Here’s a list of suggested reading, viewing & listening titles From The STLS Digital Catalog just in time for weekend reading, listening and viewing!
Fiction E-Books:
Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling: The only one of Kipling’s novels to be cast in an American setting, Captains Courageous endures as one of literature’s most cherished and memorable sea adventures. Harvey Cheyne, spoiled millionaire’s son, tumbles overboard from a luxury liner–only to be rescued by the crew of a Gloucester schooner. Thus begins the boy’s second voyage into the rugged rites and ways of sailors. Like all Kipling’s masterworks, Captains Courageous is an interweaving of art and moral purpose. Angus Wilson has said that it shows “delicacy of craft and violence of feeling, exactitude and wile impressionism, subtlety and true innocence.” A popular favorite since its first publication in 1897, the novel remains a classic story of youthful initiation–and a lively tribute to the author’s famous code of bravery, loyalty, and honor among men.
A Long Summer by Susan Mallery: Former underwear model turned entrepreneur Clay Stryker has loved, tragically lost and vowed that he’ll never risk his heart again. After making his fortune, the youngest of the rugged Stryker brothers returns to Fool’s Gold, California, to put down roots on a ranch of his own. But he’s frustrated to discover that even in his hometown, people see him only for his world-famous…assets.
Firefighter Chantal (Charlie) Dixon grew up an ugly duckling beside her delicately beautiful mother, a feeling reinforced long ago by a man who left soul-deep scars. Now she has good friends, a solid job and the itch to start a family–yet she can’t move toward the future while she’s haunted by painful memories.
Clay finds an unexpected ally, and unexpected temptation, in tomboyish Charlie, the only person who sees beyond his dazzling good looks to the real man beneath. But when Charlie comes to him with an indecent proposal, will they be able to overcome their pasts and find a love that lasts beyond one incredible summer?
A Thousand Pardons: A Novel by Jonathan Dee: For readers of Jonathan Franzen and Richard Russo, Jonathan Dee’s novels are masterful works of literary fiction. In this sharply observed tale of self-invention and public scandal, Dee raises a trenchant question: what do we really want when we ask for forgiveness?
Once a privileged and loving couple, the Armsteads have now reached a breaking point. Ben, a partner in a prestigious law firm, has become unpredictable at work and withdrawn at home–a change that weighs heavily on his wife, Helen, and their preteen daughter, Sara. Then, in one afternoon, Ben’s recklessness takes an alarming turn, and everything the Armsteads have built together unravels, swiftly and spectacularly.
Thrust back into the working world, Helen finds a job in public relations and relocates with Sara from their home in upstate New York to an apartment in Manhattan. There, Helen discovers she has a rare gift, indispensable in the world of image control: She can convince arrogant men to admit their mistakes, spinning crises into second chances. Yet redemption is more easily granted in her professional life than in her personal one.
As she is confronted with the biggest case of her career, the fallout from her marriage, and Sara’s increasingly distant behavior, Helen must face the limits of accountability and her own capacity for forgiveness.
Non-Fiction:
The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie by Andrew Carnegie: Andrew Carnegie, the great steel-baron-turned-philanthropist, was an industrialist unlike any other. His famous dictum, that he who dies rich dies disgraced, has inspired a generation of twenty-first-century philanthropists to follow in his footsteps and put their money towards philanthropic causes. He had an unwavering belief in distributing wealth for good, and systematically and deliberately gave away the bulk of his riches throughout his lifetime.
Born in 1835, he emigrated with his family to the United States from Scotland at a young age. His first job was in a cotton factory, and he later worked as an errand boy. The industrial age brought great opportunities for Mr. Carnegie. With drive and hard work, he amassed a fortune as a steel tycoon, and by adulthood the errand boy was one of the richest and most generous men in the United States. A strong dedication to giving back guided him throughout his life and career. During his own lifetime, he put his ideas into action by creating a family of organizations that continue to work toward improving the human condition, advancing international peace, strengthening democracy, and creating social progress that benefits men, women and children both in the United States and around the globe.
Here, in the reissue of the classic autobiography that has inspired generations, is the rags-to-riches tale of the life and philosophies of one of the most celebrated industrialists and philanthropists in history. From his humble beginnings as a poor Scottish immigrant to his immense success in business, Andrew Carnegie outlines the principles that he lived by and that today serve as the pillars of modern philanthropy.
Raw Food Made Easy for 1 or 2 People by Jennifer Cornbleet: In this newly revised edition of her no-cook classic, raw-food chef and instructor Jennifer Cornbleet continues her mission to offer tasty meals, snacks, and desserts made with basic kitchen equipment and everyday ingredients. Along with favorites from the first edition, Jennifer has added 50 new recipes, including more fruit dishes, salads, and salad dressings, and an innovative collection of green smoothies based on nutritionally power-packed greens and fruit.
Spirits Out of Time: True Family Ghost Stories and Weird Paranormal Experiences by Annie Wilder: I have always been fascinated by secrets…So begins Annie Wilder’s collection of true family ghost stories, gathered from old letters and family genealogy books or told around the dinner table. From her Irish great-grandpa outsmarting the death coach to her German great-great-grandma seeing a falling star each time one of her children died, these personal vignettes illuminate the mysteries of the spirit world.
