Julie's Journal : FCL's Favorite App Based Games

I just took a scientific survey of the library staff and came up with 12 great apps for your enjoyment!  Unfortunately, Debbie isn't here today, so I can't include her favorites.  All of us use iPhones or iPads, so while most of these should be available for Android devices, I can't guarantee it. 

Lisa:

1.  Redecor - This is a home design game with various challenges.  You can vote on your favorite designs and if your design wins, more options become available.  Lisa says this is her favorite game!
2.  Happy Color - Happy Color is a color by number game.  Some of the pictures are quite intricate.
3.  Crossword Puzzle Redstone - Just a good basic app to challenge your brain with crossword puzzles.

Julie:

1.  Homescapes and Gardenscapes - These are both Match 3 games where every win gives you stars with which to remodel either a dilapidated mansion or garden.  Austin the Butler, along with a cast of characters give you challenges to complete.
2.  Looney Tunes: World of Mayhem - I love anything Looney Tunes so when my nephew clued me in to the existence of this game, I immediately downloaded it.  Characters battle each other by dropping anvils on each other or using gavels to whack each other senseless.  When your team wins, new abilities and characters are unlocked.   

Christian:

1.  Candy Crush Soda - A fun Match 3 game where you are helping Kimmy on her journey to find Tiff.  Over 3000 levels of Sodalicious fun!
2.  Bubble Witch 3 - By the same creators as Candy Crush, Bubble Witch 3 is a bubble shooter game.  Your goal is to help Stella solve the puzzles to rescue the Fairy Queen. 
3.  Hidden City - Hidden City is a hidden object game.  There are 69 locations to search and over 5000 quests to complete.  The game includes challenges and mini-games in addition to the hidden object quests. 

Kass:

1.  Tap Tap Fish - uses a simple tapping action to gain points and build an aquarium
2.  Neko Atsume - Attract cats with food and then watch them play with your toys.  Special items get rare cats to visit your neighborhood.
3.  Animal Crossing Pocket Camp - Animal Crossing games surged in popularity during the shut down.  The app based version lets you design a campsite, camper or cabin with furniture, clothing, and accessories.  Fulfill animal requests to make friends with them and invite them to your campsite. 

Julie's Journal : FCL Book Challenge Update

At the beginning of the year, we offered a book challenge with 20 books to read in different categories.  I thought I'd share with you a few thoughts about the books I've read so far for the challenge.  My chart of completions so far is below:

The 7 1/2 deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, by Stuart Turton was strange.  It is a science fiction take on the concept of Groundhog Day.  Aiden is living the same day over and over again.  He is trying to solve the mystery of Evelyn Hardcastle's murder.  However, he only gets to keep the memories of the last 7 days, so if he fails to solve the mystery he must start over with no recollection of previous attempts.  I'm not sure I'd recommend it.  It was hard to get into and to keep straight what was going on.  However, I got sucked in and wanted to know how it ended.

A Winter's Promise by Christelle Dabos was also very different.  The earth has been blasted apart and now exists in island like structures called Arks.  Ophelia's marriage is arranged with a diplomat from another Ark for the purpose of political alliance.  She must leave her own warm and casual existence to travel to her fiance's polar ark and learn to navigate the complicated political atmosphere.  This series of four books was originally written in French and only two have been translated into English so far.

Southern Lady Code by Helen Ellis was fun.  She is a Southern born and raised woman living in New York City.  Her short essays on life and clinging to her Southern traditions in the Big Apple are funny and sometimes uncouth.  I like essay collections for how easy they are to read just a little and have a complete story.  I enjoyed some of the essays more than others, but I think that's just to be expected.

I read His Majesty's Dragon, by Naomi Novik because I enjoyed her later two books Uprooted and Spinning Silver.  His Majesty's Dragon is set in the era of the Napoleonic Wars, but in this story, both sides have dragons in their arsenals.  Temeraire and his Captain, Laurence, are an unlikely pairing because Laurence was originally a sea captain, but after winning Temeraire's egg in battle the two become a team.  They quickly prove their value on the battlefield and Temeraire finds he has an unusual capability.  His roar has destructive powers.  The series has nine books in it and I'm almost finished with the second one now.  I'm really enjoying it.

