Hi everyone, welcome to our Suggested Listening posting for this week!
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This week, in honor of all those who served during World War II, and especially those who took part in the Allied Invasion of Europe on D-Day, on this the eighty-first anniversary of the invasion on June 6, 1944, here is a collection of songs that were popular during that momentous year.
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And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine by Stan Kenton with Anita O’Day on vocals
Found on the Album: Classics (1952) by Stan Kenton & His Orchestra
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Do Nothin’ Till You Hear From Me by Duke Ellington & His Orchestra
Found on the Album: The Treasury Shows Vol. 17, Pt. 1 (2013) | Note the song isn’t available on many digital albums, but the original version seems to be available on both vinyl and CD.
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G.I. Jive by Louis Jordan & His Tympany Five
Found on the Album: #1s (2004)
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I Couldn’t Sleep A Wink Last Night by Frank Sinatra
Found on the Album: N/A, the song appeared in the 1944 comedy Higher And Higher.
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I’ll Get By (As Long as I Have You) by Harry James & His Orchestra with Dick Haymes
Found on the Album: Dick Haymes with Harry James & Benny Goodman: The Complete Columbia Recordings (1998)
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I’m Making Believe by Ella Fitzgerald & The Ink Spots
Found on the Album: The Best of the Ink Spots (1999)
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Mairzy Doats by The Merry Macs
Found on the Album: Hits From The War Years – The Sun Has Got His Hat On by Various Artists
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The Music Stopped by Woody Herman & His Orchestra
Found on the Album: N/A; this song too is from the soundtrack of th comedy Higher & Higher (1944).
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Straighten Up and Fly Right by Nat King Cole & His Orchestra
Found on the Album: The Nat King Cole Story (1991)
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Swinging on a Star by Big Crosby
Found on the album: 20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection: Best Of Bing Crosby (2007)
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Hoopla Album of the Week
20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection: Best Of Bing Crosby (2007) by Bing Crosby
And from the album, the song:
Don’t Fence Me In
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Have a great weekend,
Linda Reimer, SSCL
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Suggested Listening postings are published on Fridays.
The Digital Catalog, is an online catalog containing eBooks, eAudiobooks, and digital magazines. You can use your library card and checkout content on a PC; you can also use the companion app, Libby, to access titles on your mobile devices; so you can enjoy eBooks and eAudiobooks on the go!
All card holders of all Southern Tier Library System member libraries can check out items from the Digital Catalog.
The Hoopla Catalog features on demand checkouts of eBooks, eAudiobooks, comic books, albums, movies and TV shows. Patron check out limit is 10 items per month.
Hoopla is a Southeast Steuben County Library service available to all Southeast Steuben County Library card holders.
The Hoopla companion app, also called Hoopla is available for mobile devices, smart TVs & media streaming players.
The Kanopy Catalog features thousands of streaming videos available on demand.
The Kanopy Catalog is available for all Southern Tier Library System member library card holders, including all Southeast Steuben County Library card holders!
You can access the Kanopy Catalog through a web browser, or download the app to your phone, tablet or media streaming player (i.e. Roku, Google or Fire TV).
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.
–
Have questions about how to access Internet based content (i.e. eBooks, eAudios or streaming videos)? Feel free to drop by the Reference Desk or call the library and we will assist you! The library’s telephone number is: 607-936-3713.
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Visit the Southeast Steuben County Library website for more information on the library, its programs and services: https://ssclibrary.org
Hi everyone, here are our five suggested reads of the week!
