Author Archives: Sandra Wilson

Summer Reading Part 2

summer reading

 

More Summer Reading Suggestions

 

 

 

419419, by Will Ferguson

A car tumbles through darkness down a snowy ravine. A woman without a name walks out of a dust storm in Africa. And in the seething heat of Lagos City, a criminal cartel scours the Internet, looking for victims. Lives intersect. Worlds collide. And it all begins with a single email: ‘Dear Sir, I am the daughter of a Nigerian diplomat, and I need your help … ‘ At once a chilling thriller about a lonely woman avenging her father’s death and an epic portrait of morality and corruption across the globe, Will Ferguson’s Giller Prize-winning novel plunges into the labyrinth of life.

All the lightAll the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr

Marie-Laure lives in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where her father works. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.

In a mining town in Germany, Werner Pfennig, an orphan, grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find that brings them news and stories from places they have never seen or imagined. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments and is enlisted to use his talent to track down the resistance. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another.

BirdThe Bird Box, by Josh Malerman

Five years after it began, a handful of scattered survivors remain, including Malorie and her two young children. Living in an abandoned house near the river, she has dreamed of fleeing to a place where they might be safe. Now, that the boy and girl are four, it is time to go. But the journey ahead will be terrifying: twenty miles downriver in a rowboat—blindfolded—with nothing to rely on but her wits and the children’s trained ears. One wrong choice and they will die. And something is following them. But is it man, animal, or monster?

Engulfed in darkness, surrounded by sounds both familiar and frightening, Malorie embarks on a harrowing odyssey—a trip that takes her into an unseen world and back into the past, to the companions who once saved her. Under the guidance of the stalwart Tom, a motley group of strangers banded together against the unseen terror, creating order from the chaos. But when supplies ran low, they were forced to venture outside—and confront the ultimate question: in a world gone mad, who can really be trusted?

circleThe Circle, by Dave Eggers

“When Mae Holland is hired to work for the Circle, the world’s most powerful internet company, she feels she’s been given the opportunity of a lifetime. The Circle, run out of a sprawling California campus, links users’ personal emails, social media, banking, and purchasing with their universal operating system, resulting in one online identity and a new age of civility and transparency. As Mae tours the open-plan office spaces, the towering glass dining facilities, the cozy dorms for those who spend nights at work, she is thrilled with the company’s modernity and activity. There are parties that last through the night, there are famous musicians playing on the lawn, there are athletic activities and clubs and brunches, and even an aquarium of rare fish retrieved from the Marianas Trench by the CEO. Mae can’t believe her luck, her great fortune to work for the most influential company in the world–even as life beyond the campus grows distant, even as a strange encounter with a colleague leaves her shaken, even as her role at the Circle becomes increasingly public. What begins as the captivating story of one woman’s ambition and idealism soon becomes a heart-racing novel of suspense, raising questions about memory, history, privacy, democracy, and the limits of human knowledge” — publisher.

 

goldfinchThe Goldfinch, by “Donna Tartt

“A young boy in New York City, Theo Decker, miraculously survives an accident that takes the life of his mother. Alone and abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by a friend’s family and struggles to make sense of his new life. In the years that follow, he becomes entranced by one of the few things that reminds him of his mother: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the art underworld. Composed with the skills of a master, The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present-day America, and a drama of almost unbearable acuity and power. It is a story of loss and obsession, survival and self-invention, and the enormous power of art”

paintedThe Painted Girls, by Cathy Buchanan

1878 Paris. Following their father’s sudden death, the van Goethem sisters find their lives upended. Without his wages, and with the small amount their laundress mother earns disappearing into the absinthe bottle, eviction from their lodgings seems imminent. With few options for work, Marie is dispatched to the Paris Opéra, where for a scant seventeen francs a week, she will be trained to enter the famous ballet. Her older sister, Antoinette, finds work as an extra in a stage adaptation of Émile Zola’s naturalist masterpiece L’Assommoir.

