Category: Staff Picks

Cyborg, Volume 1: Unplugged

- Stephanie Leave a comment

cyborgWhat is a superhero? Is it someone with a lot of money who makes costumes and weapons for himself? Is it someone living a normal life who then has powers mysteriously thrust upon him? Is it a god or creature from another world? Is it someone who has a near-death experience and is given superhuman qualities in order to save their life? A number of different qualities can factor into the origin story of a superhero, something that I wanted to expand my knowledge base and learn more about. My first stop: Cyborg.

Cyborg, Volume 1: Unplugged introduces readers to the life of Victor Stone. Victor has lived through a large number of near-death experiences, something that his scientist father has seemingly used to his own advantage by saving Victor’s life and implanting cybernetics into his body. As a result of having these cybernetic enhancements thrust upon him, Victor has become a cyber-enhanced superhero called Cyborg, a mantle that rests heavily on his shoulders. After traveling the universe and visiting other worlds to fight with other superheroes, his most recent brush with death, one that has changed and messed with his cybernetics, Victor soon finds himself heading back to his father’s laboratory looking for answers.

Victor and his father, as well as the other scientists in his lab, have a strained relationship, to put it nicely. His father only seems to see Victor’s enhancements, ignoring the man underneath. Exploring the newest changes to Victor’s cybernetics shows that his powers are changing and no one has the slightest clue why. Victor’s new tech seems to be communicating with other worlds, specifically with a group called the Technosapiens. This group wants to possess Victor’s new technology and they are determined to do so by any means necessary. As is par for the course of any superhero graphic novel, Victor finds help in the most unlikely of places: the Tekbreakers, a group of warriors from another world who have a plan to fight the Technosapiens. Victor just has to decide if he can truly trust them, considering they did try to kill him earlier… This graphic novel is a fantastic addition to the DC line and gives readers just enough back story to be able to follow along, while also drawing them in with vivid artwork and connections to other main DC storylines. Check it out!

Online Reading Challenge – Summer Reads

- Ann 2 Comments

online colorHey look! Suddenly it’s summer! And what does summer bring to mind? Relaxing by the pool or on the beach, epic family road trips, hot, sunny days and warm, humid nights, outdoor festivals and campfires and enjoying life. Preferably with a good book nearby.

June’s Reading Challenge theme is Summer Reads, but we’re going to interpret that pretty loosely. There are lots of books that take place in the summer at the beach, but there are also lots of books set by the lake, or the campfire, or even a comfy porch. Mostly they’re fun books that recall the lazy days of summer. That’s a pretty broad guideline so make this month something you want to read!

If you are looking for a great reads with a summer feeling, here are a few suggestions.

The Guest Cottage by Nancy Thayer. When her husband announces that he’s leaving her for another woman, Sophie Anderson realizes she has no idea what’s next. Impulsively renting a guest cottage on Nantucket from her friend Susie Swenson, Sophie rounds up her kids, Jonah and Lacey, and leaves Boston for a quiet family vacation, minus one. Thayer has several popular books, all set on beautiful Nantucket Island.

Enchanted August by Brenda Bowen. Our very own blogging librarian Lynn wrote about this book recently and gave it a rave review.

Outer Banks by Anne River Siddons. Four young women bound by rare, blinding, early friendship—they spend two idyllic spring breaks at Nag’s Head, North Carolina, the isolated strip of barrier islands where grand old weatherbeaten houses perch defiantly on the edge of a storm-tossed sea. Now thirty years later, they are coming back to recapture the exquisite magic of those early years…to experience again the love, the enthusiasm, the passion, pain, and cruel-betrayal that shaped the four young girls into women and set them all adrift. Siddons has several other popular books, most set in North or South Carolina.

