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New Adult Nonfiction — March 2023

Published on by Emily DuGranrut

Are you a history buff? Amateur chef? Thinking about getting some backyard chickens? We have the books for you! Read up on these new nonfiction titles and pick one up today!

First up we have The Ship Beneath the Ice: The Discovery of Shackleton’s Endurance by Mensun Bound. This book tells the extraordinary story of how the Endurance, Ernest Shackleton’s legendary lost ship, was found in the most hostile sea on Earth, told by the expedition’s Director of Exploration. Complete with captivating photos from the 1914 expedition and of the wreck as Bound and his team found it, this inspiring modern-day adventure narrative captures the intrepid spirit that joins two mariners across the centuries—both of whom accomplished the impossible.

If you’re looking for a way to spice up your dinners, look no further than Yogurt & Whey: Recipes of an Iranian Immigrant Life by Homa Dashtaki. As founder of the much-loved The White Moustache Yogurt company, Dashtaki employs the same traditionally Iranian methods of making yogurt that her family has for generations in her kitchen today. Her passion culminates in inspiring the use of a new ingredient: why, the liquid gold extracted from straining homemade yogurt.

Under the Henfluence: Inside the World of Backyard Chickens and the People Who Love Them by Tove Danovich is part memoir, part animal welfare reporting. From a hatchery in Iowa to a chicken show in Ohio to a rooster rescue in Minnesota, Danovich interviews the people breeding, training, healing, and, most importantly, adoring chickens.

Have you ever wondered why Bernie Madoff thought he could brazenly steal his clients’ money? Or why investors were so easily duped by Elizabeth Holmes? Or how courageous people like Jeffrey Wigand are willing to become whistleblowers and put their careers on the line? Then you need to check out Fool Me Once: Scams, Stories, and Secrets from the Trillion-Dollar Fraud Industry by Kelly Richmond Pope.

As graphic artist Rhea Ewing neared college graduation in 2012, they became consumed by the question: What is gender? This obsession sparked a quest in which they eagerly approached both friends and strangers in their quiet Midwest town for interviews to turn into comics. A decade later, Fine: A Comic About Gender came about. This graphic novel is sure to intrigue!

Grab something new at the library today!

All book descriptions courtesy of the publisher.

Book Review | Bonding: A Love Story About People and Their Parasites by Matthew Erman—

Published on by Emily DuGranrut

From the publisher:  “Wear your heart on your sleeve.”  That’s the saying. But in BONDING, people wear their anxiety on their chests – in the form of a  parasite that shows everyone just what you’re feeling on the inside …

Bonding is a love story (or more accurately, two generations of love stories) set in a dystopian future – one in which humans are now forcibly bonded to slug-like alien creatures which feed on their blood plasma and hang off their chests like grotesque living neckties. The story begins a couple generations after the invasion, when humanity has adapted to (if not exactly accepted) the presence of these slugs. Teens Marcus and Laura go on a disastrous first date, in which Marcus nearly dies after his slug unbonds from him, but Marcus survives and he and Laura end up getting together. Eventually the story jumps a generation and follows Marus and Laura’s teenage son Ira, who is in a long-distance relationship with Elegant and is desperate to come visit her. His plans are thrown into disarray by a catastrophic event called the Blooming causes people’s slugs to die en masse.
While this graphic novel sports beautiful art and a really cool premise, it unfortunately doesn’t really deliver in terms of story or characters. The biggest problem is the disjointed nature of the story; the narrative skips around Marcus and Laura’s first date to several years into their relationship, to many years later when they’re adults and their son is suddenly the main character. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really spend enough time on either Marcus and Laura or on Ira and Elegant for the reader to get invested in either pairing. Neither does the story explore the circumstances that led to the entire human race becoming bonded to the slug parasites,. The only explanation is a few vague references to a past war that humanity didn’t win. As a result, neither the sci-fi premise nor the romantic relationships are developed enough to be really interesting.
That said, while this story wasn’t for me, it might appeal to other readers who like quick romance stories featuring characters coping with mental health issues.
Bonding: A Love Story About People and Their Parasites is available at Galesburg Public Library in the graphic novel collection.

