What's Oskaloosa Reading?

Over on Facebook last Sunday, we asked our followers, "What book(s) are you reading?" From classics to hipster lit to contemporary Young Adult, Oskaloosa's reading tastes proved to be diverse! Here's a look at what our community is currently reading:

The Thirteenth Tale
by Diane Setterfield

When her health begins failing, the mysterious author Vida Winter decides to let Margaret Lea, a biographer, write the truth about her life, but Margaret needs to verify the facts since Vida has a history of telling outlandish tales.

Paper Towns*
by John Green

One month before graduating from his Central Florida high school, Quentin "Q" Jacobsen basks in the predictable boringness of his life until the beautiful and exciting Margo Roth Spiegelman, Q's neighbor and classmate, takes him on a midnight adventure and then mysteriously disappears.

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore*
by Robin Sloan

After a layoff during the Great Recession sidelines his tech career, Clay Jannon takes a job at the titular bookstore in San Francisco, and soon realizes that the establishment is a facade for a strange secret.

Twelve Years a Slave
by Solomon Northup

The story of Solomon Northup is a bizarre and incredible one. Born a free black in New York State in 1808, he was kidnapped in Washington, D.C., in 1841, and spent most of the next 12 years as a slave on a Louisiana cotton plantation. His years in this condition of servitude were filled with abuse, apprehension, and a profound fear for his life.

The Burgess Boys
by Elizabeth Strout

Catalyzed by a nephew's thoughtless prank, a pair of brothers confront painful psychological issues surrounding the freak accident that killed their father when they were boys, a loss linked to a heartbreaking deception that shaped their personal and professional lives.

The Promise*
by Dan Walsh and Gary Smalley

For the last five months, Tom Anderson has been without a job, and hiding the fact from his wife Jean. He leaves each morning and spends his day rotating through two coffee shops and the library, using their wi-fi to search for a job on the Internet. The stress is slowly destroying the bond between Tom and Jean. Can their mutual trust - and love - be restored?

The Night She Disappeared*
by April Henry

Told from various viewpoints, Gabie and Drew set out to prove that their missing co-worker Kayla is not dead, and to find her before she is, while the police search for her body and the man who abducted her.

Infinite Jest
by David Foster Wallace

Equal parts philosophical quest and screwball comedy, Infinite Jest bends every rule of fiction, features a huge cast and multilevel narrative, and questions essential elements of American culture - our entertainments, our addictions, our relationships, our pleasures, our abilities to define ourselves.

The Goldfinch
by Donna Tartt

A young boy in New York City, Theo Decker, miraculously survives an accident that takes the life of his mother. Alone and abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by a friend's family and struggles to make sense of his new life. In the years that follow, he becomes entranced by one of the few things that reminds him of his mother: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the art underworld.

Love for Sale
by Jill Churchill

Sister and brother Lily and Robert Brewster, raised in the lap of luxury, may no longer have a penny to their names, but at least they have a roof over their heads - which is more than many can say in this bleak November of 1932.






If you would like to read any of these books too, you can click on the title and place a hold with your library card number in our online catalog. Titles marked with a * are not currently available in our catalog. If you would like to request that the library purchase one, you can fill out a suggestion for purchase form on our website.

(All book descriptions taken from WorldCat or our online catalog.)

Staff Pick: Of Beast and Beauty

Stacey Jay's Of Beast and Beauty is an action-packed adventure filled with magic, romance, and a lesson everyone can learn.

Hundreds of years ago the humans abandoned Earth and settled on a new planet. The people have become separated by the desert and the few domed cities that remain.

The Smooth Skins, people without mutation, reside inside the domed cities. The Monstrous are the desert dwellers. They are considered non-human and are hated by the Smooth Skins for deformities. They suffer in the harsh terrain of the desert. The domed city of Yuan however, prospers due to the blood sacrifice of the queens who rule the city.

Isra is the blind princess of Yuan until a Monstrous attack takes the life of her father and gains her a prisoner and a new title. The Monstrous want the magic roses that grant vitality to Yuan for their dying people. The secrets of the dark magic behind the roses are revealed as Isra realizes her own people are more monstrous than the boy she has held captive.

Sometimes re-imagining a classic can be a dangerous effort, but Jay pulls it off perfectly. Adults and teens alike will love this re-telling of Beauty and the Beast. I couldn't put it down. If you'd like to check out Of Beast and Beauty, you can place a hold on it with your library card number by clicking here.

-Kilie

Author Event - Helen Boerjte at Book Vault

Local author, Helen Boerjte, will be appearing at Book Vault this Saturday, March 22nd at 10:30 am. to share about her recent release, When One Room Fit All.

The event is open and free to the public, and copies of her book will be available for purchase and signing at the event.

Helen's book gives an overview of the one room school houses in our area. It includes a township map, a list of teachers for each school, excerpts from old newspapers, and personal stories told to the author by former students and teachers.

At the event, Helen will be sharing stories and experiences from the unique history of the one room school houses and education in southern Iowa.

Our copies of Where One Room Fit All are currently on order, but you can put your name in to reserve it by clicking here and filling out the Request for Purchase form.

Staff Pick: Between by Jessica Warman

Elizabeth Valchar - pretty, popular, perfect - spends the night after her eighteenth birthday party on her family's yacht. She wakes up to investigate a thumping noise against the side of the boat. What she finds will change everything she thought she knew about her life, her friends, and everything in between.

