Daily Print & Digital Suggested Reads: Thursday, May 11, 2017

Hi everyone, here are our suggested daily recommended titles in print or media and digital formats.

Our digital suggestions for today include two related e-books published by The American Psychological Association and written by Professor Fathali M. Moghaddam. And these are rather heavy non-fiction titles – so fiction loving fans should skip down to the print book recommendation!

The Psychology of Democracy:

Where democracy thrives, it seems far and away the best system of governance. Yet, relatively few countries have managed to transition successfully to democracy, and none of them have attained what Fathali M. Moghaddam calls actualized democracy, the ideal in which all citizens share full, informed, equal participation in decision making. The obstacles to democratization are daunting, yet there is hope. What is it about human nature that seems to work for or against democracy?

In The Psychology of Democracy, Moghaddam explores political development through the lens of psychological science. He examines the psychological factors influencing whether and how democracy develops within a society, identifies several conditions necessary for democracy (such as freedom of speech, minority rights, and universal suffrage), and explains how psychological factors influence these conditions. He also recommends steps to promote in citizens the psychological characteristics that foster democracy. Written in a style that is both accessible and intellectually engaging, the book skillfully integrates research and an array of illustrative examples from psychology, political science and international relations, history, and literature.

Here’s a link to the checkout page for The Psychology of Democracy in the Digital Catalog: https://stls.overdrive.com/media/2557367

The Psychology of Dictatorship:

In this book, Fathali Moghaddam presents his springboard model of dictatorship, derived from both a substantive analysis of the common structures underlying dictatorial regimes and his own personal experience of life in a modern dictatorship. He discusses the importance of psychological processes such as displacement of aggression, conformity, obedience, fear, and cognitive dissonance as tools that aid the development and maintenance of dictatorships, as well as the crucial role of ideology in cementing the allegiance of elites. Since even democracies contain an ever-shifting relationship between democratic and dictatorial tendencies, with elements that can pull democracies back to dictatorship, this book has important implications for citizens of all nations, even our own.

Here’s a link to the checkout page, for The Psychology of Dictatorship,  in the Digital Catalog: https://stls.overdrive.com/media/2525508

About the Author:

Fathali M. Moghaddam, PhD, is a professor of psychology, Georgetown University, and editor-in-chief, Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology (American Psychological Association). Dr. Moghaddam was born in Iran, educated from an early age in England, and worked for the United Nations and McGill University before joining Georgetown University in 1990. His research focus includes the psychological changes required to move from dictatorship to democracy, a topic he studied for 5 years in postrevolution Iran, when he returned there in 1979. His most recent books include Psychology for the Third Millennium, (2012, with Rom Harré), The Psychology of Friendship and Enmity, (two volumes, 2013, with Rom Harré), and The Psychology of Dictatorship (2013), which received an honorable mention from the PROSE Awards and the American Publishers Awards for Professional and Scholarly Excellence. He currently is editing the two-volume Sage Encyclopedia of Political Behavior.

And our suggested print title today is the book:

Change Agent by Daniel Suarez:

New York Times bestselling author Daniel Suarez delivers an exhilarating sci-fi thriller exploring a potential future where CRISPR genetic editing allows the human species to control evolution itself.

On a crowded train platform, Interpol agent Kenneth Durand feels the sting of a needle—and his transformation begins…

In 2045 Kenneth Durand leads Interpol’s most effective team against genetic crime, hunting down black market labs that perform “vanity edits” on human embryos for a price. These illegal procedures augment embryos in ways that are rapidly accelerating human evolution—preying on human-trafficking victims to experiment and advance their technology.

With the worlds of genetic crime and human trafficking converging, Durand and his fellow Interpol agents discover that one figure looms behind it all: Marcus Demang Wyckes, leader of a powerful and sophisticated cartel known as the Huli jing.

But the Huli jing have identified Durand, too. After being forcibly dosed with a radical new change agent, Durand wakes from a coma weeks later to find he’s been genetically transformed into someone else—his most wanted suspect: Wyckes.

Now a fugitive, pursued through the genetic underworld by his former colleagues and the police, Durand is determined to restore his original DNA by locating the source of the mysterious—and highly valuable—change agent. But Durand hasn’t anticipated just how difficult locating his enemy will be. With the technology to genetically edit the living, Wyckes and his Huli jing could be anyone and everyone—and they have plans to undermine identity itself.

Here’s a link to request the book:

https://goo.gl/lJqZ8E

You can also request items 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 Print & Digital Suggested Reads: Wednesday, May 10, 2017

Hi everyone, here are our suggested daily recommended titles in print or media and digital formats.