St. Patrick’s Day Reads

Published on by Emily DuGranrut

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Some of you will be going out to enjoy some green beverages and others will eat corned beef for dinner. Either way, it’s the perfect time to enjoy some Irish-themed reads! Grab these titles for your St. Patty’s enjoyment!

Normal People by Sally Rooney is a favorite among GPL patrons, and for a good reason. It tells the story of Connell and Marianne, who pretend not to know each other at school. He’s popular and well-adjusted, star of the school soccer team while she is lonely, proud, and intensely private. But when Connell comes to pick his mother up from her housekeeping job at Marianne’s house, a strange and indelible connection grows between the two teenages—one they are determined to conceal.

A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years in college, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. Then as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other.

If you’re a nonfiction lover, Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe is a great read. It’s a mesmerizing book on the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland and its aftermath, using the case of Jean McConville as a starting point for the tale of a society wracked by a guerilla war, a war whose consequences have never been reckoned with. The brutal violence seared by not only people like the McConville children, but also the I.R.A. members embittered by a peace that fell far short of the goal of a united Ireland, and left them wondering whether the killings they committed were not justified acts of war, but simple murders.

If you’ve read Say Nothing and want a little more Irish history, check out How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland’s Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe. In this delightful and illuminating look into a crucial but little-known “hinge” of history, Thomas Cahill takes us to the “island of saints and scholars,” the Ireland of St. Patrick and the Book ofKells. Here, far from the barbarian despoliation of the continent, monks and scribes laboriously, lovingly, even playfully preserved the west’s written treasures. With the return of stability in Europe, these Irish scholars were instrumental in spreading learning. Thus the Irish not only were conservators of civilization, but became shapers of the medieval mind, putting their unique stamp on western culture.

If all that sounds a little heavy, maybe The Harp of Kings by Juliet Marillier is more up your alley. The young adult fantasy tells the story of eighteen-year-old Liobhan, a powerful singer and an expert whistle player. Her brother has a voice to melt the hardest heart, and a rare talent on the harp. But Liobhan’s burning ambition is to join the elite warrior band on Swan Island. She and her brother train there to compete for places, and find themselves joining a mission while still candidates. Their unusual blend of skills makes them ideal for this particular job, which requires going undercover as traveling minstrels. For Swan Island trains both warriors and spies.

From the Archives: Digitizing VHS

Published on by Emily DuGranrut

Thanks to some wonderful volunteers and student workers, we’ve started a project to digitize the VHS tapes in the special collections. 

The tapes include everything from old news broadcasts, high school graduations, interviews and more. Check out this one, a library presentation from 1992. See any familiar faces?

Library Presentation

If you’re interested in helping with the digitization project, or want to volunteer for other projects in the archives, contact our archivist at archives@galesburglibrary.org.

New Adult Fiction — March 2023

Published on by Emily DuGranrut

Spring is just around the corner, which means we’re getting lots of rainy days. What better way to enjoy the showers than curling up next to the window with a good book? This week is mystery week, with five new books that hit the shelves recently, ready for you to check out or put on hold!

Up first, we have Wolf Trap by Connor Sullivan. This thriller/mystery tells the story of over three hundred highly-trained agents who operate in the darkest shadows of the country’s covert wars. Plucked from the highest echelons of America’s special mission units, these individuals go through rigorous training by the Agency to perfect the arts of assassination, sabotage, infiltration, and guerrilla warfare.

Another thriller/mystery also hit the shelves this week: Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murders by Jesse Q. Sutano. You see, Vera Wong is a lonely little old lady—or rather, lady of a certain age—who lives above her forgotten tea shop in the middle of San Francisco’s Chinatown. Despite living alone, Vera is not needy, oh no. She likes nothing more than sipping on a good cup of Wulong and doing some healthy detective work on the Internet about what her Gen-Z son is up to.