Marie throws herself into dance and is soon modeling in the studio of Edgar Degas, where her image will forever be immortalized as Little Dancer Aged Fourteen. There she meets a wealthy male patron of the ballet, but might the assistance he offers come with strings attached? Meanwhile Antoinette, derailed by her love for the dangerous Émile Abadie, must choose between honest labor and the more profitable avenues open to a young woman of the Parisian demimonde.

parisThe Paris Architect, by Charles Belfoure

“In 1942 Paris, architect Lucien Bernard accepts a commission that will bring him a great deal of money–and maybe get him killed. All he has to do is design a secret hiding place for a wealthy Jewish man, a space so invisible that even the most determined German officer won’t find it. He sorely needs the money, and outwitting the Nazis who have occupied his beloved city is a challenge he can’t resist. But when one of his hiding spaces fails horribly, and the problem of where to hide a Jew becomes terribly personal, Lucien can no longer ignore what’s at stake.”

 

SlaveThe Secrets of Mary Bowser, by Lois Leveen

Based on the remarkable true story of a freed African American slave who returned to Virginia at the onset of the Civil War to spy on the Confederates, The Secrets of Mary Bowser is a masterful debut by an exciting new novelist. Author Lois Leveen combines fascinating facts and ingenious speculation to craft a historical novel that will enthrall readers of women’s fiction, historical fiction, and acclaimed works like Cane River and Cold Mountain that offer intimate looks at the twin nightmares of slavery and Civil War. A powerful and unforgettable story of a woman who risked her own freedom to bring freedom to millions of others, The Secrets of Mary Bowser celebrates the courageous achievements of a little known but truly inspirational American heroine.

 

strainThe Strain, by Guillermo del Toro 

Abraham Setrakian, a former professor and survivor of the Holocaust, joins forces with CDC specialist Eph Goodweather to battle a vampiric virus that has infected New York in this first installment in a thrilling trilogy about a horrifying battle between man and vampire that threatens all humanity.

 

 

wildWild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, by Cheryl Strayed

At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State—and she would do it alone. Told with suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild powerfully captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.

 

 

Summer Reading

summer readingLooking for Something to Read this Summer?

Try one of these books from the library’s collection.

 

 

 

 

Alice

Alice I Have Been, by Melanie Benjamin

Now in her twilight years, Alice Liddell looks back on a remarkable life. From a pampered childhood in Oxford to difficult years as a widowed mother, Alice examines how she became who she is–and how she became immortalized as Alice in Wonderland.

 

 

At leastAt Least in the City Someone Would Hear Me Scream : (Misadventures in Search of the Simple Life), by Wade Rouse

Finally fed up with the frenzy of city life and a job he hates, Wade Rouse decided to make either the bravest decision of his life or the worst mistake since his botched Ogilvie home perm: to uproot his life and try, as Thoreau did some 160 years earlier, to “live a plain, simple life in radically reduced conditions.”

In this rollicking and hilarious memoir, Wade and his partner, Gary, leave culture, cable, and consumerism behind and strike out for rural Michigan–a place with fewer people than in their former spinning class. There, Wade discovers the simple life isn’t so simple. Battling blizzards, bloodthirsty critters, and nosy neighbors equipped with night-vision goggles, Wade and his spirit, sanity, relationship, and Kenneth Cole pointy-toed boots are sorely tested with humorous and humiliating frequency. And though he never does learn where his well water actually comes from or how to survive without Kashi cereal, he does discover some things in the woods outside his knotty-pine cottage in Saugatuck, Michigan, that he always dreamed of but never imagined he’d find–happiness and a home.

Dead wake

Dead Wake, by Erik Larson

On May 1, 1915, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. The passengers were anxious. Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone, and for months, its U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic. But the Lusitania was one of the era’s great transatlantic “Greyhounds” and her captain, William Thomas Turner, placed tremendous faith in the gentlemanly strictures of warfare that for a century had kept civilian ships safe from attack. He knew, moreover, that his ship — the fastest then in service — could outrun any threat. Germany, however, was determined to change the rules of the game, and Walther Schwieger, the captain of Unterseeboot-20, was happy to oblige. Meanwhile, an ultra-secret British intelligence unit tracked Schwieger’s U-boat, but told no one. As U-20 and the Lusitania made their way toward Liverpool, an array of forces both grand and achingly small — hubris, a chance fog, a closely guarded secret, and more — all converged to produce one of the great disasters of history.