Spooky at times but also poignant and humorous, these stories are brought to life with vintage photographs. They include true tales of a haunted hotel, a magical bookstore, and a faceless ghost girl who haunted Annie’s mother for decades. You’ll explore a wide variety of odd or mystical topics, from spirit guides to astral travel, totem animals, and premonitions. Along with fascinating insights from prominent psychics, this book includes simple protection rituals and a ceremony to honor your own family in spirit.
Audio Books:
Hotels, Hospitals, and Jails: A Memoir by Anthony Swofford: The publication of Jarhead launched a new career for Anthony Swofford, earning him accolades for its gritty and unexpected portraits of the soldiers who fought in the Gulf War. It spawned a Hollywood movie. It made Swofford famous and wealthy. It also nearly killed him.
Now with the same unremitting intensity he brought to his first memoir, Swofford describes his search for identity, meaning, and a reconciliation with his dying father in the years after he returned from serving as a sniper in the Marines. Adjusting to life after war, he watched his older brother succumb to cancer and his first marriage disintegrate, leading him to pursue a lifestyle in Manhattan that brought him to the brink of collapse. Consumed by drugs, drinking, expensive cars, and women, Swofford lost almost everything and everyone that mattered to him.
When a son is in trouble he hopes to turn to his greatest source of wisdom and support: his father. But Swofford and his father didn’t exactly have that kind of relationship. The key, he realized, was to confront the man-a philandering, once hard-drinking, now terminally ill Vietnam vet he had struggled hard to understand and even harder to love. The two stubborn, strong-willed war vets embarked on a series of RV trips that quickly became a kind of reckoning in which Swofford took his father to task for a lifetime of infidelities and abuse. For many years Swofford had considered combat the decisive test of a man’s greatness. With the understanding that came from these trips and the fateful encounter that took him to a like-minded woman named Christa, Swofford began to understand that becoming a father himself might be the ultimate measure of his life.
Elegantly weaving his family’s past with his own present-nights of excess and sexual conquest, visits with injured war veterans, and a near-fatal car crash-Swofford casts a courageous, insistent eye on both his father and himself in order to make sense of what his military service meant, and to decide, after nearly ending it, what his life can and should become as a man, a veteran, and a father.
To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918 by Adam Hochschild: World War I stands as one of history’s most senseless spasms of carnage, defying rational explanation. In a riveting, suspenseful narrative with haunting echoes for our own time, Adam Hochschild brings it to life as never before. He focuses on the long-ignored moral drama of the war’s critics, alongside its generals and heroes. Thrown in jail for their opposition to the war were Britain’s leading investigative journalist, a future winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, and an editor who, behind bars, published a newspaper for his fellow inmates on toilet paper. These critics were sometimes intimately connected to their enemy hawks: one of Britain’s most prominent women pacifist campaigners had a brother who was commander in chief on the Western Front. Two well-known sisters split so bitterly over the war that they ended up publishing newspapers that attacked each other.
Today, hundreds of military cemeteries spread across the fields of northern France and Belgium contain the bodies of millions of men who died in the “war to end all wars.” Can we ever avoid repeating history?
Music: Celtic Woman by Bridget McMahon: A Celtic woman of the 21st century Bridget McMahon releases her debut album Celtic Woman. Songs rooted in the Irish tradition are given fresh new sound that gives the perfect setting for Bridget’s beautiful and passionate voice. Produced by Chris Conway, this is an outstanding album.
1. Walk with Me
2. The Curragh of Kildare
3. The Moon and the Tide
4. Peggy Gordon
5. Cúnla
6. Spancil Hill
7. I Could Hear Your Voice
8. Black Is the Colour
9. The Water Is Wide – Dans Fanch Mitt
10. Hold Me Now
11. Down by the Salley Gardens
12. Walk with Me (Reprise)
Video:
Beyond Pollution narrated by Dean Cain: Beyond Pollution is a firsthand investigation of the catastrophic Deepwater Horizon oil spill that devastated thousands of miles of coastline along the Gulf of Mexico. This film examines the economic impact and health effects of this tragedy on the local communities both in the immediate and long terms,uncovering what really happened, why, and who actually benefited from the largest man-made disaster in America’s history.
You can see all the digital items you can check out via STLS Digital Catalog may be found on the library’s homepage of SSCLIBRARY.ORG
Or via the following link:
http://stls.lib.overdrive.com/FE5904CF-8A91-4688-A592-7A046C7988D3/10/536/en/Default.htm
And if you have a smartphone or tablet look for the OverDrive Media Console app in your app store – it is the app that will allow you to check out free library e-books and audio books and download them to your tablet or smartphone.
Digital Catalog music and video titles must currently be downloaded to a Windows computer to enjoy.
And remember if you need assistance in learning how to use your new tablet or laptop, smartphone; or if you’d like to learn more about how to use Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Facebook, email or simply just learn a little more about what you can do online — we can help you with that! You can call or drop in and make an appointment with a member of the library’s tech team and we’ll show you the personal technology ropes! It is free! Call us at: 607-936-3713!
Have a great weekend!
Linda R.
Tech & Book Talk at SSCL 