As Liz begins to unravel the circumstances surrounding her birthday night, she will find that no one around her, least of all Liz herself, was perfect...or innocent.

By page 3, I was hooked. I had to find out what had happened and what had led up to it. This was the ultimate page-turner. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.


If you'd like to check out our copy of Between, you can place a hold on it with your library card number here.

-Susan

The Downton Abbey Book Club

Reading Recommendations for Downton Abbey Characters

A few of the staff here at the library, and we know many patrons, are big Downton Abbey fans. Some of us eagerly await each week's episode, while others, knowing it's aired and then released overseas before here, binge watch entire seasons at once. You can reserve our copy of Series 4 on DVD by clicking here! We decided put together this list of reading recommendations for some of our favorite - or least favorite - characters:


Character: Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham
Book: Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think by  Diamandis and Kotler

The Dowager Countess is well known for having a firm grip on matters and getting her way. However, modern technology is not one of those matters. From telephones to swivel chairs, any newfangled creation seems to discombobulate her - that's why we'd recommend Diamandis' and Kotler's Abundance. The authors consider human need by the categories water, food, energy, healthcare and freedom, and present several innovators who are making great improvements in each area. Though the Dowager Countess would probably take this title with a huge grain of salt, its positive outlook on the future, technology and innovation just might be enough to convince her thing's aren't so bad.


Character:  Lady Edith Crawley
Book: The Family Fortune by Laurie Horowitz

Poor Lady Edith, living in the shadows of the head strong Mary and the fair Sybil, she has such trouble determining what to do with her life. And forget love.  It seems that any man she expresses interest in is uninterested, too old, or outside of her father’s approval. Our first instinct for Lady Edith was Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice, but we felt that might have been a little too obvious.  Aiming for something a little more modern, we think she’d benefit from reading Laurie Horowitz’s The Family Fortune. Central character Jane, like Lady Eidith, is terminally single and nearing middle age. However, she devotes her time to the Fortune Family Foundation, a philanthropic institution that helps aspiring writers, including Jane’s first and only true love, Max Wellman.


Character: Beryl Patmore
Book: The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollen

Mrs. Patmore is conscious of making sure that the family upstairs always has something good to eat, whether they’re entertaining or just sharing dinner together.  She runs her kitchen like a battleship, ensuring everything is perfect and presentable, and, not to mention, done the old fashioned way. In his book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollen attempts to answer the important question, “Where did our food come from, and how did it get that way?”  He looks at the moral and ecological consequences of the food we consume and examines them in detail. We think Pollan’s book could further inform Mrs. Patmore’s decisions about the food she prepares for the household.


Character: Thomas Barrow
Book:  How Not to Be a Dick: An Everyday Etiquette Guide by Meghan Doherty

Thomas is probably our least favorite character on the show.  We find the way he behaves pretty terrible. How Not to Be a Dick is actually aimed at teenagers as they make their way to adulthood, explaining how to be a half decent person.  It’s filled with expert advice alongside illustrations of two young people who mean well, but don’t always behave so. They confront moments of potential dickishness throughout their normal day. Perhaps if Thomas read this book he’d learn a few lessons, but then again, that could make his life a lot more boring.

Staff Pick: Calamity Jane: The Woman and the Legend

Martha Canary - much more famously known as Calamity Jane - was born in my hometown of Princeton, Missouri in 1856.  Princeton is a small town in northern Missouri where they still celebrate "Calamity Jane Days" each year in the fall. I reckon since I "grew up" with Calamity Jane I am still fascinated with the history of her, and I and have found James McLaird's biography to be a well researched accounting of the rare historical facts that were recorded about her life.

We got the chance to visit Calamity's grave this summer in Deadwood where she is buried beside Wild Bill Hickok. But in the dead of winter, I can also head West - back into the non-fiction section - where she and other famous Western legends, outlaws and pioneers can be found.  Beside Calamity you'll find another one of my favorites "Women of the West," a book filled with archival photos, memoirs and diaries of brave pioneering women.  Along that same trail is Doc Holliday, Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley, and many pioneers who trekked toward the West.

If you would like to journey back into the Old West, check out one of my favorite sections, 978.02.  You can also check out this section in our on-line catalog.  Find Calamity Jane: The Woman and the Legend in the catalog and click "browse shelf" to see who all hangs out with her!

"Go West, young man!"  (or woman!)

- Nancy H

Staff Pick: The Happy Hooker

As a crocheter, I've looked through multiple books for patterns and stitch directions, but I have to say that The Happy Hooker by Debbie Stoller was one of the best ones I've found.

What impressed me the most was the fact that it actually went into the history of crochet, and in an interesting way. And not only are the patterns pretty, but they are also quite useful.

I believe The Happy Hooker would be a good book for any level crocheter, from just getting started through advanced, to take a look at. It includes a description of the most common yarns that can be used for crochet, the tools that are commonly used, and forty different stitch patterns that can be used by beginners as well as advanced crocheters. Not only that, it gives precise directions for the beginner just becoming acquainted with crochet.

If you'd like to check out The Happy Hooker, you can place a hold on it here with your library card number and PIN.

-Amber