Simone St. James's books are auto-reads for me now.  The Sundown Motel is set at a remote motel outside a small town in upstate New York.  Carly arrives in town and takes night clerk job at the motel.  It's the same job her Aunt Viv was working when she disappeared 35 years ago.  Carly hopes to find out what happened to Viv, but she will quickly find that there are more residents of the motel than those listed on the register.  St. James is very good at creating an eerie atmosphere for her ghosts to inhabit.

I've read Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility but I had never read Emma, by Jane Austen.  Emma is a head strong single girl who spends her days caring for her worrisome father.  She fancies herself a matchmaker, but is horribly bad at it and manages to mess up her friends' lives with her efforts.  Fortunately, in the way of all good regency novels, everyone ends up happily married in the end, including Emma.  I enjoyed Emma for the dry wit and laugh-out-loud moments.  Sometimes I got bogged down in the details of the book, but was able to skim over them to the best parts of the story.  Emma was first published in 1815 so it more than doubles the requirement for a book to be more than 100 years old.

I've written before on this blog about Mary Balogh's regency romance books.  They are light funreads and I have loved falling into her worlds and her characters lives.  I re-read  Someone to Trust because it suited my mood for something fun!

I read Gone With the Wind for Mr. Tom Wilkinson's seminar.  At 1,037 pages it well exceeded the 500 page requirement for the list.  Gone With the Wind begins at the very beginning of the Civil War and follows willful Scarlett O'Hara through the war and her three marriages, children, and Reconstruction.  Her foil is the daring and rebellious Rhett Butler.  They dance around each other through the whole book, but their marriage and life together don't begin until the last part of the story.  I found Scarlett charming and childlike at the beginning of the book, but those same characteristics became annoying as she aged, but didn't mature.

For the graphic novel category I read New Kid, by Jerry Craft.  I wasn't sure what to expect but once I settled into the comic book style I enjoyed the story.  Jordan Banks is African-American and his parents are sacrificing to send him to an up-scale private school far from his lower-income neighborhood.  He begins to find a place for himself in his new school, but then finds that it is harder to fit in with his friends at home.  He gradually learns to balance both sides of his life and to be himself.

I'll be honest and tell you that some of these books aren't available through Franklin County Library.  In fact I think I found the first three at the Houston Public Library's Overdrive site.  Does anything on my list catch your attention?  Do you have any recommendations for my remaining categories?

Julie's Journal : A Few Things I've Learned Recently

Johanna Basford's new coloring book, "Flourish" is free to download. - Johanna Basford is my favorite coloring book artist.  Pretty regularly, she puts coloring pages on her website for free download, but recently she made a new mini-book available in its entirety for free download.  It's called "Flourish" and contains 12 new illustrations for coloring.  I printed it twice thinking that I might do it once with pens and once with pencils but we'll see how it goes.  Pictured are my first attempts with pens.  You can find the download here.

How to make a fabulous cheese danish at home. - Do you like a good cheese danish?  Well, the Pioneer Woman published a recipe on her website that was incredibly easy.  I've made these twice now, and they are wonderful!  They use puff pastry, which only requires thawing to be ready to go.  The hardest part for me is remembering to thaw the puff pastry and let the cream cheese come to room temperature. I didn't get a good picture of my final product, so I'm including the Pioneer Woman's picture!
 Find the complete recipe here.  

It is hard to concentrate on a book during a pandemic. - I could not concentrate on a book while I was at home.  I just couldn't focus enough to fall into a story.  I think the constant barrage of news and the tension I was feeling about what would happen next really messed up my ability to focus.  I did manage to finish a couple of short story collections.  I also found non-fiction easier to read than fiction which really surprised me.  I guess I could dip in and out of it easier without losing my place in the story.  I was not the only reader who had difficulties.  I found a bevy of articles written by readers lamenting this very problem. 

