Julie's Journal : What I've Been Reading

Here at the library we are gearing up for Summer!  It's hard to believe that the school year is almost over and it's time for another Summer Reading program.  This year's theme focuses on the 250th Anniversary of the United States.  Along those lines, currently at the library, you can view 5 enormous posters about Texas's place in American history, as well as a timeline of the history of the U.S. and other informative displays.  We hope you and your kids will join us for a patriotic summer.

This spring has been busy as well, but I've found time to read some good books!

Most recently, I read Ask for Andrea, by Noelle Ihli.  I've been seeing this book on blogs for awhile now, but hadn't been able to get a copy.  Finally, it showed up on Libby and I was able to read it.  Meghan, Brecia, and Skye have all been murdered by the same man.  Before they move on, they want to prevent him from killing again, and maybe help bring him to justice. The author switches points of view between the three murdered women, which is a format I enjoy.  I like a good ghost story and this one was great without being particularly gory.  I also read the short-story, The River, which tells what happens to the murderer's family after Ask for Andrea ends.  There is also a prequel, Forget You Saw Her, which tells the story of Andrea.  I haven't read it yet, but I've got it on hold on Libby.

Another book that's been on my want-to-read list for awhile but I'm just now getting to is Awake, by Jen Hatmaker.  Jen woke up in the middle of the night to hear her husband voice-texting his girlfriend and her whole world was upended.  Awake is the true story of her difficult divorce and finding her way to a new and flourishing life in the aftermath.  Although I didn't/don't agree with some of the things she tried and some of her conclusions, I found her story compelling.  Divorce does not just affect the two people in the marriage, but reverberates through their family, friends, and wider communities.  I found it interesting to see who continued to support her through the upheaval and who turned their backs on her.

The Forget-Me-Not Library, by Heather Webber is another book I finally got to this spring.  I'm a Heather Webber completionist - I've read everything she's written.  If you find your car unexpectedly breaks down in Forget-Me-Not, Alabama, there's probably a reason.  Juliet's car emits blue smoke in front of Tallulah's house and refuses to go any further.  Forget-Me-Not natives know that the color of smoke your car shoots out when it breaks down indicates an area of your life you need help with.  Blue means that you are grieving a great loss.  Tallulah isn't particularly happy when her grandfather Tenn invites Juliet to stay until her car is fixed.  Recently divorced, newly employed at the library, and raising her child alone, Tallulah feels like she has enough on her plate.  Juliet is sure she won't be hanging around for long, but both women find magic, healing, new beginnings, and home in Forget-Me-Not. 

I've been enjoying cozy fantasy lately.  A couple of weeks ago I read Stay for a Spell, by Amy Coombe.  Tandy is a younger princess who's royal duties include a lot of ribbon cuttings and baby kissing.  On a quick stop, she visits a bookstore hoping to find something new to read on her way to her next event.  She attempts to help the elderly bookstore owner and finds herself cursed to stay in the bookstore until she find "the desires of her heart."  Tandy isn't as devastated by this turn of events as one might think.  She finds herself enjoying a simple life trying to update and clean out the bookstore and staying in one place for awhile.  She makes friends of the people who come to the bookstore, particularly a young woman who hires on as an assistant and a landlocked pirate who also finds himself under a curse.  The queen and king, Tandy's parents, aren't as happy, though, and since everyone knows that the way to break a curse is to experience true love's kiss, they send a parade of eligible princes to her.  Tandy's situation becomes more and more hilarious as time goes on.  This was a fun, light read.  It is a debut work, so I hope the author writes more books soon.

Last year, former library employee, Jeltje, got me hooked on the Murderbot books.  I've been reading one occasionally when I want something fun.  Murderbot is a robot that long ago hacked his own governor module.  He's rogue and trying to stay undetected, passing as an augmented human rather than a robot.  He has a weakness for television style entertainment and his observations of humans and their quirks are funny.  The most recent one I read is #4, Exit Strategy.  Murderbot reluctantly gets involved when his former mentor/owner/friend gets kidnapped.  Dr. Mensah has evidence (gathered by Murderbot) that may help stop the evil corporation GrayCris.  GrayCris will do anything for a profit and has been the source of a number of Murderbot's problems through the books.  I have really enjoyed Murderbot's dry humor and wry observations of the humans around him.    

