book & eBook)

Nonfiction and fiction writer Stott (Ghostwalk) recreates the past in a novel of two sisters in post-Roman Britain. Next to the great river that will one day be known as the Thames, Isla and Blue live with their father, a famous metalsmith. After their father dies, Isla and Blue turn for protection to their kin in the closest village, ruled by the superstitious Osric and his violent son, Vort. When it is discovered that Isla’s father taught her to forge swords, work forbidden to women, the sisters flee violence and imprisonment. They seek refuge in the ruins of Londinium, the stone city long abandoned by the Romans. In the ghost city, which locals say is cursed, Isla and Blue find a community of castoffs. Eager to support their new friends and evade capture, Blue learns more about healing, and Isla returns to the forge. When Vort seeks vengeance, the sisters rely on their newfound skills and friends to defend what has become their home. VERDICT Stott’s engaging story, conjured from a real-life archaeological find, casts light on a little-known time in the early European Dark Ages. – Library Journal Review

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Eternal Life: A Novel by Dara Horn

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

At the heart of Horn’s funny and compassionate novel is a 2,000-year-old Jewish mother seeking reasons for living, some way of dying, and help for her 56-year-old son who lives in her basement. Rachel’s story begins in Roman-occupied Jerusalem, where at 16 she marries her father’s apprentice although she loves the high priest’s son, Elazar, and is pregnant with Elazar’s baby. Two years later, when the child falls ill, Rachel makes a bargain with God: she must give up not her life but her death in exchange for the child’s survival. The child survives, and Rachel endures successive lifetimes over the next 20 centuries, each lifetime immediately following the previous. Elazar, having made a similar bargain, pursues Rachel through time, occasionally finding her, though never for long. Now in 21st-century New York, Rachel’s current form (or “version,” as she calls it) is an 84-year-old widow. She thinks she has found a way to finally die, but first she wants to see her current problem child, the one in the basement, get a life. She also wishes to protect her granddaughter, a medical researcher dangerously close to discovering the truth behind Rachel’s unusual DNA. Horn (A Guide for the Perplexed) weaves historical detail and down-to-earth humor into this charming Jewish Groundhog Day spanning two millennia. Publishers Weekly Review

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Juliet Naked: A Novel by Nick Hornsby

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

Hornbys characters may be marinated in melancholy, but there’s always a ray or two of hope. He brings together a compelling, original cast in this sweet and sorrowful tale of rock n roll and love on the rocks. Tucker Crowe is a has-been American musician, destined to fade into obscurity save for a handful of devoted listeners. Scholar Duncan Thomson is one of the loyal (a Croweologist, as it were). Duncan’s dedication to his musical hero far exceeds his interest in his significant other, Annie, who wonders whether the 15 years she’s spent with Duncan in a bleak English seaside town have been the biggest mistake of her life. The release of an acoustic version of Crowes best-known album, Juliet, sparks an e-mail correspondence between Tucker and Annie, and the two strangers revel in a candor each is able to exercise for the first time in their lives. Annie starts to see her relationship with Duncan for the dead-end that it is; Tucker begins to acknowledge his failures both as a musician and father (he has children from several different women, mostly models, wouldn’t you know?). Englishman Hornby, whose many best-selling and award-winning books include A Long Way Down (2005), is a master at rendering romantic relationships, particularly those that seem broken beyond repair. Fans of High Fidelity (1995), perhaps Hornby’s most popular book, will enjoy this related take on the lives of the musically obsessed. A wise, witty, and bittersweet novel. Starred Booklist Review

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Nobody Walks by Mick Herron

(Available Formats: Print Book)

In this superb thriller, CWA Gold Dagger Award–winner Herron returns to the secretive world of British intelligence featured in his two Slough House novels, Slow Horses and Dead Lions. Thomas Bettany, a former undercover specialist who came apart after his wife’s death, is doing menial labor in a European slaughterhouse, estranged from everyone—including his grown son, Liam. When Liam falls to his death from the balcony of his London flat, apparently under the influence of a new drug called muskrat, Bettany returns to England to find out what really happened. His quest leads him to the shadowy Vincent Driscoll, head of the software-design firm Liam worked for, and to the bizarre Dame Ingrid Tearney, head of the Intelligence Service, who is either worried that Bettany will discover something better kept under wraps or else wants Bettany to do some dirty work on her behalf. Well-drawn characters complement plotting that’s convoluted but never opaque or formulaic. Herron may be the most literate, and slyest, thriller writer in English today. Starred Publishers Weekly Review

