Adventures in Yarn Farming by Barbara Parry

adventuresCity and suburb dwellers sometimes dream about what it would be like to live on a country farm and raise animals. Adventures in Yarn Farming invites readers to participate vicariously in the daily life of a working sheep farm without ever having to muck out a barn, be chased by a recalcitrant ram, or lift a hay bale.

Told through the eyes of veteran shepherd and textile artisan, Barbara Parry’s stories follow her flock over the course of a year, showing all the facets of life connected to sheep and making yarn. Readers get a front-row seat to the sheep show – tending sheep on winter mornings, shearing day, the round-the-clock chaos of lambing season, preparing fiber for yarn – and a visit to Barbara’s dye studio, where she colorfully transforms skeins for hand-knit creations. With the growing locavore movement, the rising eco-friendly trend in sustainable farming, and the ever-increasing interest in crafting, this book is relevant on many fronts. It will draw readers who yearn for a closer connection with a rural lifestyle and who enjoy making things by hand. Through 13 projects, as well as sidebars and side excursions, readers get a slice of life on a New England farm. (description from publisher)

The Pioneer Woman Cooks: A Year of Holidays by Ree Drummond

year of holidaysRee Drummond—accidental country girl, award-winning blogger, Food Network personality, and #1New York Times bestselling author—presents The Pioneer Woman Cooks: A Year of Holidays, a fantastic collection of recipes, photos, and homespun humor to help you celebrate all through the year.

Ree shows you how to ring in your favorite holidays with inspired menus for breakfasts, brunches, lunches, dinners, parties, deliveries, and feasts, accompanied by fun instructions and hundreds of her signature step-by-step photos. Filled with creative and flavorful ideas for intimate dinners, group gatherings, and family meals, The Pioneer Woman Cooks: A Year of Holidays includes dozens of mouthwatering dishes (with nineteen recipes for Thanksgiving alone!), helping home cooks create a variety of delights.

Whip up a Resolution Smoothie on New Year’s Day; Whiskey BBQ Sliders and Dr Pepper Cupcakes for The Big Game; Glazed Ham for Easter; Watermelon Sangria for a sizzling Fourth of July cookout; and perfect Popcorn Balls on Halloween. For Christmas, Ree includes special homemade treats, including Caramel Apple Rolls, Christmas Rum Cake, and a selection of smile-inducing cookies, perfect for Christmas deliveries to family and friends.

Enjoy holidays all year ’round…Pioneer Woman style! (description from publisher)

The Aviators by Winston Groom

aviatorsFrom Winston Groom, the best-selling author of Forrest Gump, comes the fascinating story of three extraordinary heroes who defined aviation during the great age of flight in The Aviators. These cleverly interwoven tales of their heart-stopping adventures take us from the feats of World War I through the heroism of World War II and beyond, including daring military raids and survival-at-sea, and will appeal to fans of Unbroken, The Greatest Generation, and Flyboys.

With the world in peril in World War II, each man set aside great success and comfort to return to the skies for his most daring mission yet. Doolittle, a brilliant aviation innovator, would lead the daring Tokyo Raid to retaliate for Pearl Harbor; Lindbergh, hero of the first solo flight across the Atlantic, would fly combat missions in the South Pacific; and Rickenbacker, World War I flying ace, would bravely hold his crew together while facing near-starvation and circling sharks after his plane went down in a remote part of the Pacific. Groom’s rich narrative tells their intertwined stories–from broken homes to Medals of Honor (all three would receive it); barnstorming to the greatest raid of World War II; front-page triumph to anguished tragedy; and near-death to ultimate survival–as all took to the sky, time and again, to become exemplars of the spirit of the “greatest generation.” (description from publisher)

Creating Art at the Speed of Life by Pam Carriker

creating art at the speed of lifeIn this inspirational volume, artist and author Pam Carriker offers uninhibited mixed-media play while encouraging you to look at your work with a newly evaluative eye and determine what works for you.

Create your own art journal while using a variety of mixed-media techniques and explore seven important elements of art: Color, Texture, Shape, Space, Depth, Mark Making and Shading An art-making workshop in a book, Creating Art at the Speed of Life offers a 30-day syllabus, introducing and exploring each element in a series of exercises, complete with worksheets to help you evaluate your work and make it more successful and satisfying. In an “open studio” at the end of each chapter, well-known contributing artists share inspirational work focused on that chapter’s element.

With Pam’s lessons and advice on how to assess your artwork, you will experiment and grow into a more confident artist. (description from publisher)

The Monuments Men: “No Biff, you leave that art alone.”

I am one of those people who understands history through art. Partly for the classic idea that “a picture is worth a thousand words”, but also because the concept of “this artist made this during this time while these things were happening” just somehow clicks with me. To me, art IS history, so I am always a bit baffled when I hear other people snicker or gripe at stories that come out about people who make heroic efforts to save a piece of artwork as if the idea that a person would put themselves in danger to save history is somehow silly. I am also one of those people who understands things by relating them to movies made in the 1980’s. And thanks to the Back to the Future Trilogy, those of us living in the twenty-first century should all now be fully aware of how saving history will also save our future.

