Fantasy – Page 8 – Tech & Book Talk at SSCL

Daily Digital & Print Suggested Reads: Tuesday, August 9, 2016

August 9, 2016 Linda Reimer

Hello everyone, here are our suggested daily recommended reads in both print and digital formats.

Our suggested daily Digital Catalog item for today is the e-book:

Dark Side by Anthony O’Neill:

“In this gripping sci-fi noir for fans of The Martian and Quentin Tarantino, when an anarchic android begins wreaking havoc on a moon-based penal colony and bodies start turning up, an exiled detective must decide who he can trust in a city of criminals.

Never bang your head against a wall. Bang someone else’s.

Purgatory is the lawless moon colony of eccentric billionaire, Fletcher Brass and mecca for war criminals, murderers, and curious tourists alike. You can’t find better drugs, cheaper plastic surgery, or a more ominous travel advisory anywhere in the universe. But trouble is brewing in Brass’s black-market heaven. When an exiled cop comes to enact law and order in this wild new frontier, he finds himself the lead investigator in a series of high-profile murders that puts him toe to toe with the city’s charismatic founder and his equally ambitious daughter.

Meanwhile, 2000 km away a memory-wiped android, Leonardo Black rampages across the lunar surface. Programmed with only the notorious “Brass Code”—a compendium of corporate laws that would make Ayn Rand blush—he journeys across the dark side of the moon with only one goal in mind: find Purgatory and conquer it.”

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

https://stls.overdrive.com/media/2232776

And our print book suggested read for today is:

Charcoal Joe by Walter Mosley:

Walter Mosley’s indelible detective Easy Rawlins is back, with a new detective agency and a new mystery to solve.

Picking up where his last adventures in Rose Gold left off in L.A. in the late 1960s, Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins finds his life in transition. He’s ready—finally—to propose to his girlfriend, Bonnie Shay, and start a life together. And he’s taken the money he got from the Rose Gold case and, together with two partners, Saul Lynx and Tinsford “Whisper” Natly, has started a new detective agency. But, inevitably, a case gets in the way: Easy’s friend Mouse introduces him to Rufus Tyler, a very old man everyone calls Charcoal Joe. Joe’s friend’s son, Seymour (young, bright, top of his class in physics at Stanford), has been arrested and charged with the murder of a white man from Redondo Beach. Joe tells Easy he will pay and pay well to see this young man exonerated, but seeing as how Seymour literally was found standing over the man’s dead body at his cabin home, and considering the racially charged motives seemingly behind the murder, that might prove to be a tall order.

Between his new company, a heart that should be broken but is not, a whole raft of new bad guys on his tail, and a bad odor that surrounds Charcoal Joe, Easy has his hands full, his horizons askew, and his life in shambles around his feet.

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

http://goo.gl/pG1Ldp

Or by calling the library at: 607-936-3713 x 502.

Have a great day!

Linda, SSCL

Online Catalog Links:

StarCat: The catalog of physical materials, i.e. print books, DVDs, audiobooks on CD etc. http://starcat.stls.org/

The Digital Catalog: The catalog of e-books, downloadable audiobooks and a handful of streaming videos: https://stls.overdrive.com/

Freegal Music Service: This music service is free to library card holders and offers the option to download, and keep, three free songs per week and to stream three hours of commercial free music each day: http://stlsny.freegalmusic.com/

Zinio: Digital magazines on demand and for free! Back issues are available and you can even choose to be notified by email when the new issue of your favorite magazine is available: https://www.rbdigital.com/stlschemungcony

About Library Mobile Apps:

You can access digital library content on PCs, Macs and mobile devices. For mobile devices simply download the OverDrive, Freegal or Zinio app from your app store to get started. If you have questions call the library at: 607-936-3713 and one of our Digital Literacy Specialists will be happy to assist you.

Daily Digital & Print Suggested Reads: Monday, July 25, 2016

July 25, 2016July 25, 2016 Linda Reimer

Here are our suggested daily recommended reads in both print and digital formats!

Our suggested daily Digital Catalog item for today is the e-book:

Smoke: A Novel by Dan Vyleta:

“Readers of the Harry Potter series and Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell are sure to be mesmerized by Dan Vyleta’s thrilling blend of historical fiction and fantasy, as three young friends scratch the surface of the grown-up world to discover startling wonders—and dangerous secrets.

“”Dan Vyleta writes with intricacy and imagination and skillful pacing; never once would I have considered putting his book down. In the manner of both a Dickens novel and the best young adult adventure stories (the Harry Potter series among them). . .his ending, which I wouldn’t dare reveal here, is a real firecracker.””—Jennifer Senior, The New York Times

Welcome to a Victorian England unlike any other you have experienced before. Here, wicked thoughts (both harmless and hate-filled) appear in the air as telltale wisps of Smoke.