The most mind blowing book I've read lately is The Everlasting, by Alix Harrow.  At first this book was confusing.  It read like it was set in Britain just after one of the world wars.  However, I quickly figured out that the world was fictional.  Our hero, Owen Mallory is a somewhat shellshocked former soldier and historian.  Una Everlasting is a maybe mythical, heroic figure from the nation's history and Owen is something of an expert on her life.  After he is sent a manuscript to translate about her story, Owen unexpectedly finds himself sent backwards in time in order to see Una's life for himself.  But just as I thought I had a handle on the story, everything changed.  The author turned her story inside out and upside down and sideways.  I ended up absolutely loving this wild book. I need more people to read it so we can talk about it! 

What have you been reading lately?  I'd love to hear about it!

Kass's Kicks: Manga for Beginners

Something we get asked about at the library sometimes is our manga selection. We keep it in our general graphic novel section, and are always looking to expand into new titles. But it’s still a bit of a niche interest, so I thought I’d explain what manga is and make some recommendations for beginners.

Manga is a style of comic art made in Japan, characterized by exaggerated cartoonish features and often a “cutesy” appearance. Like American comics, manga covers all kinds of genres and demographics, so if you’re at all interested in graphic storytelling there is probably a manga for you. Many of the most popular manga are long, multi-volume series, but there are plenty of standalones if you are looking for something shorter to jump into.

One thing that throws English readers for a loop is that manga is often “backwards”—that is, you read and turn the pages from right to left. That’s because the Japanese language is written from right to left, and most publishers opt not to flip the artwork around for English translations. Most people get the hang of it pretty quickly, but it can definitely be confusing at first. Helpfully, some English versions include a guide on the leftmost page for readers who instinctually start there.

However, this isn’t the case for all manga—some of the titles we have at FCL are read from left-to-right because they were written and published in English, rather than translated from Japanese. Manga has gotten so popular in other countries that many non-Japanese have started to create comics in the manga style. Some people say that these books aren’t “real manga” since they aren’t made in Japan, but I think if it captures the same style and spirit then it ought to count.

Our manga collection is geared for beginners and younger readers, so you can jump into any of them. Here are my series recommendations for manga newbies:

Chi’s Sweet Home by Konami Kanata. A kitten named Chi gets separated from her mother and then adopted by a human family, though they must hide her from the landlady who doesn’t allow pets. This comedic slice-of-life story is an easy read for kids or anyone just getting into manga.

Frog Boy by Jason M. Burns and Dustin Evans. Raised in a laboratory, a frog-human hybrid fights the secret organization that created him with the help of the bank-robbing Disco Queens. If you enjoy James Patterson’s Maximum Ride series, Frog Boy might just be the comic for you.

Little Witch Academia by Yoh Yoshinari and Keisuke Sato. One of my personal favorites. Akko, a girl from a non-magical family, begins classes at a prestigious wizarding academy and faces challenges both magical and mundane. Harry Potter fans will be charmed (pun intended).

Manga Classics adapted by Crystal Chan and Kuma Chan. This series consists of authorized graphic adaptations of beloved classic novels. We have the manga versions of Tom Sawyer and Anne of Green Gables in our collection.

Julie's Journal : New Books on Libby, plus What I've Been Reading

Libby has changed the way I read.  It is the library app that lets me download books to read on my phone, or tablet, or computer.  I LOVE it.  I find books that would otherwise be inaccessible to me and am able to put myself on hold for books that aren't available right now, but will be.  In the course of my job, I also get to purchase books for Libby.  This week, I added several that I'm excited about.   