Puzzles are great for settling a restless mind. - While reading couldn't hold my attention, I found that a jigsaw puzzle was good for quieting my over-stimulated mind.  My mom likes to give puzzles as gifts - the harder the better.  I found this puzzle she had given me several years ago.  It's billed as the World's Smallest 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle and the pieces were smaller than a penny.  It was very challenging and completing it gave me a huge feeling of accomplishment.  Now I want to find another puzzle.  I'd like one with a unique subject, but I'm not sure I want another tiny puzzle. 

Julie's Journal : What I've Been Reading - Quarantine Edition

You would think that with all the time I've been spending at home that I would be checking books off my to-be-read list like crazy.  It hasn't really worked out that way.  The first few weeks of quarantine have been interesting.  My husband and I have both been attempting to work from home, which is a totally new experience.  He is a teacher, and 5th graders and online instruction are an interesting combination to say the least!   As for me, so much of my job is done online anyway that I have been able to adjust somewhat, although I miss seeing all our patrons and facilitating the programs for kids that I've been doing for years.  Also, for a time, both before and after we closed the library, the news about the virus was changing so fast that I was always on edge, wondering what was going to happen next.  It has taken me awhile to adjust and settle down enough to be able to focus on a book or a crochet project or any other project for that matter.  I seem to have gotten past that though, so hopefully I can start knocking some books off my list. 

I did decide that now would be a good time to read some of those books that I have brought home and saved to read "when I have time". 

I have had three of Pam Jenoff's books on my shelf for awhile and I pulled "The Diplomat's Wife"  off at random.  I enjoyed the story about a Polish woman who survived a Nazi prison, only to lose her first love in an airplane crash.  Her marriage to a British diplomat leads to her involvement in a spy mission in Czechoslovakia.  The people she meets while attempting to carry out her mission, along with the things she learns along the way, end up changing her entire life.  Several of Ms. Jenoff's books are available on Overdrive/Libby, but I don't think this particular book is.

"Mimosa" by Amy Carmichael is an old book.  Written in 1924, it is the biography of an Indian woman whose life was changed by a short introduction to Christianity.  Amy Carmichael was a missionary in Dohnavur, India.  She spent her life there and the school she started still exists.  "Mimosa" tells the story of one young girl who lived her life as a Christian in spite of ridicule and persecution by her peers and her husband.  It was 22 years from the time Mimosa first heard of the Christian God until she was able to learn to read and study the Bible for herself.  The story is inspiring, and the book is short, but the writing is very flowery and I sometimes struggled to follow it.  However, I was glad I read it because a big part of the story was Mimosa's dependence on God to provide her needs.  I thought that part was very timely, as we are currently experiencing empty store shelves for the first time in my lifetime.  Reading Mimosa's story, I realized how little we truly need and how much abundance we have, even now.  I bought this on Amazon several years ago.  Unfortunately it is not available on Overdrive/Libby.  I didn't even see an option to buy it. 

At the beginning of March, before everything went crazy, I read the first book in the Young Adult series, "Truly Devious" by Maureen Johnson.  Stevie Bell is surprised when she is admitted to the prestigious and free Ellingham Academy.  She has been obsessed with solving crimes for years, and is particularly interested in the disappearance of the wife and daughter of Ellingham's founder in the 1930's.  When she gets to the school though, more modern day mysteries rear up to distract her.  The first book ends with the murder/accidental death of a student and the disappearance of another.  I finally started the second book, "The Vanishing Stair" last week and blew through it and the last book in the trilogy, "The Hand on the Wall," very quickly.  The series is the first YA I've read in awhile, and the first without a fantasy element in a very long while.  I enjoyed both the historic and present day mysteries in the story.  Some of the characters are pretty wild, but it made for an enjoyable boarding school read.  It is important to read the series in order.  To me it reads more as three parts of one book rather than three separate books.  The entire series is available on Overdrive/Libby.

