 Another Summer Reading is coming to an end. Kids and teens, be sure to turn in your completed reading logs by this Friday, July 28th to earn Summer Reading prizes. Adults, turn in your Summer Reading Bingo card with a bingo by Noon this Friday to be entered into the Grand Prize drawing.
What’s happening this week
- Tuesday at 11:15 am Birth to 3 yr-olds Storytime – We will have special storytimes for each age group during Summer Reading. Listen to stories, sing songs, and do a craft.
- Tuesday at 2 pm 7 to 11 yr-olds Storytime
- Tuesday at 6:30 pm Recipe Swap – Bring something you’ve made (along with the recipe) to share and enjoy everyone else’s creations! This month, we’re making cookout food.
- Thursday at 11:15 am 4 to 6 yr-olds Storytime
- Thursday at 4 pm Building Challenge – Kids Summer Reading – Complete a fun challenge using Legos, blocks, and other building materials!
- Friday at 1 pm Games and a Movie – Kids Summer Reading – Play fun board and card games at 1:00 p.m. followed by a movie at 2:00 p.m. about small blue creatures.
- Saturday at 1 pm End of Summer Reading Party Kids and Teens – Eat some ice cream and celebrate all that you’ve done during Summer Reading!
Lunches – Lunches are still being served, courtesy of USD 480’s Summer Food Service Program, from 11:30 to 12:30 in the Downstairs Activity Area at the Library. This program is open to all children and teens, ages 1-18. Lunches will continue to be served until August 11th. No registration or identification required. For more information, contact Connie Vogts at 620-604-1204.
Superhero Fiction and Nonfiction for Adults
Superheroes aren’t just for kids. Here are a few of the books about superheroes that we have for adults.
 Indigo: A Novel
by Charlaine Harris, Christopher, Jonathan Maberry, Kelley Armstrong, Kat Richardson, Seanan McGuire, Tim Lebbon, Cherie Priest, James A. Moore, and Mark Morris
From the book description
Investigative reporter Nora Hesper spends her nights cloaked in shadows. As Indigo, she’s become an urban myth, a brutal vigilante who can forge darkness into weapons and travel across the city by slipping from one patch of shadow to another. Her primary focus, both as Nora and as Indigo, has become a murderous criminal cult called the Children of Phonos. Children are being murdered in New York, and Nora is determined to make it stop, even if that means Indigo must eliminate every member. But in the aftermath of a bloody battle, a dying cultist makes claims that cause Indigo to question her own origin and memories.
In a brilliant collaboration by New York Times and critically acclaimed coauthors Charlaine Harris, Christopher Golden, Kelley Armstrong, Jonathan Maberry, Kat Richardson, Seanan McGuire, Tim Lebbon, Cherie Priest, James Moore, and Mark Morris join forces to bring you a crime-solving novel like you’ve never read before.
 Marvel Comics: The Untold Story
by Sean Howe
From the book description
An Unvarnished, unauthorized, behind-the-scenes account of one of the most dominant pop cultural forces in contemporary America
Operating out of a tiny office on Madison Avenue in the early 1960s, a struggling company called Marvel Comics presented a cast of brightly costumed characters distinguished by smart banter and compellingly human flaws. Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, Captain America, the Incredible Hulk, the Avengers…quickly won children’s hearts and sparked imaginations.
Throughout this decades-long journey to becoming a multibillion-dollar enterprise, Marvel’s identity has continually shifted, careening between scrappy underdog and corporate behemoth.
For the first time, Marvel Comics reveals the outsized personalities behind the scenes. Drawing on more than one hundred original interviews with Marvel insiders then and now, Marvel Comics is a story of fertile imaginations, lifelong friendships, action-packed fistfights, reformed criminals, unlikely alliances, and third-act betrayals.
 Level Up Your Life: How to Unlock Adventure and Happiness by Becoming the Hero of Your Own Story
by Steve Kamb
From the book description
Jason Bourne. Indiana Jones. Steve Kamb? For the past 5 years, Steve Kamb has transformed himself from wanna-be daydreamer into a real-life superhero. Not only that but he actually turned his life into a gigantic video game, flying stunt planes in New Zealand, gambling in a tuxedo at the Casino de Monte-Carlo, and even finding Nemo on the Great Barrier Reef. To help him accomplish all of these goals, he built a system that allowed him to complete quests, take on boss battles, earn experience points, and literally level up his life. Best of all he did all of this without breaking the bank.
