Going back to school can seem really daunting and being prepared can be a struggle, so we have a few tips on what to keep in your locker to keep on keeping on all school year long!
Extra school supplies: Pens, pencils, paper clips, you name it. You are going to need these at some point so it’s good to keep a secret stash for yourself so you’re never without a writing utensil!
Deodorant: You are going to get smelly and this is going to be your saving grace. Whether you just got out of gym class or you woke up too late for a morning shower, this is an essential in keeping yourself feeling fresh!
Gum: Listen, that onion bagel might have been great but your breath will not be. Keep some minty fresh gum around for bad breath emergencies!
Extra Outfit: Now this might seem a little weird but you never know if you’ll need a change of clothes. Spills, dirt, bloody noses, paint, and a whole lot more can happen anytime and walking around with stained clothes can really suck. We recommend keeping a bag with an extra shirt, pants, socks, and some flip flops.
A Go-To Good Book: We recommend something easy to hop in and out of, and something you don’t mind carrying around in a bag. Books are a great way to de-stress, get some alone time, and can come in handy if you end up having a particularly long bus ride home!
Skip the stress about back to school this year with these tips and you’ll be set for the semester!
On Monday, August 13, the Phi Beta Kappa Society announced the short list for the annual book award, which recognizes outstanding scholarly books published in the United States in the fields of the humanities, the social sciences, the natural sciences and mathematics.
Via http://www.pbk.org/Press/2018ShortList
Phi Beta Kappa was founded by five students at the College of William & Mary in 1776. Their belief was that the new nation they hoped to build would need new intellectual institutions to that would reflect the principles of that nation–intellectual freedom, freedom of speech, and creativity. Though the society was initially a secret one, which the founders believed would keep them safe from political persecution, Phi Beta Kappa is now a nationally- and internationally-recognized institution with Today there are 286 chapters at American colleges and universities and 50 active alumni associations located in all regions of the country.
As per their website, Phi Beta Kappa’s name originated from the motto “Love of learning is the guide of life,” a phrase the founders derived from the Greek Φιλοσοφία Βίου Κυβερνήτης. The three Greek letters ΦΒΚ are inscribed on the signature gold key that is today a nationally recognized credential signifying academic achievement.
The Phi Beta Kappa book awards are intended to recognize not only books that help us learn, but that do so in a way that is interesting, accessible, and effective. As a result, non-fiction lovers will find plenty of books among these nominees to whet their literary palate! There are three awards, each of which has their own short list. The winning authors will be honored at a gala dinner on December 7th, 2018 in Washington, DC, at The Carnegie Institution for Science. A description of the awards and their nominees are below. Tune in for updates, as the award winners will be announced on October 1, 2018.
Via http://www.pbk.org/Awards/BookAwards
The Christian Gauss Award: Recognizes books in the field of literary scholarship or criticism. The nominees are:
The Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science: Honors outstanding contributions by scientists to the literature of science, encouraging literate and scholarly interpretations of the physical and biological sciences and mathematics.The nominees are:
The Ralph Waldo Emerson Award: Recognizes works from scholarly studies that contribute significantly to interpretations of the intellectual and cultural condition of humanity, including works in the fields of history, philosophy and religion as well as such fields as anthropology and the social sciences. The nominees are:
First and foremost, our apologies for the deafening silence on this blog in the past few days. We were getting over a bit of summer sickness, and appreciate your patience with us a great deal.
We’re back, and, no doubt like many of you, getting ready for the all the back-to-school fun. There’s no joy quite like a new box of crayons for the first day of school–but there’s also a lot of stress and anxiety around heading back to school, too. That’s true no matter how old you are, how long you have been a student, or where you go to class.
The good news is that, as with nearly all things, the Library is here to help!