Agnes Aubert's Mystical Cat Shelter, by Heather Fawcett.  This is by the same author who wrote the Emily Wilde series which I loved.  I've also recently read some of her work for kids, and enjoyed it as well.  I'm looking forward to reading this one!

A Box Full of Darkness, by Simone St. James.  I've read everything that Simone St. James has written so far.  She writes ghost stories where the ghosts are real, and usually not on the benevolent side.  I enjoy her writing when I'm in the mood to be creeped out.

Brigand's and Breadknives, by Travis Baldree.  Third in the Legends and Lattes series, Brigands and Breadknives continues the story of Viv, the retired Orc turned barista, and her friends.  This one follows Fern, a Rattkin who runs a bookshop and has just relocated to the storefront next to Vic's.

The First Time I Saw Him, by Laura Dave.  I read The Last Thing He Told Me back in 2024 and really enjoyed it.  In it, Hannah's husband Owen has disappeared, leaving her with a mystery and a stepdaughter on her hands.  This second book picks up five years later.  When Owen suddenly reappears, Hannah knows that she and her stepdaughter are in danger, and they must go on the run.  I had thought that the first book was a stand-alone and the story had been wrapped up, so I'll be interested to see where the author takes this one.

Lady Tremaine, by Rachel Hochhauser.  I'm intrigued by the idea behind this title.  It is promoted as a retelling of the Cinderella story, from the point of view of the stepmother!  I'm curious as to whether or not she will be a more sympathetic character.  

As to my current reads...

Right now I'm reading More or Less Maddy, by Lisa Genova.  I've read all of Genova's other works, but I hadn't yet picked this one up.  Both my mom and Lisa (FCL's director) recommended it.  Lisa Genova is a neuroscientist and each of her books depicts characters with a neurological disease.  She has tackled Alzheimer's Disease, ALS, Huntington's Disease and more.  More or Less Maddy depicts a young woman living with Bipolar Disease.  It's not an easy read.  I'm getting frustrated with Maddy and the poor decisions she sometimes makes.  But I also want her to overcome her challenges.  I'm rooting for her to succeed even when she really frustrates me.

The Correspondent, by Virginia Evans.  Sybil writes letters.  She writes to everyone important in her life, both friends and family.  She writes to author's whose work she enjoys.  She writes to anyone who she wishes to express a thought too.  She also is writing a letter to an unknown person but she never sends it.  We learn through her letters that 40 years ago, she lost a son in a tragic accident.  The loss destroyed her marriage and she is still dealing with the grief.  I'm not doing a very good job of describing this book, but I really enjoyed it.  I usually like epistolary novels.


I hope you find something good to read.  If you need help setting up Libby, just contact the library.  We'll be glad to help you!

Kass's Kicks : Actually Interesting Websites

The Internet is a strange place. Lately it’s become synonymous with poor mental health and misinformation and general doom and despair. It feels like you have to sift through a lot of garbage before you find content that is informative, interesting, or even fun. Which is a real shame, because a global communication network is a miraculous piece of technology! Fortunately, there are some people still trying to use the Internet as a force for good, so today I wanted to share some of their efforts.

Emmymade - https://www.youtube.com/@emmymade 

Emmy’s YouTube channel is one I’ve been watching for years and years, and her videos have only improved in quality. They are primarily about cooking and baking, usually from viral recipes to see if they’re really any good. She also reviews premade food products and shares her miscellaneous creative projects. I like her videos because she thoroughly explains every step of her process and explains how you could do it at home if you wanted to. If you don’t, though, it’s still satisfying to watch Emmy do it—she talks about her creative adventures with so much enthusiasm and technical knowledge that you feel like you are spending time with a very intelligent friend.