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Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid
A female astronaut in the 1980s encounters sexism and finds romance as she chases her dreams. Joan Goodwin has always been obsessed with space, which is why she became an astrophysics professor at Rice University. But then, something happens that she’s only dreamed about–NASA announces that it’s looking for female scientists to join the space program. Joan is accepted on her second try, and in 1980, she begins training with a group of male and female candidates who, while all brilliant, have a wide range of personalities. Some of the men are sexist and spend most of their time cracking offensive jokes, but Joan finds a friend in kind-hearted pilot Hank Redmond, who gives her plenty of opportunities to learn. Joan finds both camaraderie and competition among the women–there’s determined Lydia Danes, who embodies the “I’m not here to make friends” ethos, and the more supportive Vanessa Ford, who quickly becomes one of Joan’s most trusted allies. As the group trains together, they begin to feel like a family–and as Joan grows closer to Vanessa, she realizes that life on Earth may contain just as many wonders as the cosmos. The story cuts back and forth between a disaster in 1984 and the story of Joan’s journey through the space program. Reid keeps the tension high, making this perhaps her most propulsive novel yet as she balances the drama of Joan’s personal life with the fast-paced action of a catastrophe in space. Even with the high-stakes action, the touching and surprising love story is the emotional heart of the book. A heart-pounding race against the clock combined with a love story adds up to a novel that’s impossible to put down. – Starred Kikus Review
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The Californians: A Novel by Brian Castleberry
Beset by complicated families and the crises of their eras, artists nevertheless strive for beauty and truth over a century of American life. Displaced by an apocalyptic Northern California wildfire, down-on-his-luck Tobey Harlan is pulled into a scheme to steal valuable paintings from his rich, politically exasperating father. Famous for her haunting 1980s portrayals of AIDS patients, painter Diane “Di” Stigl underscored the country’s moral shortcomings and battled her own demons. Castleberry reaches further back, to Di’s grandfather, silent-film auteur Klaus von Stigl, who “celebrated the dark and individualistic forces” of his adopted nation while harboring personal secrets. As the artists’ stories unfold during the turbulent twentieth century, their trajectories intertwine in complex and bewildering ways, yet the artistic striving and loss they represent is unambiguous. Fire, representing creativity and destruction, becomes a recurrent motif. Is theft the key to freedom, loss the key to renewal? Castleberry (Nine Shiny Objects, 2020) animates his characters’ lives with a longing for meaning and a commitment to historical detail. The result is a novel as ambitious, beautiful, and precarious as the Golden State itself. – Booklist Review
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The Causative Factor by Megan Staffel
An accident links the lives of two lovers in Staffel’s novel. Rachel Goodwin first sees Rubiat Elsayem when they attend a New York college together and meet in a performance art class called Body Expression. They’re partners on a project in which each must define the other’s essential quality. They fall in love over a 24-hour period before finding themselves on a long hike at Stony Brook State Park. Rachel watches Rubiat impulsively dive from a cliff and assumes (incorrectly) that he’s dead. She tries desperately to move on from the shock. The novel is split into two halves: The first follows Rachel through the aftermath as she builds her career as an artist and language teacher in Queens, eventually meeting someone new. The second follows both Rachel and Rubiat. Rachel unpacks her deep feelings for Rubiat, and he explores his issues with impulse control and pressure in the wake of leaving Rachel in such a spectacularly weird way. Staffel also incorporates perspectives from Dusty, Rachel’s boyfriend, whom she meets through her friend Angela, who’s Chinese American. The book movingly depicts the complexity of human psychology, such as Rachel’s inability to forget Rubiat. Other weighty themes, like Angela’s exoticization by her German boyfriend, are glossed over–a missed opportunity. Ultimately, the novel becomes a fascinating portrayal of identity, expanding on the moment that brought Rachel and Rubiat together (which lends its name as the title), explained by their teacher as an exercise that would guide the participants toward finding “their deepest motivation, the hidden foundation of their character, that quality that makes them the person they are.” A suspenseful plotline, sometimes slowed by flat secondary characters, continues to investigate the cast’s motivations, and Staffel probes Rachel’s and Rubiat’s personalities right until the final page. A gripping, unusual romance fueled by an ongoing mystery. – Kirkus Review
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The English Masterpiece: A Novel by Katherine Reay
At the gala opening of a Picasso exhibition at the Tate Modern, Lily Summers (the recently promoted assistant to curator Diana Gilden) does something unforgivable. Looking at a recently discovered painting hanging in the show, she exclaims, “It’s a forgery.” The ensuing scandal ignites a firestorm in the 1970s London art world and beyond. Lily looks up to Diane, even mimicking her fashion style and taste in art but eventually learns precisely who and what her mentor is. In the search for the painting’s provenance, secrets are revealed, alliances are formed, and lives are threatened. Amid all the chaos, Lily looks hard at her own life and choices and rediscovers her artistic aspirations. Reay’s (The London House) intricately woven tale combines an intriguing art mystery with one young woman’s journey of self-discovery. Her descriptions of 1970s food, art, fashion, and luxurious interiors are evocative, the story is fast-paced, and the dialogue fizzy.
VERDICT A stylish historical that will appeal to art-loving readers and fans of strong women characters.–Library Journal Review
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Polybius by Collin Armstrong
One damp California day in October 1982, Polybius strangely becomes the most popular game in Tasker Bay. With wildly advanced graphics and mesmerizing gameplay, it’s magnetic. Electronics-obsessed high-schooler Andi is in charge of the Home Video World’s arcade, and she notices things aren’t quite right with Polybius. The game was purchased used, with no marquee sign or markings, and Andi finds no way to reach the manufacturer when players slowly start to become infected with fugue states, go on violent rampages, and begin to take revenge. Debut author Armstrong taps into the urban legend of the eponymous game that mysteriously flickered in and out of existence in the early 1980s, rumored to be a government conspiracy. As Andi connects with fellow student Ro, the two team up to figure out why everyone is so affected by playing the game. Andi might have a secret weapon against Polybius’ hypnotic pull, while Ro’s helpless descent into its depths may be his downfall. Polybius is retro and atmospheric; fans of The God Game (2020), by Danny Tobey, or Rabbits, by Terry Miles (2021), will find enjoyable parallels. – Booklist Review
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Happy reading!