Anxious Wave

Every Anxious Wave, by Mo Daviau

Chicago bar owner Karl Bender stumbles upon a time-travelling worm hole in his closet. With his best friend Wayne, Karl develops a side business selling access to people who want to travel back in time to listen to their favorite bands. It’s a pretty ingenious plan, until Karl, intending to send Wayne to 1980, transports him back to 980 instead. Distraught that he can’t bring his friend back, he approaches brilliant, prickly, overweight astrophysicist Lena Geduldig. While they work on getting Wayne back, Karl and Lena fall in love– with time travel, and each other.

HamiltonThe Hamilton Affair, by Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman 

Set against the dramatic backdrop of the American Revolution, and featuring a cast of iconic characters such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and the Marquis de Lafayette, The Hamilton Affair tells the sweeping, tumultuous, true love story of Alexander Hamilton and Elizabeth Schuyler, from tremulous beginning to bittersweet ending his at a dueling ground on the shores of the Hudson River, hers more than half a century later after a brave, successful life.

 

Lila

Lila, by Marilynne Robinson

Abandoning her homeless existence to become a minister’s wife, Lila reflects on her hardscrabble life on the run with a canny young drifter and her efforts to reconcile her painful past with her husband’s gentle Christian worldview.

 

 

Lincoln

Lincoln in the Bardo, by George Saunders

February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln’s beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. In a matter of days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. “My poor boy, he was too good for this earth,” the president says at the time. “God has called him home.” Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returns, alone, to the crypt several times to hold his boy’s body. From that seed of historical truth, George Saunders spins a story of familial love and loss that breaks free of its historical framework into a supernatural realm both hilarious and terrifying. Willie Lincoln finds himself in a strange purgatory where ghosts mingle, gripe, commiserate, quarrel, and enact bizarre acts of penance. Within this transitional state — called, in the Tibetan tradition, the bardo — a monumental struggle erupts over young Willie’s soul

Molokai

Moloka’i, by Alan Brennert

Seven-year-old Rachel is forcibly removed from her family’s 1890s Honolulu home when she contracts leprosy and is placed in a settlement, where she loses a series of new friends before new medical discoveries enable her to reenter the world.

 

Orphan'sThe Orphan’s Tale, by Pam Jenoff

Sixteen-year-old Noa has been cast out in disgrace after becoming pregnant by a Nazi soldier and being forced to give up her baby. She lives above a small rail station, which she cleans in order to earn her keep… When Noa discovers a boxcar containing dozens of Jewish infants bound for a concentration camp, she is reminded of the child that was taken from her. And in a moment that will change the course of her life, she snatches one of the babies and flees into the snowy night. Noa finds refuge with a German circus, but she must learn the flying trapeze act so she can blend in undetected, spurning the resentment of the lead aerialist, Astrid. At first rivals, Noa and Astrid soon forge a powerful bond. But as the facade that protects them proves increasingly tenuous, Noa and Astrid must decide whether their friendship is enough to save one another—or if the secrets that burn between them will destroy everything. — from book jacket.

swans

The Swans of Fifth Avenue, by Melanie Benjamin

Of all the glamorous stars of New York high society, none blazes brighter than Babe Paley. Her flawless face regularly graces the pages of Vogue, and she is celebrated and adored for her ineffable style and exquisite taste, especially among her friends — the alluring socialites Slim Keith, C. Z. Guest, Gloria Guinness, and Pamela Churchill. By all appearances, Babe has it all: money, beauty, glamour, jewels, influential friends, a prestigious husband, and gorgeous homes. But beneath this elegantly composed exterior dwells a passionate woman — a woman desperately longing for true love and connection. Enter Truman Capote. This diminutive golden-haired genius with a larger-than-life personality explodes onto the scene, setting Babe and her circle of Swans aflutter. Through Babe, Truman gains an unlikely entrée into the enviable lives of Manhattan’s elite, along with unparalleled access to the scandal and gossip of Babe’s powerful circle. Sure of the loyalty of the man she calls “True Heart,” Babe never imagines the destruction Truman will leave in his wake. But once a storyteller, always a storyteller — even when the stories aren’t his to tell.

