Book

I am a mother. A working mother. A working mother who somehow scored the right blend of help, stubbornness, and luck to successfully breastfeed. As a working, breastfeeding mother I’ve spent a lot of time in Mother’s Rooms (which thankfully are becoming more prevalent) and as a working, breastfeeding, *librarian* mother, I’ve pondered the books I think should come standard with all Mother’s Rooms. The following is a list I am titling “My ideal Mother’s Room bookshelf.”

Unbuttoned: Women Open Up About the Pleasures, Pains, and Politics of Breastfeeding

Unbuttoned is a beautiful compilation

Does anyone else remember ordering joke books in the Scholastic Book Order as a kid and eagerly gobbling up all the quips and antics, only to forget them minutes later? William Novak drew me back to this memory with his book Die Laughing: Killer Jokes for Newly Old Folks. This was a surprisingly pleasing random pickup on the heels of April Fools Day, but it’s not as the title suggests only for “newly old folks.” Anyone with a campy sense of humor about aging will find a chuckle in these pages.

Upon realizing he was entering into the class of “old people,” William Novak, father of author B. J

In the late 1800s and early-mid 1900s, the Harvey Girls were considered to be elite hostesses and servers for entrepreneur and businessman Fred Harvey.  Harvey developed the concept of the ‘Harvey House’ dining areas along various railways across the United States, including the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe.  These hospitality restaurants worked in tandem with the railways in order to provide first class service to passengers and railroad employees.  Meals were served promptly on a strict schedule and all Harvey Girls were expected to follow a strict code of conduct that included a

"Never underestimate the power of nerds."  Self proclaimed nerd Mallory O'Meara pours her heart and three years of her life into The Lady From The Black Lagoon,  a biography to uncover the lost legacy of Milicent Patrick.  

Sadly, but not surprisingly, I was unfamiliar with Milicent Patrick and her work.  I knew nothing of her time at Disney as an animator or her work at Universal Studios making monsters come to life for the big screen.  In reading this book I was struck by how hard it must have been to work in a male dominated field in which no matter how talented you are most of your male

An engrossing story narrated by a wonderfully entertaining, snarky protagonist.

Cliff is the biggest geek (6'6" 250 lbs.) at a small town high school in Montana, mercilessly mocked about his size--thus the nickname Neanderthal--and social awkwardness. His alcoholic dad regularly beats him for liking science fiction instead of football. And he's still hurting horribly from the suicide of his older brother a year ago. Then Aaron, his biggest antagonist, quarterback of the football team, and most popular guy at school wakes from a head-injury-induced coma with a strange admission. God spoke to

Eleanor Roosevelt served as her husband’s eyes and ears throughout his twelve years in office; she knew every corner of the United States from personal visits and meetings with locals without a cocoon of Secret Service protection. Starting in 1941, the very hands-on First Lady solved the personal problems of worried Americans while she traversed the continent. Ladies’ Home Journal included her first of several advice columns, entitled “If You Ask Me,” which shares both its name and content with this book. Collected from over twenty years of columns, Ms. Roosevelt’s writing exudes purpose

The Lost Letter is an incredibly absorbing story that begins with a daughter who inherits her father’s stamp collection when he begins to lose his memory and goes into a nursing home. The daughter, Katie, has the stamp collection appraised, and an unusual stamp on an unopened letter is found in the collection.  An unopened letter! With this discovery, the author, Jillian Cantor, introduces the story of Kristoff, an apprentice of a Jewish stamp engraver, Frederick Faber, and Frederick’s family, all of whom lived in a small town in Austria prior to Germany’s invasion. The Lost Letter continues

Hello and welcome to our look at some new releases at the Johnson County Library! Each month we look at five fiction titles making their debut that we think you should know about. You might not find these books on the bestseller lists, but that's okay, as we love putting the spotlight on books you might not have heard about. Give one - or more - of these titles a chance to make it in your hold list. We hope you find something new!

In this emotionally haunting and masterful debut, THE CARE AND FEEDING OF RAVENOUSLY HUNGRY GIRLS by Anissa Gray is this month’s must-read and destined to be a book

Hello and welcome to our look at some new releases at the Johnson County Library! Each month we look at five fiction titles making their debut that we think you should know about. You might not find these books on the bestseller lists, but that's okay, as we love putting the spotlight on books you might not have heard about. Give one - or more - of these titles a chance to make it in your hold list. We hope you find something new!

Karen Thompson Walker is one of those authors who doesn't release a lot of books, or release them very often, but when she does, it’s always a good idea to sit up

A Spark of Light by Jodi Picoult is a novel that grabs your attention and draws you in with the topic of abortion and all the controversy that surrounds it.  At an abortion clinic in Jackson, Mississippi, one day all present are taken hostage and the reader slowly learns how all the random people that are there that day came to be at the clinic and how their past lives have intersected and made them who they are.

This book reads a bit unconventionally in that the first chapter begins at “5:00 pm”, the second chapter begins at “4:00 pm”, taking the reader back in time all the way to “8:00 am”

Magical.