Linda Reimer, SSCL
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Suggested Reading Five posts are published on Wednesdays.
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Note: Book summaries are from the respective publishers unless otherwise specified.
The Digital Catalog, is an online catalog containing eBooks, eAudiobooks, and digital magazines. You can use your library card and checkout content on a PC; you can also use the companion app, Libby, to access titles on your mobile devices; so you can enjoy eBooks and eAudiobooks on the go!
All card holders of all Southern Tier Library System member libraries can check out items from the Digital Catalog.
The Hoopla Catalog features on demand checkouts of eBooks, eAudiobooks, comic books, albums, movies and TV shows. Patron check out limit is 10 items per month.
Hoopla is a Southeast Steuben County Library service available to all Southeast Steuben County Library card holders.
The Hoopla companion app, also called Hoopla is available for mobile devices, smart TVs & media streaming players.
The Kanopy Catalog features thousands of streaming videos available on demand.
The Kanopy Catalog is available for all Southern Tier Library System member library card holders, including all Southeast Steuben County Library card holders!
You can access the Kanopy Catalog through a web browser, or download the app to your phone, tablet or media streaming player (i.e. Roku, Google or Fire TV).
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.
–
Have questions about how to access Internet based content (i.e. eBooks, eAudios)? Feel free to drop by the Reference Desk or call the library and we will assist you! The library’s telephone number is: 607-936-3713.
–
Tech & Book 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, April 18, 2025.
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Last week we listened to a collection of songs by the great bluesman Muddy Waters, who was born April 4, 1915 (or 1913 – there is some question about the year); and this week we will listen to a collection of songs by a variety of other artists who were born during the month of April.
The Little Old Lady (From Pasadena) by Jan & Dean (Jan Barry was born April 3, 1941)
Found on the LP: Jan and Dean’s Greatest Hits (1991)
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Ramrod by Duane Eddy (Duane Eddy was born in Corning, on April 26, 1938)
Found on the Album: Have Twangy Guitar Will Travel (1958)
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I Heard It Through The Grapevine by Marvin Gaye (Born April 2, 1939)
Found On The Album: In The groove (1968)
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Let’s Stay Together by Al Green (Born April 13, 1946)
Found on the Album: Let’s Stay Together (1972)
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Flying Home by Lionel Hampton (Born April 20, 1908)
Found On The Album: Flying Home (1965)
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Cantaloupe Island by Herbie Handcock (Born April 12, 1940)
Found On The Album: Empyrean Isles (1964)
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What A Little Moonlight Can Do by Billie Holiday (Born April 7, 1915)
Found On The Album: The Essential Billie Holiday (2010)
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Dedicated To You by Freddie Hubbard (Born April 7, 1938)
Found On The Album: The Body And The Soul (1964)
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Oh, Pretty Woman by Roy Orbison (Born April 23, 1936)
Found On The Album: The Essential Roy Orbison (2006)
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St. Louis Blues by Bessie Smith (Born April 15, 1894)
Found On The Album: The Essential Bessie Smith (2013)
The Digital Catalog, is an online catalog containing eBooks, eAudiobooks, and digital magazines. You can use your library card and checkout content on a PC; you can also use the companion app, Libby, to access titles on your mobile devices; so you can enjoy eBooks and eAudiobooks on the go!
All card holders of all Southern Tier Library System member libraries can check out items from the Digital Catalog.
The Hoopla Catalog features on demand checkouts of eBooks, eAudiobooks, comic books, albums, movies and TV shows. Patron check out limit is 10 items per month.
Hoopla is a Southeast Steuben County Library service available to all Southeast Steuben County Library card holders.
The Hoopla companion app, also called Hoopla is available for mobile devices, smart TVs & media streaming players.
The Kanopy Catalog features thousands of streaming videos available on demand.
The Kanopy Catalog is available for all Southern Tier Library System member library card holders, including all Southeast Steuben County Library card holders!
You can access the Kanopy Catalog through a web browser, or download the app to your phone, tablet or media streaming player (i.e. Roku, Google or Fire TV).
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.
–
Have questions about how to access Internet based content (i.e. eBooks, eAudios or streaming videos)? Feel free to drop by the Reference Desk or call the library and we will assist you! The library’s telephone number is: 607-936-3713.
–
Tech & Book Talk is a Southeast Steuben County Library blog.
Hi everyone, here are our five suggested reads of the week!
Weekly Suggested Reading Five postings are usually published on Wednesdays, unless Monday is a holiday and then they are published later in the week.