If you’re somebody who’s always dreamed of adventure and growth but can’t seem to leave your hobbit-hole, this book is for you.
In Level Up Your Life, you’ll meet more than a dozen of these members of The Rebellion: men and women, young and old, single and married, from all walks of life who have created superhero versions of themselves to live adventurously and happily. Adventure is out there, and the world needs more heroes. Will you heed the call?
Print from home or your mobile device
 The library is offering a new service called Mobile Print. If you need to print something from your home computer, but you don’t have a printer or you’re out of ink, now you can send your print job to the library and come pick it up later. Print from your home computer or laptop by visiting http://www.printeron.net/lml/print
You can also print from your smartphone or tablet using the PrinterOn app. Search for PrinterOn in your app store to get started.
A third option is to email what you want to print directly to one of our printers; lml-bw@printspots.com for black and white, lml-color@printspots.com for color, etc.
The library will hold your print job for 48 hours before it automatically times out and disappears from the print management computer.
Prices for mobile printing are the same as they are for printing from inside the library. For more information, visit our website at http://lmlibrary.org/mobile-printing/
Barbecue Cookout Recipe Swap
 Every month we get together to swap and sample some of our favorite recipes. This month the theme of our recipe swap will be barbecue. We will meet in the Learning Center beside the library on Tuesday, May 24th at 6:30 p.m. and will be grilling outside. Please join us. Bring your favorite side dish or dessert and a copy of the recipe. Everyone is welcome!
 Library Hours Survey
At the last meeting of the library board, the board made the decision to investigate expanding library hours for Saturday and to consider the idea of opening on Sundays. We are asking our patrons to help by taking a quick three question survey, https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/DFDS5JD, to let us know your opinion about expanding library hours on the weekends.
Top 10 Crime Novels of the Year
Every May Booklist magazine issues their Mystery Showcase, where they list the year’s best crime novels. We’ve put together a book display featuring some of these books and other new mystery and suspense novels.
 King Maybe
by Timothy Hallinan
From the Book Description
Junior Bender finds himself caught in a Hollywood revenge plot epic enough for the silver screen.
Los Angeles’s most talented burglar, Junior Bender, is in the middle of stealing one of the world’s rarest stamps from a professional killer when his luck suddenly turns sour. It takes an unexpected assist to get him out alive, but his escape sets off a chain reaction of blackmail, strong-arming, and escalating crime. By the time Junior is forced to commit his third burglary of the week—in the impregnable fortress that’s home to the ruthless studio mogul called King Maybe—he’s beginning to wish he’d just let the killer take a crack at him.
 Jane Steele
by Lyndsay Faye
From the Book Description
A reimagining of Jane Eyre as a gutsy, heroic serial killer, from the author whose work The New York Times described as “riveting” and The Wall Street Journal called “thrilling.”
“Reader, I murdered him.” So begins Lyndsay Faye’s Jane Steele.
A sensitive orphan, Jane Steele suffers first at the hands of her spiteful aunt and predatory cousin, then at a grim school where she fights for her very life until escaping to London, leaving the corpses of her tormentors behind her. After years of hiding from the law while penning macabre “last confessions” of the recently hanged, Jane thrills at discovering an advertisement. Her aunt has died and her childhood home has a new master: Mr. Charles Thornfield, who seeks a governess.
Burning to know whether she is in fact the rightful heir, Jane takes the position incognito, and learns that Highgate House is full of marvelously strange new residents…
Liberal Memorial Library Events this week
- President’s Day
The library will be closed on Monday, February 15th for President’s Day.
- Bunco Party – Adults
It’s not too late to sign up for our first ever Bunco party. It will be on Thursday, February 18th at noon in the Cooper-Clark meeting room. Bunco is a popular dice game that is often played at parties or with family. Refreshment will be served.
- Game Time for Kids
We will also have a Game Time for Kids on Thursday at 4 p.m. Kids will earn prizes and enjoy refreshments.
