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This site offers news and discussion about technology, books, digital library content, media items, online library resources and free tech assistance patrons can acquire at the library!
Digital Formats & Their Corresponding Catalogs
Suggested Reading Week of August 28, 2018
August 28, 2018 Linda Reimer
Hi everyone, here are our recommended titles for the week, five digital titles available through OverDrive and five print titles available through StarCat.
(Note: Click on the photo of the item you’d like to request or check out)
Digital Suggestions Of The Week:
Harry Potter & The Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling (Format: eBook):
I am admittedly, a huge Harry Potter fan! Having said that, if you’ve never read any of the Harry Potter books now is your chance!
To celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the original publication of the first book in the series, Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone, the ebook version is available for everyone to read  simultaneously – as part of the new OverDrive Great Read!
So check it out – as title is available on demand for a limited time!
And if you’re an adult who has never read the series and you are thinking “Hmm, this is a kid’s book. I don’t know if I want to read it” Harry and his friends really are fully realized as is the magical world they inhabit – so this truly is a book, and a series, that people of all ages can enjoy.
Here’s the plot summary for The Sorcerer’s Stone:
In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry, an orphan, lives with the Dursleys, his horrible aunt and uncle, and their abominable son, Dudley. One day just before his eleventh birthday, an owl tries to deliver a mysterious letter—the first of a sequence of events that end in Harry meeting a giant man named Hagrid. Hagrid explains Harry’s history to him: When he was a baby, the Dark wizard, Lord Voldemort, attacked and killed his parents in an attempt to kill Harry; but the only mark on Harry was a mysterious lightning-bolt scar on his forehead. Now he has been invited to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where the headmaster is the great wizard Albus Dumbledore. Harry visits Diagon Alley to get his school supplies, especially his very own wand. To get to school, he takes the Hogwarts Express from platform nine and three-quarters at King’s Cross Station. On the train, he meets two fellow students who will become his closest friends: Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. Harry is assigned to Gryffindor House at Hogwarts, and soon becomes the youngest-ever Seeker on the House Quidditch team. He also studies Potions with Professor Severus Snape, who displays a deep and abiding dislike for Harry, and Defense Against the Dark Arts with nervous Professor Quirrell; he and his friends defeat a mountain troll, help Hagrid raise a dragon, and explore the wonderful, fascinating world of Hogwarts. But all events lead irrevocably toward a second encounter with Lord Voldemort, who seeks an object of legend known as the Sorcerer’s Stone…
Paper And Fire: The Great Library Series, Book 2 by Rachel Caine (Format: eBook):
The Great Library regulates all the knowledge of the world. Rebellion is fought to the ground, and book ownership is tantamount to treason. Jess Brightwell (Ink and Bone) is now a member of the Library’s army, but it is not the service he dreamed of doing. His best friend Thomas has been convicted of heresy against the institution and is gone, and his girlfriend Morgan is in the Iron Tower. Still, he is determined to go to task for the Library, and on a mission in Alexandria, Jess and his squad learn something that forces them to step out on their own, putting them in the crosshairs of the Library’s automatons. They flee to London, where Jess hopes some of his family will support him. However, London is no safer than Alexandria; fires are overtaking the city and the Welsh army is on its way. Jess may have to choose among his family, friends, and the Library, which is willing to destroy anything in its pursuit for total control. VERDICT This exciting, fast-paced adventure from the prolific Caine (Prince of Shadows) will appeal to fans of fantasy with a sense of camaraderie.—KC, Library Journal
The Great Library Series:
1. Ink and Bone
2. Paper and Fire
3. Ash and Quill
4. Smoke and Iron
5. Untitled final book – coming in 2019
Veil of Lies: Crispin Guest Medieval Noir Series, Book 1 by Jeri Westerson (Format: eBook):
Crispin Guest has fallen far from his privileged position as a knight in medieval high society. Accused of treason, abandoned by former friends and allies, he has survived on the gritty streets of London by reinventing himself as “The Tracker”, a private investigator for hire who can locate lost objects or uncover the clandestine lives of people.
When the secretive, wealthy merchant Nicholas Walcote hires Guest to investigate his alluring young wife Philippa for adultery, he discovers a seedy underworld of covert dealings and violent men of mystery. Philippa is indeed hiding something and she’s not the only one. Guest soon learns that Walcote is rumored to be in possession of a mystical holy relic so powerful that some would even kill for it.
Guest must contend with his nemesis, Sheriff Simon Wynchcombe in the search for answers to the questions surrounding the mysterious Walcotes. With each new day comes another layer of intrigue and Guest quickly becomes entangled in a strange world of superstition, seduction, and murder.
With vivid detail, an unforgettable hero, and a complex, thrilling story, Veil of Lies was a finalist for the Macavity and Shamus awards, and the other novels in the Crispin Guest medieval noir series have been contenders for the Macavity, Agatha, Bruce Alexander Historical Mystery, and Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice awards.
