Guess what?  It’s still February.

And, to add insult to injury, the Valentine’s Day Candy is gone.

However, the Cadbury Eggs have arrived, and many a Library Blog Keeper runs on Cadbury Eggs, so things aren’t all that bad, I suppose…

But for those of you looking for a reason to celebrate this month, here are some obscure, but fun (and often delicious) holidays to observe in the coming weeks:

February 21: National Sticky Bun Day
No one knows who originally created this swirly treat, but they first arrived in this country along with German immigrants, who called the treat schnecken.  

February 22: National Cook A Sweet Potato Day
I’m not making this up.  The sweet potato is loaded with Vitamins A, C, and B-6 (which is good for your brain), as well as magnesium, and is the state vegetable of North Carolina.

February 26: National Tell A Fairy Tale Day
How cool is this day?!  I have a feeling that Lady Pole and I will have great fun celebrating, and here are some ideas for your celebration, courtesy of Grammarly.

February 28: National Chocolate Souffle Day
Here are some ideas for your celebration of this day.  We here at the Library are willing to taste-test your creation–as an act of public service.  Obviously.

Did you also know that February is Library Lovers Month, too?
You can show your support for this holiday by visiting your local library–and maybe even checking out some books!  Here are some ideas to get you started, chosen from the books that have appeared on our shelves this week:

The Quality of Silence: In this beautifully imagined and viscerally real novel, Rosamund Lupton tells the story of astrophysicist Yasmin, who arrives in the remote wilds of Alaska, along with her deaf daughter, Ruby, to be told that her husband Matt is dead.  Yasmin refuses to accept this information on blind-faith, however, and sets off into a growing storm, and into the unforgiving wilderness with Ruby to find answers…but it isn’t long before Yasmin beings to realize that someone else in out in the storm with them…and that turning back could cost them both their lives.  Lupton’s story-telling skills are very well known, and it is that talent that makes this book something more than a thriller.  As The Guardian observes, “The Quality of Silence is an elegant and icily unique thriller: you won’t read anything like it this year. I’ll bet it leaves you (like me) longing for a trip to Alaska, even if you don’t plan on swiping a truck once you’re there.”

The Ex-Patriates: Janet Y.K. Lee earned a legion of fans with her novel The Piano Teacher, so the arrival of this new work is sure to bring joy to many hearts.  Here, Lee tells the intertwined stories of three American women living within the small ex-pat community in Hong Kong.  Each has a life before them, but secrets, doubts, and fears behind them, which Lee describes with poignant insight.  But it is how these women’s lives collide, and the results of their meeting that will change each of their paths forever…for better or for worse.  This is a book that manages to be both a cultural commentary and a personal journey, and Lee’s ability to navigate the different perspectives within her work is earning rave reviews.  The Christian Science Monitor hails “At turns illuminating, entertaining, cringe-inducing, piercing . . . With meticulous details and nuanced observations, Lee creates an exquisite novel of everyday lives in extraordinary circumstances. . . . How Lee’s triumvirate reacts, copes, and ventures forth (or not) proves to be a stupendous feat of magnetic, transporting storytelling. . . . Mark my words: The Expatriates will appear repeatedly on year-end award nominations and all the ‘best of’ compilations.”

Lovecraft Country: “Lovecraft Country” has become a literary term that describes the somewhat bleak, mysterious New England landscapes that Lovecraft described so well in his stories, but Matt Ruff uses this term as a way to get under the skin of some of the darker, much less savory aspects of Lovecraft’s character….Frankly put, Lovecraft was a horrific racist–even by the standards of his own time he was considered rather repugnant (even by his friends), and it’s created a great deal of tension amongst many readers.  Ruff bashes through that tension with a book about a young African-American army veteran named Atticus Turner, who travels to “Lovecraft Country” in a search for his missing father along with his uncle George, the author of The Safe Negro Travel Guide–a real book that was intended to offer traveling African Americans help in navigating Jim Crow America.  Along the way, they encounter monsters aplenty, of both the mythical and all too human variety in a timely and very brave work that Booklist calls “Nonstop adventure that includes time-shifting, shape-shifting, and Lovecraft-like horrors … Ruff…vividly portrays racism as a horror worse than anything conceived by Lovecraft in this provocative, chimerical novel.”

The Immortals: The multi-talented Jordanna Max Brodsky has launched a new urban fantasy series set in Manhattan, and featuring all the Gods of Olympus–though they currently wear the faces of ordinary New Yorkers.  But when the solitary young Selene DiSilva discovers a murdered woman washed ashore and wreathed in laurel, a rage she has held in check for centuries begins to rise, as does the memory of a promise she made when her name was Artemis…This book, and Brodsky’s inventive story-telling, is winning a good deal of attention, with Publisher’s Weekly giving it a star review and cheering, that it “Plays with more modern mythology, employing New York’s own secret places and storied history to great effect. This intelligent, provocative fantasy breathes exciting new life into old, familiar tales.”

 

Citrus: If there is anything that tastes like summer and sunshine, it is citrus.  There is, perhaps, nothing better for the winter doldrums than making the food in this book…and then sharing it with your local Library Staff.

 

 

Until next week, Beloved Patrons–happy reading!