And the next Suggested Reading posting will be published on Wednesday, February 5, 2024.
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Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People by Imani Perry
National Book Award-winner Perry (South to America, 2022) offers an impressionistic cultural history of the African diaspora through its connections to the color blue, from the Congo to Haiti, Jamaica, and the American South, in music, dance, folklore, art, and literature. As enslaved Black people in the U.S. fought to affirm their humanity, the color blue was key: “Blue porches, planted blue flowers, written blue scriptures, blue attire, trees festooned with blue bottles: these became the cultivated habits and rituals of people denied civil society and legal recognition.” In Black bodies, blue evoked “two distinct forms of power,” for “the least degraded among Black people were the ones who had the bluest veins beneath the palest skin,” while a “blue-gummed woman . . . held the power of conjure and deep ways of knowing.” Enslaved Blacks were freed by the Union “boys in blue,” yet those uniforms would morph into the blue of “‘Blue Lives Matter,” the police clapback to “Black Lives Matter.” Perry suggests an implied choice “between Black life and police survival . . . And that is a blues song indeed.” Packed with cultural references to Nina Simone, Zora Neale Hurston, Miles Davis, and Picasso’s African-inspired Blue Period, this is a fascinating and creative work of popular anthropology. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: With each trailblazing book, Perry extends her readership, and this original and affecting improvisation has tremendous appeal. – Starred Booklist Review
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Good Dirt: A Novel by Charmaine Wilkerson
The daughter of an affluent Black family pieces together the connection between a childhood tragedy and a beloved heirloom in this moving novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Black Cake, a Read with Jenna Book Club Pick
When ten-year-old Ebby Freeman heard the gunshot, time stopped. And when she saw her brother, Baz, lying on the floor surrounded by the shattered pieces of a centuries-old jar, life as Ebby knew it shattered as well. The crime was never solved—and because the Freemans were one of the only Black families in a particularly well-to-do enclave of New England—the case has had an enduring, voyeuristic pull for the public. The last thing the Freemans want is another media frenzy splashing their family across the papers, but when Ebby’s high profile romance falls apart without any explanation, that’s exactly what they get.
So Ebby flees to France, only for her past to follow her there. And as she tries to process what’s happened, she begins to think about the other loss her family suffered on that day eighteen years ago—the stoneware jar that had been in their family for generations, brought North by an enslaved ancestor. But little does she know that the handcrafted piece of pottery held more than just her family’s history—it might also hold the key to unlocking her own future. In this sweeping, evocative novel, Charmaine Wilkerson brings to life a multi-generational epic that examines how the past informs our present.
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The Oligarch’s Daughter by Joseph Finder
Nobody does man-on-the-run, excruciatingly suspenseful thrillers better than Joseph Finder, author of many stand-alone thrillers and the Boston private eye Nick Heller series. Finder’s latest is a combination spy story, financial mystery, and survival-evasion tale, with the propulsive plot set in motion by one man’s costly mistake. The narrative shuttles between the present, with small-town boat builder Grant Anderson hiding for his life in the New Hampshire woods as Russian agents and the FBI try to track him down, and the past, when Anderson, then an on-the-rise New York financial analyst, got himself into a world of trouble falling in love with a Russian oligarch’s daughter. Finder’s granular details about what it takes for the hunted Anderson to survive and evade his pursuers (using the dimly remembered precepts of his survivalist father), along with the added complications of hunger, thirst, and injury, are fascinating, as are the details from his earlier life in cutthroat finance. Finder adds another layer of suspense with Anderson’s false identity, reminiscent of Cary Grant’s imperiled character in North by Northwest. Deep characterization, cliffhanger suspense, and a wealth of information ranging from Russian spies to survival in the woods and in public spaces make this one of Finder’s best. – Booklist
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Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros
After nearly eighteen months at Basgiath War College, Violet Sorrengail knows there’s no more time for lessons. No more time for uncertainty. Because the battle has truly begun, and with enemies closing in from outside their walls and within their ranks, it’s impossible to know who to trust.
Now Violet must journey beyond the failing Aretian wards to seek allies from unfamiliar lands to stand with Navarre. The trip will test every bit of her wit, luck, and strength, but she will do anything to save what she loves—her dragons, her family, her home, and him.
Even if it means keeping a secret so big, it could destroy everything. They need an army. They need power. They need magic. And they need the one thing only Violet can find—the truth. But a storm is coming…and not everyone can survive its wrath.