Marvelous, otherworldly, enthralling, haunting, wonderful. Magical.

Working in libraries has cured my of my book-hoarding obsession. I have such easy access to nearly anything I want on a daily basis, I no longer feel much need to own the books myself. This is one of the rare exceptions. It's not enough for me to have consumed this book; I want to possess it. I want to repeatedly immerse myself in it and dwell in it. I want to become a part of it and make it a part of me.

Explanation is a luxury we can't afford these days, and reality doesn't care for it, being far too busy

Working in a public library has, by and large, broken me of the habit of just meandering through the stacks, open to whatever strikes my fancy. This is unfortunate. Fortunately, though, working in a library also frequently involves my being in those stacks, whether it's making a beeline for a book a patron wants, pulling a book to fulfill a hold, or seeking out books to fill a gap in a display. So I still get those moments of serendipity, even if I'm not roaming the stacks looking for my own next read.



It was one such occasion that led me to the serendipitous find of Notes from a Public

Using research from interviews, archives and declassified Stasi files, Mohr puts together a timeline from the appearance of the first East German punk up to the dismantling of the GDR.  Although world events and politics played a huge role in the fall of the wall, the East German punks’ grassroots efforts to expose the oppressiveness of their government got regular citizens involved, ultimately tipping the scales. In the beginning (early 80’s) there was only a small and scattered group of punks, but as their numbers started to grow, unlikely partnerships with progressive pastors of the

This story is the legend of Sleepy Hollow from the point of view of the main female character, Katrina Van Tassel. Having grown up the only daughter to a wealthy farmer and doting mother, Katrina is strong in her opinions, desires and actions. While this strength of character gets Katrina into some mischief, it also allows her to follow her heart and find a deep love with the new school teacher, Ichabod Crane.

When Ichabod first arrives at Sleepy Hollow he stays with the Van Tassel family until he finds the first host family among his pupils. Katrina's father hires him quickly to be her music

Do you ever wonder how corporate fraud starts, gets exposed, and in the aftermath how the all the players lives are affected? Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou offers such a glimpse into corporate fraud and all its ugliness.

Wall Street Journal investigative reporter, Carreyrou, exposes the wrong doings of Theranos, a medical blood-testing Silicon Valley startup company that had its beginnings in 2004 and came to an abrupt end in 2017. After receiving his first tip in February 2015, Carreyrou worked diligently to uncover the players, backgrounds, and

An Extraordinary Union is a historical romance set during the turbulent American Civil War. The heroine is spunky Elle Burns, a former slave with an eidetic memory who becomes a detective for the Union through the Loyal League, a society of freed and enslaved blacks with networks across the country to funnel intelligence to the North. Her latest assignment is to pose as a mute slave in Richmond, Virginia in the household of Confederate Senator Caffrey. The hero is Malcolm McCall, a Scottish born detective for Pinkerton, also assigned to gather intelligence from the Caffrey household, posing

Lethal White is the fourth book in this mystery series, featuring detectives Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott. If you're unaware, Robert Galbraith is a pseudonym for J. K. Rowling, and she does a great job with this adult series. 

Coming off the success of catching the Shacklewell Ripper, Cormoran Strike is busier and more famous than ever. With Robin having been fired, Strike must hire contract workers to help provide surveillance on his cases. One of his hires, Barclay, is a likable character who gets decent coverage in this book, and hopefully future books. Thankfully, we pick up pretty

The Help, the debut novel by Kathryn Stockett, published nearly ten years ago, has the remarkable ability to remain relevant in today’s polarized climate of questions and the search for truth and justice.  Here we meet three different women: Skeeter Phelan, Aibileen Clark, and Minny Jackson, all wanting to change the status quo without knowing how or when to start.  Set in 1960s Jackson, Mississippi, there is a strong divide between the races that results in violence and fear among the residents as the Civil Rights Movement continues throughout the nation.  The power struggle exists in the

The Little Stranger follows Faraday, a respectable country doctor in post-World War II England who is called to assist the Ayres family—an aristocratic family whose once elegant home, Hundreds Hall, has fallen into disrepair as their power and wealth dwindle with the collapsing noble class. His patient, Roderick, lives there with his mother and sister as they all wage daily battles to prevent the inevitable loss of their formerly prosperous country estate. Roderick was wounded in the second World War and has never recovered—but his injuries are not all that plague him. The entire family is

The saying goes, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.”

If I’m honest, I seldom follow that old adage when selecting things to read.  What can I say? I’m a Rebel Librarian. Odd thing about it is that I rarely find myself disappointed with my selections. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve found some stinkers that I didn't finish, but I’m batting well over .500 in my success.  

Perhaps the best example of this success was with the following series. 

I was in college and working at Hastings Entertainment in the book department at the time, and there were always fantastic books all around me.  Plenty of

Raw and real.