Young Thomas Argyle, a son of aristocracy, has been sent to an elite boarding school. Here he will be purged of Wickedness, for the wealthy do not Smoke. When he resists a sadistic headboy’s temptations to Smoke, a much larger struggle beyond the school walls is revealed. Shortly thereafter, on a trip to London, Thomas and his best friend witness events that make them begin to question everything they have been taught about Smoke.

And thus the adventure begins… You will travel by coach to a grand estate where secrets lurk in attic rooms and hidden laboratories; where young love blossoms; and where a tumultuous relationship between a mother and her children is the crucible in which powerful passions are kindled, and dangerous deeds must be snuffed out in a desperate race against time.”

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

https://stls.overdrive.com/media/2507032

And our print book suggested read for today is:

Free Speech: Ten Principles for a Connected World by Timothy Ash Garton:

One of the great political writers of our time offers a manifesto for global free speech in the digital age.

Never in human history was there such a chance for freedom of expression. If we have Internet access, any one of us can publish almost anything we like and potentially reach an audience of millions. Never was there a time when the evils of unlimited speech flowed so easily across frontiers: violent intimidation, gross violations of privacy, tidal waves of abuse. A pastor burns a Koran in Florida and UN officials die in Afghanistan.

Drawing on a lifetime of writing about dictatorships and dissidents, Timothy Garton Ash argues that in this connected world that he calls cosmopolis, the way to combine freedom and diversity is to have more but also better free speech. Across all cultural divides we must strive to agree on how we disagree. He draws on a thirteen-language global online project—freespeechdebate.com—conducted out of Oxford University and devoted to doing just that. With vivid examples, from his personal experience of China’s Orwellian censorship apparatus to the controversy around Charlie Hebdo to a very English court case involving food writer Nigella Lawson, he proposes a framework for civilized conflict in a world where we are all becoming neighbors.

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

http://goo.gl/CyaaQM

Or by calling the library at: 607-936-3713 x 502.

Have a great day!

Linda, SSCL

Online Catalog Links:

StarCat: the catalog of physical materials, i.e. print books, DVDs, audiobooks on CD etc. http://starcat.stls.org/

The Digital Catalog: the catalog of e-books, downloadable audiobooks and a handful of streaming videos: https://stls.overdrive.com/

About Library Mobile Apps:

Daily Digital & Print Suggested Reads: Thursday, July 14, 2016

July 14, 2016 Linda Reimer

Here are our suggested daily recommended reads in both print and electronic (e-book) formats:

Our suggested daily e-book is:

The Invisible Library: Invisible Library Series, Book 1 by Genevieve Cogman

Collecting books can be a dangerous prospect in this fun, time-traveling, fantasy adventure from a spectacular debut author.

One thing any Librarian will tell you: the truth is much stranger than fiction…

Irene is a professional spy for the mysterious Library, a shadowy organization that collects important works of fiction from all of the different realities. Most recently, she and her enigmatic assistant Kai have been sent to an alternative London. Their mission: Retrieve a particularly dangerous book. The problem: By the time they arrive, it’s already been stolen.

London’s underground factions are prepared to fight to the death to find the tome before Irene and Kai do, a problem compounded by the fact that this world is chaos-infested—the laws of nature bent to allow supernatural creatures and unpredictable magic to run rampant. To make matters worse, Kai is hiding something—secrets that could be just as volatile as the chaos-filled world itself.

Now Irene is caught in a puzzling web of deadly danger, conflicting clues, and sinister secret societies. And failure is not an option—because it isn’t just Irene’s reputation at stake, it’s the nature of reality itself…

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

https://stls.overdrive.com/media/2462275

And our print book suggested read for today is:

Last Ride To Graceland by Kim Wright

Lauded for her “astute and engrossing” (People) writing style imbued with “originality galore” (RT Book Reviews), Kim Wright channels the best of Jennifer Weiner and Sarah Pekkanen in this delightful novel of self-discovery on the open road as one woman sets out for Graceland hoping to answer the question: Is Elvis Presley her father?

Blues musician Cory Ainsworth is barely scraping by after her mother’s death when she discovers a priceless piece of rock ‘n’ roll memorabilia hidden away in a shed out back of the family’s coastal South Carolina home: Elvis Presley’s Stutz Blackhawk, its interior a time capsule of the singer’s last day on earth.