The Empyrean series is best enjoyed in order. Reading Order: Book #1 Fourth Wing Book #2 Iron Flame Book #3 Onyx Storm
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We Do Not Part by Han Kang
Nobel laureate Kang’s latest protagonist–also an author, perhaps Kang’s stand-in–recalls her 2014 title “about the massacre in G–,” which is exactly when Kang’s Human Acts, about the 1980s Gwangju Uprising, debuted in Korea. Plagued now by nightmares, Kyungha, as her name is revealed, berates herself. “Having decided to write about mass killings and torture, how could I have so naively–brazenly–hoped to soon shirk off the agony of it?” The nightmares’ intensifying vividity inspires her to contact a close friend, photographer and documentary filmmaker Inseon, about the possibility of the two women collaborating on a film adaptation of these indelible images. Four years pass, until Inseon summons her to a Seoul hospital after a horrific accident, imploring Kyungha to go to Jeju Island to care for her precious budgie. Despite severely dangerous winter conditions, Kyungha finally arrives. Then what seems impossible happens. Inseon’s spirit joins Kyungha to reveal horrific historical truths about the Jeju Massacre (1948-49), which Inseon’s mother miraculously survived while “upward of thirty thousand civilians were slaughtered” by the U.S.-backed Korean military. Once more, Kang brilliantly examines the breadth of human relationships–from unconditional mother-child bonds to timeless friendship to heinous inhumanity. e.yaewon, who cotranslated Kang’s Greek Lessons (2023) as Emily Yae Won, returns here with Morris to gift English-reading audiences with tragic terror, luminous insight, and ethereal glimmers of hope.
HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: With Kang receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature this fall, interest in her work will skyrocket, with special interest in this forthcoming novel. – Starred Booklist Review
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Happy reading!
Linda Reimer, SSCL
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Note: Book summaries are from the respective publishers unless otherwise specified.
The Digital Catalog, is an online catalog containing eBooks, eAudiobooks, and digital magazines. You can use your library card and checkout content on a PC; you can also use the companion app, Libby, to access titles on your mobile devices; so you can enjoy eBooks and eAudiobooks on the go!
All card holders of all Southern Tier Library System member libraries can check out items from the Digital Catalog.
The Hoopla Catalog features on demand checkouts of eBooks, eAudiobooks, comic books, albums, movies and TV shows. Patron check out limit is 10 items per month.
Hoopla is a Southeast Steuben County Library service available to all Southeast Steuben County Library card holders.
The Hoopla companion app, also called Hoopla is available for mobile devices, smart TVs & media streaming players.
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.
–
Have questions about how to access Internet based content (i.e. eBooks, eAudios)? Feel free to drop by the Reference Desk or call the library and we will assist you! The library’s telephone number is: 607-936-3713.
–
Tech & Book Talk is a Southeast Steuben County Library blog.
Hi everyone, here are our five suggested reads of the week!
Weekly Suggested Reading Five postings are usually published on Wednesdays, unless Monday is a holiday and then they are published later in the week.
And the next Suggested Reading posting will be published on Wednesday, January 29, 2025.
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Boudicca by P. C. Cast
After the death of her husband, Boudicca is crowned queen of the Iceni tribe. In Roman-occupied Britannia, the idea of a woman ruler is one of weakness, and the Roman tax collector Catus Decianus leads an attack on the tribe’s stronghold, to deadly and personally damaging results. However, instead of folding, Boudicca calls a war council, determined to strike back at the Romans. With the help of childhood friend and Druid seer Rhan and horse master Maldwyn, Boudicca finds strength, her goddess’s support, and love. With success in brutal attacks against wealthy Roman-held cities, the Iceni prepare to wait out the icy winter and plan their final attacks. When traitors emerge and destiny is bleak, Boudicca must place her faith in the powers beyond to ensure the survival of her people.
VERDICT The real history of the red-haired warrior queen is given new life in Cast’s (Out of the Dawn) well-told reimagining and worldbuilding, with prose that allows readers to see both a battle-hardened leader and a mother fighting for those she loves. – Library Journal Review
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The Business Trip by Jessie Garcia
“A stunning and accomplished debut, with hugely relatable characters and an addictive storyline that kept me turning the pages well into the night. Bravo!” —BA Paris, New York Times bestselling author
“Wow, The Business Trip was nonstop twists and turns. I loved the unusual way that the story was told, and I kept reading all day long because I couldn’t wait to see how it ended!” — Freida McFadden, New York Times bestselling author
THE BUSINESS TRIP is the gripping, page-turning debut from author Jessie Garcia.
Stephanie and Jasmine have nothing and everything in common. The two women don’t know each other but are on the same plane. Stephanie is on a business trip and Jasmine is fleeing an abusive relationship. After a few days, they text their friends the same exact messages about the same man—the messages becoming stranger and more erratic.
And then the two women vanish. The texts go silent, the red flags go up, and the panic sets in. When Stephanie and Jasmine are each declared missing and in danger, it begs the questions: Who is Trent McCarthy? What did he do to these women— or what did they do to him?