Our digital suggestion for today is the e-book:

The Progeny: A Novel by Tosca Lee:

New York Times bestselling author Tosca Lee brings a modern twist to an ancient mystery surrounding the most notorious female serial killer of all time. A fast-paced thriller like Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code and BBC America’s hit series Orphan Black.
Emily Jacobs is the descendant of a serial killer. Now, she’s become the hunted.

She’s on a quest that will take her to the secret underground of Europe and the inner circles of three ancient orders—one determined to kill her, one devoted to keeping her alive, and one she must ultimately save.

Filled with adrenaline, romance, and reversals, The Progeny is the present-day saga of a 400-year-old war between the uncanny descendants of “Blood Countess” Elizabeth Bathory, the most prolific female serial killer of all time, and a secret society dedicated to erasing every one of her descendants. It is a story about the search for self filled with centuries-old intrigues against the backdrop of atrocity and hope.

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

https://stls.overdrive.com/media/2260672

And the print suggestion for today is the book:

The Practice House by Laura McNeal:

Nineteen-year-old Aldine McKenna is stuck at home with her sister and aunt in a Scottish village in 1929 when two Mormon missionaries ring the doorbell. Aldine’s sister converts and moves to America to marry, and Aldine follows, hoping to find the life she’s meant to lead and the person she’s meant to love.

In New York, Aldine answers an ad soliciting a teacher for a one-room schoolhouse in a place she can’t possibly imagine: drought-stricken Kansas. She arrives as farms on the Great Plains have begun to fail and schools are going bankrupt, unable to pay or house new teachers. With no money and too much pride to turn back, she lives uneasily with the family of Ansel Price—the charming, optimistic man who placed the ad—and his family responds to her with kind curiosity, suspicion, and, most dangerously, love. Just as she’s settling into her strange new life, a storm forces unspoken thoughts to the surface that will forever alter the course of their lives.

Laura McNeal’s novel is a sweeping and timeless love story about leaving—and finding—home.

Here’s a link to request the book:

https://goo.gl/zhUiXq

You can also request items 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 Print & Digital Suggested Reads: Tuesday, May 9, 2017

Hi everyone, here are our suggested daily recommended titles in print or media and digital formats.

Our digital suggestion for today is the e-book:

Against the Tide of Years by S. M. Stirling:

Emberverse: Island in the Sea of Time Series, Book 2 by S. M. Stirling: In the years since the Event, the Republic of Nantucket has done its best to re-create the better ideas of the modern age. But the evils of its time resurface in the person of William Walker, renegade Coast Guard officer, who is busy building an empire for himself based on conquest by technology. When Walker reaches Greece and recruits several of their greater kinglets to his cause, the people of Nantucket have no choice. If they are to save the primitive world from being plunged into bloodshed on a twentieth-century scale, they must defeat Walker at his own game:

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

https://stls.overdrive.com/media/254001

And the physical item for today the audiobook on CD:

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood:

Now a Hulu Original Series Handmaid’s Tale is a novel of such power that the reader will be unable to forget its images and its forecast. Set in the near future, it describes life in what was once the United States and is now called the Republic of Gilead, a monotheocracy that has reacted to social unrest and a sharply declining birthrate by reverting to, and going beyond, the repressive intolerance of the original Puritans. The regime takes the Book of Genesis absolutely at its word, with bizarre consequences for the women and men in its population.

The story is told through the eyes of Offred, one of the unfortunate Handmaids under the new social order. In condensed but eloquent prose, by turns cool-eyed, tender, despairing, passionate, and wry, she reveals to us the dark corners behind the establishment’s calm facade, as certain tendencies now in existence are carried to their logical conclusions. The Handmaid’s Tale is funny, unexpected, horrifying, and altogether convincing. It is at once scathing satire, dire warning, and a tour de force. It is Margaret Atwood at her best.

Here’s a link to request the book:

https://goo.gl/RuQixB

You can also request items 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 Print & Digital Suggested Reads: Monday, May 8, 2017

Hi everyone, here are our suggested daily recommended titles in print or media and digital formats.

Our digital suggestion for today is the e-book:

Disobedience by Naomi Alderman:

For Ronit Krushka, thirty-two and single, who lives on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, Orthodox Judaism is a suffocating culture she fled long ago. When she learns that her estranged father, the preeminent rabbi of the London Orthodox Jewish community in which she was raised, has died, she must return home for the first time in years.

