The New Shade Garden by Ken Druse

August 21, 2015August 17, 2015 - Ann Leave a comment

There is a new generation of gardeners who are planting gardens not only for their visual beauty but also for their ability to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. In The New Shade Garden , Ken Druse provides this generation with a comprehensive guide to creating a shade garden with an emphasis on the adjustments necessary for our changing climate.

Druse offers advice for common problems facing today’s gardeners, from addressing the deer situation to watering plants without stressing limited resources. Detailing all aspects of the gardening process, the book covers basic topics such as designing your own garden, pruning trees, preparing soil for planting, and the vast array of flowers and greenery that grow best in the shade.

Perfect for new and seasoned gardeners alike, this wide-ranging encyclopedic manual provides all the information you need to start or improve upon your own shade garden. (description from publisher)

Truly Madly Pizza by Suzanne Lenzer

August 20, 2015August 17, 2015 - Ann Leave a comment

No matter what the first day of a new week throws at you, no matter how looming the rest of the days before the weekend seem, a truly, madly delicious pizza promises something familiar, something reliable, something known. It’s confirmation that all the heaviness of the world will be held at bay – if only for a little while – by a combination of bubbling mozzarella, sweet fennel sausage, and balsamic-glazed radicchio. Suzanne Lenzer’s Truly Madly Pizza shows you how.

Beginning with the “Mother Crust” recipe, Lenzer argues that pizza dough is a tabula rasa for whatever healthy fresh ingredients you have on hand. To make pizza a nightly affair, she suggests preparing the dough on Sunday – in less than 30 minutes – freezing it, and simply transferring it to the fridge to thaw on the morning you plan to cook. Lenzer gives the timestrapped home cook countless combinations for a healthy, delicious (and quick!) weeknight meal. Balancing lighter healthy alternatives like Summer Squash with Lemon Zest and Ricotta with indulgent options such as Spicy Shredded Pork with Sweet Onion Jam and Burrata, in addition to bonus recipes including “Salad thoughts,” “Small bites,” and even a few ideas about wine, this book covers all the bases. Lenzer’s comforting voice adds a homey touch to her artisanal recipes and immaculately styled photos. (description from publisher)

Girl Online: the first novel by Zoella by Zoe Sugg

August 18, 2015August 15, 2015 - Stephanie 1 Comment

Sitting at the reference desk affords me the best opportunities to figure out what the people who visit any of the three Davenport Public Libraries like to read. Reading selection catalogues is good for finding what reviewers think my patrons will like to read, but actually sitting at the desk and talking really gives me a solid idea about what our patrons want to see on the shelves.

My newest reference desk plug comes from a string of junior high and high school girls who, within the span of two to three days, all requested one book: Girl Online: the first novel by Zoella by Zoe Sugg. This book can be found in the young adult section and while that alone might throw some of you off and also send some of you wondering why there is a young adult review on this blog, let me tell you that while there are themes of first love and heartbreak and friendship within this book, there are also adult themes that I found resonated with me, even though I had to venture into teen land to find it. So let me tell you this: Instead of “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” maybe we should switch that handy motto to “Don’t judge a book by its call number”.

Girl Online: the first novel by Zoella by Zoe Sugg chronicles a short bit in the life of Penny, the girl behind the popular blog, GirlOnline, an anonymous blog that she runs online after she finds out that it is easier to share her real life and real feelings online than it is to face ridicule with everyone she knows in real life, or maybe a better way to word what she is doing online is to say that she is unsure whether or not others are feeling the same way as she is, so she posts her feelings and interactions only to be surprised that there are other people out there who feel the same way as she does. Penny, who is suffering from panic attacks after going through an accident with her parents, is supported through her online escapades and real life encounters by her best friend, Elliott, a gay boy struggling to get his parents to understand his homosexuality who lives right next to Penny and is able to knock on her wall with a secret code to let her know that he wants to come over and visit.