Then one morning, Vera trudges downstairs to find a curious thing: a dead man in the middle of her tea shop. In his outstretched hand, a flash drive. Vera doesn’t know what comes over her, but after calling the cops like any good citizen would, she sort of… swipes the flash drive from the body and tucks it safely into the pocket of her apron. Why? Because Vera is sure she would do a better job than the police possibly could, because nobody sniffs out a wrongdoing quite like a suspicious Chinese mother with time on her hands.

Traditional mystery is some of the most popular here at GPL, and the 32nd installment of Donna Leon’s bestselling series Commissario Brunetti, So Shall You Reap is sure to delight. On a November evening, Guido Brunetti and Paola are up late when a call from his colleague Ispettore Vianello arrives, alerting the COmmissario that a hand has been seen in one of Venice’s canals. The body is soon found, and Brunetti is assigned to investigate the murder of an undocumented Sri Lankan immigrant. Because no official record of the man’s presence in Venice exists, Brunetti is forced to use the city’s far richer sources of information: gossip and the memories of people who knew the victim. 

Robert B. Parker’s Revenge Tour by Mike Lupica is another mystery for your reading list. In this entry in the Sunny Randall series, Melanie Joan Hall is back in Boston, riding high, refusing to have Sunny and Rosie move out. She has a Netflix series about to start shooting in Boston, based on her wildly popular new series of books for girls. Then it turns out that most of her fortune is gone. And her manager, who was in charge of the money, turns up dead. He’s been with her a long time. When Sunny begins to investigate, she discovers that a lot of Melanie Joan’s past is a product of her amazing imagination. And then Sunny’s loyalty to her old friend is challenged by her loyalty to finding the truth.

Last but not least, we have Red Queen by Juan Gómez-Jurado. This thriller, which sold 2 million copies when released in Spain, introduces Antonia Scott, the daughter of a British diplomat and a Spanish mother. Antonia is gifted with a forensic mind, whose ability to reconstruct crimes and solves baffling murders is legendary. But after a personal trauma, she’s refused to continue her work or even leave her apartment.

All book descriptions courtesy of the publisher.

Book Review | Antimatter Blues by Edward Ashton

Published on by Emily DuGranrut

From the publisher: Summer has come to Niflheim. The lichens are growing, the six-winged bat-things are chirping, and much to his own surprise, Mickey Barnes is still alive—that last part thanks almost entirely to the fact that Commander Marshall believes that the colony’s creeper neighbors are holding an antimatter bomb, and that Mickey is the only one who’s keeping them from using it. Mickey’s just another colonist now. Instead of cleaning out the reactor core, he spends his time these days cleaning out the rabbit hutches. It’s not a bad life. It’s not going to last.

Antimatter Blues is a sequel, and although you probably can read this book without reading the first, I wouldn’t recommend it. You’ll get a lot more out of Antimatter Blues if you’ve read Mickey7. In the first book, one man (Mickey) is an expendable. This means his consciousness is downloaded so that when he is killed doing something dangerous, a clone can be produced and his consciousness uploaded. This is not a popular job, and by the end of book 1 Mickey has managed to retire from being an expendable. But space is a harsh place. Various people trying to inhabit various planets in both books have learned that the hard way. In Antimatter Blues, new perils and an unsympathetic commander complicate and endanger Mickey’s life.

There is a sentient, intelligent species already living on the planet that Mickey and friends are trying to colonize, and we learn a lot more about them in Antimatter Blues. I personally love meeting intelligent alien species who don’t immediately want to vaporize humans. This book was a lot of fun, and while some things were predictable, it kept me guessing. At one point I surprised myself by putting the book down for a breather when things got a little tense. There’s some humor and some romance, Mickey is a likable narrator, and the dialog is realistic and the banter snappy. Maybe it’s not treading new ground, but I like going over old ground sometimes. (That’s why I enjoy watching all the Star Trek series!)