So now I have a hard decision to make - What do I read next?  I have "Dean's Watch" by Elizabeth Goudge and "Bonhoeffer" by Eric Metaxas from my shelf or "The Authenticity Project" by Clare Pooley and "These Ghosts Are Family" by Maisy Card waiting on Libby.  Do I want something deep and difficult, or something light and easy?  I'll probably have time for both! 

Julie's Journal : COVID19

My last post was two weeks ago and since then a lot has changed.  Two weeks ago, the library was still open.  We had cancelled all our programs but were still attempting to keep normal open hours.  However, it quickly became clear that maintaining the recommended groups of 10 or less with 6 feet of spacing between people just wasn't going to be possible.  With great sadness we decided that we had to close to the public.  We attempted to do a curbside service where you would be able to drive up and have us deliver your books to you in your car, but again, it quickly became clear that it wasn't going to work.  Even though we were disinfecting materials and wearing gloves, we couldn't be confident that we weren't passing the virus from one patron to the next via our books and movies.  So, for the foreseeable future, our services will be completely digital. 

Please take advantage of our e-book library.  We have over 27,000 books and audio books available for you to check out.  Please don't be intimidated by the thought of using digital resources.  If you have a smart phone or a tablet with internet access, I can help you learn to use our digital library.  Basically, if you have the technology to read this blog post, you can access e-books.  If you have used e-books before but can't remember your login information or if you need help setting up your device for e-books for the first time we are available from 10-2 via phone or by email anytime.  Contact us at:

903-347-2037 from 10:00 to 12:00
903-347-2843 from 12:00 to 2:00
library@co.franklin.tx.us
jbaxter@co.franklin.tx.us
Facebook Messenger: Franklin County Library - Mt. Vernon

You can also contact us for book renewals, technology questions, and general information.  If there is anything we can do for you please don't hesitate to give us a call.  While it is true that our building is closed, your librarians are still here, working for you as much as is possible right now.

If you have physical materials checked out, you may return them in the night drop to the right of the door or you can just hang on to them for now.  We are not charging late fees for anything due during our closure. 

We don't know what the future looks like.  We cannot predict when we will be able to open back up for normal operations.  The President's remarks yesterday, along with the local case of COVID19 do not give me much hope that it will be soon.  However, please know that we so badly want to be serving you in our normal capacity.  Please continue to watch our Facebook page for the most up-to-date information about our services and any changes that may be made. 

Stay at home, wash your hands, and stay well.  I hope to see all of you soon.   

Julie's Journal : A New Normal

Wow!  The world has changed a lot in the last week or so.  Citizens are being advised to practice social distancing to avoid spreading the COVID19 virus.  Even if you are not in a high-risk group it is advisable to avoid groups of people in order not to endanger those among us who are more at risk. I found this article and its simulations quite interesting in learning the effectiveness of social distancing.  The newest guidelines recommend avoiding groups of 10 or more for the next 8 weeks and keeping a distance of 5-6 feet between people.  Unfortunately, it sounds like this crisis might get worse before it gets better.

Here at FCL we are open regular hours for now, but we have cancelled all our programs and events.  This includes Breakerspace, Robotics/Coding, Marvelous Mondays, Creative Hands, Alzheimer's Support Group, Circle of Friends Book Club, and any other programs we offer.  We look forward to resuming our regular activities as soon as possible.

In the meantime, e-books are a great option for those of you who are staying at home!  I did a little purchasing on Friday so there are some new titles available.  The books pictured should be available or have short wait times as they are only available for FCL patrons.  Some are available as e-audio books as well.  Give something new a try or revisit an old favorite.  As of today there are over 27,000 titles available so there is truly something for everyone!

If you need help setting up your device for e-books, give the library a call at 903-537-4916.  We'll be glad to walk you through the process and provide you with a username and password. 

I read The Sun Down Motel over the weekend.  I enjoyed this creepy ghost story which has some elements of horror but stops short of being truly terrifying. 

It's a whole new world, and things are changing quickly - by the hour it seems.  If Franklin County Library can assist you in any way please do not hesitate to give us a call.  Stay safe out there!

