Category: Book Review

Your Library Card, Your Ticket to the World: Russia

Note: I’d been debuting these posts at the beginning of each month, but things got off schedule with the pandemic, so I am slipping this one in at the end of the month. Obviously, real travel right now is not a good idea, but it’s all the better reason to travel anywhere through a good book. 🙂

Our library theme for 2020 is Your Library Card, Your Ticket to the World–because with the library, you truly can travel around the world without ever leaving the comfort of your own home. Every month in 2020, we’ll be landing at a new place on the globe. We’re in Russia for April.

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Book Buzz: Pack Horse Librarians, Camels out West, and Presidential Assassinations

Note: Back to regularly scheduled blogging. Though our library building is still currently closed to the public, you can still request these books–or any item in our system–through our online catalog and receive them through our curbside pickup service. The link to the catalog will be at the end of the post. Thanks!

Every month, we’re profiling new-ish releases that are getting critical and commercial buzz. For March, we’re looking at the If All Arkansas Read the Same Book pick for 2020, an unusual Western, and the most comprehensive look at a significant American tragedy.

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Noelle Stevenson’s Nimona

Nimona

Sir Ballister Blackheart is the resident villain. And like all resident villains, he has a backstory that totally explains how he went from a promising knight in training to a mad scientist. And like all resident villains, he often finds his brilliant plans foiled by the resident hero, Sir Ambrosius Goldenloin.

That is, until the mysterious Nimona shows up. Nimona is a shapeshifter and an agent of chaos who dramatically increases Blackheart’s effectiveness while also ramping up the destruction factor. As Nimona and Blackheart tag-team to defeat his archnemesis, the shadowy Institution that runs everything, it soon becomes clear that they might not be the most villainous characters in the land after all. . . .

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Your Library Card, Your Ticket to the World: Japan

Our library theme for 2020 is Your Library Card, Your Ticket to the World–because with the library, you truly can travel around the world without ever leaving the comfort of your own home. Every month in 2020, we’ll be landing at a new place on the globe. We’re in Japan for March.

Japan, with its fascinating culture and stunning landscapes, is a favorite destination in fiction for readers and writers alike–and for good reason! We’ve got a wide-ranging collection of books (and movies) set in Japan, many of them from Japanese authors/creators. It’s a little something for everyone.

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Book Buzz: The Overland Trail, Royal Rebels, and Mr. Rogers

Every month, we’re profiling new-ish releases that are getting critical and commercial buzz. For February, we’re looking at a 19th century tale of adventure on the road out West, a fictional look at one of the more infamous members of the British Royal Family, and a biography of a beloved TV star.

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Drew Smith’s Organize Your Genealogy (2016)

Organize Your Genealogy

We have a pretty good collection of local history and local genealogy material for those interested in researching their Carroll County roots. However, it’s not always easy to navigate, and we’re hoping to add more current resources on genealogy in general. One of the library goals for 2020 (because it’s one of my goals as a staff member 🙂 ) is to work on updating this collection and ensuring the resources we do have are more accessible and easier to use. To that end, I thought I’d review one of the items we already have in this collection.

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Your Library Card, Your Ticket to the World: Oceania

Our library theme for 2020 is Your Library Card, Your Ticket to the World–because with the library, you truly can travel around the world without ever leaving the comfort of your own home. Every month in 2020, we’ll be landing at a new place on the globe. We’re in Oceania for February.

Oceania is a vast region that encompasses many countries and cultures and the waterway that is the Pacific Ocean. But I wanted to focus specifically on one place that is very significant to many of our local residents—the Marshall Islands, or Aelõñ Kein Ad (our atolls) as many Marshallese actually call their country. Berryville and Carroll County (and Northwest Arkansas in general) have a growing number of Marshallese residents. In fact, nearby Springdale has the largest population of Marshallese in the continental United States.

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Book Buzz: Bollywood-Style Pride and Prejudice, Gritty British Mysteries, and the Rough Riders

Every month, we’re profiling new-ish releases that are getting critical and commercial buzz. For January, we’re looking at a gender and culture-swapped retelling of Pride and Prejudice, a series of intense crime thrillers, and a history of the Rough Riders, Theodore Roosevelt, and the Spanish-American War.

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Evan S. Connell’s Son of the Morning Star

Son of the Morning Star.jpg

Last year, I was helping a patron with reference request for the Battle of the Little Bighorn. I was a bit surprised we didn’t have the classic Son of the Morning Star. I talked to Julie about it, and she bought it to add to the collection. Thanks so much, Julie!

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Your Library Card, Your Ticket To The World: Alaska

Our library theme for 2020 is Your Library Card, Your Ticket to the World–because with the library, you truly can travel around the world without ever leaving the comfort of your own home. Every month in 2020, we’ll be landing at a new place on the globe, but we’re starting off in Alaska.

The rugged beauty of Alaska has long inspired writers (and readers!), so it is not surprising how many books set in Alaska are in our system. And there’s a little something for every reader, regardless of preferred genre.

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