 

 

The Library Has What You Need for Finals!

Final Exams Keep Calm

We know you’re getting geared up for the toughest time of the term- FINALS! Don’t panic. We have you covered.

The McNichols Campus Library is open extended hours through finals week. Remember to have your Student ID with you.

April 17 – 29

Monday, April 17 – Thursday, April 20  8:00am – midnight

Friday, April 21  8:00am – 5:30pm

Saturday, April 22 9:00am – 5:00pm

Sunday, April 23 12:30pm – midnight

Monday, April 24 – Thursday, April 27  8:00am – midnight

Friday, April 28 8:00am – 5:30pm

Saturday, April 29 9:00am – 3:00pm

 

ScantronThe Library Also Offers:

Group study rooms

Red and Green Scantrons – 50 cents

Blue Books – $1.00

Color Printing – 25 cents per page

Spiral Binding – (cost varies)

Ear buds – $1.00

Photocopying – 10 cents per page

Scanning (free)

Assistance from a librarian – priceless

 

When you’re ready to relax, we have plenty of DVD’s available

coffeeAnd…

don’t forget to grab a cup of Joe at

Starbucks.

 

 

Aplus

GOOD LUCK!

Sandra Wilson & Julia Eisenstein, Librarians

October is Scary Movie Month

 

Haunted House

Are you scared of the dark? You never know what could be lurking in the shadows as the days start  getting shorter and the nights start getting longer.  Grab a blanket and turn off the lights and watch one of the many bone chilling movies the library has to offer.  You might have to sleep with one eye open after this!

 

 

 

DVD - freak showAmerican Horror Story: Freak Show

“Step inside American Horror Story: Freak Show, the terrifyingly twisted reincarnation of TV’s most shockingly original series. Jessica Lange leads an extraordinary, award-winning cast that includes Kathy Bates, Angela Bassett, Sarah Paulson and Michael Chiklis. Lange plays Elsa Mars, the proprietor of a troupe of human “curiosities” on a desperate journey of survival in the sleepy hamlet of Jupiter, Florida, in 1952. Her menagerie of performers includes a two-headed, telepathic twin (Paulson), a take-charge bearded lady (Bates), a vulnerable strongman (Chiklis) and his sultry, three-breasted wife (Bassett). But the strange emergence of a dark entity will savagely threaten the lives of townsfolk and freaks alike.” (Amazon.com)

Watch the Trailer:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPTwNuc5b3c

 

DVD - As aboveAs Above, So Below

“Miles of twisting catacombs lie beneath the streets of Paris, the eternal home to countless souls. When a team of explorers ventures into the uncharted maze of bones, they uncover the secret of what this city of the dead was meant to contain. A journey into madness and terror, it reaches deep into the human psyche to reveal the personal demons that come back to haunt everyone.”

Watch the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83PpryYHHeY

 

DVD - Battle RoyaleBattle Royale (Batoru Rowaiaru)

“In the near future, the economy has collapsed, unemployment has soared and juvenile crime has exploded. Fearful of their nation’s youth, the Japanese government passes The BR Law: Each year, a 9th grade class is sent to a remote island where they will be locked into exploding neck collars, given a random weapon, and forced to hunt and kill each other until there is only one survivor left.”