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None Without Sin by Michael Bradley

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

Set in Newark, Del., this well-paced series launch from Bradley (Dead Air) opens at the home of Robbie Reynolds, the self-proclaimed king of Newark real estate, whose corpse lies stretched out on a black leather sofa, a blood-soaked loaf of bread resting on his chest, while the police finish up their inspection of the crime scene. Episcopal priest Candice Miller is there to provide comfort to the dead man’s grieving family. But the strangeness of the bloodied loaf niggles “at the dark recesses of her mind.” Meanwhile, Brian Wilder, the owner, editor, and only full-time reporter for a struggling local newspaper, also investigates. In the following days, a teenage girl and a young mother are found dead in similar circumstances. Are these deaths related to some sort of religious ritual, or is there another motivation for the crimes? The tension rises as both Candice and Brian realize they each have secrets that could make them targets for a serial killer. With so few suspects, veteran mystery readers will have little trouble figuring out whodunit, and some will wonder how Candace and Brian, both deeply damaged people, will be able to continue to function in the future. Not everyone will look forward to their return. – Publishers Weekly Review

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Red Flags by Lisa Black

(Available Format: Print Book & Hoople instant checkout eBook)

Ellie Carr was orphaned at a young age and raised by various relatives, including her Aunt Katey and cousin Becca. But Ellie and Becca grew apart, and it’s been years since they’ve seen each other. Now, Ellie is a member of the FBI Evidence Response Team while Becca is an advisor to a Senate committee and married to wealthy entrepreneur Hunter, who’s about to launch an IPO for a kids’ online-gaming platform. Imagine Ellie’s shock when she’s called out to collect evidence for a baby’s kidnapping, and the child turns out to be Becca and Hunter’s son. The FBI agrees to keep Ellie on the case, despite her being related to Becca. A diabolical plot linked to Hunter’s gaming platform, the kidnapping of kids whose parents are part of his company, and a zealous lobbying group all play roles in Black’s twist-filled narrative. Although the extensive detail concerning Congressional hearings and the dangers of online gaming sometimes slows the story, there is more than enough suspense to keep readers fully engaged until the sad and shocking ending. — Booklist Review

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The Retreat by Sarah Pearse

(Available Formats: Print Book)

The retreat -At an eco-wellness center off the coast of England, the body of a young woman is found sprawled on the rocks below the yoga pavilion–which is certainly surprising, as she wasn’t a guest at the center or even supposed to have been on the island at all. A guest’s subsequent drowning ratchets up everyone’s anxiety, and Det. Elin Warner arrives for her second outing after the New York Times best-selling The Sanatorium, a Reese’s Book Club pick., – Library Journal Review

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Should I Tell You? by Jill Mansell

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

Mansell (And Now You’re Back) offers a pleasant, offbeat tale of love and family. When adult foster siblings reunite to meet—and investigate—their father figure’s much younger Russian girlfriend, Olga, they’re forced to confront their own relationship woes. Good girl Amber Nicholls and playboy Lachlan McCarthy have been secretly pining for each other since meeting as troubled teens, but fear of rejection (Amber) and of ruining the family dynamic (Lachlan) keeps them from acting on their feelings. Though some readers will be turned off by the taboo of former foster siblings dating, Mansell does a good job making them a couple to root for. Meanwhile their foster brother, Raffaele Wright, learns the unexpected truth behind his ex-girlfriend’s angry outbursts, the reason for their breakup. And, instead of the nefarious gold digger the trio were expecting, laid-back Olga charms and her astuteness proves beneficial to all as they navigate complex interpersonal dynamics. Even family friend Benji gets a chance at romance as he works on overcoming his shyness. These inventive, intertwining love stories will have readers hooked. – Publishers Weekly Review

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The Sweet Remnants of Summer by Alexander McCall Smith

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

The latest Isabel Dalhousie novel finds our favorite moral philosopher is caught up in a delicate dispute between members of a prominent family as her husband, Jamie, is dragged into his own internecine rivalry.
When Isabel is invited to serve on the advisory committee of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, her husband, Jamie, expresses concern about the demands on her time. Never one to duck an obligation, however, Isabel says she’d be happy to join. There she meets a woman named Laura, whose husband—a prominent wine merchant from an illustrious family—and son are at odds. Laura asks whether Isabel might arbitrate between them. Isabel is reluctant to intervene in a familial drama but, always one for practical and courteous solutions to theoretical problems, she feels obligated to help. Will the demands on her moral attention never cease?

