Eight New Fiction Reads!

 

Fiction Readers.... This is your lucky day as we are highlighting eight new titles just for you! Hope you enjoy them! And, a little reminder, if you have a request shoot us an email! Also Thank You to the several patrons who passed some of these books on to us to share with their Rumney neighbors! 

The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams (2021)

... a new author for us... of course, I could not resist the title! And it is a debut novel and as if that was not enough, it takes place in London! No more...it just sounds delightful and I cannot wait to get started... Sorry!

Shadows Reel by C J Box (2022)

... Yes, #22 in the Joe Pickett series has arrived! A few days before the Pickett girls come home for Thanksgiving, Joe is called out on a moose-poaching incident that turns out to be something much more sinister and Marybeth even gets involved at the library!

The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley (2022)

... An apartment in Paris, an eclectic bunch of neighbors, and everyone is a suspect! Everyone knows something they are not telling!! (From the author of The Guest List.

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig (2020)

... Between life and death there is a library(thank goodness). The Midnight Library is very special as the books it offers contain a different life giving one the opportunity to undo past mistakes and work towards a perfect life. But things aren't always as we imagined and soon some of these choices endanger the library. Will it all work out? What is the best way to live??

Anthem by Noah Hawley (2022)

... For decades, Judge Margot Burr-Nadir has worked tirelessly, case by case, to administer justice from the federal bench of the Eastern District of the United States. Her position already seems like the highest possible honor. So she is surprised when a call comes from the President of the United States inviting her to accept his nomination to the Supreme Court—not least because in choosing her, in an unprecedented attempt to heal a divided nation, the President has reached across party lines.

For Margot, this should be among the brightest spots of an already charmed existence. But the call comes on a family trip to visit their oldest daughter, Story, who has, without warning, vanished as if spirited away in the middle of the night by forces unseen. Margot soon finds herself thrust onto the national stage in the middle of every parent’s worst nightmare.

Billie Summers by Stephen King (2021) 

... This read is part war story and part love letter to a small town and the people who live there... a story of love, luck, fate, and a complex hero with one   last shot at redemption... and it is typically Stephen King!

The Souvenir Museum by Elizabeth McCracken (2021)

A dozen short stories in which the mysterious bonds of family are tested, transformed, fractured, and fortified. Read one or read them all and see how the characters embark on journeys that leave them indelibly changed. Give it a try!

Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead (2021)

This story plays out in a beautifully re-created New York City on the early 1960s and is a family saga masquerading as a crime novel, a hilarious morality play, a social novel about race and power, and ultimately a love letter to Harlem brought to you by Pulitzer Prize author Colson Whitehead.

 

Greetings from Byron G Merrill Library…. So much is happening… Day-light savings is in place, spring has arrived, and we are surprised daily with every kind of weather….one more week and we will be saying hello to April!

St. Patrick’s Day was well celebrated last week, and we are now pleased to announce the winner of our “Gold Coins” Guessing Jar contest – Congratulations to Pepper Bellemy who outguessed the other eighteen entries! Yay

We will be open Saturday 10-1, Monday 10-1, and Wednesday 1-5… Hope you will stop in.

All Week – Our “Read Across America” challenge continues for this last week. We are delighted with the number of books that have been selected from our special display. The readers of Rumney ARE interested in learning about other cultures and countries.

Monday – 10-12 is Family Fun Time at the Library…stories, games, crafts, and a time to just have fun.

Jane has a new book to read, The Littlest Yak and a fun activity planned. A BIG THANK YOU to the dads who returned tables, chairs, doors etc. to the attic now that our “winterization” project is complete.

Thursday – 1-3 is our “Organize Rumney Memorabilia” time. Stop in and join us as we sort, file, cut and paste! So proud of all we have accomplished.

NYT Best Selling Fiction...

1. Run, Rose, Run by Dolly Parton and James Patterson  *coming from a patron!
2. Shadows Reel by C J Box   *On order
3. The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley  *On order
4. The Golden Couple by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen   *On order
5. High Stakes by Danielle Steel  *coming from a patron

2022 National Book Award for Fiction has just been presented to Honoree Fanonne Jeffers for her debut novel, The Love Songs of W. E. B.  Du Bois, that explores class, colorism, and privilege through the story of a young Black woman growing up in Georgia in the late 20th century, and the story of her ancestors. And we have this book ready to be checked out!!