New Computers
The library is in the process of getting new laptops and power companions. Patrons can use the power companions to charge their own devices via usb, one of the library’s laptops, or possibly the patron’s own laptop if it is a model similar to one of the library laptops. The new laptops and power companions will be available for checkout for in-library usage for adult and teen patrons (with parental consent).
Valentine’s Day – New Romance Novels
We have set up a book display of new romance novels in honor of Valentine’s Day. For those of us who enjoy being swept away by a good romance, here are a few of our best and newest.
 A lady’s guide to ruin
by Kathleen Kimmel
Book Description
Joan Price is a wanted woman. A thief and a fugitive from the mental hospital where she was falsely committed, she’s now on the run from her former partners in crime. But luck must be on her side – just when it seems all is doomed, she runs straight into the arms of Martin Hargrove, Earl of Fenbrook, who mistakes her for his distant cousin, Daphne.
Lord Fenbrook has no intention of marrying, and certainly doesn’t consider his notoriously scatterbrained cousin a prospect. But her flighty persona seems to hide something far more intriguing – a secret self she trusts with no one. And Martin is determined to earn that trust……
All the stars in the heavens : a novel
by Adriana Trigiani
Book Description
The movie business is booming in 1935 when twenty-one-year-old Loretta Young meets thirty-four-year old Clark Gable on the set of The Call of the Wild. Though he’s already married, Gable falls for the stunning and vivacious young actress, and she returns his feelings.
Far from the glittering lights of Hollywood, Sister Alda Ducci has been forced to leave her convent and begin a new journey that leads her to Loretta. Becoming Miss Young’s secretary, the innocent and pious young Alda must navigate the wild terrain of Hollywood with fierce determination and a moral code that derives from her Italian roots. Over the course of decades, Alda and Loretta encounter scandal and adventure, choose love and passion, and forge an enduring bond of loyalty that will be put to the test when they face the greatest obstacle of their lives.
Who do you love
by Jennifer Weiner
Book Description
An unforgettable story about true love, real life, and second changes…
Rachel Blum and Andy Landis are just eight years old when they meet one night in an ER waiting room. Born with a congenital heart defect, Rachel is a veteran of hospitals, and she’s intrigued by the boy who shows up alone with a broken arm. He tells her his name. She tells him a story. After Andy’s taken back to a doctor and Rachel’s sent back to her bed, they think they’ll never see each other again.
Yet, over the next three decades, Andy and Rachel will meet again and again – linked by chance, history, and the memory of the first time they met, a night that changed the course of both of their lives.
Upcoming events this week
How to Crochet 101
Our first “How to Crochet 101” class will be held tomorrow. The class will be led by Leslie Bissell, who will show us how to do four basic stitches and how to read a pattern. The classes will continue on November 2nd, 9th, and 16th at 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Unfortunately the class is already full, so we can’t take any last minute sign-ups.
Movie Night (Adults)
This Tuesday at 6:00 p.m. will be the Movie Night for Adults. Have a night out with other adults, enjoy a movie and discuss it afterward.
Family Halloween Party
The library will have a Halloween party this Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. It will be a chance for the kids to show off their costumes, collect some candy, play great games, and win prizes. We’ll have snacks and a chance to build your own monster!
Spooky New Books
Speaking of Halloween, here are a few spooky new fiction books for you to enjoy.
 Candy corn murder
by Leslie Meier
From the book description
Halloween is coming to Tinker’s Cove, Maine, and local reporter Lucy Stone is covering the town’s annual Giant Pumpkin Fest for the Pennysaver. There’s the pumpkin-boat regatta, the children’s Halloween party, the pumpkin weigh-in…even a contest where home-built catapults hurl pumpkins at an old Dodge! But not everything goes quite as planned…
Lucy’s getting very annoyed that her husband Bill and his friend Evan have been working seemingly nonstop on their potentially prize-winning pumpkin catapult. But when the day of the big contest arrives, Evan is nowhere to be found…until a catapulted pumpkin busts open the trunk of the Dodge. Amid the pumpkin gore is a very deceased Evan, bashed in the head and placed in the trunk by someone long before the contest started.