There, amid the traditional ebb and flow of the community, Ronit reminds herself of her dual mission: to mourn and to collect a single heirloom — her mother’s Shabbat candlesticks. But when Ronit reconnects with her complex and beloved cousin Dovid as well as with a forbidden childhood sweetheart, she becomes more than just a stranger in her old home — she becomes a threat.

Set at the crossroads of tradition and modernity, of personal desires and the demands of God, Disobedience is about the importance of moving on and what we lose when we do — and it is about the tendency toward disobedience that we all possess.”

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

https://stls.overdrive.com/media/285060

And print suggestion for today is the book:

Trajectory: Stories by Richard Russo:

Following the best-selling Everybody’s Fool, a new collection of short fiction that demonstrates that Richard Russo–winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Empire Falls–is also a master of this genre.

Russo’s characters in these four expansive stories bear little similarity to the blue-collar citizens we’re familiar with from many of his novels. In “Horseman,” a professor confronts a young plagiarist as well as her own weaknesses as the Thanksgiving holiday looms closer and closer: “And after that, who knew?” In “Intervention,” a realtor facing an ominous medical prognosis finds himself in his father’s shadow while he presses forward–or not. In “Voice,” a semiretired academic is conned by his increasingly estranged brother into coming along on a group tour of the Venice Biennale, fleeing a mortifying incident with a traumatized student back in Massachusetts but encountering further complications in the maze of Venice. And in “Milton and Marcus,” a lapsed novelist struggles with his wife’s illness and tries to rekindle his screenwriting career, only to be stymied by the pratfalls of that trade when he’s called to an aging, iconic star’s mountaintop retreat in Wyoming.

Here’s a link to request the book:

https://goo.gl/RmgTgC

You can also request items 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 Print & Digital Suggested Reads: Friday, May 5, 2017

Hi everyone, here are our suggested daily recommended titles in print or media and digital formats.

Our digital suggestion for today is the e-book:

The Chemist by Stephenie Meyer:

In this gripping page-turner, an ex-agent on the run from her former employers must take one more case to clear her name and save her life. She used to work for the U.S. government, but very few people ever knew that. An expert in her field, she was one of the darkest secrets of an agency so clandestine it doesn’t even have a name. And when they decided she was a liability, they came for her without warning. Now, she rarely stays in the same place or uses the same name for long. They’ve killed the only other person she trusted, but something she knows still poses a threat. They want her dead, and soon. When her former handler offers her a way out, she realizes it’s her only chance to erase the giant target on her back. But it means taking one last job for her ex-employers. To her horror, the information she acquires only makes her situation more dangerous. Resolving to meet the threat head on, she prepares for the toughest fight of her life, but finds herself falling for a man who can only complicate her likelihood of survival. As she sees her choices being rapidly whittled down, she must apply her unique talents in ways she never dreamed of. In this tautly plotted novel, Meyer creates a fierce and fascinating new heroine with a very specialized skill set. And she shows once again why she’s one of the world’s bestselling authors.

Here’s a link to the checkout/request page in the Digital Catalog:

https://stls.overdrive.com/media/2855063

And our physical format suggestion for today is a musical compact disc:

Bela Fleck & Abigail Washburn by Bela Fleck & Abigail Washburn:

Bela Fleck & Abigail Washburn were the duo that closed out the 2016-2017 season of Civic Music.

And boy, can they both play the banjo!

This 2014 album, which stylistically is more folk than the jazz and classical music Bela is known for, is the very first album they ever recorded together – and it is a great one – check it out!

Bela Fleck & Abigail Washburn songlist:

Railroad
Ride To U
What’cha Gonna Do
Little Birdie
New South Africa
Pretty Polly
Shotgun Blues
For Children: No 3 Quasi adagio, No 10 Allegro molto – Children’s Dance
And Am I Born To Die
Banjo Banjo
What Are They Doing In Heaven Today?
Bye Bye Baby Blues

Here’s a link to request the CD:

https://goo.gl/MHt5dv

You can also request items 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 Print & Digital Suggested Reads: Thursday, May 4, 2017

Hi everyone, here are our suggested daily recommended titles in print or media and digital formats.

Our digital suggestion for today is the e-book:

The Burial Hour: Lincoln Rhyme Series, Book 13 by Jeffery Deaver:

Forensic detective Lincoln Rhyme is back with his most harrowing case yet in this newest installment of Jeffrey Deaver’s New York Times bestselling series.