A backup singer for the King, Cory’s mother Honey was at Graceland the day Elvis died. She quickly returned home to Beaufort and married her high school sweetheart. Yearning to uncover the secrets of her mother’s past—and possibly her own identity—Cory decides to drive the car back to Memphis and turn it over to Elvis’s estate, retracing the exact route her mother took thirty-seven years earlier. As she winds her way through the sprawling deep south with its quaint towns and long stretches of open road, the burning question in Cory’s mind—who is my father?—takes a backseat to the truth she learns about her complicated mother, the minister’s daughter who spent a lifetime struggling to conceal the consequences of a single year of rebellion.

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

http://goo.gl/JMrXeD

Or by calling the library at: 607-936-3713 x 502.

Have a great day!

Linda, SSCL

Note: You can access digital library content on PCs, Macs and mobile devices. For mobile devices simply download the OverDrive app from your app store to get started. If you have questions call the library at: 607-936-3713 and one of our Digital Literacy Specialists will be happy to assist you.

Daily Digital & Print Suggested Reads: Tuesday, July 12, 2016

July 12, 2016July 12, 2016 Linda Reimer

Here are our suggested daily recommended reads in both print and electronic (e-book) formats!

Our suggested daily e-book is:

Tom Clancy Duty & Honor by Grant Blackwood:

Even though he’s on forced leave from the clandestine intelligence group known as The Campus, Jack Ryan, Jr., still finds himself caught in the crosshairs after an attempt on his life is thwarted when he turns the tables on his would-be dispatcher. Convinced that the attack is linked to his recent covert actions with the convalescing Iranian national Ysabel Kashini, Jack sets out to find out who wants him dead, and why.

Using clues found on the now dead assassin, Jack pursues the investigation, following a growing trail of corpses to the European Union’s premier private security firm, Rostock Security Group, and its founder, Jürgen Rostock—a former general in the German Special Forces Command. Rostock is world-renowned as a philanthropist and human rights advocate. But Jack knows him from a Campus mission revolving around a company linked to RSG—a mission that has put him on Rostock’s lethal radar.

Without any Campus resources, Jack launches his own shadow campaign to uncover the truth about Rostock and a long-running false-flag war of terror that has claimed thousands of lives. Yet all of that bloodshed is but a precursor to a coming catastrophic event that will solidify Rostock’s place among the global powers. An event that Jack must stop at any cost.

https://stls.overdrive.com/media/2582496

And our print book suggested read for today is:

Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee:

To win an impossible war Captain Kel Cheris must awaken an ancient weapon and a despised traitor general.

Captain Kel Cheris of the hexarchate is disgraced for using unconventional methods in a battle against heretics. Kel Command gives her the opportunity to redeem herself by retaking the Fortress of Scattered Needles, a star fortress that has recently been captured by heretics. Cheris’s career isn’t the only thing at stake. If the fortress falls, the hexarchate itself might be next.

Cheris’s best hope is to ally with the undead tactician Shuos Jedao. The good news is that Jedao has never lost a battle, and he may be the only one who can figure out how to successfully besiege the fortress.

The bad news is that Jedao went mad in his first life and massacred two armies, one of them his own. As the siege wears on, Cheris must decide how far she can trust Jedao–because she might be his next victim.

You can request the book by clicking on the following StarCat link:

http://goo.gl/Ywyk4g

Or by calling the library at: 607-936-3713 x 502.

Have a great day!

Linda, SSCL

What To Read Next!

June 13, 2016June 13, 2016 Linda Reimer

Our What To Read Next series offers patrons lists of the new books added to the library’s collection each month.

And if you can’t attend the monthly programs you can still access the lists of new titles each month!

Here are the new book categories & links to PDF versions of each of these lists all of which will print out on letter size paper should you be so inclined as to print the lists.

General Fiction & Literature

Mysteries

Monthly Science Fiction Films @ The Library – Fall 2015 Schedule

August 20, 2015August 20, 2015 Linda Reimer

Fall is coming. Being a Game of Thrones fan I almost wrote “winter is coming,” but of course, fall will be here first!

And speaking of fall and Science Fiction/Fantasy titles — here is a flyer listing our Monthly Science Fiction Films @ the library for the fall season!

Our Monthly Science Fiction Films are shown the second Friday of each month.

And our Friday Night Free Films are shown the first and third Friday of each month.

Our Friday Night Free Film schedule for fall will be finalized and sent out shortly; and I will also post the flyer for those films on Facebook as soon as they schedule has been finalized.

Have a great Thursday & join us for our fun filled movies @ the library!
Linda, SSCL

Here’s a photo of our Fall 2015 Monthly Science Fiction Film Schedule:

Click the photo for a larger view:

And here’s a link to a PDF version which can easily be printed out (on legal paper) and/or shared:

Monthly Science Fiction Films @ The Library Fall Schedule 2015 Legal Size Flyer

Have a great Thursday and join us for our fun fall films @ the library!

Linda, SSCL

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