But alas, earwax! The Back to the Future Trilogy did not exist during World War II! Can you imagine telling a Superior Officer in the military (who has no IDEA what Jan Van Eyck painted, nor what song Marty McFly sang after his parents’ first kiss) that he needs to set free a recently captured group of German Soldiers because a German Monk told you that they are the only men trained to keep a historical church from catching on fire from the bombs the Allies are still blasting at the city? Yeah, he may not take it that well…

Luckily, the small group of men and women assigned to the MFAA, the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives Division, understood the importance of their job even when others did not, and were able to save the history (and thus, the culture, spirit and future) of Europe from total destruction. Their story, after being forgotten for many years, is finally receiving worldwide attention thanks to the wonderful book by Robert M. Edsel (with Bret Witter), The Monuments Men : Allied heroes, Nazi thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History and the new movie based on Edsel’s book, Monuments Men, directed by and starring George Clooney.

Led by George Stout, an art conservation pioneer from Iowa (and who Clooney based his fictional film character on–Learn more about George Stout here: http://bit.ly/MeLsKn), the MFAA members managed to protect historical world sites from unnecessary bombings, repair sites damaged due to necessary bombings, protect priceless cultural items from looting by both the Nazis and Allies, and track down and conduct emergency conservation efforts on millions of items stolen by the Nazis and return them to their rightful countries and owners, including those owned by Germany. And here is the super amazing part, although the MFAA would eventually include hundreds of members (still a very small amount compared to the millions who served during WWII), the Monuments Men numbered UNDER TEN MEMBERS during their most critical period to save all of the art in NORTHERN EUROPE (and unlike in the film, they were mostly working ALONE). As the brilliant Dr. Emmett Brown would say, “Great Scott!”

Robert Edsel’s book, The Monuments Men, as well as his companion books and the related documentary, The Rape of Europa, are must-sees for those interested in Art History, World History and Military History as well as anyone who likes a good treasure hunt around Europe.

Let the library help plan your wedding!

Spring is almost here, and with it comes that fifth season of the year: wedding season! Brides everywhere are elbow deep in flower arrangements, cake tastings, and dress fittings. If you’ve got a wedding coming up this year, or maybe just got a ring for Valentine’s Day, let the Davenport Public Library help you plan your dream wedding!

 

The Knot Wedding Planner

For a great all-around planner, try The Knot Wedding Planner and Organizer. It’s full of checklists and timelines to make your wedding planning as stress-free as possible.

 

 

 

Wedding Cakes

 

 

Need the perfect cake? Check out Wedding Cakes. London cake designer Mich Turner includes simple as well as elaborate designs and recipes for every wedding style.

Wedding Flowers

 

Need decorating inspiration? Knack Wedding Flowers has great ideas for floral arrangements, centerpieces and bouquets for every season and budget as well as DIY tips if you want to skip the florist and create these looks yourself.

 

The Bridesmaid's Manual

 

 

Did you know that for every bride there is an average of four bridesmaids? If you’re one of the thousands of bridesmaids this season, pick up The Bridesmaid’s Manual. In it you’ll find valuable advice for everything from party planning to etiquette.

 

 

Whether you’re planning a fantasy wedding or you’re a bride on a budget looking for diy ideas, the library has you covered. So stop by today and check out our great collection of wedding books!

Melt : the Art of Macaroni and Cheese by Stephanie Stiavetti

meltA cookbook that reinvents the American classic, macaroni and cheese, with gourmet ingredients and unique flavor combinations, Melt, the Art of Macaroni and Cheese is the first book to marry the American standard, with handcrafted artisan cheeses and a wide array of pastas, producing dishes that are both classic and chic.

Home cooks of all levels will be encouraged to incorporate fresh, simple ingredients into the everyday comfort food they know and love. Featuring such unexpected and delicious combinations as Beecher’s Flagship Cheddar with Avocado, Lime, and Shell Pasta; Drunken Goat, Fennel, Edamame, Mint, and Rotini; and Pumpkin Stuffed with Fontina, Italian Sausage, and Macaroni, Melt takes mac and cheese out of the box and elevates it to a level that will delight even the most sophisticated palates. With gorgeous color photography throughout, Melt is a compendium of inventive recipes that will add a fresh twist to the family dinner or play a starring role at your next dinner party. (description from publisher)

Flappers by Judith Mackrell

flappersBy the 1920s, women were on the verge of something huge. Jazz, racy fashions, eyebrow-raising new attitudes about art and sex – all of this pointed to a sleek, modern world, one that could shake off the grimness of the Great War and stride into the future in one deft, stylized gesture. The women who defined this age – Josephine Baker, Tallulah Bankhead, Diana Cooper, Nancy Cunard, Zelda Fitzgerald, and Tamara de Lempicka – would presage the sexual revolution by nearly half a century and would shape the role of women for generations to come. In Flappers, acclaimed biographer Judith Mackrell renders these women with all the color that marked their lives and their era.

