Now that summer is definitely (I think it’s fair to say definitely now, don’t you?) upon us, it’s time once again for the Free-For-All to share with you some of our lovely staff’s selections for summer reading!
We are a staff of diverse reading/listening/viewing habits, which makes these posts so much fun. There is such a wide range of books and media that our staff enjoy that there is bound to be something in here to help make your summer that much more entertaining! And so, without further ado, here is our fifth round of Staff Selections:
From the Circulation Desk:
The Meat Cake Bible by Dame Darcy
Dame Darcy is an artist of many and varied talents: musician, actress, fortune teller, dollmaker, Gen X/feminist icon, and last but not least, cartoonist to the core, delighting readers with her neo-Victorian horror/romance/humor comic Meat Cake. This collection brings together her delightful (and occasionally gruesome) fairy tales and the Meat Cake comics, featuring Effluvia the Mermaid, the roguish roué Wax Wolf, Igpay the Pig-Latin pig, Stregapez (a women who speaks by dispensing Pez-like tablets through a bloody hole in her throat), the mischievous Siamese twins Hindrance and Perfidia, Scampi the Selfish Shellfish, the stalwart Friend the Girl, and the blonde bombshell Richard Dirt. Take a peek inside this tiny little fun house and discover all the marvelous treats inside! Voluminous, quirky, dense and delightful!
From the Reference Desk:
The Last Hack by Christopher Brookmyre
Since we were talking about this series earlier this week, it seemed like a good time to let you know that this book (and this series) are some of the most engrossing, bizarre, and twisty mysteries you can find. I truly loved this eighth installment, in which we learn the true identity of a character whose had a major influence on this series–but this time, the hacker known as Buzzkill is facing blackmail, and is calling in every favor that Jack Parlabane owes in order to secure his help in a massive industrial espionage attempt. And when they realize they have both been played and set up for murder, an attempted break-in becomes a manhunt that could cost Parlabane everything he has fought to recover–and could cost Buzzkill even more.
Tim’s Vermeer, a Penn & Teller film featuring Tim Jenison
Tim Jenison, a Texas-based inventor, attempts to solve one of the greatest mysteries in all art: How did seventeenth century Dutch Master Johannes Vermeer manage to paint so photo-realistically, 150 years before the invention of photography? Spanning ten years, his adventure takes him to Delft, Holland, where Vermeer painted his masterpieces, to the north coast of Yorkshire to meet artist David Hockney, and even to Buckingham Palace to see a Vermeer masterpiece in the collection of the Queen. You can watch the trailer by clicking this link!
From the West Branch:
Off to be the Wizard by Scott Meyer
Martin Banks is just a normal guy who has made an abnormal discovery: he can manipulate reality, thanks to reality being nothing more than a computer program. With every use of this ability, though, Martin finds his little “tweaks” have not escaped notice. Rather than face prosecution, he decides instead to travel back in time to the Middle Ages and pose as a wizard. What could possibly go wrong? An American hacker in King Arthur’s court, Martin must now train to become a full-fledged master of his powers, discover the truth behind the ancient wizard Merlin…and not, y’know, die or anything. Fans of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One will find a lot to enjoy in this book, and the entire Magic 2.0 series!
