Want to get started with a new book while you’re stuck at home but not sure where to start? Try one of these series with (currently) no wait time.
3 Series You Can Start Reading Right Now
Category: Fiction
“Lucky Day” eBooks
You may already know that Mead has a “lucky day” collection of books and movies – new items that are first-come, first-served but have no waitlist. But now, you also have access to Lucky Day ebooks and audiobooks through WPLC/Overdrive/Libby! “No waiting required – these popular titles are available now! 7 day loan period for ebooks and 14 day loan period for audiobooks.”
Looking for something to read right away? Like with the physical Lucky Day items, the selection may change, but here are three that I’ve read and enjoyed that were available as of Monday morning. You can also browse everything in the Lucky Day collection that’s currently available with this link: https://wplc.overdrive.com/wplc-89-116/content/collection/1046004
Blind Justice by Anne Perry
Anne Perry has multiple mystery series, but the William Monk series is my favorite – he is a London detective and later commander of the Thames River Police in Victorian England. If you can bear to wait, I would start with the first book in the series – The Face of a Stranger – but there’s enough background given that you’ll have no trouble jumping in here, either.
Continue reading ““Lucky Day” eBooks”Social Distancing with a Book Club
“Social Distancing” is an ubiquitous term these days with the spread of COVID-19, coronavirus, because it affects all of us. In simple terms, it means that we should avoid physical contact and close proximity to each other.
Book clubs are gatherings of readers sharing in discussion, and in the case of the Book to Art Club, sharing art supplies. Due to the spread of coronavirus many of us are cancelling in-person meetings for the foreseeable future. This is disappointing to do, but it helps protect you and your club members from getting sick, and that is extremely important. However, cancelling isn’t your only option. Clubs can meet virtually via video chat, like Skype, Zoom, Facebook Messenger, or Microsoft Teams, just to name a few, or through a conference telephone call.
The Mead Library Romance on the Rocks book club met this week over Skype, and it worked well. It was new for many of us, so we struggled slightly with connecting to the group, versus everyone connecting individually with me because they connected through my Skype invitation, but that was easy to fix.
What you need to make this work is to create a group in Skype for your book club. Next, invite your members by email through the group to join. You can also add members to the group manually after they’ve created a Skype account. Then, all you and your participants need to do is click on the camera or phone icon at your designated meeting time. Skype allows participants to connect by video or phone, and covering your camera is always an option, for those who want to join the discussion but not be on camera.
The Moonlight & Murder book club will meet on Skype in April to discuss Alexander McCall Smith’s The Department of Sensitive Crimes, and the Book to Art Club will meet on Skype in April and May. These discussions are open to teens and adults.
The Book to Art Club discusses books while making hands-on projects, so to keep the making element, I have asked participants to work on a project at home during the discussion, and I hope to share pictures of the projects in our group Facebook album. April’s Book to Art Club read will be Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger, which will inspire steampunk projects related to a girls’ dirigible finishing and assassin school, and May’s discussion will be Nevermoor: the Trials of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend, a Harry Potter-like fantasy featuring a curse, a talent competition, umbrella traveling, a giant cat and magical rooms. I’ve included links on the book titles to make it easy to join these discussions, and I hope you will. Digital book copies may be available through digital sources such as Overdrive/Libby and RB Digital.
March 2020 Releases: Part 1
March 2020 is shaping up to be a huge month for new releases. Huge enough, in fact, that we’ve had to split it into two blog posts. Below, you’ll find the first seven of our trending new books. They are all in the library system already, so get on those waitlists quick! Descriptions below are provided by the publishers.
These Ghosts Are Family by Maisy Card – March 3
Stanford Solomon has a shocking, thirty-year-old secret. And it’s about to change the lives of everyone around him. Stanford Solomon is actually Abel Paisley, a man who faked his own death and stole the identity of his best friend.
And now, nearing the end of his life, Stanford is about to meet his firstborn daughter, Irene Paisley, a home health aide who has unwittingly shown up for her first day of work to tend to the father she thought was dead.