Bill is on the hook for the Halloween homicide—he was the last one to see Evan—so Lucy knows she’s got some serious sleuthing to do…
 Ghost to the Rescue
by Carolyn Hart.
From the book description
When you wish upon a star, you get…Bailey Ruth? You do if you’re a little girl whose mom needs help and you touch the soft heart of Supervisor Wiggins at Heaven’s Department of Good Intentions. Granted it’s not the usual task of an emissary, but then again Bailey Ruth is not your usual emissary. So Wiggins dispatches the spunky spirit to her old hometown of Adelaide, Oklahoma, to help a single mother and struggling writer find some creative solutions to her problems.
Deidre Davenport is just about broke, trying to support her two children, and has her hopes pinned on getting a faculty job with the Goddard College English department. Jay Knox, who is in charge of the writer’s conference she’s participating in, will decide who gets the job, but he’s more interested in her body than her body of work.
Not long after his advances are rejected, Knox turns up dead—and Deirdre’s fingerprints are found on the murder weapon. Bailey Ruth knows Deirdre is innocent. Now she must find out who really knocked off Knox…if Deirdre and her family are ever going to have a happy ending.
 The fifth house of the heart
by Ben Tripp.
From the book description
Filled with characters as menacing as they are memorable, this chilling twist on vampire fiction packs a punch in the bestselling tradition of ’Salem’s Lot by Stephen King.
Asmodeus “Sax” Saxon-Tang, a vainglorious and well-established antiques dealer, has made a fortune over many years by globetrotting for the finest lost objects in the world. Only Sax knows the true secret to his success: at certain points of his life, he’s killed vampires for their priceless hoards of treasure.
But now Sax’s past actions are quite literally coming back to haunt him, and the lives of those he holds most dear are in mortal danger. To counter this unnatural threat, and with the blessing of the Holy Roman Church, a cowardly but cunning Sax must travel across Europe in pursuit of incalculable evil—and immeasurable wealth—with a ragtag team of mercenaries and vampire killers to hunt a terrifying, ageless monster…one who is hunting Sax in turn.
What’s happening this week at the library
 Break out those crock pot recipes and join us tomorrow for Recipe swap. On the third Monday of every month at 6:30 p.m., we have our Recipe swap, which is a chance to show off your favorite recipes and bring in a sample of the finished product. Every month is a different theme and this month’s theme is crock pot recipes.
On Tuesday between 4 and 6 p.m., kids can come to our afterschool club and learn how to solve crimes using a forensic science kit. The Afterschool Learning Club meets Monday through Thursday from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. with different activities each day of the week.
Wizards, Magicians, and Sorcerers
J.K. Rowling brought wizards and magic to the world’s attention in the late 90’s, but she’s not the only bestselling author to give us stories of wizards, magicians, or sorcerers. Here are a few of the adult books on the subject that the library has showcased in this month’s book display.
 Uprooted
by Naomi Novik
From the book description
Naomi Novik, author of the New York Times bestselling and critically acclaimed Temeraire novels, introduces a bold new world rooted in folk stories and legends, as elemental as a Grimm fairy tale.
“Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley. We hear them sometimes, from travelers passing through. They talk as though we were doing human sacrifice, and he were a real dragon. Of course that’s not true: he may be a wizard and immortal, but he’s still a man, and our fathers would band together and kill him if he wanted to eat one of us every ten years. He protects us against the Wood, and we’re grateful, but not that grateful.”
Agnieszka loves her valley home, her quiet village, the forests and the bright shining river. But the corrupted Wood stands on the border, full of malevolent power, and its shadow lies over her life.
Her people rely on the cold, driven wizard known only as the Dragon to keep its powers at bay. But he demands a terrible price for his help: one young woman handed over to serve him for ten years, a fate almost as terrible as falling to the Wood.
 The sword of the south
by David Weber
From the book description
Know thyself. It’s always good to know who you are, but sometimes that’s a little difficult.
Kenhodan has no last name, because he has no past . . . or not one he remembers, anyway. What he does have are a lot of scars and a lot of skills some exhilarating and some terrifying and a purpose. Now if he only knew where he’d gotten them and what that purpose was . . . .