We’ve already mentioned the Library’s subscription to Tutor.com, which provides on-demand, one-to-one tutoring in an online classroom for students in kindergarten through college in over 60 academic subjects and test preparation areas, including the ACT and SAT. It’s a phenomenal resource that can help students in any grade. Today, we’re eager to feature a class that might very well prove helpful to those who may be writing research papers in the coming school year, and would like to learn more about the process and the resources available to you as Library patrons. Here’s the course description:
Writing a research paper can feel feel scary and overwhelming, but having the right tools and skills at your disposal can help make the process clear, and aid you in making the grade with confidence.
This 2-week class is for students of all ages who are looking to acquire or enhance their research and academic writing skills for any class or academic program.
We will begin by looking at the physical and digital resources available through the library to help you assemble the facts, data, and sources necessary to write a strong paper. We will then discuss how to construct a research paper, including building a strong thesis statement, crafting a persuasive argument, and citing your sources correctly. We will also brainstorm some effective writing strategies and support methods for students to help make the research and writing process as easy and low-stress as possible.
This course will be held at the Main Library on Monday, September 17 & 24, from 6:00 – 7:30pm. As mentioned in the description, students of all ages and from any academic discipline are welcome–as are patrons looking to brush up on the research and writing skills. Registration is now open on our website, or you can call us are (978) 531-0100 to register by phone.
We hope this class, and the other resources that we’ll be featuring in the coming weeks will prove useful to those of you heading back to school, supporting a student, or looking to learn more for yourself alone. Please let us know what else we can do to make your academic life more easy, too!
Greetings again, good readers! It’s time for the next entry in my ever-lengthening series on creatures that have been described as “living fossils”, despite that this term isn’t terribly accurate literally, figuratively and in implication. Initially I was going to post about reptiles, amphibians and some fish today, but I instead decided to veer off towards mammals. Do not worry, these beasties’ time will come.
It’s not a mouse, it’s not a deer, it’s a chevrotain (or popularly, a mouse-deer), a primitive ruminant! Photo credit: mentalfloss.com/iStock
Despite mammals’ overwhelming popularity in terms of the Charismatic Fauna Olympics, they’re not as well-represented in the various lists of living fossils that are floating around, perhaps because they are by and large an evolutionarily “younger” group than say, fish or reptiles, or perhaps because the average person isn’t trained to necessarily identify what features in mammals are basal re: mammal evolution. Need an accessible primer on mammal evolution? National Geographic will help us today.
Alternatively, some of these animals are so obscure in the popular imagination (or are simply rare) as to make finding reliable information on them difficult. For example, consider the shrew-like venomous solenodon:
The case is the similar for many of these creatures, but I’ll do my best to inform in an entertaining fashion. In addition to the solenodon and the hastily-mentioned chevrotain, did you know that the star of the beginning of the alphabet, the insectivorous aardvark, is the last living species of its order (Tubulidentata)?
An aardvark at night. Eats ants but isn’t an anteater. Photo credit: arkive.org/Nigel J. Dennis.
Despite some similarity in their appearance and even their popular names at times, aardvarks (meaning “earth pig” in Afrikaans), while they do eat ants, they are not anteaters, nor are they closely related to anteaters, which are native to South America (aardvarks are native to Africa).
Arthur Timothy Read, the 8-year-old star of numerous children’s books by Marc Brown and a PBS television series. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons.
Next, we come to the hyraxes, the only living member of the order Hyracoidea. Despite their small size and their superficial resemblance to rodents, they are not rodents – hyraxes are just hyraxes, with their closest living kin being elephants, manatees and dugongs. Like the aardvark, the hyraxes also belong to clade Afrotheria and are the remaining members of a much more populous group.
A family of rock hyraxes, creatures of little power. Photo credit: The San Diego Zoo.
Despite not being so famous in popular culture, hyraxes (also known as “dassies”) do have a bit of cachet in certain circles from being mentioned multiple times in the Old Testament of the Bible. Perhaps most famously, they are referred to in Proverbs 30:26:
…hyraxes are creatures of little power, yet they make their home in the crags…
This is a translation error – early translators of the Bible into English were not knowledgeable about Middle Eastern fauna and thus shoehorned the Hebrew terms for this animal or animals like it into animals that they were familiar with. If you have any interest in Biblical translation history and challenges, you will know this is notthe first time this has happened.