Well, Penny’s parents just happen to own a wedding planning business and, more specifically, a wedding dress store where they specialize in designing somewhat off-the-wall and different weddings. As the plot rolls on, Penny and her parents, Elliott included, are invited to New York to help plan a Downton Abbey themed wedding just around Christmas time. Could anything be more perfect?! Of course because this is a young adult novel!!! Once there, Penny meets Noah, a gorgeous, guitar-strumming, tall eighteen-year-old boy who just happens to be the grandson of the chef for the wedding. This. Is. Awesome. They travel around New York together and have picnics together on a roof top and just when you think they are going to be parted, Penny’s mom gets asked to design another party, which means they get to stay together for a whole other week! Sweet!! Penny and Noah fall in deep like, but alarm bells kept going off in my head because it seemed like Noah had a secret too. Can’t spoil everything for you. Read the book and let me know when your alarm bells start going off. Mine were right when they met. (And all the while, Penny is blogging about her encounters in New York, anonymously of course). Anyway, Penny comes home and THINGS BLOW UP! Not actual bombs and stuff, but metaphorical “her life is over because she’s a teenager and no one else will love her”. Sugg’s writing was so good in this part, I actually could not put the book down and read it all the way through breakfast.

The reason why I am blogging about this book is because it shows people just what happens when you put your life all over social media. The consequences, the interactions between your real and online life, and the inevitable collision between the two are what really makes Sugg’s writing shine in this novel. Zoe Sugg, also known as Zoella, is a vlogger, someone who, like bloggers, posts videos online to diary and document what is happening in their lives. Sugg does this through her YouTube channel. If you visit the about page on her YouTube channel, there are multiple links to her other various social media platforms. She is a social media QUEEN, winning awards and such for her presence online!

New Mystery Fiction for August: Long-Running Series

August 14, 2015August 11, 2015 - Katie Leave a comment

Are you a faithful fan of PI Kinsey Millhone, Sheriff Dan Rhodes, Judge Deborah Knott or reporter Lucy Stone? August brings the latest installments of these four long-running mystery series, each set in a different region of the United States and each now including twenty or more novels.

Curious about the enduring appeal of these series? Start a “mystery” investigation of your own! Find the first book in each series by clicking on the title in the description below.

Starting with “A” (A is for Alibi, 1982) and now up to the letter “X,” Sue Grafton’s much-loved “alphabet” mysteries follow the confident, smart-mouthed private eye Kinsey Millhone as she investigates crimes in and around the fictional town of Santa Teresa, California. In X is For…, a professional assignment and a personal favor set the gears of an intricate plot in motion, entangling Kinsey in the lives of fascinating new characters and placing her in the path of a devious serial killer.

We first met Sheriff Dan Rhodes of Clearview, Texas back in 1986 in Bill Crider’s Too Late to Die. The 22nd novel in the series, Between the Living and the Dead, matches the the lonely laconic lawman against the local meth trade, his colorful rural neighbors, some runaway animals, and…the paranormal.

Margaret Maron’s 20th Deborah Knott mystery adds yet more intricacy and brilliance to her masterly depiction of small-town North Carolina life. The district court judge first introduced in 1992’s The Bootlegger’s Daughter has by now traveled extensively throughout the state, solving crimes in varying locations with her special access to legal information. With each new novel, Maron further explores the relationships between the members of the Knott clan. In Long Upon the Land, the discovery of a dead body on the family farm revives a longstanding feud between the Knotts and the Earps; Deborah’s father and eleven brothers fall suspect and her sheriff’s deputy husband is accused of favoritism in his handling of the case. Meanwhile, Deborah uncovers some surprising — and possibly relevant to the murder investigation — details about her mother’s life as her parents’ courtship began.

Traveling from California to Texas and North Carolina, we now land in Tinker’s Cove, Maine, the setting for Leslie Meier’s cozy Lucy Stone mysteries. Our newspaper-reporter heroine can’t help but stumble upon murders connected in some way with holiday celebrations. Halloween is the subject of the 22nd novel as Christmas was for the first: Mistletoe Murder (1991). A wayward entry in the Pumpkin Fest’s Pumpkin Catapult Contest crashes open a car trunk to reveal the body of a family friend. And so Lucy’s amateur sleuthing skills are once again put to the test in Candy Corn Murder.