A Lowcountry Wedding by Mary Alice Monroe. Nothing could be more enchanting than a summer wedding–or two!–in Charleston’s fabled lowcountry. A centuries-old plantation, an avenue of ancient oaks dripping moss, a storied ballroom, a sand dune at sunset. Yet when a stranger arrives, a long held family secret could silence the bells ringing for the Muir sisters. Scandals surface, family bonds are questioned, and promises are broken and renewed. In A Lowcountry Wedding Monroe delves into the heart of marriage, commitment, and family ties. Part of the Lowcountry Summer series, Monroe has written lots of books set in the South.

Martha’s Vineyard mysteries by Philip R Craig. Set on the quintessential summer vacation destination, Craig’s mysteries are set on the beautiful and quirky island of Martha’s Vineyard, told by  year-round resident and unofficial private detective, JW Jackson. Bonus – the books include lots of delicious recipes that take advantage of fresh seafood. Yummm!

The Shell Seekers by Rosamund Pilcher. Although this isn’t exactly a “summer” read, it’s one of those big, engrossing books that draws you in immediately and, despite it’s size, doesn’t last long enough, perfect for the lazy days of summer. I know people that re-read this title regularly they love it so much. And while it might not be set during a summer heat wave, at its center is a valuable painting of children searching for shells on the beach. (It also takes place on an island – England!)

What about you – anything on this list or in this theme appeal to you? Have you thought about what you might read this month? (And, have you noticed – most of these books take place in the South or on the East coast – any suggestions for a summer book visit to another part of the country?!) I’m going to go with Lynn’s recommendation and read Enchanted August – it seems just right with humor and great location. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Let us know in the comments – what are you reading? And what would you recommend to the rest of us?

Happy reading!

The Thing Explainer : Complicated Stuff in Simple Words by Randall Munroe

- Brenda Leave a comment

thing explainerThe Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words by Randall Munroe is an unusual book. I have never seen one quite like it. Its full-page diagrams contain details of complex things using only the most common 1000 words (which are listed alphabetically at the back of the book.) Topics range from the human torso (“bags of stuff inside you”), to a helicopter (“sky boat with turning wings”),  oil rigs (“stuff in Earth we can burn”), and washing machines (“boxes that make stuff smell better”), to name just a few. It is hilarious and educational at the same time.

Munroe’s elevator is a “lifting room.” He doesn’t neglect to inform that riding one while facing the back wall is likely to make others think you are strange. He still manages to provide a thorough explanation of its mechanical workings.

I suppose some parts of the book could be construed as bringing too much irreverence to what are usually regarded as important and serious topics. For instance, according to Munroe, nuclear bombs are “machines for burning cities.” If you have a certain sense of humor and are even a little bit interested in science, however, you are more likely to find this fresh, almost child-like approach endearing.

The book’s temporary residence on our kitchen table at home sparked some delightful conversations among all ages.

Randall Munroe is the author responsible for the xkcd webcomic.

Make it a Miniseries

- Bianca Leave a comment

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Well folks, it is that time of year again when our favorite shows wrap up for the summer leaving us lost and alone until September. I’ve already started to think about what I’ll be watching while I wait for my besties to come back on. There is always the option to get caught up on the shows I have fallen behind on, or I could even start a new series. But what I really want is a sense of accomplishment this summer. So I am going to do something a little out of the ordinary and make it a Miniseries Summer.

The great thing about a miniseries is that it has an end and you know that going in to it. We all have those horrible memories of the show that was canceled too soon and left us devastated and confused. A miniseries guarantees a great story, thought out plot, and it won’t drag on for years and years or end too early. You also won’t have to hunt around the library catalog to find out where all the seasons are!

Here is my list of of new miniseries I want to watch this summer along with some of the library’s other new miniseries titles.

Science Fiction

Childhood’s End: Aliens just don’t ever get old. Hollywood keeps on making stories about what it would be like if aliens landed on planet Earth, and we keep watching them. Childhood’s End  is the story of peaceful aliens that have come to Earth. Yep, you read that right. Usually it is death and destruction or abduction when aliens land, but these aliens are nice. Well…at least we think so. In fact these aliens are so great, they have taken over the planet and turned it into an Utopian society. Decades later the people of Earth start to wonder if everything really is as it seems.