Wencit of Rm, the most powerful wizard in the world, knows the answers to Kenhodan’s questions, but he can’t or won’t share them with him. Except to inform him that he’s a critical part of Wencit’s millennium-long battle to protect Norfressa from conquest by dark sorcery.
But in the far northern port city of Belhadan, an eleven-year-old girl with a heart of harp music knows the answers to all of Kenhodan’s questions. . . and dares not share them with anyone, even the ancient wild wizard who loves her more dearly than life itself.
It’s not easy to face the future when you can’t even remember your own past, but if saving an entire world from evil sorcerers, demons, devils, and dark gods was easy, anyone could do it.
 The house of shattered wings
by Aliette de Bodard
From the book description
In the late twentieth century, the streets of Paris are lined with haunted ruins, the aftermath of a Great War between arcane powers. The Grand Magasins have been reduced to piles of debris, Notre-Dame is a burnt-out shell, and the Seine has turned black with ashes and rubble and the remnants of the spells that tore the city apart. But those that survived still retain their irrepressible appetite for novelty and distraction, and The Great Houses still vie for dominion over France’s once grand capital.
Once the most powerful and formidable, House Silverspires now lies in disarray. Its magic is ailing; its founder, Morningstar, has been missing for decades; and now something from the shadows stalks its people inside their very own walls.
Within the House, three very different people must come together: a naive but powerful Fallen angel; an alchemist with a self-destructive addiction; and a resentful young man wielding spells of unknown origin. They may be Silverspires’ salvation—or the architects of its last, irreversible fall. And if Silverspires falls, so may the city itself.
 Zinio for Libraries
If you’re gearing up for a Summer vacation this year, why not take along a few eMagazines for a little light reading. It’s easy to do if you have a mobile device that you like to use. Zinio for Libraries has new apps for iPad®, iPhone®, AndroidTM, and Kindle FireTM HD/HDX.
Did you know that Zinio also has instant streaming on PC and Mac computers? You can check out a magazine and start reading immediately on your computer.
Liberal Memorial Library, as part of a consortium of Southwest Kansas Libraries, is offering free online magazine checkout to our patrons through Zinio. You can use your Liberal Memorial Library card number to sign up for the service. Come by, call, or visit us online at http://lmlibrary.org/how-do-i/zinio/ to learn more about setting up an account.
Some of our most popular titles available for checkout include:
- Country Living
- Do It Yourself
- Us Weekly
- Better Homes and Gardens
- Food Network Magazine
- OK! Magazine
- Family Circle
- Family Handyman
- HGTV Magazine.
“mental_floss” is the newest addition to our online magazine offerings.
Memorial Day
The Library will be closed tomorrow, Monday 25th for Memorial Day. Memorial Day originated after the Civil war as a way of remembering soldiers who died in the war. Here are a few of our newest books involving soldiers who also deserve to be remembered.
It’s what I do : a photographer’s life of love and war
by Addario, Lynsey
Book Description – War photographer Lynsey Addario’s memoir It’s What I Do is the story of how the relentless pursuit of truth, in virtually every major theater of war in the twenty-first century, has shaped her life.
 Legend
by Eric Blehm
Book Description – The unforgettable account and courageous actions of the U.S. Army’s 240th Assault Helicopter Company and Green Beret Staff Sergeant Roy Benavidez, who risked everything to rescue a Special Forces team trapped behind enemy lines.
Soldier girls : the battles of three women at home and at war
by Helen Thorpe
Book Description – In Soldier Girls, Helen Thorpe follows the lives of three women over twelve years on their paths to the military, overseas to combat, and back home…These women, who are quite different in every way, become friends, and we watch their interaction and also what happens when they are separated.
Summer Reading Kick Off Party
 Summer Reading is kicking off a little early this Tuesday with Poppa D Clown! The Kick Off party will be at 6:00 p.m., on the lawn at the Library and it is free for everyone. There will be games, snacks, and crafts to get you ready for Summer Reading. And of course Poppa D Clown will be there to entertain us all.
It’s still not too late to sign up for Summer Reading. You can come into the library or just visit our website. Visit the Kids, Teens, or Adults area on our website, http://lmlibrary.org, to find out more about Summer Reading.
Yesterday, the first Saturday of November, was National Book Lovers Day, at least according to some calendars anyway. So let’s look at a few of our good-book-to-curl-up-with options.