Meanwhile, having criticized Isabel for getting involved in the affairs of others, Jamie does precisely that himself. He’s helping to select a new cellist for his ensemble but suspects that the conductor’s attention may be focused on something other than his favored candidate’s cello skills. Jamie feels it’s important that the most qualified applicant gets the job—but how to determine whether the conductor has the right qualifications in mind?

With so many complicated and fraught issues demanding their attention, Isabel and Jamie will have to tap deep into their reserves of tact and goodwill as they navigate the tricky and turbulent waters of these emotional matters.

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Have a great week!

Linda Reimer

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*Information on the Three Catalogs*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

–

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

–

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, 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, August 5, 2022.

–

And here are the 10 recommended songs of the week!

–

Angeline Is Always Friday by Tom Paxton (Genre: Folk)

From The Album: Tom Paxton 6 (1970)

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Blues in the Bottle by Jim Kweskin & the Jug Band (Genre: Folk)

From The Album: See Reverse Side For Title (1967)

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Everyday I Have The Blues by B. B. King (Genre: Blues)

From The Album: Singin’ The Blues (1956)

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Hide Away by Freddie King (Genre: Blues)

From The Album: Let’s Hide Away and Dance Away with Freddy King (1961)

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I’ll Feel A Whole Lot Better by Tom Petty (Genre: Rock)

From The Alum: Fool Moon Fever (1989)

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I Walked All Night Long by Albert King (Genre: Blues)

From The Album: The Big Blues (1962)

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Mr. Tambourine Man by The Byrds (Genre: Folk, Rock)

From The Album: Mr. Tambourine Man (1965)

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Three Dollar Bill by Maria Muldar (Genre: Vocal)

From The Album: Maria Muldar (1973)

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Train On The Island by J. P. Nestor (Genre: Folk)

From The Album: Anthology of American Folk Music (Folkways, 1952)

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We Shall Not Be Moved by The Freedom Singers (Genre: Folk)

Recorded live at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963.

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Hoopla Recommend Album of the Week

Native Dreams: A Native American Musical Tapestry (2021) by David Arkenstone (Genre: Folk, New Age)

And from the album the song

Shaman’s Path

–

Have a great weekend,

Linda Reimer, SSCL

–

Online Catalog Links:

StarCat

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

–

The Digital Catalog, web version of Libby

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

–

The Libby App

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

–

Hoopla

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

–

Tech Talk is a Southeast Steuben County Library blog.

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

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

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

–

Weekly Suggested Reading postings are published on Tuesdays.

And the next Suggested Reading posting will be published on Tuesday, August 2, 2022.

–

An Appetite For Violets: A Novel by Martine Bailey

(Available Formats: Print Book)

Biddy Leigh, a poor fatherless cottager, has reached the pinnacle of happiness in life as undercook at Mawton Hall with marriage to the handsome Jem in her future, but her plans go awry with the unexpected arrival of Lady Carinna, the absent old master’s very young, very demanding new wife. Not only is Lady Carinna impetuous and imperious, she is also abruptly seized with a sudden desire to travel to her uncle’s estate in Italy and insists on Biddy’s accompanying her, plunging that unflappable young lady into mysteries and adventures that challenge her to the utmost of her considerably resourceful nature. As we follow Biddy and her companions on their continental travels, we are treated to her gastronomic journal filled with sensual and revealing details. VERDICT Debut novelist (and award-winning amateur cook) Bailey whips up a tasty confection of history, mystery, and intrigue. Fans of such 18th-century writers as James Boswell, Tobias Smollett, Henry Fielding, and Samuel Richardson will savor this delicious read. – Starred Library Journal

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The Bookshop of Second Chances by Jackie Fraser

(Available Formats: Print Book & Large Print)

A woman desperate to turn a new page heads to the Scottish coast and finds herself locked in a battle of wills with an infuriatingly aloof bookseller in this utterly heartwarming debut, perfect for readers of Evvie Drake Starts Over.