Is there going to be another book in the series? It seems like there is plenty of room for growth with this cast of characters and their struggle to survive on a hostile planet, but Antimatter Blues also wrapped up very neatly. If there is another book in the series, I will eagerly read it.

I read an advance reader copy from Netgalley.

If you are looking for something to read while waiting for the next book in the Murderbot Diaries, you might enjoy Mickey7 and Antimatter Blues. The Galesburg Public Library owns Mickey7 in print, digital, and audio and will own Antimatter Blues in the same formats when it is published in March.

New YA & Children’s Books — February 2023

Published on by Emily DuGranrut

The Galesburg Public Library has books for all ages! This week, we’re sharing some of our newest children’s and YA books that have hit the shelves. Don’t forget to put one on hold if you want to check it out!

In the Young Adult section, we’ve got five new titles for you to try. The first two are part of the Walking in Two Worlds Series: Walking in Two Worlds and The Everlasting Road, both by Web Kinew. The first book introduces Bugz, a young girl caught between two worlds. In the real world, she’s a shy and self-conscious Indigenous teen who faces the stresses of teenage angst and life on the Rez. But in the virtual world, her alter ego is not just confident but dominant in a massively multiplayer video game universe. Meanwhile, Feng is a teen boy who has been sent from China to live with his aunt, a doctor on the Rez, after his online activity suggests he may be developing extremist sympathies. Meeting each other in real life, as well as in the virtual world, Bugz and Feng immediately relate to each other as outsiders and as avid gamers. And as their connection is strengthened through their virtual adventures, they find that they have much in common in the real world, too. 

The Stolen Heir by Holly Black is another YA title fresh on the shelves. In this fantasy book, eight years have passed since the Battle of the Serpent. But in the icy north, Lady Nore of the Court of Teeth has reclaimed the Ice Needle Citadel. There, she is using an ancient relic to create monsters of stick and snow who will do her bidding and exact her revenge. 

If you want something more spooky, try Man Made Monsters by Andrea L. Rogers. Making her YA debut, Cherokee writer Rogers takes her place as one of the most striking voices of the horror renaissance that has swept the last decade. This collection includes werewolves, vampires, and zombies—all the time-worn horror baddies are there. But so are predators of a distinctly American variety: the horrors of empire, of intimate partner violence, of dispossession. And so too the monsters of Rogers’ imagination, that draw upon long-told Cherokee stories—of Deer Woman, fantastical sea creatures, and more.

We didn’t forget about comic fans. The Winter Soldier: Cold Front by Mackenzi Lee chronicles the life of Bucky Barnes. In 1941, as World War II begins, sixteen-year-old Bucky Barnes is determined to enlist in the US army—if only the local commander will stop getting in his way. When Bucky is offered enrollment in a training program with the British Special Operations Executive—the UK’s secret service—he leaps at the chance to become a hero. But Bucky has hardly touched down in London when he finds himself running from a mysterious assassin and accompanied by an English chess champion fond of red lipstick and double crosses. She’s in possession of a secret every side is desperate to get their hands on. If only they knew what it was…

If you’re looking for something for a younger audience, we’ve got you covered. The Mirrorwood by Deva Fagan is a middle grade fantasy. Fable has been cursed by what the people of her village call the Blight, a twisted enchantment that leaves her without a face of her own. To stay alive, Fable has to steal the faces of others, making her an outcast that no one trusts. When the fierce Blighthunter Vycorax comes to kill Fable to stop her curse from spreading, Fable narrowly escapes by fleeing into the thorny woods surrounding her small village.

The kiddos have something to read here at GPL as well. The Rainbow Snail by Karin Åkesson has educational appeal, as young readers follow a brave little creature’s exciting adventure while learning the colors of the rainbow. In The Longest Journey: An Arctic Tern’s Migration by Amy Hevron, we learn about arctic terns, who in their thirty-year lifetimes, will travel nearly 1.5 million miles—enough to fly to the Moon and back three times! Meanwhile, in Stars of the Night by Caren Stelson, your children can get the perspective of the children who were rescued from Czechoslovakia on the eve of World War II, as Hitler’s campaign of hatred toward Jews and political dissidents took hold.