The classics have be revisited by many authors and in about as many different ways. Here are a couple of classics retold with a horror twist, just in time for the Halloween season.
Pride and prejudice and zombies : the classic Regency romance — now with ultraviolent zombie mayhem!
by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith.
I think the first sentence of the book describes this adaptation of the classic very well – “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.”
According to the book description ”A mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton–and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she’s soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy.”
Little women and werewolves
by Louisa May Alcott and Porter Grand.
This is the original text of Louisa May Alcott’s classic, the first draft, before the editor altered it . . . according to the back cover anyway. At the beginning this uncensored version, it includes a letter from the editor to the author telling her to try again. This time without the werewolves.
Here is another way to honor the classics, by picking up where the author left off. The following two books are both mysteries set after the events of Pride and prejudice.
Death comes to Pemberley
by P.D. James.
It is 1803, six years since Elizabeth and Darcy embarked on their life together at Pemberley, Darcy’s magnificent estate when Pemberley is thrown into chaos after Elizabeth’s disgraced sister Lydia arrives and announces that her husband Wickham has been murdered.
North by Northanger, or, The shades of Pemberley : a Mr. & Mrs. Darcy mystery
by Carrie Bebris.
This book is actually the third in the Mr. & Mrs. Darcy Mysteries series, the first two beingPride and Prescience and Suspense and Sensibility. North by Northanger brings the Darcys into contact with the characters from another of Jane Austen’s books Northanger Abbey.
From the book description — “Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam Darcy retire to the peace and quiet of Pemberley as they await the birth of their first child. Such tranquility, however, cannot last.”
Splintered : a novel
by A.G. Howard.
Splintered and its sequel Unhinged are both recent additions to the library’s collection of young adult classics with a twist. Alyssa is the great-great-great-granddaughter of the famous Alice who told her strange dreams to Lewis Carrol, inspiring his classic Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Now Alyssa must travel to a very real Wonderland to right the wrongs done by her ancestor.
Cinder : a Lunar chronicles novel
by Marissa Meyer.
Another young adult book, Cinder is a very different sort of Cinderella story. “As plague ravages the overcrowded Earth, observed by a ruthless lunar people, Cinder, a gifted mechanic and cyborg, becomes involved with handsome Prince Kai and must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect the world in this futuristic take on the Cinderella story.”
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West : a novel
Gregory Maguire
Gregory Maguire’s Wicked is a very well-known book with several sequels and even a Broadway musical based on it. It tells the story of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in a way that L. Frank Baum never imagined. But it isn’t the only twisted tale that Maguire has given us. He also retold Snow White and Cinderella in Mirror Mirror and Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister.
Just remember while you’re curled up in your favorite chair reading whatever book you’ve chosen, that Daylight Saving Time ends today and to set your clocks back an hour.
I am so excited about this week at the library, because on Wednesday, the finalists for the National Book Awards will be announced. The National Book Award is awarded every year to recognize the best in American literature. There are four categories: fiction, nonfiction, poetry and young people’s literature. The longlist of books for the National Book Award came out a few weeks ago, and Liberal Memorial Library has all of the long listed books in the young people’s literature category and I am reading my way through them as fast as I can. Here are my top recommendations from the longlist (and the ones that I hope are at least a finalist for the award).
Girls Like Us by Gail Giles. This book will make you want to cry and laugh and then cry and laugh again. At the end, you won’t know if you want to cry or smile. Two mentally challenged girls are kicked out of their homes after high school graduation and are set up with jobs and an apartment that they have to share. Each girl has her own problems and history and the book alternates between each girl telling her story.
Noggin by John Corey Whaley. A sci-fi YA read that is funny, and not too science fictiony. A 16 year old teen gets brought back from the dead (because of cryogenics) to find that his head has been sewn onto the head of another teen and five years has passed since he was put to sleep. That’s the only science fiction part of the book – the rest deals with everyone else being five years older and him figuring out how to cope.