Listen to Your Mother: What She Said Then, What We’re Saying Now Edited by Ann Imig

August 10, 2015August 5, 2015 - Stephanie Leave a comment

As most children will tell you, the phrase “Listen to your mother” is something that you hear from a young age to even adulthood. After all, mother knows best. But how do all those mothers seem to magically know about all those mothering tricks? Read this book to find out. Ann Imig has brought together a wide variety of essays in her book, Listen to Your Mother: What She Said Then, What We’re Saying Now that draws opinions and experiences of motherhood and, more widely, from parenthood in general from the point of view of children, parents, and grandparents.

The title of this book may be “Listen to Your Mother,” but the views presented within this collection range from surrogacy to LGBTQ parenting to adoption to first-time moms to being empty nesters to special-needs parenting and many, many others. Some stories are heart-breaking, some are happy, while others still seem to be a mixture of both. Imig and the writers are voicing their tales of motherhood, the ones that they feel are uniquely their own, but have come to realize that the underlying tales of family are relatable across age, race, and family type. One son speaks of how he was raised by two mothers, two men discuss how it is to raise their children without a mother, while another discusses how her mother raised her to be strong and independent and how she hopes to raise her daughter the same way. Check out this book to read the hilarious and intriguing stories presented within.

Some of the essays in this book have come from the Listen to Your Mother movement, a speaker series with a Youtube Channel and a website put together by Imig with the mission to support motherhood by giving voice to motherhood and celebrating the diversity present within motherhood by live, original reading performed onstage.

The Reaper: Autobiography of One of the Deadliest Special Ops Snipers by Nicholas Irving with Gary Brozek

August 5, 2015July 28, 2015 - Stephanie Leave a comment

With the release of American Sniper(both as a book and movie), there has been an increase both in requests for military nonfiction and in new releases of books available to the public. We have many available for check out at the library! My newest military nonfiction read was The Reaper: Autobiography of One of the Deadliest Special Ops Snipers. Just like any specialized nonfiction book, be they medical, military, science, or sports, I approached this one with caution as I was expecting to be hit almost immediately with acronyms and terminology specific to the military that can be overwhelming to civilians. Irving does a fairly decent job of explaining what each acronym means, which I found to be a relief.

In this book, Nicholas Irving details for readers the many operations that he went on as a sniper that allowed him to garner 33 confirmed kills, while also spreading in details about his life and just how he eventually became the 3rd Ranger Battalion’s deadliest sniper. Irving focuses mostly on his deployment to Afghanistan in the summer of 2009, where he gathered the majority of the kills that earned him the nickname, the Reaper.

What I found most interesting in this book were the descriptions that Irving laid out about just what the entire unit went through during those specialized combat missions and how he was able to notice changes within himself as he became more comfortable with the job that he had to do. Among the revealing descriptions of their operations, readers gain a behind-the-scenes look into day-to-day life in the military, Irving’s life before he joined the military, and the lives of the many men and women that he interacted with on a day-to-day basis. I found this book to be an informative read that allowed me to catch just a tiny glimpse into the stories of combat and brotherhood that many special operations forces are going through during war.

Irving discusses everything from the decision to take a life to protect another, dealing with the loss of fellow soldiers during battle, and how the bonds of brotherhood within the military as a whole, his specific unit, and with the different people he came into contact with throughout his military career helped form the sniper that he became.

If you’re interested in other military nonfiction, check out the books below. Click on the covers to learn more information about the book and to place a hold on the item. If you are looking to walk the shelves, the Armed Forces fall around the Dewey number of 350, while specific battles or moments in history can be found in the 900s.

Internet Safety

August 3, 2015July 28, 2015 - Stephanie Leave a comment

In the last year, there have been a number of internet hacking scandals that have the whole country wondering just how secure the information is that they are putting onto the internet. The most recent attack being on Avid Life Media, the parent company of Ashley Madison, Established Men, and Cougar Life. The group responsible, the Impact Team, brought to light the fact that the company was charging Ashley Madison users a $19 fee to have all of their data completely scrubbed from their servers. The Impact Team said that this was not the case, that the users’ information was still accessible. The hackers are demanding that those sites be shut down or the personal and financial information of their clients will be released onto the web (As of now, they have begun releasing the information of some). Many other websites, companies, and organizations have been hacked, from celebrities’ accounts to other retail companies. Each article published releases information to consumers about how to beef up their online security and to protect their identity, as the information that they post online can be used to track down to them in real life, as illustrated by the previous hacks.