As for cud chewing, it has been suggested that perhaps the writers were describing the hyrax in the act of chewing (which it does do, it is not a snake) and mistook its mastication for the act of cud-chewing.
Cave painting of an aurochs at Lascaux, which certainly chewed the cud. Photo credit: Discovermagazine.com/Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images
While there are other creatures to discuss (in particular, the Amami rabbit and the Laotian rock rat, both of which are visually distinct among their relatives), I’ll devote this last section to a mammal that is charismatic even among other charismatic mammals: the red panda (Ailurus fulgens).
A red panda, also called the “lesser panda”. Photo credit: DLILLC/Corbis, http://www.animalplanet.com/wild-animals/photos/red-panda/
Despite sharing a name with much-larger giant pandas (Ailuropodamelanoleuca), red pandas are not bears, foxes, cats, raccoons, otters, dogs, or anything else that they may share visual traits with (pointed ears, ringed tail, etc).
Like a number of other creatures I’ve discussed, they existed in an ever-changing state of taxonomic limbo for quite a while; at one point, this limbo involved theorizing that they were related to the giant panda and other bears. Currently the red panda (and its extinct brethren) is the sole living member of family Ailuridae, which is itself part of the superfamily Musteloidea; members of this superfamily are called “musteloids”. Other members of Musteloidea include skunks, raccoons and weasels.
A fisher (Pekania pennanti), also known as a fisher cat, is not a cat, but an example of a musteloid (distantly related to the red panda) native to New England. Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons/Troy and Rusty Lilly.
So how is a red panda like a giant panda? Well, they both live in China, though red pandas’ range stretches across the Himalayas; giant pandas are restricted to Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu provinces (more information on giant pandas’ current and historical ranges can be found here); both have bamboo-dependent diets (though red pandas enjoy a more varied diet than giant pandas); and they both have modified wrist bones that function as a sixth finger. Unfortunately, both have spots on the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Red List, with red pandas listed as “endangered” and giant pandas listed as “vulnerable”.
So which panda was called a panda (in English) first? According to linguist Susan Harvey, it was the red panda. Giant pandas came to be called pandas (in English) because of the mistaken belief that they were related to red pandas that seems to have surfaced in the early 1900s. Prior to their association with the red panda, giant pandas were called “parti-colored bears” or “mottled bears”. The word “panda” itself in English is thought to be of Nepali extraction, via French.
And that concludes this portion of today’s presentation! Unfortunately, my attempts to compile a reasonably-fleshed out reading list for this entry turned out a bit meager. Regardless, please take a look at the below offerings and consider them for your future reading choices:
Since I mentioned the Arthur books, I figured I should provide a little bit of attention to the book series. Those of you who are more familiar with Arthur’s more recent incarnations will notice that our friend has gone through some character design changes since the first book was released in 1976. As of August 2018, there are 45 books in the Arthur Adventure series, along with a number of spin-off series for different reading levels (easy readers, chapter books and audio books).
Aard-vark to Axolotl, an eclectic series of tiny essays, is a collection of prose poems disguised as imaginary definitions, and a collaboration of text + image based on a set of illustrations from an old dictionary. Sometimes sneaky mysterious, sometimes downright weird, these small stories work on the reader like alternative definitions for items drawn from a cabinet of curiosities.
If you’re interested in checking out this item, please speak to a librarian.