A businessman snatched from an Upper East Side street in broad daylight. A miniature hangman’s noose left at the scene. A nine-year-old girl, the only witness to the crime. With a crime scene this puzzling, forensic expertise of the highest order is absolutely essential. Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs are called in to investigate.

Soon the case takes a stranger turn: a recording surfaces of the victim being slowly hanged, his desperate gasps the backdrop to an eerie piece of music. The video is marked as the work of The Composer…

Despite their best efforts, the suspect gets away. So when a similar kidnapping occurs on a dusty road outside Naples, Italy, Rhyme and Sachs don’t hesitate to rejoin the hunt.

But the search is now a complex case of international cooperation–and not all those involved may be who they seem. Sachs and Rhyme find themselves playing a dangerous game, with lives all across the globe hanging in the balance.

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

https://stls.overdrive.com/media/2904252

And our physical format suggestion for today is the book:

The Constitution of the United States of America

Inscribed & Illustrated by Sam Fink:

In 1787. . .

We were given the right to practice the religion of our choice.

We were given the right to say what we wanted without persecution.

It was written that our house and property were secure from unreasonable
search and seizure. We were given the right to a public trial.

Fifty-five men we will never know sat in a sweltering room and fought for us.
We were given our rights as citizens of the United States.

Every second fall, as we return again to the ballot box to decide the course of our country’s leadership, every voter must find their way back to that room in Philadelphia.

The Constitution of the United States of America, inscribed and illustrated by the master calligrapher, Sam Fink, brings to life the issues underlying the triumphs of this abiding document.

Originally published in pen and ink for Random House in 1987, Mr. Fink has gone back to his original black-and-white art and painted it anew, created a full-color masterpiece. The result is glorious. Each amendment, each article, each word so thoughtfully placed in The Constitution has been given Mr. Fink’s profound touch. With a powerful intelligence and a wonderful sense of humor, he has provided us with an entry point into this complex document, allowing us to read it with greater ease and understanding.

In 1787, we were entrusted with our most important living document, The Constitution of the United States of America. Have we kept it safe? To answer this, we must begin by reading it, each and every one of us—so that we may claim our own intimate knowledge of its content; so that we may never forget its tenets; so that we may remember the kind of world we want to live in. This, Sam Fink, in his direct and unadorned way, respectful and loving, helps us do.

Here’s a link to request the book:

https://goo.gl/cbXMmJ

You can also request items 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 Print & Digital Suggested Reads: Tuesday, May 2, 2017

Hi everyone, here are our suggested daily recommended titles in print or media and digital formats.

Our digital suggestion for today is the e-book:

Bella Poldark by Winston Graham:

The story of the Poldarks draws to a close in the 12th and final installment of this much–admired historical saga.

Cornwall 1818. We continue the tale of Ross and Demelza; of the wayward Valentine Warleggan, whose existence keeps open the old wounds of the feud between Ross and George; of Bella, the Poldark’s youngest daughter, whose precocious talent as a singer is encouraged by her old flame, Christopher Havergal, and by a distinguished French conductor, who has more in mind than Bella’s music; of Clowance, the Poldark’s widowed daughter, who considers remarriage to one of two rival suitors; and of a murderer who stalks the villages of west Cornwall.

‘From the very first lines we tingle with the sense that we are in good hands, transported by Graham’s atmospheric prose back to 1818 and the treacherous coast of craggy Cornwall’ Daily Mail

For your convenience, here is a list of all the books in The Poldark Series:

1. Ross Poldark
2. Demelza
3. Jeremy Poldark
4. Warleggan
5. Black moon
6. Four swans
7. Angry tide
8. Stranger from the sea
9. Miller’s dance
10. Loving cup
11. Twisted sword
12. Bella Poldark

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

https://stls.overdrive.com/media/325972

And the physical item for today the print book:

Ominous by Lisa Jackson & Rosalind Noonan:

New York Times bestselling authors Lisa Jackson, Nancy Bush, and Rosalind Noonan join together in a gripping novel of suspense, as a long-guarded secret plunges three friends into a new nightmare. NO WARNING In the photograph, three teenaged girls splash in the lake on a sweltering summer evening. Shiloh, Kat, and Ruth are unaware of the man who spies on them from the woods. They have no idea how their lives will be changed by the brutal violence that follows–and the vow of secrecy they take. CAN PREPARE YOU Fifteen years later, Ruth and Shiloh have both returned to Prairie Creek, Wyoming, where Kat is deputy sheriff. Though they’ve tried to leave their shared past behind, each has the feeling that someone is lurking in the shadows. When a local girl vanishes, Kat is convinced there’s a connection to that long ago night. But as the friends unite to find the missing teenager, a killer sends a chilling message. FOR A KILLER’S VENGEANCE He’s still there. And he hasn’t forgotten. For so long he’s made do with other victims, but they can’t compare to the ones who got away. The ones who keep searching for him, blind to the terrifying truth that they are not the hunters, but his prey…

Here’s a link to request the book:

https://goo.gl/cVRr9m

You can also request items 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 Print & Digital Suggested Reads: Monday, May 1, 2017

Hi everyone, here are our suggested daily recommended titles in print or media and digital formats.