 

Watch the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCoPbkvyWEI

 

DVD - Fourth KindThe Fourth Kind

In remote Alaska, citizens have been mysteriously vanishing since the 1960s. Despite multiple FBI investigations, the truth behind the phenomena had never been discovered—until now. While videotaping therapy sessions with traumatized patients, psychologist Dr. Abigail Tyler (Milla Jovovich) unwittingly exposes terrifying revelations of multiple victims whose claims of being visited by alien figures all share disturbingly identical details. Based on actual case studies, The Fourth Kind uses Dr. Tyler’s never-before-seen archival footage alongside dramatic reenactments to present the most disturbing evidence ever documented in this provocative thriller critics are calling “terrifyingly real…The most shocking alien abduction movie to date.” –Tim Anderson, BLOODY-DISGUSTING.COM

Watch the trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r25ZUxTURis

 

DVD - HousesThe Houses October Built

“Beneath the fake blood and cheap masks of countless haunted house attractions across the country, there are whispers of truly terrifying alternatives. Looking to find an authentic, blood-curdling good fright for Halloween, five friends set off on a road trip in an RV to track down these underground haunts. Just when their search seems to reach a dead end, strange and disturbing things start happening, and it becomes clear that the haunt has come to them.”

 

Watch the trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yedl4lY9VgM

 

DVD - It followsIt Follows

“For nineteen-year-old Jay, the fall should be about school, boys and weekends at the lake. Yet, after a seemingly innocent sexual encounter she suddenly finds herself plagued by nightmarish visions; she can’t shake the sensation that someone, or something, is following her. As the threat closes in, Jay and her friends must somehow escape the horrors that are only a few steps behind.”  (Filmed at UDM)

 

Watch the trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX38jXwnRAM

 

DVD - Let me inLet Me In

“Abby, an eerily self-possessed young girl, emerges from her heavily curtained apartment only at night and always barefoot, seemingly immune to the bitter winter elements. Owen, an alienated 12-year-old boy, recognizes a fellow outcast and opens up to her, forming a unique bond. But as a string of grisly murders occupy his town, Owen has to confront the reality that this seemingly innocent girl might be hiding an unthinkable secret.”

Watch trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reRRAEVHq8E

 

 

DVD - MamaMama

“A supernatural thriller that tells the haunting tale of two little girls who disappeared into the woods the day that their parents were killed. When they are rescued years later and begin a new life, they find that someone or something still wants to come tuck them in at night.” (catalog)

Watch trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZlY47eCdas

 

 

DVD - orphanageThe Orphanage

“Centers on Laura (Belén Rueda) who purchases her beloved childhood orphanage with dreams of restoring and reopening the long abandoned facility as a place for disabled children. Once there, Laura discovers that the new environment awakens her son’s imagination, but the ongoing fantasy games he plays with an invisible friend quickly turn into something more disturbing. Upon seeing her family increasingly threatened by the strange occurrences in the house, Laura looks to a group of parapsychologists for help in unraveling the mystery that has taken over the place.” (Amazon.com) (in Spanish with English subtitles)

Watch the trailer:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02mbaN7ozJ4

 

DVD  - UnfriendedUnfriended

“Unfriended unfolds over a teenager’s computer screen as she and her friends are stalked by an unseen figure who seeks vengeance for a shaming video that led a vicious bully to kill herself a year earlier.” (Amazon.com)

Watch the trailer:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRhUId3gtoE

 

 

 

DVD - VanishingThe Vanishing on 7th Street

When an unexplained blackout leaves Detroit in darkness, most of the population vanishes. As the sun rises, a handful of survivors realizes the few light sources are all that protects them from impending terror.

Watch the trailer:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2ifOpS-v_c

 

 

DVD - horrorSee what other scary movies the library has to offer…if you dare.  Just visit the  library catalog and do a keyword search for -  horror dvd

 

DVD - scary

Sweet dreams and Happy Haunting!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Summer Reading

Need a good book to read on the beach or for your summer get-away?  Try one of these from the library’s collection:

big little life A Big Little Life: a Memoir of a Joyful Dog, by Dean Koontz 

She arrived with her name, Trixie. I joked sometimes that it sounded more like a stripper than a dog. But if it sounded more like a stripper than a dog, it sounded more like an elf or a fairy than a stripper. Elves and fairies are magical beings, and so was she. A heartwarming memoir of a very special dog

 

 

The Dog Stars, by Peter Heller

dog starsHig survived the flu that killed everyone he knows. His wife is gone, his friends are dead, he lives in the hangar of a small abandoned airport with his dog, his only neighbor, a gun-toting misanthrope. In his 1956 Cessna, Hig flies the perimeter of the airfield or sneaks off to the mountains to fish and to pretend that things are the way they used to be. But when a random transmission somehow beams through his radio, the voice ignites a hope deep inside him that a better life, something like his old life, exists beyond the airport. Risking everything, he flies without enough fuel to get him home, to a point of no return, as he follows the voice on the radio. But what he encounters and what he must face, in the people he meets, and in himself, is both better and worse than anything he could have hoped for.