Red Panda: Biology and Conservation of the First Panda provides a broad-based overview of the biology of the red panda, Ailurus fulgens. A carnivore that feeds almost entirely on vegetable material and is colored chestnut red, chocolate brown and cream rather than the expected black and white. This book gathers all the information that is available on the red panda both from the field and captivity as well as from cultural aspects, and attempts to answer that most fundamental of questions, “What is a red panda?” Scientists have long focused on the red panda’s controversial taxonomy. Is it in fact an Old World procyonid, a very strange bear or simply a panda? All of these hypotheses are addressed in an attempt to classify a unique species and provide an in-depth look at the scientific and conservation-based issues urgently facing the red panda today.
Red Panda not only presents an overview of the current state of our knowledge about this intriguing species but it is also intended to bring the red panda out of obscurity and into the spotlight of public attention.
Wide-ranging account of the red panda (Ailurus fulgens) covers all the information that is available on this species both in and ex situ
Discusses the status of the species in the wild, examines how human activities impact on their habitat, and develops projections to translate this in terms of overall panda numbers
Reports on status in the wild, looks at conservation issues and considers the future of this unique species
Includes contributions from long-standing red panda experts as well as those specializing in fields involving cutting-edge red panda research.
If you’re interested in checking out this item, please speak to a librarian.
While not technically about platypuses, it mentions platypuses in the title so I’m going to count it. Everyone likes accessible philosophy texts, right?
Outrageously funny, Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar… has been a breakout bestseller ever since authors—and born vaudevillians—Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein did their schtick on NPR’s Weekend Edition. Lively, original, and powerfully informative, Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar… is a not-so-reverent crash course through the great philosophical thinkers and traditions, from Existentialism (What do Hegel and Bette Midler have in common?) to Logic (Sherlock Holmes never deduced anything). Philosophy 101 for those who like to take the heavy stuff lightly, this is a joy to read—and finally, it all makes sense!
Cathcart and Klein are clearly fond of putting creatures described as “living fossils” in the titles of their books. If you enjoyed their philosophy text, why not branch out to political rhetoric via philosophy and humor?
Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein, authors of the national bestseller Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar, aren’t falling for any election year claptrap—and they don’t want their readers to either! In Aristotle and an Aardvark Go to Washington, our two favorite philosopher-comedians return just in time to save us from the double-speak, flim-flam, and alternate reality of politics in America.
Deploying jokes and cartoon as well as the occasional insight from Aristotle and his peers, Cathcart and Klein explain what politicos are up to when they state: “The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.” (Donald Rumsfeld), “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.” (Bill Clinton), or even, “We hold these truths to be self-evident…” (Thomas Jefferson, et al).
Drawing from the pronouncements of everyone from Caesar to Condoleeza Rice, Genghis Kahn to Hillary Clinton, and Adolf Hitler to Al Sharpton. Cathcart and Klein help us learn to identify tricks such as “The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy” (non causa pro causa) and the “The Fallacy Fallacy” (argumentum and logicam). Aristotle and an Aardvark is for anyone who ever felt like the politicos and pundits were speaking Greek. At least Cathcart and Klein provide the Latin name for it (raudatio publica)!
Until next time, dear readers! As always, feel free to comment if you find any of the entries here at the Free-for-All particularly edifying, wish to share your thoughts and suggestions, or find that any information I’ve presented is incorrect. Constructive feedback is welcomed!
It’s That Time of year, dear readers, when the back-to-school-scramble begins. The rush to finish summer reading or assignments, find school supplies, and mentally prepare for the coming school year. For some, it’s exciting–and rightfully so! But it can also be a very stressful time of year–which is also completely valid. Trying to anticipate all the coming school year might have in store isn’t easy.
Fortunately, as in so many other matters, the Library is here to help.
We’ve recently added Tutor.com to our collection of digital resources. Tutor.com provides on-demand, one-to-one tutoring in an online classroom for students in kindergarten through college in over 60 academic subjects and test preparation areas, including the ACT and SAT. The Tutor.com Learning Suite also includes practice quizzes, skills drills, video lessons and The Princeton Review Essentials test preparation. Tutors are available Monday-Friday 2-10 pm and Saturday & Sunday 9 am – 10 pm.