Tom's Two Cents : Plagued by Fire by Paul Hendrickson

Just when one thinks the last word has been written on the famous and infamous Frank Lloyd Wright, along come a new biography, much of it reading like a novel, covering both old and new ground.  Paul Hendrickson, a former journalist for The Washington Post, is of a sort, a novelist, a psychologist, and a genealogist, all rolled into one, for he is obviously not content just to dig out “the facts” about Wright and report them objectively.  He is searcher for that elusive thing we call “the truth,” something that in our day and time is perhaps more elusive than ever before.

For those of you not familiar with the hierarchy of American architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright has long dominated that field, though his name and reputation have often been eclipsed by others of equal note, though perhaps not of equal talent or genius.  Born in Wisconsin in 1869 of a sensitive clergyman/musician father and a highly neurotic, ambitious mother, Wright found his passion early in life, apprenticing in his early twenties to one of the founding fathers of American architecture, Louis Sullivan, in Chicago, not long after, breaking with his mentor to found his own unique “prairie style” and establishing a predominance in domestic architecture through the cultivation of wealthy avant-garde clients, who wanted to escape from the stereotypical Victorian house of the 1890’s.

Wright was famous by 1910 and a ‘has-been’ by 1930, having been eclipsed by the so-called “international style,” created in Germany in the 20’s by Arthur Gropius and Mies Van Der Rohe.

But he went on to re-capture his fame, producing some of his greatest and most famous works by living into his 90th year.  The controversial—to this day—Guggenheim Museum was still six months from completion when he died in 1959.  However, this biography, rather focusing solely on his work, goes into the considerable depth of his personal relationships, especially with women.  And surprisingly, it all begins in 1914, with the horrific murder of his mistress, Mamah Borthwick, her two children by her former husband, Edwin Cheney, and six of Wright’s student apprentices at his home and school, Taliesin, in Spring Green, Wisconsin.  In fact, the first two hundred pages of this book read more like a murder mystery than a biography, because of Hendrickson’s minute digging into the background and motivation—still shrouded in mystery even to this day—of the murderer, a Black man from Alabama, mistaken at the time as a refugee from the West Indies, who worked for Wright and his “family.”

This non-linear approach to biography proves to be as fascinating and challenging as the story itself, and even if you have read Nancy Horan’s Loving Frank, you should still find this work to be enormously appealing.  It’s, as is often the case, the “story behind the story” that is most fascinating!

3D Printer

Some time ago, FCL received a 3D printer through a grant.

We have spent A LOT of time figuring out how it works and what to do when it doesn't.

We have mastered using Thingiverse to download items to print and have even used Tinkercad to design our own bookmarks!

Lately, we have been playing with Flexi toys.  We really like these designs.  They print really well and are fun to play with!

The printer is now available for the public to use.  You may choose a file from Thingiverse or bring in a .stl file of your own on a flash drive.  You can also e-mail your .stl file to Julie.  There are a couple of things you must keep in mind if you want to use the printer.

• We cannot print anything that will take longer than a typical workday.  It is best to begin your print as early in the morning as possible.  

• Julie or Lisa must be available to assist you with the printer and oversee the printing process.

• Our printer bed is approximately 1 square foot.  Your print must be smaller in order to fit on the bed.

• In order to purchase filament for the printer, we must charge a fee for its use.  The fee is $3.00 for the first hour and $1.00 for every hour after that.  Unfortunately, it is difficult to know exactly how long a print will take until it is underway.  

Come on in and let us help you with your 3D creations!

Tom's Two Cents : Alexandra, the Last Czarina

Carolly Erickson’s biography of the last Empress of Russia has been sitting on my Russian bookshelves for a long time without being read—now I’ve come back to it after several years of trying to sort out all the multiple intrigues and complexities of the Russian Revolution/Civil War/WWI involvement, all of which were going on simultaneously in 1917-18.  If you put our American Revolution, Civil War, and World War I together and stir them all up in a mixing bowl, you might have some idea of what was going on in Russia during the early 20th century.  Like the Czarina, Tolstoy’s widow, Sophia, faced all these problems, virtually alone in her case, (Tolstoy had died in 1910), but at least she was relatively safe at the Tolstoy Estate near Tula, South of Moscow, while the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks were fighting it out in the Urals at Ekaterinburg, with the Romanov family held as pawns in a life and death chess game that ended oh, so tragically, in the summer of 1918.