 

emmaEmma: a Modern Retelling, by Alexander McCall Smith

Emma Woodhouse arrives home in Norfolk ready to embark on adult life. Not only has her sister, Isabella, been whisked away on a motorcycle up to London, but her astute governess, Miss Taylor is at a loose end, abandoned in the giant family pile, Hartfield, alongside Emma’s anxiety-ridden father. Someone is needed to rule the roost and young Emma is more than happy to oblige. But there is only one person who can play with Emma’s indestructible confidence, her old friend and inscrutable neighbor George Knightly — this time has Emma finally met her match?

 

expatriatesThe Expatriates, by Janice Y. K. Lee

Three very different American women live in the same small expat community in Hong Kong. Mercy, a young Korean American and recent Columbia graduate, is adrift, undone by a terrible incident in her recent past. Hilary, a wealthy housewife, is haunted by her struggle to have a child, something she believes could save her foundering marriage. Meanwhile, Margaret, once a happily married mother of three, questions her maternal identity in the wake of a shattering loss. Their lives collide in ways that have irreversible consequences for them all.

 

first phone callThe First Phone Call from Heaven, by Mitch Albom

The story of a small town on Lake Michigan that gets worldwide attention when its citizens start receiving phone calls from the afterlife. Is it the greatest miracle ever or a massive hoax? Sully Harding, a grief-stricken single father, is determined to find out.

 

 

 

girlThe Girl on the Train, by Paula Hawkins

Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning, flashing past a stretch of cozy suburban homes, and stopping at the signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple breakfasting on their deck. Their life, as she sees it, is perfect … until she sees something shocking. It’s only a minute until the train moves on, but now everything is changed. Rachel goes to the police, and becomes inextricably entwined in the lives of everyone involved. Has she done more harm than good?

 

martianThe Martian, by Andy Weir

Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he’s sure he’ll be the first person to die there. After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive — and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive. Chances are, though, he won’t have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old ‘human error’ are much more likely to kill him first. But Mark isn’t ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills — and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit — he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?

station 11Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel

“An audacious, darkly glittering novel about art, fame, and ambition set in the eerie days of civilization’s collapse, from the author of three highly acclaimed previous novels. One snowy night a famous Hollywood actor slumps over and dies onstage during a production of King Lear. Hours later, the world as we know it begins to dissolve. Moving back and forth in time-from the actor’s early days as a film star to fifteen years in the future, when a theater troupe known as the Traveling Symphony roams the wasteland of what remains-this suspenseful, elegiac, spellbinding novel charts the strange twists of fate that connect five people: the actor, the man who tried to save him, the actor’s first wife, his oldest friend, and a young actress with the Traveling Symphony, caught in the cross hairs of a dangerous self-proclaimed prophet. Sometimes terrifying, sometimes tender, Station Eleven tells a story about the relationships that sustain us, the ephemeral nature of fame, and the beauty of the world as we know it”–

swansThe Swans of Fifth Avenue, by Melanie Benjamin

Of all the glamorous stars of New York high society, none blazes brighter than Babe Paley. Her flawless face regularly graces the pages of Vogue, and she is celebrated and adored for her ineffable style and exquisite taste, especially among her friends — the alluring socialites Slim Keith, C. Z. Guest, Gloria Guinness, and Pamela Churchill. By all appearances, Babe has it all: money, beauty, glamour, jewels, influential friends, a prestigious husband, and gorgeous homes. But beneath this elegantly composed exterior dwells a passionate woman — a woman desperately longing for true love and connection. Enter Truman Capote. This diminutive golden-haired genius with a larger-than-life personality explodes onto the scene, setting Babe and her circle of Swans aflutter. Through Babe, Truman gains an unlikely entrée into the enviable lives of Manhattan’s elite, along with unparalleled access to the scandal and gossip of Babe’s powerful circle. Sure of the loyalty of the man she calls “True Heart,” Babe never imagines the destruction Truman will leave in his wake. But once a storyteller, always a storyteller — even when the stories aren’t his to tell.