Books for the younger set and our Astronomy Display

Picture Books  

• The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog, by Mo Willems.  When Pigeon finds a delicious hot dog, he can hardly wait to shove the entire thing in his beak. But . . . then a very sly and hungry duckling enters the scene and wants a bite. Who will be the cleverer bird?
  
  
• The Pigeon Needs a Bath, by Mo Willems. The Pigeon really needs a bath! Except, the Pigeon's not so sure about that. Besides, he took a bath last month! Maybe. It's going to take some serious convincing to try and get the Pigeon to take the plunge. 
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• Maple Syrup from the Sugar House, by Laurie Lazzaro Knowlton. Maple syrup season is here! Kelsey and her father begin harvesting sap from maple sugar trees. Join their family and friends in this farm-to-table process of turning sap into maple syrup.
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•  Sugar on Snow, by Nan Parson Rossiter. “Sap's rising!” A father, his two sons, and one dog set off at dawn to the sugar bush to begin the process of making syrup. A picture book that pays tribute to the spirit and traditions of rural New England found on family farms.

   JF-Yellow

• The Venom Spreads, Bravelands Sandtongue#2, by Erin Hunter. Friends and family are split as longtime allies turn on each other, and born foes form unlikely bonds. The very threat that led Bramble to leave the place he called home has snared the creatures who live on the mountain.

 Teen-Orange

• Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy, by Ray Terciero. A graphic retelling of the classic Little Women with a twist: four sisters from a blended family experience the challenges and triumphs of life in NYC in this beautiful full-color graphic novel 
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• Daughter of the Deep, by Rick Riordan. Ana is a freshman at Harding-Pencroft Academy, a five-year high school that graduates the best marine scientists, naval warriors, navigators, and underwater explorers in the world. Ana's freshman year culminates with the class's weekend trial at sea, the details of which have been kept secret. She only hopes she has what it'll take to succeed.

New Display – Everything Astronomy for all ages! We will be featuring our “space” books” for children and adults and challenging our readers with weekly quests. Hope you will get involved and you might even learn something new!  

• Challenge #1: What is astronomy? (Astronomy is the study of everything in the universe beyond the Earth's atmosphere. (It includes objects we can see with our naked eyes like the sun, the moon, the planets and the stars. It also includes objects we can see with a telescope like faraway galaxies.)
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• Challenge #2: Name the eight planets in order starting with the planet nearest the sun. (We will let you figure this one out!)

Kickstart your Week by enjoying the start of spring as we watch for the flowers to pop up and the mud to disappear! Wishing you a good week and we will see you at the library! Susan and the Library Ladies (Have a question? Send it along to sturbyne@rumneylibrary.org)

 

 

This Week - March 14th - 19th 2022

 

This is a happy time of year for all our “Green” friends as we, at Byron G Merrill Library, continue to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, the one day that everyone is Irish! Our book displays will be filled with everything green and Jane has some fun activities planned for the younger set. If you are looking for a fun night on the 17th, you might give Kathleen’s Irish Pub in Bristol a try.

We are happy to report This that Rumney town election and town meeting have come and gone… our budget for 2022 has been passed and Roger Daniels was re-elected to the library board of trustees. Congratulations to everyone who ran for the various offices and to those who were elected and a big thank you for giving of your time to our wonderful town.

This Week’s Happenings…

·         Monday 10 – 12 is Family Fun Time at the library. Jane has planned a story time and some fun activities. This is an opportunity to meet other young families and just be.

·         Thursday 1 – 3 Our Obiters and Scrap Bookers will continue to “organize” our Rumney memorabilia…. A most enjoyable time while making a contribution to ”saving the history of Rumney!”

·         All Week – Our “Read Across America” challenge continues with a display of reads featuring characters that do not look like us and who live in towns, cities, and countries very different from Rumney. This is a chance to learn about lives that are different from ours with the hope of better understanding different cultures.

New Books!

Five new books by Isabel Allende who was born in Chile and now lives in California. Allende’s books are often based upon her personal experiences and historical events and pay homage to the lives of women, while weaving together elements of myth and realism. We have five of her books in our collection and additional titles are available by interlibrary loan.

·         Island Beneath the Sea (2010) – Spanning four decades, this is the story of Tete and Valmorain and of one woman’s determination to find love amid loss and to offer humanity though her own has been battered. The setting is Haiti back when it was a French colony.