Here I’ve gathered my some tips about how to make your online identity even more secure. (There have also been a number of security breaches of financial information of people who do not shop online, like Target, Neiman Marcus, and Michaels to name a few, but this blog is going to focus primarily on internet safety.)

In order to keep your identity safe and to use the internet safely, you need to utilize as many layers of protection as possible. Just being aware of what could possibly happen and taking the necessary steps to help prevent that will not necessarily guarantee that nothing bad will ever happen to you online, but will certainly make it harder for someone to gain access to your information.

Here are some handy tips to help you use the internet safely:

1. Be careful what you post online. Everything you post online will be there forever. Even if you delete your account, certain websites, like the Wayback Machine, save websites over time and allow users to pull up a web address and pick any date in history to see what that page looked like on that specific date. Most social media sites allow you to make your page private, so look for the safety or security settings within that account. Share only what you are comfortable with everyone seeing and don’t accept friend requests from strangers.

2. Create a secure password. Change your passwords often and make them at least 8 characters long with a combination of letters, numbers, and symbols. Avoid easy to guess words and personal information.

3. Think before you download an app. Most apps request access to your personal information, ranging from your pictures, contact lists, phone book, and friends list. On certain mobile devices, you can deny the app access to your personal or financial information and still be able to download the app.

4. Make sure you have a secure location and you leave the internet secure. This involves making sure that you have an https:// connection at the top of the browser and locking for a padlock up at the top, meaning that the site you are on is encrypted. If you are accessing a website that requires you to log-in, make sure that you are logging out before you close out of the browser or someone else can easily access your account. Never give out your credit card information without checking to make sure that the site is secure. You can buy a disposable credit card through your credit card company or through a retailer that you can load with a preset amount of money, so that if you are hacked, your personal information is safe and the only thing that is compromised is what is on that card. Use all the security options present on your device. Many computers, tablets, and phones offer lock screens, passwords, and sometimes even fingerprint lock options.

5. Be on the alert for scammers. Don’t give out your personal information online to somebody that you do not know! Scammers will try to steal your information, so don’t give it out over text messages, phone, mail, or the Internet, unless you are 100% sure you know who you are dealing with. If you are even the slightest bit unsure, close out of your email, open a new browser, and type in the company’s web address to contact them through their customer service.

6. Install security software. Run the virus checks and make sure that everything stays updated. Most businesses recommend virus, malware, and firewall protection. Some examples of these are AVG, McAfee security scan, Microsoft security options, and ZoneAlarm free firewall. There are other options available online. Do your research to figure out which one is the best for your needs. Some new computers come with free antivirus software as well.

7. Dispose of your personal information. If you are planning on recycling your old computer, make sure to wipe the hard drive; just erasing it will not do the job. Your hard drive stores all of your personal information and a not wiped one is a scammer’s dream to find! Make sure to recycle your electronics and shred any personal documents as well.

Check out some resources the library has available to help inform you on internet safety, online security, identity theft, and identity protection, as well as some real-life stories. Click on the covers for more information and to put these materials on hold!

Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner by Judy Melinek, M.D., and T.J. Mitchell

July 31, 2015July 28, 2015 - Stephanie Leave a comment

Warning: this book is not for the faint of stomach. Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner by Judy Melinek, M.D., and T.J. Mitchell goes into detail about the many years of training and hundreds of autopsies that Melinek went through to become a forensic pathologist trained in death investigation. Melinek began as a surgical resident, but during her fellowship, she came to the realization that surgery was not for her. As a result, she switched to forensic pathology, a subject she had always enjoyed in medical school, taking a residency position at UCLA. She and her husband bounced between LA and New York where she eventually took on a year long fellowship commitment at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

Background out of the way, I found this book to be a fascinating read. It is slightly gory, I’m not going to lie, as Melinek goes into sometimes graphic detail about the autopsies that she has performed and how they helped shape her as a forensic pathologist. The science that she presents throughout the book as well as the reasons for her becoming a forensic pathologist allow readers to see just why she is able to look at even the most decomposed bodies and the bodies of children in order to do her job. As she repeats throughout the book, it is all about the training. Her training added not necessarily a level of detachment to her work, but instead a level of understanding and skill that allowed her to treat every new case as an opportunity to learn something new about the human body.