Fans of Carl Hiaasen will be pleased to know that he has his first YA book out. Skink-No Surrender is a bit tamer than his adult reads and a lot more interesting than his children’s books. Richard and Skink (the one-eyed, hermit, eco-terrorist, ex-governor are trying to find Richard’s cousin who ran away right before she was supposed to be shipped off to boarding school. You will either love this book or hate it. If you love it, check out Hiaasen’s other books that we have in the library. It is not as over the top like a lot of Hiaasen’s books, which could be a good thing or a bad thing.
One book that I haven’t read yet (and will be next on my list if it isn’t checked out when I’m looking for a book to read) isThreatened by Eliot Schrefer. This book takes place in the African jungle and brings up questions of conservation. Luc lost his whole family to AIDS and as an orphan, has to fend for himself. He gets a job offer to go to the jungle with a stranger to study the lives of chimpanzees. The cover sold the book to me and I’ve been intrigued since.
Come by the library and check out some of our National Book Award long listed books in the young people’s literature category. You don’t have to be a child or a teen to enjoy these books and I guarantee that they are a lot more fun than many of the books in the adult fiction category! The winner of the National Book Awards will be announced in mid-November, so if you can’t finish them all, make sure to at least check out the winners.
It always amuses me when people refer to Kansas as a “fly-over” state. Truth be told, you wouldn’t be able to fly-over this great state if it wasn’t for our state’s place in the aviation history of our country. Home to aviation pioneers such as Amelia Earhart from Atchison, KS as well as scores of aviation companies, most notably Boeing, Beechcraft, Cessna, the list goes on. Kansas has also served as a training ground for countless pilots for many generations, names lost to time, but forever in our hearts. Kansas also maintains a multitude of museums devoted to our unique placement in aviation history. My two favorite museums happen to be the Air Combat Museum in Topeka, Kansas and Liberal’s very own Mid-America Air Museum. One feels the history as you walk around historic aircraft that helped to defend, protect, and shape our nation.
Sadly, to go with these triumphs in aviation, Kansas has had more than its fair share of tragedy. Most everyone knows of our loss of Amelia Earhart as she attempted a solo flight around the world in 1937, the 1931 plane crash in a Kansas wheat field that claimed the life of famed Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne, and in 1970 the crash that claimed the lives of players, coaches, and staff of the Wichita State University football team.
I have been familiar with this rich history for quite some time, but recently happened upon a book in the Liberal Memorial Library entitled “Mayday over Wichita: the worst military aviation disaster in Kansas history” by D.W. Carter, written in 2013 and published by the History Press. This story portrays the tragic crash of an Air Force KC-135 re-fueling tanker in Wichita, Kansas on January 16, 1965. Four minutes after take-off from McConnell Air Force Base the plane had gone off-course and was flying so low that many people could see the jet fuel spilling out of the back of the aircraft. Moments later it nose-dived into a heavily populated area, full of approximately 30,000 gallons of jet fuel.
The crash took place in a predominantly African-American neighborhood and killed all crewman onboard and approximately 30 people on the ground. Most of those who died on the ground were children. The tragedy struck quickly with no time for warnings, no time for crew members to escape, for those on the ground to run, there was nothing that could be done. For the crew, they were in a plane that had no ejection seats or personal parachutes. The thinking was that if something went wrong, there was literally no hope of surviving a crash. For those on the ground, moments were frozen in time as they attempted to start the car for the morning errands, make breakfast, or get out of the shower. For the witnesses, tragedy and horrific images they will never forget. Many first responders physically ill from the sight of the wreckage. Many in shock from the scene and the intensity from which it started and the quickness with which it ended.
Within 25 minutes emergency crews had control of the fire and begun the process of insuring the safety of all in the area. Wichita being an aviation town it was well-prepared to deal with the tragedy. In fact, just a week before they had a disaster meeting to discuss this very scenario. The book does a detailed job of walking the reader through all the possible scenarios that most probably led to the crash. The book also helps to dispel some rumors about the event that sprung up quickly in its aftermath.
I don’t want to give too much of this interesting story away, but needless to say the tragedy affected the community of Wichita for years to come. Slowly over the course of time, details have been forgotten and for the most part lost to the march of time. This is a fairly short book clocking in at about 158 pages. But those pages are rich with the history of Kansas and the story of aviation in Kansas.
The brave men, women, and families who were lost, or who remained after the event will forever live on in our hearts.
