Historical Fiction – Page 8 – Tech & Book Talk at SSCL

Daily Print & Digital Suggested Read & Listen: Thursday, August 11, 2016

August 11, 2016August 11, 2016 Linda Reimer

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

Our suggested daily Digital Catalog item for today is the audiobook Jeremy Poldark.

And just a precursor alert!

This audio book, an adaptation of the book Jeremy Poldark, is the third in Winston Graham’s Poldark series and the basis for the first part of season 2 of the new PBS version of Poldark which makes its US debut on PBS on Sunday, September 25 – so if you want to hear if the new season is as faithful to the books as the first season – check it out!

Here’s the info on the audio book itself:

Jeremy Poldark written by Winston Graham

Narrated by Oliver Hembrough:

Ross Poldark faces the darkest hour of his life in this third novel of the Poldark series. Reeling from the tragic death of a loved one, Captain Poldark vents his grief by inciting impoverished locals to salvage the contents of a ship run aground in a storm-an act for which British law proscribes death by hanging. Ross is brought to trial for his involvement, and despite their stormy marriage, Demelza tries to rally support for her husband, to save him and their family.

But there are enemies in plenty who would be happy to see Ross convicted, not the least of which is George Warleggan, the powerful banker whose personal rivalry with Ross grows ever more intense and threatens to destroy the Poldarks.

And into this setting, Jeremy Poldark, Ross and Demelza’s first son, is born…

The Poldark series is the masterwork of Winston Graham’s lifework, evoking the period and people like only he can and creating a work of rich and poor, loss and love, that you will not soon forget.

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

https://stls.overdrive.com/media/2100651

And just as an FYI here is a listing of the books in the Poldark series should you wish to read them all!

Ross Poldark (AKA The Renegade)
Demelza
Jeremy Poldark
Warleggan
The Black Moon
The Four Swans
The Angry Tide
The Stranger From The Seas
The Miller’s Dance
The Loving Cup
The Twisted Sword
Bella Poldark

Typist disclaimer: Yes I am a big Poldark fan!

And our print book suggested read for today is:

Blood Flag by Steve Martini:

Defending a client accused of killing her father, attorney Paul Madriani is drawn into a treacherous conspiracy dating to World War II in this enthralling installment in the New York Times bestselling series.

Paul Madriani and Harry Hinds have a new client: Emma Brauer, a woman accused in the “mercy killing” of her aged father, Robert Brauer. Insisting she’s innocent, Emma tells Paul about a package sent to her father shortly before he entered the hospital. Bequeathed to him by a member of his unit from World War II, the box contains a key and a slip of paper. Emma fears that this package is connected to her father’s death.

When Paul’s young assistant Sofia is murdered, Madriani is blindsided by the realization that Emma’s fears are well-grounded.

Digging into Robert’s military history, Madriani discovers that other members of the Army unit Robert served with have recently died—under similarly suspicious circumstances. When he finds that the box sent to Brauer relates to a mysterious talisman that went missing at the end of the war—a feared Nazi relic known as the “Blood Flag”—Madriani and Hinds realize they are in for the fight of their lives.

With Emma’s life on the line and their own safety in jeopardy, Madriani must uncover the truth before the evil of the Blood Flag is allowed to spin a new web.

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

http://goo.gl/gjm3Ox

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: Thursday, August 4, 2016

August 4, 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:

Creeping Siamese and Other Stories: Collected Case Files of the Continental Op: The Later Years, Volume 1

by Dashiell Hammett, Richard Layman, Julie M. Rivett et al.

“Whether chasing hoodlums or solving impossible murders, Dashiell Hammett’s Continental Op is one of the toughest detectives in the history of crime fiction

The Continental Op is going over his expense reports when a raw-boned man staggers through the door of his office, stretches out his arms, and dies. As the stranger falls to the floor, he utters a final word: Hell. It’s apt, because this man’s death will drag the Op right into the inferno. The contents of the man’s pockets are enough to send the Op off in search of his identity, his connection to San Francisco, and the treacherous underworld dealings of both the victim and his killers.