One Day You’ll Find Yourself - https://www.onedayyoullfindyourself.com/table-of-contents.html 

Subtitled “Select advice from your uncle in the big city,” this website is a collection of tips for everyday situations. The entries are short and often humorous, and they cover a wide range of topics. Some of the advice assumes that the reader is a young man, but most of it is applicable to anybody, such as not rehearsing an argument beforehand so that you don’t arrive pre-angered. It also ranges from fairly obvious things (covering your mouth when you yawn, keeping your feet off of other people’s furniture) to etiquette that you might never have had to consider before, like entering a revolving door or eating with an array of fancy silverware. It’s also a “live book,” so the author adds new tips from time to time.

neal.fun – https://neal.fun/ 

Created by programmer and game designer Neal Agarwal, this website is a collection of short browser games he’s made. Many of them are educational, like The Deep Sea, in which the user scrolls down a very long webpage that illustrates the sheer size of the ocean and what creatures live at different levels of depth. There’s also Internet Artifacts, a history slideshow of the Internet. Just-for-fun games include Wonders of Street View, in which you are sent to a random and unique location on Google Street View. (When I clicked it while writing this, I was taken to a giant rocking chair in Illinois, a view of a parrot nest in New Zealand, and then an airplane garage in Kenya.) Absurd Trolley Problems, Let’s Settle This, and Internet Roadtrip are also favorites of mine.

Should See This - https://shouldseethis.com/ 

Similar to neal.fun, this website is a collection of games and oddities, but rather than being from one developer it’s been curated from different corners of the internet. I’ve used Should See This to find a lot of interesting and useful websites, like A Good Movie to Watch, which can help you decide what to watch by filtering streaming services and moods. I recently discovered MyFridgeFood, which recommends recipes based on the ingredients you have in your fridge. Niche tools like these, maintained by strangers because they thought other people could use them, are my favorite thing about the Internet. I encourage you to explore this database and find some new bookmarks.

Kass's Kicks : 2025 Nonfiction Review Roundup

One of my New Year’s resolutions for 2025 was to read more nonfiction—SciFi and Fantasy is my usual beat, but I wanted to branch out by going in the opposite direction. I didn’t get to read as many as I wanted, but the ones I did I really enjoyed! Before I look for more nonfiction in 2026, I thought I’d share some of 2025’s highlights:

 

The Art Thief by Michael Finkel details the crimes of Stéphane Breitwieser, regarded as one of the greatest art thieves of all time, who stole almost 250 works of art from 172 museums in France and Switzerland. I was fascinated by the sheer boldness of Breitwieser’s heists—he often stole in broad daylight, and even returned to some museums more than once. He also didn’t sell what he stole, keeping it all in his attic bedroom. He claims to be an art lover and romanticizes his exploits, but the book balances this perspective with the real harm he does to the museums, the artwork, and his mother and girlfriend who try to help him.

Brave the Wild River is an account of a 1930s scientific expedition down the Colorado River, when botanists Elzada Clover and Lois Jotter sought to catalogue the plant life of the Grand Canyon. By doing so they also became the first women to survive the dangerous rapids, and Melissa Sevigny’s matter-of-fact narration doesn’t undercut the dramatic challenges they faced. There’s plenty of botanical name-dropping for plant enthusiasts, but this survival thriller also manages to weave in the complex history of the region, from Native American legends to the Dust Bowl.

Walter Isaacson’s biography of Leonardo da Vinci was a bit of an intimidating book to look at—even without its many pictures and diagrams, it’s a hefty tome. As it turns out, you need all those pages to describe a person as complex as Leonardo. Drawing from his frantic scribbling across many journals, this book paints the artist and inventor as an eccentric but obsessively driven student of the natural world. The way his scientific curiosity informed his artistic sensibilities was just inspiring.

Pirate Hunters reads like an adventure movie in Robert Kurson’s accessible style. He chronicles the efforts of divers John Chatterson and John Mattera to find the wreck of a pirate ship off the coast of the Dominican Republic. The divers’ search involves high-tech equipment and historical research into the Golden Age of piracy and the ship’s captain, Joseph Bannister, but the explanations feel like an organic part of the story. All three men emerge as fascinating personalities reckoning with the costs of pursuing greatness.