turnerThe Turner House, by Angela Flournoy

A powerful, timely debut, The Turner House marks a major new contribution to the story of the American family. The Turners have lived on Yarrow Street for over fifty years. Their house has seen thirteen children grown and gone–and some returned; it has seen the arrival of grandchildren, the fall of Detroit’s East Side, and the loss of a father. The house still stands despite abandoned lots, an embattled city, and the inevitable shift outward to the suburbs. But now, as ailing matriarch Viola finds herself forced to leave her home and move in with her eldest son, the family discovers that the house is worth just a tenth of its mortgage. The Turner children are called home to decide its fate and to reckon with how each of their pasts haunts–and shapes–their family’s future. Already praised by Ayana Mathis as “utterly moving” and “un-putdownable,” The Turner House brings us a colorful, complicated brood full of love and pride, sacrifice and unlikely inheritances. It’s a striking examination of the price we pay for our dreams and futures, and the ways in which our families bring us home”

Resume Writing with Learning Express Library

Learning ExpressEven though the end of the semester is a few months away, now is the time to start thinking about getting a resume together for that summer internship, or for that first “real job.”

Writing a resume can be a daunting task from what to add, how to word it, to how to format it. Don’t fret.  If you have never written a resume before or it’s been awhile, Learning Express Library can be a good place to start.

Learning Express Library provides tutorials on creating an effective cover letter and explores the resume writing process. Learn how to format a resume, use action words and keywords , and view sample resumes.

It even goes one step further and provides job search strategies using social media, networking tips, and  how to interview with confidence.

To access Learning Express Library, just follow these steps:

Learning - databaseSelect Learning Express Library from the library’s database list.

 

 

Register LExL

Register for an account

 

 

 

 

 

Career CenterSelect the Career Center

 

 

 

 

 

 

Job searchSelect Job Search and Workplace Skills

 

 

 

 

 

Job search 1Then on the left side, select the area where you would like to start.

 

Good Luck!

 

And don’t forget to visit UDM’s Career Education Center for even more great resources!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seeking Michigan!

Seeking Michigan

 

The Michigan Historical Center provides a unique online collection of Michigan archival material called Seeking Michigan.  Get lost browsing through state census records, death records, civil war documents, photographs, oral histories, sheet music, old maps, and old postcards.   Curious about  how great grandpa Joe died? Was he kicked in the head by his horse? Did he fall into the outhouse? Or was he shot in a shoot out? Put those family rumors to rest and find out in the Michigan Death Records from 1897 -1920.

Civil WarIs the Civil War more your thing? Browse the Civil War battle flag collection.  Check out portraits of Civil War soldiers and even look up volunteer registries and service records of Michigan Infantries.  Maybe your southern relative really fought for the north!

Peruse photographs of Michigan lighthouses and governors and discover idyllic scenes of days gone by in the   Main Streets postcard collection  depicting towns from Ada to Zeeland.

Michigan Postcard1

 

Step back into Michigan history and have fun exploring its illustrious past!

 

 

Sandra Wilson and Julia Eisenstein, Librarian Consultants

Summer Listening

If you love to read, but don’t have time try an audio book!  Here are some from the library’s collection:

Book1Behind the Beautiful Forevers, by Katherine Boo.  Annawadi is a settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport, and as India starts to prosper, Annawadians are filled with hope. Abdul, a reflective and enterprising Muslim teenager, sees “a fortune beyond counting” in the recyclable garbage that richer people throw away. But then Abdul is falsely accused in a shocking tragedy; terror and a global recession rock the city; and suppressed tensions over religion, caste, sex, power and economic envy turn brutal.