·         In the Midst of Winter (2017) – This is the story of three very different people who are brought together under unusual circumstances. It explores the timely issues of human rights and the plight of immigrants and refugees and does so with passion, humor, and wisdom… a good read!

·         A Long Petal of the Sea (2022) – This epic novel spans decades and  continents as it follows two young people as they flee the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War (late 1930s) in search of a place to call home.

·         The Soul of a Woman (2021) - …a passionate and inspiring meditation on what it means to be a woman. As a young woman coming of age in the late 1960s, Allende rode the first wave of feminism and has seen what has been accomplished. What do women want she asks? …to be safe, to be valued, to live in peace, to have their own resources, to have control over their lives and bodies, and most of all, to be loved. Ms Allende hopes this book will “light the torch of our daughters and granddaughters …to carry on with the work still left to be finished.”

·         Violeta (2022) – This new book tells the epic story of Violeta del Valle, a woman whose life spans one hundred years and bears witness to the greatest upheavals of the 20^th century. Told through the eyes of a woman with unforgettable passion, determination, and sense of humor, Ms Allende brings us a read that is both fiercely inspiring and deeply emotional.

with a visit to our library (Hours are Mondays 10-1, Wednesdays 1-5, and Saturdays 10-1) to select a good book to cozy up with and see what else we have to offer. You are also invited to visit our website at rumneylibrary.org or email us at sturbyne@rumneylibrary.org

Whatever you do this week, make it a good one! Susan and the Library Ladies

This Week - March 7th 2022

Thinking this is going to be a week for getting everything done that we did not complete last week. That does not mean that we are not pleased with our accomplishments last week… they were just a wee bit too ambitious!

This week we have some furniture left to polish and several things to be moved upstairs into the attic. We thank Kathy who did a great job cleaning up doors and is coming back again. We also thank our Monday Dads plus Brian and Amanda who made several trips up to the attic.

This week also brings our town election on Tuesday, March 8th – Voting will take place at the Russell School from 8am to 7pm. We have many candidates running for a variety of positions, and we encourage you to make a good decision. Our Annual Town Meeting will take place on Thursday, March 9^th again at the Russell School, and the fun will begin at 7 PM. We ask that you support Article 19 which funds our library for the ensuing year! Town reports are available at the library.

This Week’s Happenings…

• Monday, March 7^th from 10 to 12 – Family Fun Time for our families with young children… Our story will be Can I Be Your Dog? By Troy Cummings… Our activity will be D is for Dog involving circles and colors… and hopefully, our Monday Dads will bring their muscles and happy smiles!!
• Tuesday, March 8^th at 5:30 PM – Library Trustees Meeting
• Thursday, March 10^th from 1 to 3 – Our Obiters and Scrap Bookers will be hard at work in Merrill Hall organizing Rumney history. We invite you to join us. (park in back)
• All Week – Read Across America will continue… We invite you to stop by and select reads that will introduce you to different cultures as we work to better understand our neighbors. We have a lot of good choices!
• All Week – Our Celebration of “Everything Irish” will continue… Fun Irish reads, a tree to decorate in honor of St Patrick’s Day, and even a Counting Jar…perhaps you will make the closest guess!

What's New...The 1619 Project by Nikole Hannah-Jones (2021)

The 1619 Project is an ongoing initiative from the New York Times Magazine that began

in August 2019, the four hundredth anniversary of the beginning of American slavery and was led by Ms. Hannah-Jones. This book weaves together nineteen essays that explore the legacy of slavery in present day America with thirty-six poems and works of fiction that illuminate key moments of struggle and resistance. The essays show how the inheritance of 1619 and the arrival of the first slaves from Africa reaches into every part of contemporary American society, from politics, music, diet, traffic, and citizenship to capitalism, religion, and our democracy itself. This is a powerful book as it reveals long-glossed-over truths about our nation’s founding and the way that the legacy of slavery did not end with emancipation but continues to shape American life today. (Nonfiction - Topics - Social Issues)

Kick Start Your Week…

We, at the library, are kick-starting our week with a large dark chocolate candy bar, with the hope that our “attic” items will all be cleaned, placed back in the attic, and be nicely covered. We also hope to see a lot of you, our dear readers.

So, don’t forget… the counting jar, voting day, town meeting, and time at the library!!! Have a good week… Susan and the Library Ladies (Questions? sturbyne@rumneylibrary.org)