The Continental Op made his name taking punches and dodging bullets, but unraveling “The Creeping Siamese” is the kind of mystery that will baffle even him. This story, along with “The Big Knock-Over” and “$106,000 Blood Money,” is a testament to the enduring genius of Dashiell Hammett.”

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

https://stls.overdrive.com/media/2697441

And our print book suggested read for today is:

The Castle of Kings by Oliver Potzsch:

An epic tale of murder, treachery, bravery, and love

In 1524, in what is now Germany, hundreds of thousands of peasants revolted against the harsh treatment of their aristocratic overlords. Agnes is the daughter of one of these overlords, but she is not a typical sixteenth-century girl, refusing to wear dresses and spending more time with her pet falcon than potential suitors. There is only one suitor she is interested in: Mathis, a childhood friend who she can never marry due to his low birth status. But when a rogue knight attacks Agnes and Mathis shoots the knight to save her, the two are forced to go on the run together, into the midst of the raging Peasants’ War.

Over the next two years, as Agnes and Mathis travel the countryside, they are each captured by and escape from various factions of the war, participate in massive battles, make new friends both noble and peasant, and fall in love. Meanwhile, Agnes’s falcon finds a mysterious ring, and Agnes begins having strange, but seemingly meaningful dreams. Dreams that lead the two lovers to revelations about their place in the world and in the emerging German states. With The Castle of Kings, Oliver Pötzsch has written a historical yarn that calls to mind Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth and Bernard Cornwell’s Agincourt.

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

http://goo.gl/PqGK1q

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 Listen & Read: Thursday, July 28, 2016

July 28, 2016July 28, 2016 Linda Reimer

Here are our suggested daily recommended listen & read in print and digital formats!

Our suggested daily Digital Catalog item for today is the downloadable audiobook:

The Night and the Music, Volume One: The Matthew Scudder Stories

by Lawrence Block:

Lawrence Block’s seventeen Matthew Scudder novels have won the hearts of readers throughout the world—along with a bevy of awards including the Edgar, the Shamus, the Philip Marlowe (Germany), and the Maltese Falcon (Japan). But Scudder has starred in short fiction as well, and here is Volume One. Includes the following stories: “Out the Window,” “A Candle for the Bag Lady,” “By the Dawn’s Early Light,” “Batman’s Helpers,” “The Merciful Angel of Death,” and “The Night and the Music.”

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

https://stls.overdrive.com/media/1186268

And our print book suggested read for today is:

The Night of the Animals by Bill Broun:

In this imaginative debut, the tale of Noah’s Ark is brilliantly recast as a story of fate and family, set in a near-future London.

Over the course of a single night in 2052, a homeless man named Cuthbert Handley sets out on an astonishing quest: to release the animals of the London Zoo. When he was a young boy, Cuthbert’s grandmother had told him he inherited a magical ability to communicate with the animal world—a gift she called the Wonderments. Ever since his older brother’s death in childhood, Cuthbert has heard voices. These maddening whispers must be the Wonderments, he believes, and recently they have promised to reunite him with his lost brother and bring about the coming of a Lord of Animals . . . if he fulfills this curious request.

Cuthbert flickers in and out of awareness throughout his desperate pursuit. But his grand plan is not the only thing that threatens to disturb the collective unease of the city. Around him is greater turmoil, as the rest of the world anxiously anticipates the rise of a suicide cult set on destroying the world’s animals along with themselves.

Meanwhile, Cuthbert doggedly roams the zoo, cutting open the enclosures, while pressing the animals for information about his brother. Just as this unlikely yet loveable hero begins to release the animals, the cult’s members flood the city’s streets. Has Cuthbert succeeded in harnessing the power of the Wonderments, or has he only added to the chaos—and sealed these innocent animals’ fates?

Night of the Animals is an enchanting and inventive tale that explores the boundaries of reality, the ghosts of love and trauma, and the power of redemption.

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

http://goo.gl/kH6Btn

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: Wednesday, July 27, 2016

July 27, 2016July 27, 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:

Elusive Salvation (Star Trek: The Original Series) by Dayton Ward

An all-new Star Trek adventure across time—the latest of the acclaimed Original Series novels!

