Every month, we’re profiling new-ish releases that are getting critical and commercial buzz. For November, we’re looking at historical fiction about libraries (both the gothic kind and the WWII espionage kind), a modern literary homage to a 19th century classic, a brooding mystery set in 1950s small-town Minnesota, an Atlanta-based contemporary romance, and a nonfiction audiobook that ponders the mysteries of knitting.
Continue reading “Book Buzz: Fictional Libraries, Homages to Classics, Historical Mysteries, Second-Chance Romances, and Extreme Knitting”Category: nonfiction (books)
Dale Ross’s A Voice for Ira
One of Carroll County’s claims to fame is being the birthplace of iconic long-time Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley Brown. Born in Green Forest in 1922, Helen left the county as a child. As an adult, her career path included work as a secretary, ad copywriter, and author before reinventing Cosmopolitan in the 1960s as a magazine for modern single women. After her death in 2012 at the age of 90, she and her husband David Brown–a noted movie producer in his own right who worked on Jaws, among other films–were buried in Sisco Cemetery here in Carroll County at her mother’s family’s plot.
However, as local historian Dale Ross explains in his book A Voice for Ira, Helen’s father Ira is an interesting figure in his own right. Both of Helen’s parents were schoolteachers, but Ira also pursued a successful political career in the 1920s and 1930s. He served multiple terms as a state representative before being appointed Game and Fish Commissioner. He had signaled an interest in running for Secretary of State before he was killed in a bizarre elevator accident in the summer of 1932.
Continue reading “Dale Ross’s A Voice for Ira”Walk a Mile in My Shoes: October
This year, our theme is “Walk A Mile In My Shoes.” The idea that you can’t understand someone (and shouldn’t judge them) until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes is a pretty common sentiment. And research has shown that reading fiction is one way to really get such a walk going. So, that’s what we are going to do this year: use fiction (and some nonfiction when we just can’t resist) to take walks in someone’s shoes. We hope you join our journey. For October, our theme is domestic violence.
Continue reading “Walk a Mile in My Shoes: October”Book Buzz: Librarians, 19th Century and Medieval Historical Fiction, Ancient Romans, and Bandit Bios
Every month, we’re profiling new-ish releases that are getting critical and commercial buzz. For September, we’re looking at historical fiction that covers everything from WWII-era librarians to the Sioux Wars to a famous figure from medieval literature, as well as nonfiction about ancient Rome and a profile of stagecoach robber Black Bart.
Continue reading “Book Buzz: Librarians, 19th Century and Medieval Historical Fiction, Ancient Romans, and Bandit Bios”Walk a Mile in My Shoes: September
This year, our theme is “Walk A Mile In My Shoes.” The idea that you can’t understand someone (and shouldn’t judge them) until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes is a pretty common sentiment. And research has shown that reading fiction is one way to really get such a walk going. So, that’s what we are going to do this year: use fiction (and some nonfiction when we just can’t resist) to take walks in someone’s shoes. We hope you join our journey. For September, our theme is addiction.
Continue reading “Walk a Mile in My Shoes: September”Book Buzz: Historical Fiction Galore, Nordic Noir, Romance with a DNA Twist, Audiobook Suspense, and Small Arkansas Libraries
Every month, we’re profiling new-ish releases that are getting critical and commercial buzz. For August, we’re looking at historical fiction that ranges from interwar England to 1930s New Jersey to 16th century China, a new Nordic Noir series, a cute romance that hinges on DNA, an eerie audiobook about summer in Long Island, and a nonfiction profile of Arkansas libraries that highlights a couple of our sister branches.
Continue reading “Book Buzz: Historical Fiction Galore, Nordic Noir, Romance with a DNA Twist, Audiobook Suspense, and Small Arkansas Libraries”Book Buzz: Book Codes, Mysterious Happenings, Haunted Crows, Environmental Disasters, Garden Composts, Awkward Vacations, and Audiobook Romances
Every month, we’re profiling new-ish releases that are getting critical and commercial buzz. For July, we’re looking at a puzzle-style mystery about books and codes, a gothic mystery set in the Victorian era, a contemporary Canadian literary horror novel, a nonfiction story about an infamous environmental disaster in the 1970s, a guide to composting, and audiobooks about romances.
Continue reading “Book Buzz: Book Codes, Mysterious Happenings, Haunted Crows, Environmental Disasters, Garden Composts, Awkward Vacations, and Audiobook Romances”Walk a Mile In My Shoes: July
This year, our theme is “Walk A Mile In My Shoes.” The idea that you can’t understand someone (and shouldn’t judge them) until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes is a pretty common sentiment. And research has shown that reading fiction is one way to really get such a walk going. So, that’s what we are going to do this year: use fiction (and some nonfiction when we just can’t resist) to take walks in someone’s shoes. We hope you join our journey. For July, our theme is disability.
Continue reading “Walk a Mile In My Shoes: July”David Grann’s The Wager
In 1740, when British Commodore George Anson finally set sail with his squadron of ships that were charged with disrupting Spanish maritime trade in the Pacific, many of his men were relieved to be at sea after an inauspicious and trouble-ridden start to the expedition. The numerous sick and recalcitrant sailors who’d been press-ganged into service on the ships were less than thrilled, but none of them could have expected the sheer cascade of bad fortune that would befall one ship in particular–the HMS Wager.
Continue reading “David Grann’s The Wager”Book Buzz: Canadian Indigenous Fiction, Pirates, Cairo, Poetry, Investigative Journalism, and Agatha Christie Classics
Every month, we’re profiling new-ish releases that are getting critical and commercial buzz. For June, we’re looking at a novel about residential school survivors, a new fantasy series that melds history with pirates and magic, a fantastical graphic novel about modern Egypt, an anthology of poems, a new look at a tragic crime, and an audiobook of an old favorite.
Continue reading “Book Buzz: Canadian Indigenous Fiction, Pirates, Cairo, Poetry, Investigative Journalism, and Agatha Christie Classics”
Berryville Book Buzz 