The Mythmakers was particularly fun for me as a comic enthusiast, as well as a fan of its two subjects, J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. John Hendrix’s vibrant fantastical illustrations provide a vehicle for the lives of these two fantasy greats and their lifelong friendship. In the back of the book I found mini-chapters called “Portals” where concepts from earlier chapters were expanded on with fully illustrated scenes. I know graphic novels aren’t to everyone’s taste, but I thought this was a great example of how the medium can combine art and language to tell a unique story.

Julie's Journal : What I Read for Plot Twist in 2025

We've just finished up another year of our Plot Twist book club here at Franklin County Library.  The book club idea was conceived by Emily, Library Director Lisa's daughter.  We don't all read the same book - rather each month we have a topic or genre and we read something that fits.  We get together and talk about what we read on the last Tuesday of each month at 6:00.  Everyone is welcome!  My 12 books (or 11 actually - I missed the July meeting) for this year were as follows.

January - Biography - Mistaken Identity, by Don & Susie Van Ryn and Newell, Colleen, and Whitney Cerak.  This is the heartbreaking account of a devastating wreck and its aftermath.  Laura Van Ryn and Whitney Cerak, both young college students, were involved.  Whitney was declared dead at the scene and Laura was rushed to the hospital in life-threatening condition.  5 weeks later, Whitney's family was told the unbelievable - Whitney was alive, misidentified as Laura.  Laura's family learned that the young woman they had been caring for in the hospital was in fact not their daughter; Laura had been buried 5 weeks earlier under Whitney's name.  As I guess is obvious, this is a very difficult book to read.  However, both families use their stories as a testimony for their faith.  

February - Antilove - Not a Happy Family, by Shari Lapena.  Easter dinner at the Merton home is not pleasant, and all three adult children leave the gathering early.  Later that evening, Mr. and Mrs. Merton are murdered in their luxury home.  All three kids have good reason to want their less-than-ideal parents out of the picture.  All three are suspects, both of the authorities, and of each other.  We have the oldest daughter, driven to succeed, but never feeling like she quite measures up.  The middle son has failed to rise to his father's high expectations and has just been turned down for a loan.  The youngest daughter has flaunted all her parents expectations and become a wild child, dancing to the beat of her own drum.  There's also the bitter aunt, who expected to inherit some of her brother's estate, but is shocked to find out that he never changed his will the way he promised her he would.  So... who do you think the culprit is?

March - Science Fiction - Old Man's War, by John Scalzi.  John Perry is turning 75 and he has a choice to make.  He can continue as he is, aging, and finish out his life on earth, or he can enlist in the Colonial Defense Force and receive a new body and a new mission - fighting in an intersteller war against hostile aliens.  It wouldn't be much of a story if he didn't choose the second option and we get to see him go through enlistment, body transfer, training, and eventual deployment.  He meets other guys and girls like himself and lives and learns with them much like living in a college dorm.  I thought it was an interesting concept for a story.  It is a 7 book series, but I have only read the first one.

April - Set or written the year you were born - The Twits by Roald Dahl and The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks.  I was born in 1980 and both these books were published that year.  Both are children's books that I remember reading as a kid.  The Twits isn't the best of Dahl's many kids' books.  It follows a very unpleasant couple to their very unpleasant end.  It has a dark humor that I enjoy in kids' books, but I like Matilda or James and the Giant Peach better.  They have nasty characters, but there are happy, pleasant characters as well.  The Indian in the Cupboard was better.  A young boy is given a magical cupboard and learns how to turn his toys into live people.  He first changes an Indian, then a cowboy, a medic, and an Indian princess with her horse.  Life gets interesting for him when Cowboys and Indians becomes real, in miniature, in his bedroom. 