Both sensuous and sympathetic, her biography lays bare the private lives of her heroines. These women came from vastly different backgrounds, but all ended up passing through Paris, the mecca of the avant-garde. Before she was the toast of Parisian society, Josephine Baker was a poor black girl from the slums of Saint Louis. Tamara de Lempicka fled the Russian Revolution only to struggle to scrape together a life for herself and her family. A committed painter, her portraits were indicative of the age’s art deco sensibility and sexual daring. The Brits in the group – Nancy Cunard and Diana Cooper –  came from pinkie-raising aristocratic families but soon descended into the salacious delights of the vanguard. Tallulah Bankhead and Zelda Fitzgerald were two Alabama girls driven across the Atlantic by a thirst for adventure and artistic validation.

But beneath the flamboyance and excess of the 1920s lay age-old prejudices about gender, race, and sexuality. These flappers weren’t just dancing and carousing; they were fighting for recognition and dignity in a male-dominated world. They were more than mere lovers or muses to the modernist masters – in their pursuit of fame and intense experience, we see a generation of women taking bold steps toward something burgeoning, undefined, maybe dangerous: a New Woman. (description from publisher)

Servants by Lucy Lethbridge

servantsFrom the immense staff running a lavish Edwardian estate and the lonely maid-of-all-work cooking in a cramped middle-class house to the poor child doing chores in a slightly less poor household, servants were essential to the British way of life. They were hired not only for their skills but also to demonstrate the social standing of their employers even as they were required to tread softly and blend into the background. More than simply the laboring class serving the upper crust as popular culture would have us believe, they were a diverse group that shaped and witnessed major changes in the modern home, family, and social order.

Spanning over a hundred years, Lucy Lethbridge in this “best type of history” brings to life through letters and diaries the voices of countless men and women who have been largely ignored by the historical record. She also interviews former and current servants for their recollections of this waning profession. At the fore are the experiences of young girls who slept in damp corners of basements, kitchen maids who were required to stir eggs until the yolks were perfectly centered, and cleaners who had to scrub floors on their hands and knees despite the wide availability of vacuum cleaners. We also meet a lord who solved his inability to open a window by throwing a brick through it and Winston Churchill’s butler who did not think Churchill would know how to dress on his own.

A compassionate and discerning exploration of the complex relationship between the server, the served, and the world they lived in, Servants opens a window onto British society from the Edwardian period to the present. (description by publisher)

Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking by Anya Von Bremzen

indexA James Beard Award-winning writer captures life under the Red socialist banner in Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking in a wildly inventive, tragicomic memoir of feasts, famines, and three generations.

With startling beauty and sardonic wit, Anya von Bremzen tells an intimate yet epic story of life in that vanished empire known as the USSR–a place where every edible morsel was packed with emotional and political meaning. Born in 1963, in an era of bread shortages, Anya grew up in a communal Moscow apartment where eighteen families shared one kitchen. She sang odes to Lenin, black-marketeered Juicy Fruit gum at school, watched her father brew moonshine, and, like most Soviet citizens, longed for a taste of the mythical West. It was a life by turns absurd, drab, naively joyous, melancholy–and ultimately intolerable to her anti-Soviet mother, Larisa. When Anya was ten, she and Larisa fled the political repression of Brezhnev-era Russia, arriving in Philadelphia with no winter coats and no right of return. Now Anya occupies two parallel food universes: one where she writes about four-star restaurants, the other where a taste of humble kolbasa transports her back to her scarlet-blazed socialist past.

To bring that past to life, in its full flavor, both bitter and sweet, Anya and Larisa, embark on a journey unlike any other: they decide to eat and cook their way through every decade of the Soviet experience–turning Larisa’s kitchen into a “time machine and an incubator of memories.” Together, mother and daughter re-create meals both modest and sumptuous, featuring a decadent fish pie from the pages of Chekhov, chanakhi (Stalin’s favorite Georgian stew), blini, and more. Through these meals, Anya tells the gripping story of three Soviet generations– masterfully capturing the strange mix of idealism, cynicism, longing, and terror that defined Soviet life. We meet her grandfather Naum, a glamorous intelligence chief under Stalin, and her grandmother Liza, who made a perilous odyssey to icy, blockaded Leningrad to find Naum during World War II. We meet Anya’s hard-drinking, sarcastic father, Sergei, who cruelly abandons his family shortly after Anya is born; and we are captivated by Larisa, the romantic dreamer who grew up dreading the black public loudspeakers trumpeting the glories of the Five-Year Plan. Their stories unfold against the vast panorama of Soviet history: Lenin’s bloody grain requisitioning, World War II hunger and survival, Stalin’s table manners, Khrushchev’s kitchen debates, Gorbachev’s disastrous anti-alcohol policies. And, ultimately, the collapse of the USSR. And all of it is bound together by Anya’s passionate nostalgia, sly humor, and piercing observations.

Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking is that rare book that stirs our souls and our senses. (description from publisher)