As high school and college students around the country start to think about hitting the stores to get the items they need before they head back to school, the staff at the library are preparing to say our annual, fond farewell to our summer interns.  From running the Summer Food Program to bringing extra energy to the Creativity Lab to staffing our circulation desks, this year the library has had a dozen or so interns join us for the summer.   Every year, we try as hard as possible to exploit… excuse me… I mean leverage our interns’ considerable talents to make the library an ever-more exciting destination.

This summer, the West Branch staffed was joined by an intern who will soon be attending St. Michael’s College in Vermont as a biology major.  When I heard that Marina’s interests lay in the scientific realm, the wheels in my head started turning.  Now, I love science.  As a teenager I had dreams of becoming a chemist (those dreams were derailed by high school physics, but I digress).  But after spending my post-high school years studying politics, public policy and librarianship, I’m not sure I could tell a genome from a geode.  Still I do believe it’s important for those of us in the general public to have a basic level of scientific literacy.  Also, science, in the right hands, is interesting, compelling and downright fun.  So I asked Marina to compile a list of science books that would interesting to those of us who don’t have her impressive scientific background.  In other words, I set her on a mission to find science books for the rest of us.

You can see her complete list of recommendations for adults on our Pinterest account (do you follow us yet?).  But here are just a few of Marina’s picks that I find most intriguing:

Unstoppable: harnessing science to change the world by Bill Nye.  Who among doesn’t have a secret soft spot for the Science Guy?  Here Nye calmly explains both the science behind global warming and the scientific possibilities for solving our most pressing environmental challenges.

When I was in upper elementary and middle school one of my favorite annual assignments was to read a biography and do a project on a scientist.  My favorite scientist was (and is) Rachel Carson.  But the women in the graphic biography Primates: the fearless science of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Birute Galdikas by Jim Ottaviani could challenge Rachel’s place in my heart.  This title is the only one on this list that I’ve personal read and can vouch for.  If you manage to read this book and are not duly impressed by these scientists’ dedication to their field than you are much harder to impress than I am.

And if you enjoy Primates, you’ll also want to get your hands on a copy of another graphic biography: Darwin by Eugene Bryne.  As the sub-subtitle of this book suggestions, this is the “really exciting and dramatic story of a man who mostly stayed at home and wrote some books.”  Of course, in the process, he changed our understanding of the world and ignited some fierce debates.

What if?  serious scientific answers to absurd hypothetical questions by Randall Munroe.  We do have a love affair with the absurd don’t we?  Whether it’s reality TV shows, over the top political campaigns or eyebrow raising celebrities, we do tend to lend our ears and eyes to the unusual.  Randall Munroe has used this fascination with the odd to make his webcomic an internet sensation.  He invites readers to submit their strangest questions and then seeks to answer them with hardcore scientific logic and research.  And a lot of humor.

If you like your science mixed with a bit of self-help, you may want to try Plastic Purge by Michael SanClements.  This one little book can help you “eat better, keep toxins out of your body and help save the sea turtles.”  All you have to do is use less plastic.  Although, when you think about it, that’s quite a daunting task given just how ubiquitous plastic is in our day to day lives.  Still, if you’d like to give it a shot,  SanClements uses compelling scientific logic and an accessible writing style to give you the motivation and tools you’ll need.

I don’t know about you, but I love a good anecdote.  I enjoy a glimpse into the personal lives of the brilliant and accomplished.  Which leads me to believe that I would enjoy reading The Human Side: Edison and Tesla, Watson and Crick, and other personal stories behind science’s big ideas by Arthur Wiggins.  There’s just something intriguing about learning about the romances, personal feuds, petty jealousies and frankly unattractive prejudices of the most brilliant scientific minds the world has ever known.

So there you have it.  No matter how many years removed you are from your own high school or college career, you now have a list of books to read that can entertain, enlighten and fill in the gaps in your scientific education.  And if you have any little ones in your life, you may also want to check out Marina’s list of the best of the best science books for kids.

During the past two weeks, it has been all but impossible to avoid hearing the constant stream of news that is coming out of the Republican and Democratic  National Conventions.  We’ve been inundated by political speeches, pundits and polls.  Has it all helped you decide for whom to cast your ballot in November?

As a political science geek, I am fascinated by the complex factors that determine people’s political leanings: socioeconomic status, religion, age, gender, race and so on.  And this just in: your reading tastes may influence for whom you vote.  But can a candidate or a president’s taste in books tell you anything about how he or she will lead and govern?