“Humor and charm abound. . . . [This] love story hits the spot.”—Publishers Weekly

Thea Mottram is having a bad month. She’s been let go from her office job with no notice—and to make matters even worse, her husband of nearly twenty years has decided to leave her for one of her friends. Bewildered and completely lost, Thea doesn’t know what to do. But when she learns that a distant great uncle in Scotland has passed away, leaving her his home and a hefty antique book collection, she decides to leave Sussex for a few weeks. Escaping to a small coastal town where no one knows her seems to be exactly what she needs.

Almost instantly, Thea becomes enamored with the quaint cottage, comforted by its cozy rooms and lovely but neglected garden. The locals in nearby Baldochrie are just as warm, quirky, and inviting. The only person she can’t seem to win over is bookshop owner Edward Maltravers, to whom she hopes to sell her uncle’s book collection. His gruff attitude—fueled by an infamous, long-standing feud with his brother, a local lord—tests Thea’s patience. But bickering with Edward proves oddly refreshing and exciting, leading Thea to develop feelings she hasn’t experienced in a long time. As she follows a thrilling yet terrifying impulse to stay in Scotland indefinitely, Thea realizes that her new life may quickly become just as complicated as the one she was running from.

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The Church of Baseball: The Making of Bull Durham: Home Runs, Bad Calls, Crazy Fights, Big Swings, and a Hit by Ron Shelton

(Available Formats: Print Book)

From the award-winning screenwriter and director of cult classic Bull Durham, the extremely entertaining behind-the-scenes story of the making of the film, and an insightful primer on the art and business of moviemaking.

“This book tells you how to make a movie—the whole nine innings of it—out of nothing but sheer will.” —Tony Gilroy, writer/director of Michael Clayton and The Bourne Legacy

“The only church that truly feeds the soul, day in, day out, is the church of baseball.” —Annie in Bull Durham

Bull Durham, the breakthrough 1988 film about a minor league baseball team, is widely revered as the best sports movie of all time. But back in 1987, Ron Shelton was a first-time director and no one was willing to finance a movie about baseball—especially a story set in the minors. The jury was still out on Kevin Costner’s leading-man potential, while Susan Sarandon was already a has-been. There were doubts. But something miraculous happened, and The Church of Baseball attempts to capture why.

From organizing a baseball camp for the actors and rewriting key scenes while on set, to dealing with a short production schedule and overcoming the challenge of filming the sport, Shelton brings to life the making of this beloved American movie. Shelton explains the rarely revealed ins and outs of moviemaking, from a film’s inception and financing, screenwriting, casting, the nuts and bolts of directing, the postproduction process, and even through its release. But this is also a book about baseball and its singular romance in the world of sports. Shelton spent six years in the minor leagues before making this film, and his experiences resonate throughout this book.

Full of wry humor and insight, The Church of Baseball tells the remarkable story behind an iconic film.

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Daughter of Redwinter by Ed McDonald

(Available Formats: Print Book)

Raine is a young woman with a forbidden gift: she can see and speak to the dead. If discovered, a public stoning is the best she could hope for. She’s survived for 17 years by keeping her mouth–and heart–closed. Caring about people isn’t practical in Raine’s knife-edged world, so naturally when she rescues a helpless woman pursued by men wielding powerful magic, it all goes to hell. The woman was carrying a page from a cursed book, and if not for these men–warrior magicians called Draoihn–she would have raised an ancient evil. Raine accompanies the Draoihn to Redwinter as a witness, hoping to learn magic, the kind that might help her survive rather than get her killed. McDonald’s thrilling coming-of-age fantasy, first in a series, also excels as a suspenseful mystery, as Raine is approached by different factions investigating the theft of the cursed page. McDonald’s medieval fantasy world feels lived-in, with a robust history, an intricate magic system, and a host of fascinating characters, but Raine herself–vulnerable but fierce, direct, and almost ruthlessly practical–is the heart of this memorable story. – Booklist Review