This resource is available to Peabody residents with Peabody library cards. For those of you lovely people who aren’t Peabody residents, please check with your home library for further information and resources.
In order to access Tutor.com from our website, please use the following steps (you can click on the pictures to enlarge them, too).
Go to www.peabodylibrary.org and hover over the “eLibrary” tab. Click on “Articles/Databases”
Scroll down through our list of databases until you see Tutor.com (this list is in alphabetical order):
This will open a screen that will prompt you to enter your Peabody Library Card number:
You will be brought to the Tutor.com homepage. From here, you can chose a number of options, from submitting a paper for review to asking for help with a math problem, to preparing for the SAT and ACT tests.
We hope that this resource helps make your school year a stress-free and successful one. Please let us know how we can better help you, or if we can answer any questions you might have about Tutor.com!
Welcome again to the land of Living (Not) Fossils, dear readers! Last week we stopped in our brief survey of things labeled “living fossils” with trees; this week I’m happy to introduce you to more mobile organisms. Let’s start with:
Tachyglossus aculeatus, the short-beaked echidna. Photo Credit: Los Angeles Zoo & Botanical Gardens, http://www.lazoo.org/animals/mammals/echidna-short-beaked/
MONOTREMES (Platypuses & Echidnas)
Everyone’s favorite mashed-together looking creatures! There is currently a single extant species of platypus and four species of echidnas (also known as “spiny anteaters”). They come by their “living fossil” status because they’re the survivors of a larger group(s) that used to include many other living members that have since become extinct.
Platypus are one of the few venomous mammals – the males have venom-inflicting spurs on the back of their hind legs that are used for defense. Echidnas also have these non-venomous spurs on their legs, but they lose them as they mature.
DEFINITION CHECK: “Venomous” vs. “poisonous”
Hydrophis belcheri, also known as Belcher’s sea snake or the faint-banded sea snake, is extremely venomous. Photo Credit: Ocean Treasures Memorial Library, http://otlibrary.com/
While often used interchangeably, these words do not mean the same thing. If something is venomous, it can inflict venom on other things, generally as a defense mechanism. In contrast, poisonous things are only poisonous if you ingest them. A good example that I’ve seen given are rattlesnakes: they are venomous (if they bite you), but they are not poisonous, e.g. you will not be poisoned if you eat the non-venomous parts of a rattlesnake.
The hooded pitohui’s flesh and feathers are poisonous, a trait it acquires due to its diet of particular frogs. Photo credit: Jack Dumbacher, http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/blogs/creatura-blog/2014/06/hooded-pitohui-bird
While platypuses get the most attention of the monotremes (and I’ll admit, they’re adorable), I would be remiss if we didn’t talk about echidnas a bit. Thanks to Sega and the mid-1990s, probably the most famous echidna in popular culture is Knuckles the Echidna, who originated in 1994’s Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles.
Sega’s Knuckles the Echidna, who aside from having hair spines, does not look/behave much like an echidna at all. Photo credit: http://sonic.wikia.com/wiki/Knuckles_the_Echidna/Gallery
Before echidnas (the creature) became known to European naturalists and/or the founding of Sega, there was their namesake – the Greek half-maiden/half-snake Echidna, consort of Typhon and Mother of Monsters: offspring attributed to her include the two-headed dog Orthrus, multi-headed dog Cerberus, many-headed serpent Hydra, lion-bodied/woman-headed Sphinx, the Chimera and other creatures who figure in Greek mythology (answers depend on sources consulted).
Let’s see echidnas (or echidnae for the Grecophilic pedants in the back) in action, slouching spikefully towards Bethlehem:
BIRDS
While perhaps not as visually spectacular or as weird as some of the other creatures on this list, there are a number of birds that have been categorized as “living fossils” due to assorted reasons, which I detailed in the first entry in this series. The bird that I’m profiling today may surprise you: pelicans.