 

Book2

Life After Life, by Kate Atkinson.  On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd is born to an English banker and his wife. She dies before she can draw her first breath. On that same cold and snowy night, Ursula Todd is born, and lets out a lusty wail. As she grows, she also dies, repeatedly, in a variety of ways, while the young century marches on towards its second cataclysmic world war. Does Ursula’s apparently infinite number of lives give her the power to save the world from its inevitable destiny?

 

Book3Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls, by David Sedaris.  From the perils of French dentistry to the eating habits of the Australian kookaburra, from the squat-style toilets of Beijing to the particular wilderness of a North Carolina Costco, we learn about the absurdity and delight of a curious traveler’s experiences. Whether railing against the habits of litterers in the English countryside or marveling over a disembodied human arm in a taxidermist’s shop, Sedaris takes us on side-splitting adventures that are not to be forgotten.

 

Book4Doctor Sleep, by Stephen King.  Stephen King returns to the characters and territory of one of his most popular novels ever, The Shining, in this instantly riveting novel about the now middle-aged Dan Torrance (the boy protagonist of The Shining) and the very special twelve-year-old girl he must save from a tribe of murderous paranormals. On highways across America, a tribe of people called The True Knot travel in search of sustenance. They look harmless– mostly old, lots of polyester, and married to their RVs. But as Dan Torrance knows, and spunky twelve-year-old Abra Stone learns, The True Knot are quasi-immortal, living off the ‘steam’ that children with the ‘shining’ produce when they are slowly tortured to death.

Book5The Time Keeper, by Mitch Albom.  After being punished for trying to measure God’s greatest gift, Father Time returns to Earth along with a magical hourglass and a mission: a chance to redeem himself by teaching two earthly people the true meaning of time.

 

 

 

Book6

The Racketeer, by John Grisham.  Given the importance of what they do, and the controversies that often surround them, and the violent people they sometimes confront, it is remarkable that in the history of this country only four active federal judges have been murdered. Judge Raymond Fogletree just became number five. His body was found in the basement of a lakeside cabin he had built himself and frequently used on weekends. When he did not show up for a trial on Monday morning, his law clerks panicked, called the FBI, and in due course the agents found the crime scene. There was no forced entry, no struggle, just two dead bodies, Judge Fogletree and his young secretary. I did not know Judge Fogletree, but I know who killed him, and why. I am a lawyer, and I am in prison. It’s a long story.

Book8Where’d you go, Bernadette, by Maria Semple.  Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she’s a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she’s a disgrace; to design mavens, she’s a revolutionary architect, and to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, simply, Mom. Then Bernadette disappears.

Avoid Overdue Fines: Renew Online!

Do you have a library book coming due, but need it a little bit longer?  Don’t rack up late fees, renew online! Just follow these easy steps:

1.  From the library website, click the Renew Books button

Renew Books

 

 

2. Enter your 14-digit bar code number found on your UDM ID card

 Tommy Titan ID with circleBarcode with arrow

3. Check the box on the left of the book you want to renew

Renew shot

 

4. Click the Renew button

Renew button

…and now you don’t have to worry for another 28 days!

Renew screen

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sandra Wilson, Librarian

 

The New York Times – Historical Edition

NYT - titanicExtra! Extra! Read All About It!  The New York Times is now available online!  Don’t miss out!

Need to write a speech on an event that happened on your birth date? Explore over 150 years of breaking news stories from the renowned New York Times.  Read about the sinking of the Titanic, where more than 1,500 people perished in the icy waters of the North Atlantic Ocean on April 15, 1912.

Or if sports is more your thing, read about the New York Yankees 5-3 win oNYT - World Seriesver the Brooklyn Dodgers in the first World Series game ever broadcast on television on September 30, 1947. This event was so ground breaking a judge stopped a trial for jurors to watch it on TV.

Whether you’re looking for a specific event or just want to browse, The New York Times: Historical Newspapers (ProQuest) has it all, from the very first issue printed in 1851 all the way to 2010.  Articles are in PDF so you can view them as they originally appeared.  Just select the link from the library’s database page and have fun exploring!

For more current articles, be sure to search The New York Times (Gale) from 1985-present.

 

Sandra Wilson – Librarian Consultant

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