Also available: Ascension; Heroes Reborn

Comedy

Spoils of Babylon: The title alone was enough for me to be interested, and then I saw Toby McGuire on the cover and was pretty much sold. But there is actually a little more to it. This miniseries is in comedy for a reason. It is a spoof on the traditional TV epic miniseries (think Thornbirds as it doesn’t get anymore epic than that). The story is of the Morehouse family who has made a fortune in the oil business. Rags to riches, forbidden love, battlefields, boarding houses, and power are just a few of things in store.

Drama 

The Lizzie Borden Chronicles: In 1892 a Sunday school teacher was accused of killing her father and stepmother and later acquitted. The made for TV movie Lizzie Borden Took an Axe tells a fictionalized story of the murder and trial. The network decided to keep going with the story and created a miniseries that cover the events that happened after the trial. Sounds interesting, plus the cover is an image of Christina Ricci holding a bloody ax. I know Christina can definitely do creepy, so I can’t wait to check it out.

Mercy Street: American history will get me every time. In this dramatization we are taken to Alexandria, VA in 1862 where the war is just a blink away. Union soldiers have taken over the town and converted a luxury hotel into an army hospital. Nurses from opposing sides are forced to work together in what has become a melting pot for the Civil War.

Also available: Bible Stories: In the Beginning; The Book of Negroes; The Casual Vacancy; Dancing on the Edge; The Great Fire; Texas Rising

 

The Wicked + The Divine: The Faust Act by Kieron Gillen & Jamie McKelvie

- Allison Leave a comment

TheWickedAndDivine_vol1-1Every ninety years, the gods return, merging into chosen young humans. They are loved and they are hated. In two years, they will be dead. What happens in between can inspire the entire world to greatness, or destroy it completely.

The Wicked + The Divine: The Faust Act* opens in the last moment of the 1923 Recurrence. Only four gods remain and at the count of four, they are gone. Left behind is an old, nearly ancient woman. “Once again, we return” she says, weeping.

The next act opens ninety years later, January 2014 in Britain. Laura, a fan of the Pantheon, as the 12 gods are called, is attending a performance by Amaterasu. After passing out in ecstasy (a normal side effect of attending any of the gods’ performances) she is invited to a private audience by another of the Pantheon, Lucifer (although you can all her Luci). But the audience ends abruptly – sniper fire from a neighboring building smashes the windows, and Luci the obviously target. She survives, but the snipers do not, and Luci is arrested for the murder of the two men.

Laura becomes one of Luci’s most ardent supporters, and, in a world where the gods of the Pantheon are treated as pop stars, she also gains the ultimate position within the fandom, although she learns it is not as glamorous or as safe as she once thought. She loves and envies the gods, but pities their short lives. As her life becomes more and more enveloped within the Pantheon, she meets and forms friendships with the others gods, learns of their personal struggles, politics, philosophy and who they were before they discovered they were reincarnated gods. In the following two volumes, Fandemonium and Commercial Suicide , the tension within the Pantheon and without grows, more gods are discovered and some die. One year into the Recurrence, and all is not well with the Pantheon. It nearly seems that there is a demon among them (though not the obvious one), and we may all be headed to apocalypse.

The Wicked + The Divine is as much a commentary on modern celebrities and fandoms as it is on youthful feelings of immortality and power. The mythology in the series is thick and intriguing**, and the art simple yet striking, all posing the question, what would you trade to be loved by all?

* As in Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus

** I highly recommending consulting the fan-made wiki The Wiki + The Divine after reading the series. But not before – too many spoilers!