Brown pelican eating a fish. Photo credit: http://www.aboutanimals.com/bird/brown-pelican/
The official bird of my home state, (as well as being symbols of Romania, St. Kitts and Nevis, Barbados and Sint Maarten) pelicans are large waterfowl that are visually distinct due to their size and their large expandable throat (gular) pouches. This trait has occasionally been used as a device in film or children’s books. Their “living fossil” status is due to them closely resembling (especially in terms of their specialized bills) their early relatives who lived 30 million years ago in the Oligocene epoch.
Here’s what their fabulous gular pouch looks like in action:
Being seabirds, pelicans’ diet is typically fish-heavy, but they have been known to eat birds and other creatures at times. Also due to being seabirds, pelicans are highly vulnerable to water-specific environmental disturbances, such as oil spills.
With that, let’s conclude today’s entry. Future entries will introduce reptiles, fish and invertebrates that have been categorized as living fossils. As always, remember that my entries are not exhaustive – there are other animals that I have not mentioned (the hoatzin! Magpie geese!). But before then I’ll leave you with some topical reading recommendations:
This is the enigmatic story of a biological riddle that confounded scientists for nearly ninety years, challenging theories of creationism, evolution, and classification of species along the way. Secretive, elusive, and beguiling, the platypus has continued to captivate public and scientific attention to the present day.
When the first platypus specimen reached England from Australia in 1799, the scientific community claimed that it was a hoax. On closer investigation, dubious European naturalists eventually declared it to be real, though in an age obsessed with classification, the category-defying platypus sparked heated debates across Europe for a century. In Platypus, Ann Moyal provides a unique biography of one of the world’s most famously strange creatures and tells the incredible story of how it became the focus of the great scientific debates of the nineteenth century. Eloquent and concise, Platypus uncovers the earliest theories and latest discoveries about this delightfully odd member of the animal kingdom.
The oldest surviving mammal on the planet is also one of the most intriguing. Peggy Rismiller, the world’s foremost echidna expert, traces the history of this fascinating animal that is native to Australia and New Guinea. A combination of mammal, reptile, and marsupial, echidnas produce milk, but unlike mammals, they are egg-laying creatures and, like marsupials, they have a modified pouch for nurturing their young. This odd animal has two backward-facing appendages and two forward-facing ones. These and other bizarre biological traits are discussed in detail in this thorough guide.
Do you need a book about all the birds of North America, including our pelicans? Enjoy birding like never before. A complete guide to birds with superb color photography, up-to-date and detailed range maps, clear and concise text, and a DVD of birdsongs. 528 pages and 2.2 lbs of birdbook!
NOTE: I own a copy of this and it’s one of the most entertaining re-readable things in my collection. If you’ve never experienced the wording and illustrations of medieval bestiaries and have an interest in antiquarian texts, you must check this out.
If a serpent swallows the spittle of a fasting man, it dies. Trees felled in the wrong season breed termites. If eels are drowned in wine, those who drink it get a loathing for liquor. These and similar flights of fancy were articles of faith in the twelfth century — the era of the fascinating Latin prose bestiary translated in this volume. The translator is T. H. White, author of The Once and Future King and outstanding medievalist. Of The Book of Beasts, White writes: “No Latin prose bestiary has ever before been printed, even in Latin. This is the first and only English translation in print.”
The bestiary was a bestseller in the Middle Ages, a kind of natural history cum-zoological survey that presumed to describe the animals of the world and to point out the human traits they exemplified. Combining the surprisingly accurate with the endearingly phantasmagorical, the bestiarists came up with a bewildering array of real and exotic creatures. The behavior or attributes of the animals often functioned as a metaphor for teaching religious, moral, and political precepts.
In addition to a multitude of real mammals, birds, reptiles, and fish, described here with varying degrees of zoological accuracy, the bestiarist introduces a swarm of fanciful denizens thought to haunt the Dark Ages: manticore, a creature with a man’s face, a lion’s body, and a ravenous appetite for human flesh; dragon or draco, the biggest serpent and the embodiment of the Devil; amphivia, a fish that could walk on land and swim in the sea; jaculus, a flying serpent; the familiar phoenix; the griffin; and other exotic fauna.
