Read On! Summer Reads

It was a summer full of reading for your Pryor library staff. Here’s a short list of the books we enjoyed most this summer:

For Fiction Readers:  

“Cold Earth” by Ann Cleeves (found in adult fiction) is the latest in Cleeves’ “Shetland” series. The series is set in Scotland’s Shetland Islands and follows detective Jimmy Perez as he solves crimes on these remote islands.

“The Magic Misfits” by Neil Patrick Harris (found in Overdrive, our ebook library) is the tale of how young Carter went from being a street magician with his evil uncle to saving a small town from a con artist’s carnival and gaining much needed friends along the way.

“The End of the World Running Club” by Adrian J. Walker (found in adult fiction) follows Edgar Hill who finds himself on the wrong side of the country when world-ending devastation strikes. His best hope to run through the 500 miles of wasteland that spans between him and his family.

For Nonfiction Readers:

“#GIRLBOSS” by Sophia Amoruso (found in Overdrive, our ebook library) is inspired by Amoruso’s climb from being a grifting teenager to the founder and CEO of Nasty Gal, one of the fastest growing retailers in 2012. Amoruso offers advice for other non-traditional leaders on how to trust their instincts and blaze their own path.

“The Truth About Animals: Stoned sloths, lovelorn hippos, and other tales from the wild side of wildlife” by Lucy Cook (found at 590.2 COO) offers surprising and humorous facts about animals, debunks some common myths, and is an all-around fun read.

“Wild Embers: Poems of rebellion, fire, and beauty” by Nikita Gill (found at 821 GIL) is a book of poetry that explores “the fire in every woman.” Highly recommended by the staff member who read it.

Of course, we have many more books to recommend! All you have to do is ask!

Read On! Fitness & Food

This year is going so quickly! Here we are in May. If you’re like many, May means the sudden realization that summer is coming. And summer coming means reevaluating that hastily made New Year’s resolution. You know the one. How’s it going? Yep. Me too.

If you want to reinvigorate a long-term goal of getting healthier, your library has you covered. From books about exercise and nutrition to cookbooks that will get you out of a cooking rut (or inspire you to start cooking with all the fruits and veggies coming into season), our collection is a good place to get inspiration.

Our staff will always help you find what you need, but if you’d like a place to start browsing, head over to the nonfiction collection. Generally speaking, diet and nutrition books are shelved at 613.2 while exercise plans are at 613.7. “Learning to Breathe Fire,” a book about Crossfit, is on my short list of things to check out.

For inspiration in the kitchen, check out 641.5. That’s where the cookbooks live. My spring project is to check out cookbooks and copy recipes for my personal library. “101 One-Dish Dinners” is my current favorite, but I’m pretty sure “300 Slow Cooker Favorites” will move up the list soon.

The above Dewey Decimal numbers will get you started, but it’s worth browsing beyond those general numbers in order to catch books that have a more specific focus. If you’re looking for something particular like the Paleo diet or cooking for diabetes, it’s worth asking staff or checking our catalog to save you some time.

You can access our catalog by going to www.pryorlibrary.org and clicking “Search the Library.” Our ebooks and downloadable audiobooks will come up in your searches too, so don’t forget about Overdrive.

Always remember: the best way to have a beach body is to take your body to the beach.

But wait, there’s more

“Happiness is finding the first good book in a series, and knowing there are more to follow,”

says a graphic we found on Facebook. That’s true, but so is the reverse: sadness is reaching the end of a series and knowing that it’s over, finito, the end.

Of course, it never completely has to be the end, as fanfiction writers will tell you (check out www.fanfiction.net for stories for every fandom you can imagine and a few you probably can’t.) And sometimes, just sometimes, those continuations, adaptations, and reimaginings make it into print.

Take The Flight of Gemma Hardy, by Margot Livesey.images

When the title character leaves boarding school – which she was shipped off to by an unkind aunt – she takes a position as an au pair in a mysterious house, inhabited by a rich, mercurial businessman and his young niece. Sound familiar yet? Jane Eyre it is, but as you’ve never seen it before. Gemma is from Iceland, the remote house is on the Orkney Islands, and the setting is the 1960s. Stylistically, it’s absolutely lovand another thingely, and fans of Jane Eyre will delight in noting the similarities to and differences from the source material.  

When Douglas Adams died in 2001, I assumed that the long-popular Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series was permanently at an end. Not so: in 2009, on the 30th anniversary of publish date of the original Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Eoin Colfer’s And Another Thing…, was published as the 6th book in the series. Following in the footsteps of an author with such a unique comedic voice had to be intimidating, but Colfer pulls it off with style.

Jane Austen, of course, is a perennial favorite.sands_trollope_cover

Besides the many, many adaptations and continuations already available, the Austen Project has undertaken to have famous authors rewrite Austen’s classic novels in modern day settings – perhaps inspired by the success of the Lizzie Bennet Diaries, a YouTube webshow that brought the Bennet sisters into the present day. Johanna Trollope’s Sense & Sensibility may have Marianne listening to music on an iPod rather than playing the piano, and gossip being traded via text rather than handwritten letters and whispered confidences, but her story sticks surprisingly close to the original plot.

There are so many more  – Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, What Happened to Anna K., The Wind Done Gone … These and many others prove that the end of the story isn’t always THE END.

[a version of this post was originally published in the Pryor Daily Times.]

Your library can help … flavor your dinner

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Marie clears leaves out of the garden.

Quick – what’s an easy way to jazz up almost any meal?

Fresh herbs, of course! And you can help yourself from the library’s herb garden any time, whether the library is open or not. If we’re here, we’ll be happy to help you identify and pick what you need.

Currently we are growing rosemary, thyme, chives, stevia, oregano, peppermint, and lemon balm, but check back often as our herb bed changes with the seasons.

For inspiration in using all these flavors, we recommend The Flavor Bible, by Karen Page.flavor bible

With thousands of flavor combinations from classic to inventive, your meals will never be the same!