Melinek was also working at the OCME when the planes struck on September 11th, so reading her input as her office was tasked with identifying the thousands of victims in the initial eight months after the tragedy was jarring, but at the same time, I was awed at the behind-the-scenes look that readers were granted regarding the rescue and recovery effort, as well as the volunteer and first responders’ stories. This book shines a light on all of the hard work and training that goes in to figuring out the mysteries of our deaths.

If the above description interested you or if you are looking for something similar, check out the books below. Click on the covers for more information and to be directed right to our catalog.

Mary Roach has written several medical nonfiction books, as well as Atul Gawande.

Hot for Scots

July 29, 2015July 23, 2015 - Stephanie Leave a comment

Summer is my romance novel/vacation read time. This summer’s romance pattern: kilts. Rugged Scottish Highlanders tearing up the countryside as they fight with claymores and dirks, display their clan colors with pride on their kilts, and fight to save their damsel, even when she’s capable of saving herself. That description may sound like the plot to many, many different Scottish Highlander romance novels and I tell you, yes, yes it is. But when that plot line lands in the hands of certain authors, it twists and molds itself into a beautifully crafted story involving love, fealty, family, and fierce Scottish loyalty. Here I’ve gathered my most recent Scottish Highlander reads. Enjoy! (If you’re looking for more information about romance novels, check out the Romance LibGuide put together by one of our awesome librarians!)

Diana Gabaldon is the author of the Outlander series, a total of 8 books with many novellas and other books added to the initial 8 books. She is currently working on the 9th book in the series. The first book in the series, Outlander, introduces the character of Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, who is reunited with her husband Frank as they reconnect on a second honeymoon in the British Isles. As they are exploring their surroundings, Claire and Frank stumble upon an ancient stone circle containing several plants that amateur botanist Claire is very interested in. One night, Claire is back looking at the plants when she walks through the stone circle and finds herself thrust into a different world. Dazed, confused, and lost, she becomes a captive of a group of Highlander men in 1743 Scotland. Forced to deal with circumstances thoroughly out of her control, Claire soon finds herself in the pleasure of a young James Fraser, known to his acquaintances as Jamie. Claire and Jamie soon are forced to rely of each other to survive. Gabaldon weaves the Outlander story around the delicate balance between Claire’s old and new life and the balance between her truth and the lies she must tell to survive. (If this interests you, this book/series has also been made into a television series – which is also available for checkout.)

My most recent Highlander romance series read was the Scandalous Highlanders series by Suzanne Enoch. I just finished reading Mad, Bad, and Dangerous in Plaid, the third book in this series with a fourth due to release in October. I picked this book up not realizing that it wasn’t the first book until I was about halfway through and by then I was too hooked to start the series at the beginning. In this book, we find Rowena MacLawry has escaped the Highlands and run away to London to have her debut season after her brothers have expressly told her she could not. She returns home to the Highlands with a large number of her sophisticated English ladies and lords in tow to help plan the wedding of one of her brothers. Rowena, or Winnie as she is known to her brothers and to the dashing Lachlan MacTier, has brought along these sophisticated men to hopefully find a husband and to prove to everyone that she is over her 18-year crush and obsession over Lachlan. As soon as Winnie expresses her disdain for Lachlan, he realizes that maybe he doesn’t want her giving up on him just yet. A humorous and disastrous mix of complications plague the wedding preparations and Winnie and Lachlan are forced to come up with a rather ingenious plan to make sure everyone ends up happy. I recommend that you check out the first book in the series, The Devil Wears Kilts, and the second book, Rogue with a Brogue, before reading the third. Also keep an eye out for the release of the fourth!

There are many, many other Scottish Highlander romance novels, but these are just my memorable ones from this summer’s reading, so if you’re interested in more Highlander romance novels, check out this list that collects from all three Davenport Libraries and contains some of the Highlander romance novels we own.

(Handy tip: If you’re reading a romance novel and aren’t sure whether it is the first in a series, check to see if there are siblings to the main character and whether or not any of them are married or in a serious relationship. If this is true, you most likely are not reading the first in the series. This is a generality and is not always true. Just something I’ve noticed. When in doubt, contact us at the library and we can check.)