Much of the charm of this edition lies in the copious footnotes compiled by T. H. White. With immense erudition, wit, grace, and a singular lack of condescension, the author illuminates literary, scientific, historical, linguistic, and other aspects of the bestiarist’s catalog. He further enhances the volume with informative discussions of the history of the bestiary from its origins in remote oral traditions; through Herodotus, Pliny and Aristotle; during the medieval period and the Renaissance; and up to Sir Thomas Browne’s Vulgar Errors (1646). Both amusing and amazing, The Book of Beasts is not only a rich survey of the proto-zoology on which much of our later science is based, but also a revealing, illustrated examination of how pre-scientific man perceived the earth’s creatures.
And a very happy August to all of you, beloved patrons!
I think it’s very safe to say that we are in the midst of the “Dog Days of Summer”, that period of hot, sultry weather that are frankly, perfect for little else but finding a good book to read and trying to move as little as possible. But what does the phrase actually mean?
According to National Geographic, Greeks and Romans of ancient times coined the phrase, “dog days”to refer to the period of time when Sirius, the dog star, appeared to rise just before the sun, in late July. They referred to these days as the hottest time of the year, a period that could bring fever, or even catastrophe. In ancient Egyptian culture, the star we know as Sirius was associated with the Egyptian god Osiris, the god of life, death, fertility, and rebirth, and Sopdet, the embodiment of the star, who is pictured as a goddess who is pictured with a five-pointed star above her head (see left). Star-gazers noted that Sirius rose just before the sun each year immediately prior to the annual flooding of the Nile River. Although the floods had the potential to bring destruction, they also encouraged new soil and new life. The Egyptian new year was celebrated with a festival known as The Coming of Sopdet.
So if you have a view of the night sky where you are, beloved patrons, have a look up and see if you can spot Sirius. The image at the top of this post provides a map to help you. Either way, you can celebrate a time of rejuvenation with a new book! Here are just a few of the titles that have spread out on our shelves to savor the air conditioning–and to meet you!
The Seas:Samantha Hunt is a writer with one powerful imagination, and in this slim volume, she weaves one heck of a tale that blends myth, romance, and grim reality in a way that will leave you spellbound. Moored in a coastal fishing town so far north that the highways only run south, the unnamed narrator of this tale is a misfit, and the subject of cruel local gossip. Her father, a sailor, walked into the ocean eleven years earlier and never returned, leaving his wife and daughter to keep a forlorn vigil. Surrounded by water and beckoned by the sea, she clings to what her father once told her: that she is a mermaid. True to myth, she finds herself in hard love with a land-bound man, an Iraq War veteran thirteen years her senior.The mesmerizing, fevered coming-of-age tale that follows will land her in jail. Her otherworldly escape will become the stuff of legend. This is an inventive, creative, and startling insightful work that has critics and fellow writers dazzled. The Chicago Review of Books put it well in its review when it noted, “It’s hard to imagine that a book so brief could tackle the Iraq war, grief over the loss of a parent, the longing for freedom, an enthrallment with the ocean, loneliness, sexual awakening, faith, and etymology, all in less than 200 pages, but Samantha Hunt has done it, and done it well.”