These Ghosts Are Family revolves around the consequences of Abel’s decision and tells the story of the Paisley family from colonial Jamaica to present day Harlem. There is Vera, whose widowhood forced her into the role of single mother. There are two daughters and a granddaughter who have never known they are related. And there are others, like the house boy who loved Vera, whose lives might have taken different courses if not for Abel Paisley’s actions.
These Ghosts Are Family explores the ways each character wrestles with their ghosts and struggles to forge independent identities outside of the family and their trauma. The result is an engrossing portrait of a family and individuals caught in the sweep of history, slavery, migration, and the more personal dramas of infidelity, lost love, and regret. This electric and luminous family saga announces the arrival of a new American talent.
Continue reading “March 2020 Releases: Part 1”Read These While You Wait
The downside to wanting to read a popular new book is that… everyone else also wants to read the popular new books. I took a look in our system, and below, you’ll find the five books that have the longest waitlists in the Monarch Library System. And after you put yourself on those waitlists (or not), you can also find a list of four similar books for each title – books without waitlists that you can read in the meantime!
#1 Most Popular: Blindside by James Patterson and James O. Born
While you wait, try:
■ New York Dead by Stuart Woods
■ Undercurrents by Ridley Pearson
■ Plum Island by Nelson DeMille
■ Close Your Eyes by Iris Johansen
8 Standout Books from January & February
Looking for a fresh voice to brighten up your winter reading list? Check out these 8 titles for stories of addiction, greed, magic, family, and an amazing debut from Nigeria.
Children’s Award Books
The American Library Association recently announced the winners of the 2020 Youth Media Awards. Materials for children and teens were selected by committees of literature and media specialists under different categories for their excellence. Below is a list of some of the notable award recipients. Be sure to click on the titles of those that interest you to reserve your own copy through our catalog.
John Newbery Medal
The John Newbery Medal is awarded annually by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children. This year’s winner is New Kid, written and illustrated by Jerry Craft. This is a graphic novel about a boy of color who begins attending a prestigious school in an upscale neighborhood, with a mostly white student body. He finds himself struggling to belong in his new school, as well as in his own neighborhood with old friends.
Four Newbery Honor Books were also named this year:
- The Undefeated, written by Kwame Alexander and illustrated by Kadir Nelson
- Scary Stories for Young Foxes, written by Christian McKay Heidicker and illustrated Junyi Wu
- Other Words for Home, written by Jasmine Warga
- Genesis Begins Again, written by Alicia D. Williams
Randolph Caldecott Medal
The Randolph Caldecott Medal is awarded annually by the ALSC to the artist of the most distinguished illustrated American children’s book. This year’s winner is The Undefeated, illustrated by Kadir Nelson and written by Kwame Alexander. This is a beautifully illustrated poetic picture book about the trials and tribulations of black Americans.
There were also three Caldecott Honor Books named this year:
- Bear Came Along, illustrated by LeUyen Phamand and written by Richard T. Morris
- Double Bass Blues, illustrated by Rudy Gutierrez and written by Andrea J. Loney
- Going Down Home with Daddy, illustrated by Daniel Minter and written by Kelly Starling Lyons
Michael L. Printz Award
The Michael L. Printz Award is administered by the Young Adult Library Services Association and sponsored by Booklist. It is awarded annually to a book that exemplifies literary excellence in young adult literature. This year’s winner is Dig, written by A.S. King. This is a surreal story of white privilege and a legacy of hate as experienced by five teenage cousins in a dysfunctional family.
Four Printz Honor Books were also named this year:
- The Beast Player, written by Nahoko Ueshashi
- Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me, written by Mariko Tamaki and illustrated by Rosemary Valero-O’Connell
- Ordinary Hazards: A Memoir, written by Nikki Grimes
- Where the World Ends, written by Geraldine McCaughrean
Pura Belpré Awards
Pura Belpré Awards are awarded annually by the ALSC and REFORMA. They are awarded to a Latinx writer and illustrator whose work best portrays, affirms, and celebrates the Latinx cultural experience.