Many of our past presidents have been confirmed bibliophiles.  President George W. Bush had an ongoing competition with advisor Karl Rove to see who could read the most books each year.  Some of the titles President Bush enjoyed during these read-a-thons include Time of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin and Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick.  According to Rove, the President especially enjoys history and biographies and often read current event books on the Middle East while in office.  His fiction picks tended to be in the suspense or mystery genres: Next by Michael Crichton, the Travis McGee novels by John MacDonald, and Executive Power by Vince Flynn.

President Obama has often released to the public the names of the books he is bringing on vacation.  Last summer, he dove into Washington: A Life by by Ron Chernow and All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.  In January his vacation reading list included Purity by Jonathan Franzen, The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin, The Wright Brothers by David McCollough.

When asked recently about his taste in reading material Republican nominee Donald Trump told reporters he was currently reading Unlikeable: The Problem with Hillary by Ed Klein and an unspecified biography of Richard Nixon.  When on the stump, Mr. Trump often references his own book, The Art of the Deal.  He has also stated that his favorite book is All Quiet on the West Front by Erich Maria Remarque.

In the many years she has been in the public eye, Hillary Clinton has answered questions about her reading interests quite a few times.  She has mentioned Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov and Henri Nouwen’s The Return of the Prodigal Son as particularly influential.  She has also expressed a fondness for mysteries written by Jacqueline Winspear and Donna Leon and books by Maya Angelou, Alice Monroe and Barbara Kingsolver.

The recently named vice presidential candidates have, according to my searches, not yet had their reading tastes scrutinized by the public.  But never fear, dear readers.  My political and bibliographic nerdiness knows no bounds, so I have contacted both Governor Pence and Senator Kaine to ask them for their book suggestions.  Should they reply to me, you will be among the first to know.  In the meantime, if the contentious election proves to be too much for you, feel free to try one of the books mentioned in this post.  You can always claim you’re just doing research on the candidates.

June is World Refugee Awareness Month.  While refugees are very much present in the news lately,  the staggering statistics often obscure the personal stories that the numbers represent.  News stories, photographs and books are the only way many of us will ever know what it’s like to be a refugee.  But for the 24 people per minute who flee their homes because of war, persecution or terrorism, this media reflects their reality.

Currently, the New York Public Library is hosting an exhibit of photographs of refugee children called Where the Children Sleep.  Even if you won’t be stopping by NYPL anytime before July 10th, you can view the exhibit online.

If you are the type of reader who likes to be informed by true stories, there are plenty of good nonfiction titles that will give you some insight into the lives of refugees.

Human Cargo: a journey among refugees by Caroline Moorehead takes a truly global perspective on refugees and profiles individuals from (among other places) Liberia, Mexico and the Middle East.  Moorehead also takes a closer look at the different struggles faced by refugees who end up in camps in poverty riddled regions versus those who resettle in wealthier Western countries.

The civil war in Somalia has displaced enough people to create the the largest refugee camp in the world in Dabaab.  Human Rights Watch researcher, Ben Rawlence, tells the stories of just a few of its residents in City of Thorns: nine lives in the world’s largest refugee camp.

In Children of the Stone, Sandy Tolan does not seek to be strictly unbiased, but rather tells the complicated story of a Palestinian refugee who returns to a refugee camp to try to bring the life changing power of music to the children who are growing up there.

For a tale that is less bleak and more inspiring, there is Outcasts United: the story of a refugee team that changed a town by Warren St John about a female coach, a soccer team comprised of all refugee teenagers and a small town in Georgia.

As so many of the titles in this post reveal, religion often plays a complicated roll both in the  creating the conditions that lead to refugee crises and in the response to these crises.  For a Christian perspective on responding to the current swell of international refugees, keep an eye out for the forthcoming Seeking Refuge: on the shores of the global refugee crisis by Stephen Bauman, which is receiving positive advanced reviews.

If nonfiction isn’t your preferred type of reading material, or if you find that the best way to learn the truth is through fiction, try:

Little Bee by Chris Cleave, which is the story of a sixteen year-old Nigerian refugee whose life becomes entangled with a typical London suburbanite.

What is the What by Dave Eggers, which is the novelization of the life story of one of the Lost Boys of Sudan who found asylum in the United States in 2001.

The years before, during and after World War II produced a staggering number of displaced people.  For two stories of post-war refugees, try Day After Night by Anita Diamant, which shares the story of Jewish refugees held in a detention camp in Palestine in 1945 and Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa, which tells the story of a Palestinian family that becomes refugees in 1948 when Israel became a state.