Alexandra’s story begins in Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany—she was yet another of Queen Victoria’s grandchildren, in this case the child of Princess Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse, Victoria and Albert’s second oldest daughter, who like so many of the British Royals, had married into German Royal families.  In those days Germany lay in a period of unification of mostly small provinces, with the state of Prussia as the Prime Mover.  Kaiser Wilhelm (“Willy”) was himself Queen Victoria’s grandchild and Empress Alexandra’s first cousin, so the First World War split family asunder.  Queen Victoria’s Death in 1901 preceded all this, but family ramifications and ties still had a devastating effect on her relations in the first twenty years of the 20th century.  Now, in the time of Elizabeth II, it’s still very much about family, and it was something of a surprise to learn from this book that even before the age of the Tabloids, newspaper reporters hounded the Royals incessantly and produced salacious stories!  Alexandra and her religious attachment to the infamous holy man Rasputin were perfect fodder for such in those days.

Even more perhaps was her desire to keep the “family secret” from almost everyone, that secret being her hemophiliac son, Alexi, her youngest child, only son, and heir to the throne of Russia.  Only a mother can fully appreciate the terrible tribulations of raising such a child from infancy in the ever glaring spotlight of the Russian Court and a Dowager Empress Mother-in-Law (“Minnie,” the widow of Czar Alexander III), who disapproved of almost everything she did.  Alexandra was no Catherine the Great, of course, because it was her husband, Nicholas II, who had the real power, nonetheless she was perceived, and often rightly so, as the power behind the throne.

Erickson has a novelist’s grasp of her material and the striking ability to put you there, in time and place.  This is a woman’s story, but a family’s tragedy, one that still rings true and firm after over a century.  We are indeed just over one hundred years removed from it, but all the ingredients—Love, hate, wealth, power, lust, good and evil—are still very much with us today.

Julie's Journal : New E-book Purchases

Are you in the mood for a good read?  I've added nearly 60 titles to our e-book collection in the last month!  

I just checked out The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, by Kim Richardson.  I'm excited about reading it after hearing it and a similar novel, The Giver of Stars, discussed in the library.  The Giver of Stars, by Jojo Moyes is available as both a e-book and an e-audio book.  There is some controversy over the similarities of the two books and whether one author might have lifted parts of her story from the other.  I found this article about the controversy interesting.    

I'm also interested in reading Dear Edward, by Ann Napolitano, a new release about a boy who is the sole survivor of an airplane crash.  

Truly Devious and The Vanishing Stair, by Maureen Johnson are an interesting looking new Young Adult mystery series.  I hope to find time for them in the near future, too.

I've been enjoying books by Marisa de los Santos.  I just finished I'll Be Your Blue Sky which is a romance and mystery set in two different time periods.  I've decided that I really enjoy the story telling style of using multiple time-periods.  I'd like to read both Love Walked In and Belong to Me soon.  

The Day the World Came to Town, by Jim DeFede is one I've seen several times as being recommended or put on hold by our patrons.  It tells the true story of Gander, Newfoundland in Canada in the days after 9/11.  38 jetliners landed at the international airport there, and the town rallied around the Americans who were stranded while American airspace was closed.  

Other titles that I purchased this time include : Ali Cross, by James Patterson, A Better Man, by Louise Penny, Child's Play, by Danielle Steel,  The Dutch House, by Ann Patchett, The Family Upstairs, by Lisa Jewell, A Minute to Midnight, by David Baldacci, The Night Fire, by Michael Connelly, The Pioneers, by David McCullough, Anxious for Nothing, by Max Lucado,  Lavender & Mistletoe, by Donna Kaufman, and more!