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Hokuloa Road: A Novel by Elizabeth Hand

(Available Formats: Print Book)

After COVID grinds his carpentry work in Maine to a halt, Grady Kendall takes a long shot and applies for a job as caretaker in Hawaii at an isolated island estate on Hokuloa Road owned by eccentric millionaire Wesley Minton. Grady’s fantasies of a Hawaiian paradise take a dark turn, however, when he’s warned upon arrival that the island tends to punish its inhabitants, and a glaring memorial to dozens of recently vanished people lends foreboding weight to those words. Later, on his own after Minton decamps to an outpost on sacred Hokuloa Point, Grady is confronted by evidence of the island’s lore: an otherworldly, dog-like creature appears near his cottage. When Grady links the creature’s warnings to the disappearance of a woman he befriended on the plane to Hawaii, he realizes he’s been chosen to either find the missing or join them. Horror collides with amateur sleuthing here as the island’s protective spirits seek justice for a predator’s crimes against its sacred space and its adopted people. Hand, author of the iconic 12 Monkeys, is a master at genre-blending stories that feature carefully dosed supernatural malevolence. Here, she wields that mix of horror and thriller to draw together a cast of sympathetically awkward, fiercely loyal outcasts. Another strange, satisfying winner.

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The Metavers And How It Will Revolutionize Everything by Mathew Ball

(Available Formats: Print Book)

In this thorough guide to the future of the internet, Ball, the former global head of strategy for Amazon Studios, introduces readers to the metaverse, “a massively scaled and interoperable network of real-time rendered 3D virtual worlds that can be experienced synchronously and persistently by an effectively unlimited number of users.” In the first section, Ball explores some of the metaverse’s precursors, which largely consist of online video games such as Minecraft and Fortnite that allow players from all over the world to jump into the same in-game locations and have a shared experience. The second part covers technological challenges to making the metaverse a reality, notably outdated infrastructure and a lack of low-latency connections (which are required to efficiently transmit large amounts of data through a network). The final section predicts how metaverse technology might change people’s lives: education and dating could be reimagined, he posits, and the most exciting prognostications are for the entertainment business, where filmmakers are using real-time rendering engines for sets and greater interactivity is coming for movies and TV shows. Informative and accessible, this is worth a look for anyone curious about what’s around the digital corner. Publishers Weekly Review

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The Path of Thorns by A. G. Slatter

(Available Formats: Print Book)

Slatter returns to her Sourdough universe (following All the Murmuring Bones) for a standalone dark, feminist fairy tale. Asher Todd arrives at Morwood manor as a governess carrying a dark secret. She’s there to exact revenge against the family and fulfill a promise to her mother, all using forbidden witchcraft that she must keep a secret or risk arrest and execution. She hastily puts a sinister scheme into action, but her plans go awry as she finds the Morwoods have dark motives of their own. The more Asher’s forced to pivot, the more she becomes entangled in the web of secrets and lies she has woven, and the greater the cost of her eventual victory becomes. Slatter’s careful prose gradually builds a delicious tension, culminating in a genuinely satisfying twist. The tale draws inspiration from a medley of European folklore and creatures, and delves deeply into their thematic implications, interrogating motherhood, obligation, and toxic family dynamics. Boasting an unflinchingly morally gray heroine and all the grit and nuanced political awareness of Naomi Novik’s Spinning Silver or Ava Reid’s The Wolf and the Woodsman, this is a truly enthralling fantasy. – Publishers Weekly Review

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The Sizzle Paradox by Lily Menon

(Available Formats: Print Book)

Two best friends fake date to try to discover the perfect formula for love.