 

Paper Girls by Brian K. Vaughan & Cliff Chiang

- Allison Leave a comment

PaperGirls_Vol01-1In the early hours of the day after Halloween, four teenage girls set out on their paper routes. “Hell Day,” they call it, as erstwhile teenage trick-or-treaters (emphasis on “trick”) still roam the streets and most do not welcome girl paper carriers, especially the very first paper girls. But what they encounter that morning is something much worse, much more deadly, than teenage bullies.

Set in 1988, Paper Girls follows Erin as she is saved from bullies by the very first “paper girl” Mac – a tough-talking cigarette-smoking 12 year old – and her paper carrying friends KJ and Tiffany.  They pair off for safety, but soon Tiffany and KJ are confronted by three boys in strange costumes who steal Tiffany’s walkie-talkie. The four resolve to find the boys responsible, ultimately following them to the basement of an unoccupied house. But instead of Tiff’s walkie-talkie, they find an incredibly strange, almost alien, capsule. It suddenly activates, the girls run outside, and see the three men who robbed Tiff. Confronting them, the girls discover that they are not in fact teenage boys, at least not as 1988 America would call them.

As the girls try to make sense of what has happened, the find that they world has abruptly and radically changed. The sky is pink, lightning flashes and what appear to be pterodactyls fly across the sky. Most people have disappeared, and communication technology no long works. Confronted by the radically unknown, the girls do what they do best – stick together, protect each other and never, ever back down.

Brian K. Vaughn (Saga, Y: The Last Man) creates yet another fantastic mystery in Paper Girls, capturing the defiance, fearlessness and loyal friendships of young teens as they face what may very be the end of the world.

Tacopedia by Deborah Holtz

- Bill Leave a comment

tacopediaFact: The average resident of Mexico consumes 135 pounds of tortillas per year.

Nixtamalization (the process of creating maize dough) was developed at the beginning of Mesoamerican civilization between 1000 and 800 B.C.

Taco culture, however, has only been popular for the last two centuries.

These and other exhaustive facts are featured in the new book, Tacopedia, at all DPL locations.

This travel guide/recipe book has a healthy amount of photos, and quite a bit of scholarly information on the sundry variety of regional variations.  It is an excellent way to learn the difference between suadero and al pastor.

It is frustrating, however, to know there is no way this gringo would ever be able to obtain the correct meat cuts, much less come close on the meticulous recipes.   What’s worse, most of these featured taquerias are hundreds of miles from any all-inclusive resort.

Thankfully, the Quad Cities supports a population that enjoys authentic cuisine.  Armed with what I’ve gleaned from this book, I may brave outside of the burrito at one of our fine local establishments.

Happy Cinco de Mayo to one and all.

Letter 44, Volume 3: Dark Matter by Charles Soule and Alberto Alburquerque

- Stephanie Leave a comment

letter 44 vol3Series books of any kind are one of my favorite things to read. I get hooked into the characters’ lives and find myself wondering just what is going to happen to them in the next volume. This is what was happening to me as I sat waiting for Letter 44, Volume 3: Dark Matter to be released for me to read. (I have previously read and reviewed the first two volumes, so check out the reviews of Volume 1 and Volume 2!)

Letter 44, Volume 3: Dark Matter continues investigating into the lives of the astronauts on the Clarke and the people on Earth. At the end of the previous volume, President Blades released the knowledge of the presence of alien life in space to the people of Earth despite being warned of the disastrous consequences this could have for everyone involved. After the release of this information, world war broke out. Countries are battling for control of the planet, most notably a coalition of nations led by the United States and a secret second group that is being controlled by former President Francis Carroll and the barrage of secret weapons he had developed during his term as President.