I hope that I've added books that interest you!  I'll be buying e-books again soon, so if there's something you particularly want you can use the Recommend feature in Overdrive/Libby or just give me a call and let me know what you are wanting.  I'll do my best to fulfill as many requests as possible.    

Julie's Journal : FCL Book Challenge List Suggestions

FCL recently put out our annual Book Challenge - a list of suggestions for categories of books to broaden your reading horizons.  It's a fun way to discover new authors, genres, and stories.  However, some of the categories can be difficult to fill, so I have a few suggestions.

For a book becoming a move in 2020 I'm planning to read The Voyages of Doctor Doolittle by Hugh Lofting.  The movie Doolittle is coming out next week and it looks really well done.  I'm excited about seeing it!

Of course there are several other books being made into new movies this year.  The Outsiders by Stephen King, The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn, and Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie all have new adaptations coming to the big screen soon.

For a book published in 2020, I'm excited about reading The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson releasing February 25th, and The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Susan Collins releasing May 19th.  The Splendid and the Vile is a "compelling portrait of Winston Churchill and London during the Blitz", according to Amazon.  Larson's non-fiction titles are all very good and I'm always excited when he puts out something new. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is a prequel to the Hunger Games series.  All the information Amazon has on the book is that it begins on the morning of the reaping for the 10th Hunger Games.  I'm hopeful that the book will be just as good as the original trilogy.  Either of these titles could also complete the a book with a title that has more than 5 words category.

The category of a book by an author born the same year as you might be a little challenging.  I found a website that lists authors born in a certain year.  The link - found here - is set for my birth year, 1980, but you can toggle it up or down.  You'll have to scroll down a bit to find the list of authors, but you can click on each author's name to get a list of the books he/she has written.  It looks like I'll probably be reading a Young Adult book - maybe one by Ransom Riggs or Jenny Han.

A book more than 500 pages - I will be finishing Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (1037 pages) this year for Tom Wilkinson's ongoing seminar.  Last year, for the same seminar, I read Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry (858 pages).  Stephen King's newest novel The Institute would also qualify for this category  at 576 pages. 

Somehow, in compiling the challenge list, I ended up putting an award winning book on it twice.  Fortunately, there are many different types of awards out there for books.  The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead and All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr are two recent Pulitzer Prize Winners.  The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill is a Newberry winner that Christian recently read and said was very good.

For the category a graphic novel, the library has several to choose from.  I'm interested in Hey, Kiddo by Jarett Krosoczka. It is a memoir of the author's difficult childhood.  Graphic novels started out as mostly kids books, but we are gradually seeing more for adults.  This one is cataloged as a Youth book for ages about 12 - 15. 

I hope you enjoy the reading challenge and that it opens you up to books you might not have otherwise read.  If you need more suggestions just call or come by and I or one of the other staff members will try to figure out the perfect book for your category.   

Julie's Journal : Franklin County Library Patron Favorites for 2019

2019 is drawing to a close and I'm looking back at statistics for the year.  Our system allows me to see what books have been checked out the most at FCL over the last year.  Let's take a look at the top books regardless of genre or age group:

#1.  Where the Crawdad's Sing, by Delia Owens - Crawdad's was released in August of 2018, but has enjoyed continued popularity.  Both our copies, along with the audio, have stayed checked out most of the year.

#2.  The Dog-Man Series by Dav Pilkey - When I ran my report, the Dog-Man books took up four spots in the top ten, but I am consolidating the series into one item.  A graphic novel series, Dog-Man is particularly popular with pre-teen boys.

#3.  The Reckoning, by John Grisham

#4.  The Boy, by Tami Hoag

#5.  Long Road to Mercy, by David Baldacci

#6.  The Amulet Series, by Kazu Kibuishi - Also a graphic novel series popular with boys.  Young boys are some of the hardest of our patrons to recommend good books for, so it's encouraging to see two different series geared towards them on this list.

#7.  Every Breath, by Nicholas Sparks - I didn't care for this book as much as I have enjoyed others by Sparks.  However, there is always a waiting list for anything new by him.