Our digital suggestion for today is the e-book:

The American Spirit: Who We Are and What We Stand For

by David McCullough:

A timely collection of speeches by David McCullough, the most honored historian in the United States—winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, two National Book Awards, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among many others—that reminds us of fundamental American principles.

Over the course of his distinguished career, David McCullough has spoken before Congress, the White House, colleges and universities, historical societies, and other esteemed institutions. Now, at a time of self-reflection in America following a bitter election campaign that has left the country divided, McCullough has collected some of his most important speeches in a brief volume designed to identify important principles and characteristics that are particularly American. The American Spirit reminds us of core American values to which we all subscribe, regardless of which region we live in, which political party we identify with, or our ethnic background. This is a book about America for all Americans that reminds us who we are and helps to guide us as we find our way forward.

Here’s are links to the checkout pages in the Digital Catalog:

For the e-book:
https://stls.overdrive.com/media/3117680

For the downloadable audiobook, read by the author: https://stls.overdrive.com/media/3206033

And our suggested print read for today is the book:

Ginny Moon: A Novel by Benjamin Ludwig:

See the world differently.

Meet Ginny Moon. She’s mostly your average teenager—she plays flute in the high school band, has weekly basketball practice, and reads Robert Frost poems in English class.

But Ginny is autistic. And so what’s important to her might seem a bit…different: starting every day with exactly nine grapes for breakfast, Michael Jackson, her baby doll, and crafting a secret plan of escape.

After being traumatically taken from her abusive birth mother and moved around to different homes, Ginny has finally found her “forever home”—a safe place with parents who will love and nurture her. This is exactly what all foster kids are hoping for, right?

But Ginny has other plans. She’ll steal and lie and exploit the good intentions of those who love her—anything it takes to get back what’s missing in her life. She’ll even try to get herself kidnapped.

Told in an extraordinary and wholly original voice, Ginny Moon is at once quirky, charming, heartbreaking, and poignant. It’s a story about being an outsider trying to find a place to belong and about making sense of a world that just doesn’t seem to add up. Taking you into the mind of a curious and deeply human character, Benjamin Ludwig’s novel affirms that fiction has the power to change the way we see the world.

Here’s a link to request the book in StarCat:

https://goo.gl/r3sWzE

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 Print & Digital Suggested Reads: Friday, April 28, 2017

Hi everyone, here are our suggested daily recommended titles in print or media and digital formats.

Our digital suggestion for today is the e-book:

Eileen: A Novel by Ottessa Moshfegh:

Shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize and chosen by David Sedaris as his recommended book for his Fall 2016 tour.

So here we are. My name was Eileen Dunlop. Now you know me. I was twenty-four years old then, and had a job that paid fifty-seven dollars a week as a kind of secretary at a private juvenile correctional facility for teenage boys. I think of it now as what it really was for all intents and purposes—a prison for boys. I will call it Moorehead. Delvin Moorehead was a terrible landlord I had years later, and so to use his name for such a place feels appropriate. In a week, I would run away from home and never go back.

This is the story of how I disappeared.

The Christmas season offers little cheer for Eileen Dunlop, an unassuming yet disturbed young woman trapped between her role as her alcoholic father’s caretaker in a home whose squalor is the talk of the neighborhood and a day job as a secretary at the boys’ prison, filled with its own quotidian horrors. Consumed by resentment and self-loathing, Eileen tempers her dreary days with perverse fantasies and dreams of escaping to the big city. In the meantime, she fills her nights and weekends with shoplifting, stalking a buff prison guard named Randy, and cleaning up her increasingly deranged father’s messes. When the bright, beautiful, and cheery Rebecca Saint John arrives on the scene as the new counselor at Moorehead, Eileen is enchanted and proves unable to resist what appears at first to be a miraculously budding friendship. In a Hitchcockian twist, her affection for Rebecca ultimately pulls her into complicity in a crime that surpasses her wildest imaginings.