The Arctic Circle, 1845: Escaping the tyranny under which their people have lived for generations, aliens from a distant planet crash land on Earth’s inhospitable frozen wastes. Surviving the harsh conditions will pose a challenge, but over time the aliens will migrate to more populated areas, with decades passing as they work to conceal their presence from their former oppressors, who continue to hunt them at any cost.

San Francisco, 2283: When a mysterious craft is detected entering the solar system, Admiral James Kirk is dispatched by Starfleet to confront the vessel. He meets with an emissary from the Iramahl, a previously unknown alien race who have come in search of their brothers and sisters thought to have gone missing in this area of space centuries earlier. Having recently thrown off the last chains of subjugation by another species, the Ptaen, they now believe their lost people hold the key to saving their entire race from eventual extinction.

New York, 1970: Roberta Lincoln, young protégé of the mysterious agent Gary Seven, is shocked when she receives the oddest request for help—from the future…

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

https://stls.overdrive.com/media/2260560

And our print book suggested read for today is:

Drinking Gourd: A Benjamin January Historical Mystery by Barbara Hambly:

Benjamin January must uncover a killer to protect a secret . . .

Benjamin January is called up to Vicksburg, deep in cotton-plantation country, to help a wounded “conductor” of the Underground Railroad – the secret network of safe-houses that guide escaping slaves to freedom. When the chief “conductor” of the “station” is found murdered, Jubal Cain – the coordinator of the whole Railroad system in Mississippi – is accused of the crime. Since Cain can’t expose the nature of his involvement in the railroad, January has to step in and find the true killer, before their covers are blown.

As January probes into the murky labyrinth of slaves, slave-holders, the fugitives who follow the “drinking gourd” north to freedom and those who help them on their way, he discovers that there is more to the situation than meets the eye, and that sometimes there are no easy answers.

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

http://goo.gl/9c0EJF

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: Monday, July 18, 2016

July 18, 2016July 18, 2016 Linda Reimer

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

Our suggested daily Digital Catalog item for today is a thriller downloadable audiobook:

Those Who Wish Me Dead by Michael Koryta:

When fourteen-year-old Jace Wilson witnesses a brutal murder, he’s plunged into a new life, issued a false identity and hidden in a wilderness skills program for troubled teens. The plan is to get Jace off the grid while police find the two killers. The result is the start of a nightmare.

The killers, known as the Blackwell Brothers, are slaughtering anyone who gets in their way in a methodical quest to reach him. Now all that remains between them and the boy are Ethan and Allison Serbin, who run the wilderness survival program; Hannah Faber, who occupies a lonely fire lookout tower; and endless miles of desolate Montana mountains.

The clock is ticking, the mountains are burning, and those who wish Jace Wilson dead are no longer far behind.

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

https://stls.overdrive.com/media/1742112

And our print book suggested read for today is:

What We Become: A Novel by Arturo Perez-Reverte:

#1 bestselling author and Dagger Award winner Arturo Pérez-Reverte delivers an epic historical tale following the dangerous and passionate love affair between a beautiful high society woman and an elegant thief. A story of romance, adventure, and espionage, this novel solidifies Pérez-Reverte as an international literary giant.

En route from Lisbon to Buenos Aires in 1928, Max and Mecha meet aboard a luxurious transatlantic cruise ship. There Max teaches the stunning stranger and her erudite husband to dance the tango. A steamy affair ignites at sea and continues as the seedy decadence of Buenos Aires envelops the secret lovers.

Nice, 1937. Still drawn to one another a decade later, Max and Mecha rekindle their dalliance. In the wake of a perilous mission gone awry, Mecha looks after her charming paramour until a deadly encounter with a Spanish spy forces him to flee.

Sorrento, 1966. Max once again runs into trouble—and Mecha. She offers him temporary shelter from the KGB agents on his trail, but their undeniable attraction offers only a small glimmer of hope that their paths will ever cross again.

Arturo Pérez-Reverte is at his finest here, offering readers a bittersweet, richly rendered portrait of a powerful, forbidden love story that burns brightly over forty years, from the fervor of youth to the dawn of old age.

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

http://goo.gl/ApPBzO

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.

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