While this battle for control of the Earth rages on, the crew of the Clarke has been captured and is being held somewhat captive by the aliens that they discovered in space. The only way for them to try to escape is to cooperate fully with their captors, much to the chagrin of some crew members. Left with a ship that has been partially destroyed and having no way to communicate with people back on Earth, they are left to rely on the small tidbits of information they can gather from the aliens. Gaining access to information through somewhat back channels and limited access to the aliens’ own communication devices, the crew learns that a massive threat is heading straight towards Earth, a danger that no one on earth knows about. Communications become a dire need and the crew of the Clarke is forced to use any means necessary to find ways to contact Earth. Massive world war, corrupt politicians, alien life, asteroids heading toward Earth, assassination attempts, and crazy high-tech weaponry make this an incredibly fast-paced read, action-packed, compelling, and gripping. I could not put this book down and am immensely looking forward to the next volume!

The Midas Flesh: Volume One by Ryan North

- Stephanie Leave a comment

midas flesh The Midas Flesh: Volume One is an entertaining journey into the future, where a space crew finds themselves within the orbit of a gold gilded Earth. Flashback to how this whole shindig got started. Do you know the story of King Midas? The Midas Touch? That’s basically the gist of this book with some high-tech space flight and dinosaurs in space suits involved.

In The Midas Flesh: Volume One, one night King Midas got drunk and decided that if he had only one wish, it would be to have everything that he touched turn to gold. Low and behold a thunderbolt slashes out of the heavens and his wish is granted. Flash forward quite a bit and the entire planet Midas was inhabiting has turned to gold, BUT the kicker is that it does not show up on ANY of the space maps nor is it in any of the galaxy records. The Federation has covered up the entire existence of this planet and to prevent others from stealing anything from said planet, they have effectively covered its entire close orbit with satellites, ships, weaponry, etc. to alert them if someone stumbles and finds this place.

Somehow  Joey and her space crew, Fatima and Cooper, have managed to find this planet and are desperately trying to figure out why everything on it is made of gold. They are struggling to do so before the Federation realzies they have found the planet and before a bounty can be placed on their heads for being able to take something off the surface of the planet. Joey’s ultimate goal is to be able to harvest the weapon on this gold planet and somehow reconfigure it to be used against the evil Federation, the group who is tracking them down and the same group who was taking over planets and destroying whole civilizations. This first volume gives readers a good introduction into the Midas legend and also to the forces the crewmembers find themselves up against. If you’re not a fan of graphic novels, and even if you are, I recommend this book as there are few flash backs, the artwork is not overwhelming, and the overall story reads like a linear piece of fiction, but the graphic novel as a whole is still widely appealing. Check it out.

Adulthood is a Myth: A “Sarah’s Scribbles” Collection by Sarah Andersen

- Stephanie Leave a comment

adulthood is a mythSarah Anderson has long been one of my favorite webcomic artists to follow, so when I found out she was putting out a graphic novel called Adulthood is a Myth: A “Sarah’s Scribbles” Collection, I knew this would be something I needed to read. You may not be 100% familiar with Sarah’s Scribbles, but I bet you have probably been shown some of her comics online, whether it be through Facebook, Twitter, a Buzzfeed post, or even on the news. Her black-and-white sketches have become a sort of rallying cry for young adults, as Andersen is able to take everyday situations that can conjure up anxiety, awkwardness, and dread in current adult life and add a completely honest, yet funny, take on them.

Sarah’s Scribbles covers everything from body hair, talking to guys, being a giant introvert, how your body looks, relationships, being self-conscious, and SO MUCH MORE. I constantly found comics that I related to all throughout this book and also on her website where she posts current comics every few days. She has this way of drawing and communicating her comics that immediately make them incredibly relatable, endearing, and immensely hilarious all at the same time. Andersen covers current topics in her comics, while also being sure to cover scenes of everyday life that we all know too well: the frustration of the wifi going down even when it’s a perfectly nice day out and we could go outside or even read a book TO the sheer bliss of being able to tell your past self that things will get better TO the immense stress we all sometimes feel and yet keep covered from everyone in our lives. This graphic novel is relatable for people of all ages and I encourage you to read it for yourself.