Stop by the library to grab any of these titles—and more!

Book Review | Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: The High Country by John Jackson Miller

Published on by Emily DuGranrut

From the publisher: When an experimental shuttlecraft fails, Captain Christopher Pike suspects a mechanical malfunction—only to discover the very principles on which Starfleet bases its technology have simply stopped functioning. He and his crewmates are forced to abandon ship in a dangerous maneuver that scatters their party across the strangest new world they’ve ever encountered.

Strange New Worlds: The High Country is a pretty darn good Star Trek novel. I’m a huge fan of Star Trek TV series and movies, but I don’t read a lot of the books. I’d say I’ve found more of them to be disappointing than satisfactory.

This is the first book in the Strange New World series and I enjoyed it. Author John Jackson Miller does a good job of presenting the new crew of the old Enterprise. The characters we see most are Captain Pike, Lieutenant Spock, Lieutenant Commander Chin-Riley, and Ensign Uhura. The best parts of the novel are when two or more of them are interacting. My one complaint about the book is that there is an overly long stretch when they are separated, and we spend way too much time watching Captain Pike build towers and ride horses and cowboy it up while trying to get along with the local people (who we don’t know and will probably never see again). Yawn.

The book opens with the four mentioned above in an experimental shuttle. It’s quite a stretch to have Pike AND Number One AND Spock all leave the Enterprise at the same time, but the author does the best job he can explaining that away. I love Uhura on the new show; the actor is terrific, and the author of this book does a good job capturing how Uhura is portrayed. She has a wonderful storyline with a new species that involves some creative communicating. It really spotlights what Uhura brings to the table.

The plot is complicated and has a lot of throwbacks to previous Star Trek incidents. Many of the plot devices are familiar ones; I would have liked a bit more originality in terms of how the species running the planet behaves behind the scenes. But overall, I felt the novel did a good job portraying the characters we know from the series. There’s a good chance I will read a second Strange New Worlds novel.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: The High Country is available now in print and as an ebook from the Galesburg Public Library.

Book Review | The Golden Spoon — Jessa Maxwell

Published on by Emily DuGranrut

From the publisher: A killer is on the loose when someone turns up dead on the set of a hit TV baking competition in this darkly beguiling debut mystery.

I gobbled up The Golden Spoon in one afternoon. A cast of characters assembles for Bake Week, a long-running reality TV show that challenges six chefs to make desserts. The current season’s cast includes a former journalist running from a trauma at her last job; a young prodigy from Minnesota who bakes pies for the local diner; a precise, detail-oriented math teacher from New York; a bored millionaire former CEO of a tech startup; a retired nurse who specializes in traditional recipes; and a hobbyist baker whose day job is restoring old buildings. The characters weren’t as distinct as I would have liked, but they are a diverse cast.

The six contestants gather at the palatial home of America’s Grandmother, Betsy Martin, who started the show and has been judging it for nine years. Much to her annoyance, joining her this season is the host of a cutthroat cooking show, Archie Morris, who is fighting off middle age but still a smooth charmer.

The Golden Spoon is not about the mystery, many aspects of which I guessed long before they were revealed. It’s about the show. I don’t watch reality TV, and I have to guess this book will appeal even more to people who understand the baking terms and how challenging some of the desserts are to make. I do love dessert, and this book made my mouth water.

Although a prologue tells the reader someone is dead, two weeks of activity take place before we return to the crime. There are current mysteries, and a mystery from long ago. The Golden Spoon is a frothy dessert, full of sweets, friendship, and found families. Is this a great book? No. Is this a fun read? Yes. Unlike the book’s publicity, I personally would not put it in the same category as books by Anthony Horowitz and Richard Osman, but a TV series is in development, and with the right cast it will probably be terrific. I read a print advance reader copy.

This debut novel is available at the Galesburg Public Library in print, in audiobook, and as an ebook.

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