Next time you are in the library, check the shelves to see if this book is in. When you finish it, stop by my office and let’s chat about it.
The Library has new non-fiction books and they cover a wide spectrum. There’s one which deals with a man and his dog, trekking across the United States and encountering dog lovers along the way. There’s another one that takes a look at the history of two families, one black, one white, and how it traces back to the same slave plantation. And finally, if you enjoy those delicious Vietnamese sandwiches called Banh Mi and wanted to make them yourself, there’s a cookbook that delivers over 50 recipes. Check these books out!
Travels with Casey
By Benoit Denizet-Lewis
A moody Labrador and his insecure human take a funny, touching cross-country RV trip into the heart of America’s relationship with dogs.
“I don’t think my dog likes me very much,” New York Times Magazine writer Benoit Denizet-Lewis confesses at the beginning of his journey with his nine-year-old Labrador-mix, Casey. Over the next four months, thirty-two states, and 13,000 miles in a rented motor home, Denizet-Lewis and his canine companion attempt to pay tribute to the most powerful interspecies bond there is, in the country with the highest rate of dog ownership in the world.
On the way, Denizet-Lewis—known for his deeply reported dispatches from far corners of American life—meets an irresistible cast of dogs and dog-obsessed humans. Denizet-Lewis and Casey hang out with wolf-dogs in Appalachia, search with a dedicated rescuer of stray dogs in Missouri, spend a full day at a kooky dog park in Manhattan, get pulled over by a K9 cop in Missouri, and visit “Dog Whisperer” Cesar Millan in California. And then there are the pet psychics, dog-wielding hitchhikers, and two nosy women who took their neighbor to court for allegedly failing to pick up her dog’s poop.
Travels with Casey is a delightfully idiosyncratic blend of memoir and travelogue coupled with an exploration of a dog-loving America. What does our relationship to our dogs tell us about ourselves and our values? Denizet-Lewis explores those questions—and his own canine-related curiosities and insecurities—during his unforgettable road trip through our dog-loving nation.
Tomlinson Hill: The Remarkable Story of Two Families who Share the Tomlinson Name – One White, One Black
by Chris Tomlinson
“Foreign correspondent Chris Tomlinson returns to Texas to discover the truth about his family’s slave-owning history. Tomlinson Hill tells the story of two families, one black and one white, who trace their ancestry to the same Central Texas slave plantation. Tomlinson discovers that his counterpart in the African American family is LaDainian Tomlinson, one of the greatest running backs in the history of the National Football League. LaDainian’s father was the last Tomlinson living on the Hill when he died in 2007. LaDainian’s earliest memories are from the idyllic community built by former slaves on the former plantation grounds. Chris learns that many of the stories surrounding the Civil War and the South that he learned as a child are simply untrue. He finds family letters that detail the mix of brutality and meager kindness that his relatives used to maintain order. He then compares and contrasts what the two families experienced at Emancipation, during Reconstruction, through the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and the Civil Rights era, and ending the day LaDainian’s father died. Tomlinson Hill is more than a history of two families; it tells the story of America and how slavery still shapes our society. And it ends with the fulfillment of Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream that one day the sons of slaves and the sons of slaveholders would meet in brotherhood”
The Banh Mi Handbook: Recipes for Crazy-Delicious Vietnamese Sandwiches
by Andrea Quynhgiao Nguyen
A cookbook devoted to the beloved Vietnamese sandwich, with 50 recipes ranging from classic fillings to innovative modern combinations. The Banh Mi Handbook opens a new realm of flavor for cooks who are tired of the same old sandwiches. Who can resist the addictive combination of crisp baguette, succulent fillings (such as grilled pork, roast chicken, or “the special,” which is loaded with garlicky pork liver pate and thin slices of Vietnamese cold-cuts) and toppings (like tangy daikon and carrot pickles, thin chile slices, refreshing cucumber strips, and pungent cilantro sprigs)? Banh mi are the epitome of delicious street food, and their popularity has skyrocketed in the US in recent years. Respected food writer Andrea Nguyen’s simple recipes for proteins, condiments, pickles, and more are a great introduction for those looking to venture into Vietnamese cuisine but who are intimidated by complicated recipes.
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