When it comes to the things of life that can really hard to read about, sometimes children’s’ books are a good entry point.  If you are a sensitive reader (and I freely admit that I am) stories for children, although still heartrending, tend to be lighter on explicit detail.  Home of the Brave by Katherine Applegate is an absolutely beautiful story of an African child refugee who finds himself in Minnesota, still desperately hoping to be reunited with his mother.  YA author, Deborah Ellis who has written beautiful fiction about children living in war-torn Middle Eastern countries, visited Jordan in 2007 and spoke with refugees between the ages of 8 and 19.  Her resulting book Children of War: voices of Iraqi refugees contains their honest and disquieting tales.

It’s the start of summer and book blogs should feature great, fun and light summer reads.  Obviously, this post is not doing that.  We promise we’ll have plenty lighthearted fun to recommend this summer, but in honor of the millions of refugees in the world, perhaps you may want to consider setting aside a place on your summer reading list for a title that will not entertain you on the beach, but might make your understanding of the people of the world a bit more complete.

Like my fellow bloggers, I am a huge fan of audiobooks.  I have a long-ish commute to work and without audiobooks I would be lost.  Also, since having twins, audiobooks have become one of the only ways I can sneak in a bit of “reading.”

Our old friend Novelist can be of use to those of us who want or need to listen to our books.  For a refresher on how to use Novelist, reread this post.  It often seems to me that there is no end to the depth of fun available on Novelist.  I could lose entire days to searching its contents if I let myself.

For audiobook fans, there are a few Novelist features you won’t want to miss.   Novelist maintains an ever-changing audiobook page with featured, new and forthcoming and themed lists.  To get there from the Novelist homepage, select “Browse by” and then pick “Audiobooks”

Right now, Novelist is featuring audiobooks that share the stories of Holocaust survivors.  Also on this page, you’ll seeing Recommended Reading Lists including picks for fans of mysteries, general fiction, nonfiction, science fiction, history writing, life stories and audiobooks for children and teens.

Once you’re in an audiobook record in Novelist there are few handy features that can help you narrow your selection before you head to the library or download the file from Overdrive.   One is the Audiobook sample.  I don’t know about you, but for me, the narrator makes a world of difference in an audiobook.  Some books (which shall remain nameless) have been returned to the library unfinished because I simply did not want the narrator’s voice accompanying me on my travels for ten or more hours.  Novelist’s audiobook sample can help you avoid audiobook fails by allowing you to preview the narrator’s voice in advance.

Another feature I’m a fan of is the review of the audiobook available in audio.  If you want to listen to the book, it makes sense you may wish to listen to its review as well.  These reviews are provided by Audio File Magazine, which, by the way, publishes the annual Audie Awards for excellence in audiobooks.  The “audies” are another wonderful place to find the next book on your To Listen List.

And in case you don’t stumble across them in Novelist, here are a few of my favorite audiobooks:

The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant.  This latest book by the author of The Red Tent has drawn both criticism and praise from West Branch patrons, but personally, I enjoyed the audiobook version.  Perhaps it’s because the narrator sounded like my grandmother telling me stories about her childhood.  Novelist describes The Boston Girl as having a sweeping storyline,  a dramatic tone and an engaging and richly detailed writing style.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern.  I don’t read or listen to a lot of adult fantasy (teen fantasy is more my speed), but I made an exception for The Night Circus and I’m glad I did.  This story of a dangerous magical competition is set in an intriguing black and white circus and I found it wholly original.  Novelist describes its tone as atmospheric and romantic and its writing style as lush.

My Beloved World by Sonia Sotomayor.  This memoir written by the third female and first Hispanic justice to the United States Supreme Court struck me as honest and entertaining.  With her lifetime appointment, Justice Sotomayor’s book lacks the overt political agenda that is present in many memoirs of our public servants.  In keeping with tradition, she does not comment on any cases she has ruled on since joining the high court (in fact the book ends before she claims her seat), which left me hoping she’ll write a second volume of her memoirs once she’s retired.

For now I’ll leave you with just one more: Stalin’s Daughter by Rosemary Sullivan.  This is one I may not have picked up on my own, but it was a pick for the West Branch History Book Group.  It’s a real time commitment as an audio book at 19 hours and 48 minutes, but I was glad I stuck it out.  Svetlana Alliluyeva, Joseph Stalin’s only daughter, certainly had an interesting, dramatic and sad life.  She was as complicated a person as you would expect given her parentage and she certainly made her life much harder than it needed to be.  But she remains a largely sympathetic figure and her life as a resident of communist Russia, a defector to the United States and a writer makes for interesting listening.

Happy listening!