Played out against the snowy landscape of coastal New England in the days leading up to Christmas, young Eileen’s story is told from the gimlet-eyed perspective of the now much older narrator. Creepy, mesmerizing, and sublimely funny, in the tradition of Shirley Jackson and early Vladimir Nabokov, this powerful debut novel enthralls and shocks, and introduces one of the most original new voices in contemporary literature.

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

https://stls.overdrive.com/media/2015703

And our physical format suggestion for today is print book:

The Great Unknown: Seven Journeys to the Frontiers of Science

by Marcus du Sautoy:

“Brilliant and fascinating. No one is better at making the recondite accessible and exciting.” —Bill Bryson

A captivating journey to the outer reaches of human knowledge

Ever since the dawn of civilization we have been driven by a desire to know. But are there limits to human knowledge? Are some things beyond the predictive powers of science and the capacities of the human brain? Or are those challenges the next big discovery waiting to happen?

In The Great Unknown, one of the world’s most brilliant mathematicians takes us into the minds of science’s greatest innovators as he probes the many mysteries we have yet to solve. From the very large to the very small, from the distant future to the deep past, from the complexities of the human brain to the infinities of mathematics, Marcus du Sautoy invites us to join him on a journey to the seven frontiers of knowledge, the outer edges where scientists are actively grappling with the unknown. Can we locate consciousness in the brain? What is dark energy made of? Can we speak of time before the Big Bang? Is it possible to predict the future?

At once exhilarating and mind bending, The Great Unknown will challenge you to think in new ways about every aspect of the known world. Du Sautoy reminds us that major breakthroughs were often ridiculed at the time of their discovery and invites us to consider big questions—about who we are and the nature of God—that even the most creative scientists have yet to answer definitively.

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

https://goo.gl/aB5gza

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 Print & Digital Suggested Reads: Thursday, April 27, 2017

Hi everyone, here are our suggested daily recommended titles in print or media and digital formats.

Our digital suggestion for today is the downloadable audiobook:

The House of Shattered Wings, Dominion of the Fallen Series, Book 1,

written by Aliette de Bodard, narrated by Peter Kenny:

Multi-award-winning author Aliette de Bodard brings her story of the War in Heaven to Paris, igniting the City of Light in a fantasy of divine power and deep conspiracy.

In the late twentieth century, the streets of Paris are lined with haunted ruins. The Great Magicians’ War left a trail of devastation in its wake. The grands magasins have been reduced to piles of debris, Notre-Dame is a burnt-out shell, and the Seine has turned black with ashes and rubble and the remnants of the spells that tore the city apart. But those that survived still retain their irrepressible appetite for novelty and distraction, and the great houses still vie for dominion over France’s once-grand capital.

Once the most powerful and formidable, House Silverspires now lies in disarray. Its magic is ailing; its founder, Morningstar, has been missing for decades; and now something from the shadows stalks its people inside their very own walls.

Within the house, three very different people must come together: a naive but powerful fallen angel, an alchemist with a self-destructive addiction, and a resentful young man wielding spells of unknown origin. They may be Silverspires’ salvation—or the architects of its last, irreversible fall. And if Silverspires falls, so may the city itself.

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

https://stls.overdrive.com/media/2264836

And our physical format suggestion for today is the book:

Where the Water Goes: Life and Death Along the Colorado River

by David Owen:

A downstream adventure into the heart of one of America’s most important water systems examining where our water comes from and where it all goes

The Colorado River is a crucial resource for a surprisingly large part of the United States, and every gallon that flows down it is owned or claimed by someone. David Owen traces all that water from the Colorado’s headwaters to its parched terminus, once a verdant wetland but now a million-acre desert. He takes readers on an adventure downriver, along a labyrinth of waterways, reservoirs, power plants, farms, fracking sites, ghost towns, and RV parks, to the spot near the U.S.–Mexico border where the river runs dry.

Water problems in the western United States can seem tantalizingly easy to solve: just turn off the fountains at the Bellagio, stop selling hay to China, ban golf, cut down the almond trees, and kill all the lawyers. But a closer look reveals a vast man-made ecosystem that is far more complex and more interesting than the headlines let on.

The story Owen tells in Where the Water Goes is crucial to our future: how a patchwork of engineering marvels, byzantine legal agreements, aging infrastructure, and neighborly cooperation enables life to flourish in the desert, and the disastrous consequences we face when any part of this tenuous system fails.

Here’s a link to StarCat to request the book:

https://goo.gl/qPbTMq

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.