Jar of Hearts:Those of you looking for a twisty, turny thriller to pass the summer days should look no further than Jennifer Hillier’s latest page-turner. When she was sixteen years old, Angela Wong—one of the most popular girls in school—disappeared without a trace. Nobody ever suspected that her best friend, Georgina Shaw, now an executive and rising star at her Seattle pharmaceutical company, was involved in any way. Certainly not Kaiser Brody, who was close with both girls back in high school. Now, fourteen years later, Kaiser, a detective with Seattle PD, unearths a fresh–and shocking–lead: Angela was a victim of serial killer Calvin James. But Calvin James was also Georgina’s first love . And as a result, Geo knew what happened to Angela and told no one. For fourteen years, she carried the secret of Angela’s death, until the day Geo was arrested and sent to prison. While everyone thinks they finally know the truth, there are dark secrets buried deep. And when new bodies begin to turn up, killed in the exact same manner as Angela Wong, it seems the past and present are about to collide in terrible ways. Hillier is known for her surprising, emotional plots, and this book promises to show her talents off to their very best advantage. Publisher’s Weekly praised it as “Engrossing…there’s no denying her page-turner’s grab-you-by-the-throat power.”
Belleweather: Susanna Kearsley has earned a devoted following for her stirring historical fiction, and this book offers readers the chance to explore a house with a legend of romance and tragedy, all stemming back to the summer of 1759, when the American colonies were embroiled in the Seven Years War (also known, not very accurately, as the French and Indian War). In this complex and dangerous time, a young French Canadian lieutenant is captured and billeted with a Long Island family, an unwilling and unwelcome guest. As he begins to pitch in with the never-ending household tasks and farm chores, Jean-Philippe de Sabran finds himself drawn to the daughter of the house. Slowly, Lydia Wilde comes to lean on Jean-Philippe until their lives become inextricably intertwined. Legend has it that the forbidden love between Jean-Philippe and Lydia ended tragically, but centuries later, the clues they left behind slowly unveil the true story. Kearsley apparently based this novel on her own family history, and Library Journal rewarded her efforts with a starred review, saying in part, “Rich characterizations and vivid historical flavor will keep readers enthralled in both past and present story lines. Highly recommended for Kearsley’s many admirers and fans of romantic dual-time historical fiction.”
Northland: A 4,000 Mile Journey Along America’s Forgotten Border:The United States’ northern border is the world’s longest international boundary, yet it’s a rarely discussed, and seldom explored area, but to the tens of millions who live and work near the line, the region even has its own name: the northland. Travel writer Porter Fox spent three years exploring 4,000 miles of the border between Maine and Washington, traveling by canoe, freighter, car, and foot. This book is the record of his journey, the history he learned on his trek, and the people he encountered on the way. Setting out from the easternmost point in the mainland United States, Fox follows explorer Samuel de Champlain’s adventures across the Northeast; recounts the rise and fall of the timber, iron, and rail industries; crosses the Great Lakes on a freighter; tracks America’s fur traders through the Boundary Waters; and traces the forty-ninth parallel from Minnesota to the Pacific Ocean. A marvelous, thoughtful work that explores the economy, ecology, people, politics, and history of the United States, Canada, and all those who have had dealing therein. Kirkus Reviews gave this book a starred review, hailing, “Richly populated with fascinating northlanders, Native Americans, and many border patrol agents, this is highly entertaining and informative travel literature.”
The Strange Case of Dr. Couney: How a Mysterious European Showman Saved Thousands of American Babies:From such illustrious titles do fascinating books emerge! Dawn Raffel’s book tells the story of a sideshow presenter, the titular Dr. Couney, who discovered that he could use incubators (and very careful medical care) to save the lives of babies who were born prematurely. How this turn-of-the-twentieth-century émigré became the savior to families with premature infants, known then as “weaklings”–while ignoring the scorn of the medical establishment and fighting the climate of eugenics–is a wonderfully intriguing and woefully under-explored story. Raffel emphasized that Dr. Couney, for all his opportunistic entrepreneurial gusto, and the skeletons in his personal closet, genuinely cared for the well-being of his tiny patients, and whose work and insight continues to offer hope to families around the world. As Publisher’s Weekly notes, “With colorful descriptions of the carnival world and the medical marvels of early neonatalogy, Raffel makes a fascinating case for this unusual pioneer’s rightful place in medical history.”
Until next week, beloved patrons, Happy Reading!
"Once you learn to read, you will be forever free." ~Frederick Douglass
