We are pleased to announce the October selections for the MVSB Book of the Month Program at seven local libraries.
The MVSB Book of the Month program seeks to foster the joy of reading and lifelong learning for people of all ages. MVSB donates funds to allow local libraries to purchase and promote books for adults and children.
For October 2012, the Book of the Month selections are:
Ashland Town Library
Haunted Hikes of New Hampshire by Marianne O’Connor
Explore the haunts of hikers gone by and see for yourself whether these ghost tales are fact or fiction.
Haunted Hikes provides storied history and fanciful legend within the trails of New Hampshire’s White Mountains and beyond. Hikes are rated according to difficulty and spookiness with something for every member of the family… from a brisk walk to the tombstone of Ichabod Crane to a challenging 3-hour trek to a downed bomber plane in North Woodstock. Hunker down in front of a good campfire and be prepared to get the “willies.” Marianne O’Connor is an avid hiker who lives in New Hampshire.
Sweet Magnolias Cookbook: More Than 100 Favorite Southern Recipes by Sherryl Woods
Fill your home with the freshly baked scent of luscious apple pie, the sizzle of peachy grilled chicken or the beckoning aroma of juicy roast lamb, all brought to life in this charming collection of recipes.
New York Times bestselling author Sherryl Woods invites you into the world of Serenity, South Carolina, where good food and good friends await. Based on her beloved Sweet Magnolias series, this gorgeous cookbook is full of Southern classics and heartwarming stories of friendship and fun. Join Dana Sue Sullivan, a popular character and Southern cook herself, as she shares her favorite down-home recipes as well as secrets, stories and small-town gossip from the world of the Sweet Magnolias!
Whether you’re making flaky, buttery, too-good-to-be-true biscuits, or spicy seafood gumbo, the 150 recipes found in these pages will bring your family and friends together to celebrate the comforts of home.
With her roots firmly planted in the South, Woods has written many of her more than 100 books in that distinctive setting, whether in her home state of Virginia, her adopted state, Florida, or her much-adored South Carolina. Woods is best known for her ability to creating endearing small town communities and families. She is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of over 75 romances for Silhouette Desire and Special Edition.
To check out these great books and others, visit the Ashland Town Library at 41 Main Street in Ashland, N.H. For more information, call (603) 968-7928 or visit the library online.
Gilford Public Library
The Black Count by Tom Reiss – available in hard-cover and audio book
A remarkable true story of the real Count of Monte Cristo and a stunning feat of historical sleuthing brings to life the forgotten hero who inspired such classics as The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers.
The real-life protagonist of The Black Count, General Alex Dumas, is a man almost unknown today. But his story is strikingly familiar because his son, the novelist Alexandre Dumas, used it to create some of the best-loved heroes of literature. Yet, hidden behind these swashbuckling adventures was an even more incredible secret: the real hero was the son of a black slave — who rose higher in the white world than any man of his race would before our own time.
Born in Saint-Domingue (now Haiti), Alex Dumas was briefly sold into bondage but made his way to Paris where he was schooled as a sword-fighting member of the French aristocracy. Enlisting as a private, he rose to command armies at the height of the Revolution, in an audacious campaign across Europe and the Middle East – until he met an implacable enemy he could not defeat.
The Black Count is simultaneously a riveting adventure story, a lushly textured evocation of 18th-century France, and a window into the modern world’s first multi-racial society. But it is also a heartbreaking story of the enduring bonds of love between a father and son.
To check out this great book and others, visit the Gilford Public Library at 31 Potter Hill Road in Gilford, N.H. For more information, call (603) 524-6042 or visit the library online at www.gilfordlibrary.org.
Gilman Library
Adult Selection: Firestorm at Gettysburg: Civilian Voices June – November 1863by John Alexander and Jim Slade
Given the countless books, articles, and even feature films detailing the valor and carnage at the Battle of Gettysburg, it is surprising that little attention has been paid to the civilians who lived in that small hamlet in southern Pennsylvania.
Slade and Alexander are both journalists who have brought together their finely honed skills at exacting the human dimension from epic events to produce a wonderful, original perspective on the battle and its aftermath. They rely on letters, diaries, local newspaper articles, and a wealth of rarely seen photographs. The result is a riveting portrait of people whose “ordinary” lives have been disrupted and forever changed by an unexpected cataclysm. There are fascinating accounts of the battle, the horrors of coping with the dead and wounded, and the reaction as swarms of reporters and bureaucrats engulf the town as it awaits the dedication of the national cemetery. This work is a treasure for Civil War enthusiasts and a vital addition to any library’s Civil War collection.
Children’s/Young Adult Selection: Daniel X: Watch the Skies by James Patterson
Daniel X thought he’d seen it all in his dangerous days of hunting outlaws, but there’s no business like show business, and Number Five on his list of deadly targets is the most appalling criminal yet. An intergalactic reality television producer, he’s orchestrated-literally-the extermination of millions, with a soundtrack and laugh track to accompany it. The evil entertainer’s catching it all on film, and he’s looking for a big-ticket draw. Who better to star than the Alien Hunter himself? Daniel finds himself cast in the lead role of a terrifying season premiere… of the gravest show on Earth.
To check out these great books and others, visit Gilman Library at 100 Main Street in Alton, N.H. For more information, call (603) 875-2550 or visit the library online here.
Gordon-Nash Library
Children’s Selection: How to be a Good Cat by Gail Page
Bobo is a very good dog. So when Mr. Hiccup needs someone to watch his new kitten, Bonkers, Bobo eagerly volunteers. He can’t wait to teach his young friend a few tried-and-true tricks. But Bonkers doesn’t want to sit or stay or fetch. He’d rather shred the curtains or terrorize the goldfish. Luckily, Cat knows all about cat things… like stretching, pouncing, and landing on his feet. But even with lessons, can a good dog really teach a bad cat how to behave?