The Pura Belpré Author Award winner this year is Sal and Gabi Break the Universe, written by Carlos Hernandez. This is a story about Sal, a thirteen-year-old magician, who teams up with Gabi, the student council president. Together, they try to uncover the mystery of how Sal breaks the universe.
The Pura Belpré Illustrator Award winner for this year is Dancing Hands: How Teresa Carreño Played the Piano for President Lincoln, illustrated by Rafael López and written by Margarita Engle. This is a delightfully illustrated picture book about the life of the Venezuelen born pianist Teresa Carreño, who by the age of nine, played the piano for President Lincoln at the White House.
Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal
The Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal is awarded annually by the ALSC to the author(s) and illustrator(s) of the most distinguished informational book published in the United States in English during the preceding year. The winner is Fry Bread Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story, written by Kevin Noble Maillard and illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal. This book shares the story of fry bread as a tradition for Native Americans across tribes and time. A recipe is included, along with an author’s note with more information on the history and cultural ties to fry bread.
Coretta Scott King Awards
The Coretta Scott King Awards are awarded annually by the ALA’s Ethnic and Multicultural Information Exchange Round Table. They are awarded to African-American authors and illustrators of books for children and young adults that demonstrate an appreciation of African American culture and universal human values. The King Author Book winner for this year is New Kid, written by Jerry Craft. The King Illustrator Book winner is The Undefeated, illustrated by Kadir Nelson and written by Kwame Alexander. New Kid also won the Newbery Medal and Undefeated also won the Caldecott Medal this year, scroll up for a summary for each of these.
Continue reading “Children’s Award Books”Throwback Thursday: 1970 Pulitzer Prizes
It’s hard to believe that 1970 is already half a century in the past! So I thought, for this Throwback Thursday, I would share with you the winners of the Pulitzer Prizes in poetry and fiction from fifty years ago. While we don’t have the individual book that won in poetry (Untitled Subjects), many of the poems from this book are contained in the author’s selected poems, which I have linked below.
Poetry: Untitled Subjects by Richard Howard (contained in this book)
Fiction: Collected Stories by Jean Stafford
Continue reading “Throwback Thursday: 1970 Pulitzer Prizes”I Have Issues
I spend too much time talking about movies and games, so this month I am doing something different. I go through bouts where I get absorbed into comic series. This month I thought I would share some of my favorites. The items in this blog post will take you to the first volume of the series in Mead’s collection.
The Black Monday Murders
The Black Monday Murders is a blend of noir mystery and occult horror. The gist of the series’ story is that bankers are being murdered in horrific, cult-like ways. As Detective Dumas follows the clues, he discovers that there is a world of magic schools hidden behind international banking. The premise tickles my fancy, but what has stuck with me is the use of color and shadow. The art is surreal at times, but somehow the color and shadow ground it. I feel like this one, in particular, is the hidden-ish gem of this blog post, but I have to do my due diligence to mention this series is on hiatus. The artist and co-creator, Tomm Coker, had to step away due to some health concerns, so this series currently stops after volume two.
Continue reading “I Have Issues”Looking Back at the 2010s
An era has come to an end. Goodbye, 2010s. Hello, 2020. I figured for this month’s blog post that I’d look back and share some of my favorite games of the decade.
Minecraft (PS4/Xbox One)
As a freshman in college, I had been reading about this new game that people were amazed by. You could build anything you could imagine they said! There was just one catch. Everything was made of cubes. I decided I would look into this Minecraft. It was the first game I ever bought that was in an incomplete state. When I bought it, there was only the one mode that would later be called Creative Mode. I didn’t play it too much in that state. Eventually, I would play the new Hardcore Mode, usually dying from falling into lava, and then for a bit on private servers.
Continue reading “Looking Back at the 2010s”
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