Twist upon twist, layer upon layer, where nothing is as it seems, The Business Trip takes you on a descent into the depths of a mastermind manipulator. But who is playing who?
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Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor
Disabled, disinclined to marry, and more interested in writing than a lucrative career in medicine or law, Zelu has always felt like the outcast of her large Nigerian family. Then her life is upended when, in the middle of her sister’s lavish Caribbean wedding, she’s unceremoniously fired from her university job and, to add insult to injury, her novel is rejected by yet another publisher. With her career and dreams crushed in one fell swoop, she decides to write something just for herself. What comes out is nothing like the quiet, literary novels that have so far peppered her unremarkable career. It’s a far-future epic where androids and AI wage war in the grown-over ruins of human civilization. She calls it Rusted Robots.
When Zelu finds the courage to share her strange novel, she does not realize she is about to embark on a life-altering journey—one that will catapult her into literary stardom, but also perhaps obliterate everything her book was meant to be. From Chicago to Lagos to the far reaches of space, Zelu’s novel will change the future not only for humanity, but for the robots who come next.
A book-within-a-book that blends the line between writing and being written, Death of the Author is a masterpiece of metafiction that manages to combine the razor-sharp commentary of Yellowface with the heartfelt humanity of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. Surprisingly funny, deeply poignant, and endlessly discussable, this is at once the tale of a woman on the margins risking everything to be heard and a testament to the power of storytelling to shape the world as we know it.
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The Last Room on the Left by Leah Konen
The latest from the author of Keep Your Friends Close (2024) is set at a remote motel that Kerry, a struggling author, has agreed to look after while she attempts to make progress on her latest novel. Kerry is also hiding from the break-up of her marriage to Frank; her split with her best friend, Siobhan; and the cause of both of those ruptures, her struggle with alcoholism. Kerry arrives at the Twilite Motel at the beginning of February and finds much more than she bargained for when she sees the hand of a dead woman sticking out of the snow. With no cell service, Kerry seeks the help of the two closest neighbors, only to learn they’re both in a land dispute with the motel’s owner. Once Kerry returns to the motel, she discovers not only that the body has been moved, but that, to her horror, the dead woman is someone she knows. Though Kerry’s reliability, particularly concerning the victim’s identity, stretches credulity at times, this is a fast-paced and engrossing read. – Booklist Review
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Three Wild Dogs (and the Truth): A Memoir by Markus Zusak
In this poignant, funny, and disarmingly honest memoir, one of the world’s most beloved storytellers, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Book Thief, tells of his family’s adoption of three troublesome rescue dogs—a charming and courageous love story about making even the most incorrigible of animals family.
There’s a madman dog beside me, and the hounds of memory ahead of us . . . It’s love and beasts and wild mistakes, and regret, but never to change things.
What happens when the Zusak family opens their home to three big, wild, street-hardened dogs—Reuben, more wolf than hound; Archer, blond, beautiful, destructive; and the rancorously smiling Frosty, who walks like a rolling thunderstorm?
The answer can only be chaos: There are street fights, park fights, public shamings, property damages, injuries, hospital visits, wellness checks, pure comedy, shocking tragedy, and carnage that must be read to be believed.
There is a reckoning of shortcomings and failure, a strengthening of will, but most important of all, an explosion of love—and the joy and recognition of family.
Three Wild Dogs (and the Truth) is a tender, motley, and exquisitely written memoir about the human need for both connection and disorder, a love letter to the animals who bring hilarity and beauty—but also the visceral truth of the natural world—straight to our doors and into our lives and change us forever.
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Happy reading!
Linda Reimer, SSCL
–
Note: Book summaries are from the respective publishers unless otherwise specified.
The Digital Catalog, is an online catalog containing eBooks, eAudiobooks, and digital magazines. You can use your library card and checkout content on a PC; you can also use the companion app, Libby, to access titles on your mobile devices; so you can enjoy eBooks and eAudiobooks on the go!
All card holders of all Southern Tier Library System member libraries can check out items from the Digital Catalog.
The Hoopla Catalog features on demand checkouts of eBooks, eAudiobooks, comic books, albums, movies and TV shows. Patron check out limit is 10 items per month.
Hoopla is a Southeast Steuben County Library service available to all Southeast Steuben County Library card holders.
The Hoopla companion app, also called Hoopla is available for mobile devices, smart TVs & media streaming players.
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.
–
Have questions about how to access Internet based content (i.e. eBooks, eAudios)? Feel free to drop by the Reference Desk or call the library and we will assist you! The library’s telephone number is: 607-936-3713.
–
Tech & Book 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, January 24, 2025.
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This week, in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968), whose birthday we celebrate with a national holiday on Monday, we offer a civil rights playlist – enjoy!