Not only is Lyric Bishop unlucky in love, but she’s beginning to feel like a fraud. She’s in her penultimate year at Columbia as an experimental psychology doctoral student, and her focus on sexual chemistry should make her a pro at dating. But other than the fact that she’s a self-proclaimed “picky bitch,” she can’t seem to solve her biggest problem yet: the Sizzle Paradox. Lyric rates her romantic and sexual partners by the Sizzle Paradox Scale—scoring elements like “pre-sex sexual chemistry” or “initiation to kiss”—but the more she’s into a guy, the less chance they have at a healthy, committed relationship, hence the paradox. Everyone thinks that she should date her hot best friend and roommate, Kian Montgomery, but hooking up with him would be a “disaster of civilization-ending proportions.” Lyric and Kian “live and thrive” in the friend zone, and neither of them would ever do anything to ruin their bond. Besides, Kian is a total lady’s man and goes through women like “sheets of paper,” though he’s starting to become bored with the no-strings-attached lifestyle. So when Lyric’s thesis reaches a roadblock, Kian volunteers to tutor her with a few fake dates to help them both crack the Sizzle Paradox once and for all. Menon’s latest novel follows the unbeatable rom-com blueprint of laugh-out-loud moments (“I scowl at him; he doesn’t need to make it sound like I’m some repulsive species of sea cucumber”) and sweltering sex scenes (“Everything about him is an aphrodisiac: his voice that’s barely a rumbling growl in the dark like thunder on a steamy night”). While at times Lyric can prove frustratingly clueless and immature when faced with her romantic prospects, readers will no doubt find her and Kian’s friendship endearing and their blistering chemistry unmistakable. Starred Kirkus Review

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Stephen King Two-For: Blaze & The Regulators by Richard Bachman (Stephen King writing pseudonymously)

Blaze

(Available Formats: Print Book & CD audiobook)

Master storyteller Stephen King (writing as Richard Bachman) presents this gripping and remarkable New York Times bestselling crime novel about a damaged young man who embarks on an ill-advised kidnapping plot—a work as taut and riveting as anything he has ever written.
Once upon a time, a fellow named Richard Bachman wrote Blaze on an Olivetti typewriter, then turned the machine over to Stephen King, who used it to write Carrie. Bachman died in 1985 (“cancer of the pseudonym”), but this last gripping Bachman novel resurfaced after being hidden away for decades—an unforgettable crime story tinged with sadness and suspense.
Clayton Blaisdell, Jr., was always a small-time delinquent. None too bright either, thanks to the beatings he got as a kid. Then Blaze met George Rackley, a seasoned pro with a hundred cons and one big idea. The kidnapping should go off without a hitch, with George as the brains behind their dangerous scheme. But there’s only one problem: by the time the deal goes down, Blaze’s partner in crime is dead. Or is he?

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The Regulators

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

Master storyteller Stephen King presents the classic, terrifying New York Times bestseller of those caught between the surreal forces of good versus evil in a small suburban Ohio town.
“The red van rolls past…humming and glinting. …Things are happening fast now, although no one on Poplar Street realizes it yet.”

It’s a gorgeous midsummer afternoon along Poplar Street in the peaceful suburbia of Wentwort, Ohio, where life is as pleasant as you ever dreamed it could be. But that’s all about to end in blaze of gunfire and sudden violence, forever shattering the tranquility and the good times here. For the physical makeup of Poplar Street itself is now being transformed into a surreal landscape straight out of the active imagination of the innocent and vulnerable Seth Garin—an autistic boy who’s been exposed to and possessed by a horrific, otherworldly force of evil, one with sadistic and murderous intent and who is willing to use whatever means necessary to grow ever stronger.

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Switchboard Soldiers by Jennifer Chiaverini

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

Chiaverini’s enchanting latest (after The Women’s March) highlights the heroic efforts of a group of women who helped the U.S. war effort during WWI. After the U.S. joins the war in 1917, General Pershing discovers there’s a lack of adequate phone service in Europe. The Army then recruits French-and-English-speaking American women as telephone operators to serve in France in the U.S. Army Signal Corps, including Barnard-educated telephone operator Grace Banker, talented French vocalist Marie Miossec, and Belgian-born Valerie DeSmedt from Los Angeles. After undergoing training in New York, the women travel to France by ship, encountering the dangerous waters patrolled by German U-boats. Marie, who met a soldier on the train to New York, keeps writing to him, holding out hope that they may reunite after the war ends. As the women work tirelessly to ensure lines of communication remain open, they discover the meaning of true friendship and the resilience needed to live in sparse quarters while working long hours in less than ideal circumstances. Chiaverini brings her singular characters to life, including real historical figures, as they become united in the quest to serve their country. Fans of historical fiction will be captivated. – 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.

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

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

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Have questions or want to request a book?

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

Tech Talk is a Southeast Steuben County Library blog.