No matter which animal they prefer, all readers will love the silliness that ensues when this big dog and sweet (but naughty!) kitten go head to head.
Adult Selection: 500 Cameras: 170 Years of Photographic Innovation by Todd Gustavson
This book uses the archives of the George Eastman House Collection to trace the history of photography through the lenses of 500 cameras. From the first camera manufactured in quantity, Giroux daguerreotype, to the Brownie to the digital cameras of today, each section explains the type of camera and also information on Eastman and Kodachrome. 500 Cameras has something for anyone who has ever taken a picture.
To check out these great books and others, visit Gordon-Nash Library at 69 Main Street in New Hampton, N.H. For more information, call (603) 744-8061 or visit the library online at www.gordon-nash.org.
Meredith Public Library
Meredith Library has selected the following large print edition books for its October selections:
Severe Clear by Stuart Woods
Stone Barrington is called to Bel-Air to oversee an exclusive event that will gather the top echelons of the beau monde: Hollywood starlets, socialites, politicos, billionaires from overseas. It’s a task in which Stone has a personal stake, and one that is made all the more pleasurable—though somewhat more complicated—with the arrivals of two beautiful women with whom he’s intimately acquainted.
Birdseye – the Adventures of a Curious Man by Mark Kurlansky
Clarence Birdseye is the man credited with inventing frozen food. Everything you see in supermarket freezers today, from vegetables to pizzas to frozen dinners, can be traced back to Birdseye’s work. His name would come to symbolize a veritable frozen food movement in the United States.
Known for his histories on eclectic topics such as Salt and Cod, Mark Kurlansky has written a fascinating biography that skillfully weaves a fluid narrative of facts on products, packaging, and marketing into this rags-to-riches portrait of the man whose ingenuity brought revolutionary changes to 20th-century life.
Cats Behaving Badly by Celia Haddon
Cats that insist on drinking from a tooth mug, cats with saggy tummy syndrome, and cats that will only eat if their owners lie flat on the kitchen floor and say ‘yum yum yum’ over the food bowl: these are some of the amusing dilemmas addressed by bestselling author Celia Haddon in this gem of a book. Drawing on her years of experience as a pet agony aunt on the pages of the Daily Telegraph, the author has advice for fat cats, faddy cats, food weirdo cats – and their humans – in this charming, light-hearted and well informed book. She unravels the mysteries of cat behavior and dispenses tips and advice to help readers make their cat very happy indeed.
To check out these great books and others, visit Meredith Public Library at 91 Main Street in Meredith, N.H. For more information, call (603) 279-4303 or visit the library online at www.meredithlibrary.org.
Moultonborough Public Library
On a Farther Shore: The Life and Legacy of Rachel Carson by William Souder
Published on the 50th anniversary of Carson’s groundbreaking book, “Silent Spring,” Souder’s book tells the story of a 55-year-old woman biologist who, in 1962 (when the work of women scientists was not taken as seriously as that of men in the same field) wrote a book about the problems of using chemical pesticides that would change the way we treat the world we live in.
To check out these great books and others, visit Moultonborough Public Library at 4 Holland Street in Moultonborough, N.H. For more information, call (603) 476-8895 or visit the library online at www.moultonboroughlibrary.org.
Pease Public Library
The Kingmaker’s Daughter by Philippa Gregory
#1 New York Times bestselling author Philippa Gregory presents a novel of conspiracy and a fight to the death for love and power at the court of Edward IV of England. The Kingmaker’s Daughter is the gripping story of the daughters of the man known as the “Kingmaker,” Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick: the most powerful magnate in 15th-century England. Without a son and heir, he uses his daughters, Anne and Isabel, as pawns in his political games, and they grow up to be influential players in their own right. In this novel, her first sister story since The Other Boleyn Girl, Gregory explores the lives of two fascinating young women.
At the court of Edward IV and his beautiful queen, Elizabeth Woodville, Anne grows from a delightful child to become ever more fearful and desperate when her father makes war on his former friends. Married at age 14, she is soon left widowed and fatherless, her mother in sanctuary and her sister married to the enemy. Anne manages her own escape by marrying Richard, Duke of Gloucester, but her choice will set her on a collision course with the overwhelming power of the royal family and will cost the lives of those she loves most in the world, including her precious only son, Prince Edward. Ultimately, the kingmaker’s daughter will achieve her father’s greatest ambition.
A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar: A Novel by Suzanne Joinson
It is 1923. Evangeline (Eva) English and her sister Lizzie are missionaries heading for the ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar. Though Lizzie is on fire with her religious calling, Eva’s motives are not quite as noble, but with her green bicycle and a commission from a publisher to write a book, she’s ready for adventure.
In present day London, a young woman, Frieda, returns from a long trip abroad to find a man sleeping outside her front door. She gives him a blanket and a pillow, and in the morning finds the bedding neatly folded and an exquisite drawing of a bird with a long feathery tail, some delicate Arabic writing, and a boat made out of a flock of seagulls on her wall. Tayeb, in flight from his Yemeni homeland, befriends Frieda and, when she learns she has inherited the contents of an apartment belonging to a dead woman she has never heard of, they embark on an unexpected journey together.
A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar explores the fault lines that appear when traditions from different parts of an increasingly globalized world crash into one other. Beautifully written, and peopled by a cast of unforgettable characters, the novel interweaves the stories of Frieda and Eva,gradually revealing the links between them and the ways in which they each challenge and negotiate the restrictions of their societies as they make their hard-won way toward home.
To check out these great books and others, visit Pease Public Library at 1 Russell Street in downtown Plymouth, N.H. For more information, call (603) 536-2616 or visit the library online at www.peasepubliclibrary.org.