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Blowin’ In The Wind by Bob Dylan
From The Album: The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1962)
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A Change Is Gonna Come by Sam Cooke
From The Album: A Change Is Gonna Come (1964)
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Eyes On The Prize by Sweet Honey and the Rock
From The Album: Freedom Song Soundtrack (2000)
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Freedom Highway by The Staple Singers
From The Album: Freedom Highway (1965)
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If I Had A Hammer by Pete Seeger
From The Album: If I Had a Hammer: Songs of Hope and Struggle (1998)
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Little Boxes by Malvina Reynolds
From The Album: Ear To The Ground (2000)
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Pastures of Plenty by Woody Guthrie
From The Album: The Complete Asch Recordings (1997)
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This Land Is Your Land by Peter Paul & Mary
From The Album: The Very Best of Peter, Paul & Mary (2004)
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We Are Americans Too by Nat King Cole
From The Album: From The Capitol Vaults (Vol. 4) (2023)
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We Shall Overcome by The Freedom Singers
From The Album: The Social Power of Music (2019) by Various Artists
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What’s Going On by Marvin Gaye
From The Album: What’s Going On (1971)
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Hoopla Album of the Week
Library of Congress Recordings (2015) by Woody Guthrie
And from the album the song:
Talking Dust Bowl Blues
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Have a great weekend,
Linda Reimer, SSCL
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Online Catalog Links:
StarCat
The catalog of physical materials, i.e. print books, DVDs, audiobooks on CD, etc.
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 five suggested reads of the week!
Weekly Suggested Reading Five postings are usually published on Wednesdays, unless Monday is a holiday and then they are published later in the week.
And the next Suggested Reading posting will be published on Wednesday, January 22, 2025.
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Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear by Seanan McGuire
Giant turtles, impossible ships, and tidal rivers ridden by a Drowned girl in search of a family in the latest in the bestselling Hugo and Nebula Award-Winning Wayward Children series from Seanan McGuire.
Nadya had three mothers: the one who bore her, the country that poisoned her, and the one who adopted her.
Nadya never considered herself less than whole, not until her adoptive parents fitted her with a prosthetic arm against her will, seeking to replace the one she’d been missing from birth.
It was cumbersome; it was uncomfortable; it was wrong.
It wasn’t her.
Frustrated and unable to express why, Nadya began to wander, until the day she fell through a door into Belyrreka, the Land Beneath the Lake—and found herself in a world of water, filled with child-eating amphibians, majestic giant turtles, and impossible ships that sailed as happily beneath the surface as on top. In Belyyreka, she found herself understood for who she was: a Drowned Girl, who had made her way to her real home, accepted by the river and its people.
But even in Belyyreka, there are dangers, and trials, and Nadya would soon find herself fighting to keep hold of everything she had come to treasure.
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Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old: Thoughts on Aging as a Woman by Brooke Shields
From generational icon Brooke Shields comes an intimate and empowering exploration of aging that flips the script on the idea of what it means for a woman to grow older
Brooke Shields has spent a lifetime in the public eye. Growing up as a child actor and model, her every feature was scrutinized, her every decision judged. Today Brooke faces a different kind of scrutiny: that of being a “woman of a certain age.”
And yet, for Brooke, the passage of time has brought freedom. At fifty-nine, she feels more comfortable in her skin, more empowered and confident than she did decades ago in those famous Calvin Kleins. Now, in Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old, she’s changing the narrative about women and aging.
This is an era, insists Brooke, when women are reclaiming agency and power, not receding into the shadows. These are the years when we get to decide how we want to live—when we get to write our own stories.
With remarkable candor, Brooke bares all, painting a vibrant and optimistic picture of being a woman in the prime of her life, while dismantling the myths that have, for too long, dimmed that perception. Sharing her own life experiences with humor and humility, and weaving together research and reporting, Brooke takes aim at the systemic factors that contribute to age-related bias.
By turns inspiring, moving, and galvanizing, Brooke’s honesty and vulnerability will resonate with women everywhere, and spark a new conversation about the power and promise of midlife.