Both the contents of the story and the telling. Macy's aggressive, powerful voice assaults and engages readers immediately from the first page. By the third, her actions emerge similarly:

His nostrils twitch.

Yeah. He's pissed.

"What you're not picking up on is how much is at stake here, Macy. Nobody's gonna give you a lollipop anymore just because you throw a tantrum."

"What did you say, motherfoe?" I throw my desk.

The other kids hide under their desks like it's a tornado drill. Teacher Man pushes the office button. I'm going. Don't even need to give me a lollipop. It's a

Strange, fascinating, moving, disturbing, challenging, poignant, and human. Oh, so very human.

Lincoln in the Bardo is a book that delves deep into the human condition and the particular human penchant for storytelling. It presents a myriad cast of characters, each obsessed with telling his or her own story to others. And to living it out, over and over. They are stuck in their stories. Limited by them. Blinded by them. Stories of regret, sorrow, and unfinished lives. Unhappy stories.

For the characters are ghosts. Or spirits or phantoms or souls or what you will. Trapped in a limbo of their

Kelly Sundberg's beautifully written memoir, Goodbye, Sweet Girl: A Story of Domestic Violence and Survival, is about her almost decade-long marriage to her husband Caleb. But it is more than a story of domestic violence and systematic abuse.  It's also about love, leaving, and moving from victim to victor.  Sundberg holds a PhD in Creative Nonfiction and before publishing her memoir worked as an essayist.  Her essay, "It Will Look Like a Sunset," was her first attempt at examining her marriage and telling the world about her abuse. This essay's literary success and Sundberg's desire to tell

I am, in general, a huge fan of Kate Atkinson’s novels. I loved Life After Life, its sequel A God in Ruins, and all of the books in her Jackson Brodie series. That’s why it pains me to say I was a bit disappointed in Transcription.

Transcription tells the story of Juliet Armstrong, a young woman who is recruited by the British intelligence agency MI5 at the beginning of World War II. The main task she is charged with is transcribing the meetings among a group of British fascist sympathizers and supporters. As she is drawn further into the web of British spies and their targets, she’s left

I've reread Mariana Zapata's The Wall of Winnipeg and Me more times than I could count and I've laughed out loud every single time. This quirky romantic comedy tells the story of Vanessa, the ex-assistant/housekeeper/fairy godmother to Aiden, the top defensive end of the National Football Organization. For the two years that Vanessa worked for the man known as "The Wall of Winnipeg," he lived and breathed football, leaving no room for common decency or polite human interaction with Vanessa. Now? Now, he’s asking for the unthinkable and she can’t believe she’s actually considering his offer.

Z

Hello and welcome to this month's look at the new releases at the Johnson County Library, where we look at five fiction titles making their debut that we think you should know about. You might not find these books on the bestseller lists, but that's okay, as we love putting the spotlight on books you might not have heard about. Give one - or more - of these titles a chance to make it in your hold list. We hope you find something new and unexpected.

First up is NOVEMBER ROAD by Lou Berney, who also wrote THE LONG AND FARAWAY GONE. Set in the immediate aftermath of the Kennedy assassination, a

Helen Abell runs four CIA safe houses for the Berlin Station in 1979. While performing routine microphone inspections she captures two important conversations that will change the course of her life. Helen knows her clearance does not allow her to investigate these agents, however a series of events leads her to uncover sinister cover ups within the CIA. In 2014, Helen and her husband are murdered in their Maryland farmhouse by their son. Anna goes home to bury her parents and discover what lead her brother to this horrific act. She enlists the help of a private investigator new to town, Henry

Paul S. Kemp's Lords of the Sith tells the tale of a Darth Vader who is new to his alliance with the Dark Side of the Force. Vader's allegiances to his Sith master, Darth Sidious, are put to the test in myriad ways as the two villains encounter a skillful resistance movement on the planet Ryloth. Led by the cunning strategist Cham Syndulla (Star Wars: Rebels fans will likely recall Cham as Hera Syndulla's father), this band of resistance fighters may just stop at nothing to rid their beloved home of the Empire's influence. Rather than simply strike at the military forces occupying Ryloth, only

Hello and welcome to this month’s look at new releases at Johnson County Library, where we look at five fiction books hitting shelves this month that we think you should know about. You might not find these books at the top of the bestseller lists. It’s not that we don’t like books on the bestseller lists – we do! – but those authors are likely those who you’ve already heard of. We love spotlighting books and authors that you might not be familiar with. So let’s get started!

Just like we like eating a meal that contains lots of different ingredients that combine into something delicious and

Cop Town is set in 1974 Atlanta. There aren't a lot of women on the police force, and for those that are, things aren't always what they hoped. The only female detectives are used as under-cover prostitutes to catch perps, and the rest of the women are denigrated and harassed to no end.

We meet Kate Murphy on her first day on the job, unexpectedly forced into the working world after the death of her husband. There's a cop killer in the city, and the Atlanta Police Department is in turmoil. Kate is shuffled around because no one wants her, and eventually gets paired with Maggie Lawson for