May - Color in the Title - Black Sheep, by Georgette Heyer.   Georgette Heyer wrote in the early 1900s.  Her stories are mostly Regency romance with an occasional who-done-it mixed in.  In this book, Abigail is in charge of her young niece and is trying to protect her from the schemes of a fortune hunting rake.  She meets the young rake's disreputable uncle and tries to enlist his help to protect her niece. Uncle Miles doesn't care a bit about saving Abigail's niece, but is very interested in liberating Abigail from her many responsibilities.  Heyer's books are witty and fun and I always enjoy revisiting them.

June - Made into a Movie - The Wild Robot, by Peter Brown.  When the ship our robot is being transported on is shipwrecked, one robot washes ashore and is inadvertently powered on by wildlife.  Roz has to learn to adapt to her new wild environment.  She makes friends and adopts an orphaned gosling, but her creators want her back and she has to decide what to do.  This is a very cute book.  Once again it is a series of books, but I've only read the first one.  I haven't gotten around to watching the movie yet, but I plan to soon.

July - True Crime

August - Made you cry - Under the Banner of Heaven, by Jon Krakauer.  This book is about violent religious extremism.  It centers on the murders of Brenda Lafferty and her infant daughter Erica, by Brenda's brother-in-laws Ron and Don Lafferty.  Ron and Don believe that they have received a revelation from God that Brenda and Erica must die.  The book moves back and forth through time examining the roots of violent religious sects.  Unfortunately, it is usually the women and children who suffer the most.

September - Western - Louis L'Amour Short Stories.  The only Western I had read prior to this was Lonesome Dove, which is an epic length novel.  Short stories are on the extreme other end of the spectrum.  Louis L'Amour is an extremely famous, well respected, and often read author, but his short stories were not for me.  They came to a conclusion too easily with too many coincidences for me to find them believable.  Maybe I would like his long form novels better, but I haven't tried any of them.

October - Horror - Hemlock & Silver, by T. Kingfisher.  Hemlock & Silver is very loosely based on the Snow White fairy tale.  It has the elements of the young princess, the wicked stepmother, the poisoned apple, and the magic mirror.  From there though the similarities end.  Anja is a healer, with expertise in poisons, who is summoned to a remote palace to treat the mysterious sickness of a young princess.  What she finds is a princess who knows how she's being poisoned and by who, but who won't share what she knows.  Anja must figure out what the princess is trying to gain and stop the evil that is using her.  T. Kingfisher remains one of my favorite authors, and I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

November - Has a Recipe in It - Kate & Frida, by Kim Fay.  Set in the 1990s, Kate is a bookseller in Seattle and Frida is an aspiring war correspondent in Paris.  When Frida writes to a bookstore asking to make a purchase, Kate responds and a pen-pal friendship is born.  Told entirely in letters, Kate and Frida correspond about their lives, their hopes and dreams, their romances, and food.  Frida attempts to make food her refugee neighbors would like and the descriptions are lovely.  This is actually a follow-up novel to Love & Saffron which covers Frida's mother's correspondence with a food-writer.  Both books are gentle, feel-good reads.  I hope that Kim Fay writes more of this type of story.  

December - Local Author - The Twin Stones, by Ryan Shriver.  I wasn't sure what I was going to read in this category, but I saw on Facebook that Ryan, a former resident of Mt. Vernon, had recently written a book and I decided to try it.  I ended up really liking it and have bought the 2nd one in the series. Finn and Cass are orphans.  When their paths cross they aren't sure what to make of each other, but together set out to find out what happened to their families.  When they reach the place their families disappeared, they find a village in ruins.  They spend the night in a falling down house, and find, hidden, a small box with two stones.  The stones have power and Finn is drawn to one, Cass to the other.  They know that the stones can be used to awaken special powers in them, but they need an awakening circle.  The ones in the cities require them to swear loyalty to the king, which they don't want to do, but with the stones is information about a wild circle.  Together they set off on a dangerous journey to awaken and fulfill a prophecy.  

The next meeting of our Plot Twist book club will be at the library January 27th at 6:00.  Our theme this month is Favorite Author.  Hope to see you there!