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Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney
Following the mysterious disappearance of his wife, a struggling London novelist journeys to a remote Scottish island to try to get his mojo back–but all, of course, is not what it seems. Grady Green hits the pinnacle of his publishing career on the same night that his life goes off the rails–first his book lands on the New York Times bestseller list, and then his wife, Abby, goes missing on her way home. A year later, Grady is a mere shadow of his former self: out of money and out of ideas. So, when his agent, Abby’s godmother, suggests that he spend some time on the Isle of Amberly, in a log cabin left to her by one of her writers, it seems as good a plan as any. With free housing for himself and his dog and a beautiful, distraction-free environment, maybe he can finally complete the next novel. But from the very beginning, Grady’s experiences with Amberly seem weird, if not downright ominous: As a visitor, he’s not allowed to bring his car onto the island; the local businesses are only open for a few hours at a time; and there are no birds. At all. Not to mention the skeletal hand he finds buried under the floorboards of the cabin, the creepy harmonica music in the woods, and the occasional sighting of a woman in a red coat who’s a dead ringer for Abby. As Grady falls deeper and deeper into insomnia and alcoholism, he begins to realize his being on the island is no accident–and that should make him very afraid. Through occasional chapters from before Abby’s disappearance, told from her point of view, we learn that Grady is not necessarily a reliable narrator, and the book’s slow unfolding of dread, mystery, and then truth is both creative and well-paced. Every chapter heading is an oxymoron, like the title, reminding us of the contradictions at the heart of every story. “Nasty little fellows…always get their comeuppance,” a movie character once said. Deeply satisfying. – Kirkus Review
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The Big Empty by Robert Crais
Elvis Cole and his enigmatic partner, Joe Pike, race to find a terrifying, unidentified killer in this twisting, unpredictable thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Robert Crais.
Traci Beller was thirteen when her father disappeared in the sleepy town of Rancha, not far from Los Angeles. The evidence says Tommy Beller abandoned his family, but Traci never believed it. Now, ten years later, Traci is a high-profile influencer with millions of followers and the money to hire the best detective she can find: Elvis Cole.
Elvis heads to Rancha where an ex-con named Sadie Givens and her daughter, Anya, might have a line on the missing man. But when Elvis finds himself shadowed by a gang of vicious criminals, the missing persons cold case becomes far more sinister.
Elvis calls his ex-Marine friend, Joe Pike, for help, and they follow Tommy Beller’s trail into the depths of a monstrous, hidden evil. The case flips on its head, victims become predators, predators become prey, and the question becomes: Can Elvis Cole save them all from this nightmare?
Reader’s Note: The Big Empty is the twentieth book in the Elvis Cole & Joe Pike series. If you’d like to start reading from the beginning, check out book one: The Monkey’s Raincoat.
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Presumed Guilty by Scott Turow
Turow’s latest wraps up the story of Rusty Sabich, Sandy Stern’s unjustly accused client in Presumed Guilty, Turow’s first novel, published in 1987, and in Innocent (2010). Here he transports readers to retired judge Rusty’s quiet life in Mirror Lake with his fiancée, Bea. Rusty and Bea have agreed to supervise her adopted son Aaron’s probation and are proud that he’s maturing into a responsible young man. Unfortunately, Aaron can’t kick his volatile relationship with Mae Potter, the magnetic but self-destructive daughter of a prominent local family. Both families are alarmed when Aaron and Mae drop off the radar; then Aaron finally returns alone. He claims they had a fight while camping and that he hitchhiked home and doesn’t know where Mae is. Mae’s body is soon found, and her autopsy reveals that she was strangled. When Aaron is arrested, Rusty agrees to defend him even though it places his future with Bea on the line. He’ll be fighting uphill. Aaron is Black, has a record, and the population in that section of the state is overwhelmingly white. The trial that follows is a master class in legal suspense as Turow weaves together the devastation of Aaron and Mae’s families, simmering racial prejudice, and the impact of small-town politics within a framework of deliciously tense courtroom dynamics. This is manna for legal-thriller fans.
HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Given the hit Apple TV+ adaptation of Presumed Innocent, readers will be avid for this conclusion to the trilogy. – Starred Booklist Review
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Happy reading!
Linda Reimer, SSCL
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Note: Book summaries are from the respective publishers unless otherwise specified.
The Digital Catalog, is an online catalog containing eBooks, eAudiobooks, and digital magazines. You can use your library card and checkout content on a PC; you can also use the companion app, Libby, to access titles on your mobile devices; so you can enjoy eBooks and eAudiobooks on the go!
All card holders of all Southern Tier Library System member libraries can check out items from the Digital Catalog.
The Hoopla Catalog features on demand checkouts of eBooks, eAudiobooks, comic books, albums, movies and TV shows. Patron check out limit is 10 items per month.
Hoopla is a Southeast Steuben County Library service available to all Southeast Steuben County Library card holders.
The Hoopla companion app, also called Hoopla is available for mobile devices, smart TVs & media streaming players.
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.
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Have questions about how to access Internet based content (i.e. eBooks, eAudios)? Feel free to drop by the Reference Desk or call the library and we will assist you! The library’s telephone number is: 607-936-3713.
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Tech & Book Talk is a Southeast Steuben County Library blog.
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.
–
Tech Talk is a Southeast Steuben County Library blog.
Video recordings of each weekly book talk will be available on the library’s YouTube page shortly after the Wednesday afternoon programs, and I will also share the links each week via blog post.
Tech & Book Talk at SSCL 