#8.  Wolf Pack, by C.J. Box

#9.  No Exit, by Taylor Adams

#10.  The Lost Man, by Jane Harper - The Lost Man's popularity was partially due to the promotion of it by library staff.  We found the book very interesting and had several discussions about it.

Have you read any of these?  What was your favorite book of the year?

Julie's Journal : Christmas Movies at the Baxters'

If you have ever come in and asked me for a movie recommendation, you know that movies are not my area of expertise.  I can recommend books all day long, but I generally don't have the attention span to sit and watch an entire movie.  I get distracted by a book or my phone or something I need to do around the house.  However, since we put the Christmas decorations up the day after Thanksgiving, my husband and I have watched several of our old favorites.  Christmas seems to be a time of nostalgia and we have had a lot of fun re-watching things we loved as kids.  Now, we aren't particularly sentimental, so we lean more towards funny movies than emotional ones.  That being said, here's a few of the shows we've been watching lately.

1.  Home Alone 1 & 2. - The first Home Alone movie is our favorite, but the second one isn't bad, either.  Bumbling crooks Marv and Harry meet their match in 8 year old Kevin McAllister and the tricks he devises to protect his home, himself, and - in Home Alone 2 - a toy store from their thievery.  I finally had to buy us our own copy because we were keeping the library's copy checked out and no one else was getting to see it! 

2.  A Charlie Brown Christmas - Having aired every year since its creation in 1965, it's just not Christmas without Charlie Brown, his sad Christmas tree, and Linus telling us about the true meaning of Christmas!

3.  How the Grinch Stole Christmas - Based on the book by Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas is another perennial classic.  The original television special first aired in 1966 with Boris Karloff as the voice of the Grinch.  We've enjoyed the live action remake with Jim Carey and the newest cartoon isn't bad either, but nothing beats the original half-hour show. 

4.  Die Hard - Die Hard isn't funny and it isn't particularly Christmas-y but it is set around an office Christmas party, so my husband says it counts as a Christmas movie.  Terrorists led by Hans Gruber (played by the incomparable Alan Rickman), seize a high rise and take the party goers hostage.  John McClain (Bruce Willis), a visiting NYC cop, must thwart them and figure out how to get himself and everyone else out alive.  Warning : Die Hard contains a lot of very rough language and is pretty bloody.

What movies are traditionally watched around the holidays at your house?  We might need to add something new to our traditions!

Julie's Journal : Bookish Christmas Gift Ideas

So I just realized that Christmas is exactly three weeks away!!  Eeek!  I am not ready, at all.  I still have several gifts to buy, but I am finding it difficult to think of unique ideas for my people.  If you're having the same quandry, let me give you a few small ideas for the bookish people in your life.

1.  If you can read this, bring me my book socks.  I bought these last year from Etsy and not only are they cute, they are comfortable too!

2.  First and last line bookmarks - Also from Etsy, these are high quality, but they come from England, so you'd probably need to order now to get them before Christmas.

3.  Library Tote Bag - Lisa brought these tote bags back from a conference and we love them.  They are super cute for carrying your library books!

4.  Reading T-shirt -

5.  Litographs - I have coveted something (anything) from Litographs for years but have never actually bought anything.  They have prints, t-shirts, tote bags, scarves, blankets, and pillows.  Each product has the entire text of a book printed on it around an image from the story.  There are lots of different books to choose from.

6.  Personalized Book Embosser - I still have a few books that my grandfather marked with his personalized embosser and I love running across them.  For the person who keeps books forever in their own personal library, this might be the perfect gift!  Etsy has several options.

7.  Books! - If you don't know what someone likes to read, give them a copy of your favorite book and make a date to discuss it when they have read it!  The most recent book I've read that I'd love to discuss with someone is The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern.  It is a lovely fantasy book that is as much about the setting as it is the actual story. 

I hope I've given you a few ideas for gifts or splurges for yourself!  Let me know if anything on the list appeals to you!