New Spirituality and Religion in July

July 27, 2015July 23, 2015 - Allison Leave a comment

Featured new additions to DPL’s Spirituality & Religion collections! Click on the book title to place a hold. For more new books, visit our Upcoming Releases page. As always, if you have a book that you would like to recommend, call or email the Reference Department.

	*Anchor and Flares: A Memoir of Motherhood, Hope and Service* by Kate Braestrup – Kate Braestrup’s life was transformed by the loss of her husband; now Kate faces the possibility that she may lose her son. As a young mother Kate Braestrup discovered the fierce protectiveness that accompanies parenthood. In the intervening years–through mourning her husband and the joy of remarriage and a blended family-Kate has absorbed the rewards and complications of that spirit. But when her eldest son joins the Marines, Kate is at a crossroads: Can she reconcile her desire to protect her children with her family’s legacy of service? Can parents balance the joy of a child’s independence with the fear of letting go?
	*Destiny: Step Into Your Purpose* by T. D. Jakes – Jakes, author of more than 25 books and “bishop” of the popular nondenominational syndicated TV show the Potter’s Touch, builds on his previous works in this conversational sermon, proposing a framework for readers to discover their purpose and achieve their full potential. According to Jakes, we are all placed on the Earth for a specific purpose that can only be discovered by listening to our instincts. In this book, he takes the next step: “Instinct must merge with purpose to find Destiny.”
	*St Paul: The Apostle we Love to Hate* by Karen Armstrong – St. Paul is known throughout the world as the first Christian writer, authoring fourteen of the twenty-seven books in the New Testament. But as Karen Armstrong demonstrates in “St. Paul: The Apostle We Love to Hate,” he also exerted a more significant influence on the spread of Christianity throughout the world than any other figure in history. While we know little about some aspects of the life of St. Paul–his upbringing, the details of his death–his dramatic vision of God on the road to Damascus is one of the most powerful stories in the history of Christianity, and the life that followed forever changed the course of history.
	*Approaching the End of Life: A Practical and Spiritual Guide* – From making a will and planning a memorial service to finding peace in the toughest circumstances, Donna Schaper offers practical and spiritual guidance to anyone wrestling with the end of a life. With sensitivity and humor she helps readers face ageing and mortality with freedom rather than fear, encourages readers to find a spiritual home of some kind, and offers helpful suggestions on memorials and funeral services that will be well suited to the departed while also serving the loved ones in their grief and celebration.
	One Thousand Wells: How an Audacious Goal Taught Me to Love the World Instead of Save It by Jena Lee Nardella – Ten years ago, Jena Lee Nardella was a fresh-out-of-college, twenty-something with the lofty goal of truly changing the world. Armed with a diploma, a thousand dollars, and a dream to build one thousand wells in Africa, she joined forces with the band Jars of Clay to found Blood:Water and begin her mission. But along the way she faced many harsh realities that have tested her faith, encountered corruption and brokenness that nearly destroyed everything she’d fought for, and taught her that wishful thinking will not get you very far. Jena discovered that true change comes only when you stop trying to save the world and allow yourself to love it, even when it breaks your heart.
	*Relax, It’s Just God: How and Why to Talk to Your Kids about Religion When You’re Not Religious* by Wendy T. Russell – A rapidly growing demographic cohort in America, non-religious parents are at the forefront of a major and unprecedented cultural shift. Unable to fall back on what they were taught as children, many of these parents are struggling–or simply failing–to address complicated religious questions and issues with their children in ways that promote curiosity, kindness, and independence. Author Wendy Thomas Russell sifts through hard data–including the results of her own survey of 1,000 nonreligious parents–and delivers gentle but straightforward advice to this often-overlooked segment of the American population.
	*Living Out Islam: Voices of Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Muslims* by Scott Kugle and Siraj Al-Haqq – Living Out Islam documents the rarely-heard voices of Muslims who live in secular democratic countries and who are gay, lesbian, and transgender. It weaves original interviews with Muslim activists into a compelling composite picture which showcases the importance of the solidarity of support groups in the effort to change social relationships and achieve justice. This nascent movement is not about being out as opposed to being in the closet. Rather, as the voices of these activists demonstrate, it is about finding ways to live out Islam with dignity and integrity, reconciling their sexuality and gender with their faith and reclaiming Islam as their own.