Still Lives: A Novel by Maria Hummel (Format: eBook):
“It’s a thrilling mystery that will leave you wondering which characters you can and can’t trust… There’s a twist at the end that still keeps us up at night, it’s THAT good.” ―Reese Witherspoon (A Reese’s Book Club x Hello Sunshine Selection)
Kim Lord is an avant-garde figure, feminist icon, and agent provocateur in the L.A. art scene. Her groundbreaking new exhibition Still Lives is comprised of self-portraits depicting herself as famous, murdered women―the Black Dahlia, Chandra Levy, Nicole Brown Simpson, among many others―and the works are as compelling as they are disturbing, implicating a culture that is too accustomed to violence against women.
As the city’s richest art patrons pour into the Rocque Museum’s opening night, all the staff, including editor Maggie Richter, hope the event will be enough to save the historic institution’s flailing finances.
Except Kim Lord never shows up to her own gala.
Fear mounts as the hours and days drag on and Lord remains missing. Suspicion falls on the up-and-coming gallerist Greg Shaw Ferguson, who happens to be Maggie’s ex. A rogue’s gallery of eccentric art world figures could also have motive for the act, and as Maggie gets drawn into her own investigation of Lord’s disappearance, she’ll come to suspect all of those closest to her.
Set against a culture that often fetishizes violence, Still Lives is a page-turning exodus into the art world’s hall of mirrors, and one woman’s journey into the belly of an industry flooded with money and secrets.
Whiskey When We’re Dry written by John Larison & read by Sophie Amoss (Format: Downloadable Audiobook):
“A thunderclap of originality, here is a fresh voice and fresh take on one of the oldest stories we tell about ourselves as Americans and Westerners. It’s riveting in all the right ways — a damn good read that stayed with me long after closing the covers.” – Timothy Egan, New York Times bestselling author of The Worst Hard Time
From a blazing new voice in fiction, a gritty and lyrical American epic about a young woman who disguises herself as a boy and heads west
In the spring of 1885, seventeen-year-old Jessilyn Harney finds herself orphaned and alone on her family’s homestead. Desperate to fend off starvation and predatory neighbors, she cuts off her hair, binds her chest, saddles her beloved mare, and sets off across the mountains to find her outlaw brother Noah and bring him home. A talented sharpshooter herself, Jess’s quest lands her in the employ of the territory’s violent, capricious Governor, whose militia is also hunting Noah—dead or alive.
Wrestling with her brother’s outlaw identity, and haunted by questions about her own, Jess must outmaneuver those who underestimate her, ultimately rising to become a hero in her own right.
Told in Jess’s wholly original and unforgettable voice, Whiskey When We’re Dry is a stunning achievement, an epic as expansive as America itself—and a reckoning with the myths that are entwined with our history.
Print Suggestions Of The Week:
The Art of Vanishing by Cynthia Kuhl:
“Entertaining, intricate, and oh-so-smart! The talented Cynthia Kuhn treats mystery lovers to an insider’s look at the treacherous world of academia–seething with manipulation, jealousy, and relentless ambition. A terrific plot–with a surprise around every corner.” — Hank Phillippi Ryan, Mary Higgins Clark Award-Winning Author of The Other Woman
When Professor Lila Maclean is sent to interview celebrated author and notorious cad Damon Von Tussel, he disappears before her very eyes. The English department is thrown into chaos by the news, as Damon is supposed to headline Stonedale University’s upcoming Arts Week.
The chancellor makes it clear that he expects Lila to locate the writer and set events back on track immediately. But someone appears to have a different plan: strange warnings are received, valuable items go missing, and a series of dangerous incidents threaten the lives of Stonedale’s guests. After her beloved mother, who happens to be Damon’s ex, rushes onto campus and into harm’s way, Lila has even more reason to bring the culprit to light before anything–or anyone–else vanishes.
Lila Maclean Academic Mystery Book Series
1. The Semester of Our Discontent
3. The Spirit in Question (October 2018)
Blackout by Ragnar Jónasson:
A huge bestseller in England, France, and Australia, the third book in the Dark Iceland series from a spectacular new crime writer.
“Easily the best yet. Beautifully written and elegantly paced with a plot that only gradually becomes visible, as if the reader had been staring into the freezing fog waiting for shapes to emerge.”—The Guardian, UK (Readers’ Books of the Year 2016)
“A chiller of a thriller whose style and pace are influenced by Jonasson’s admiration for Agatha Christie. It’s good enough to share shelf space with the works of Yrsa Sigurdardottir and Arnaldur Indridason, Iceland’s crime novel royalty.”—The Washington Post
Hailed for combining the darkness of Nordic Noir with classic mystery writing in the tradition of Agatha Christie, author Ragnar Jonasson’s books are haunting, atmospheric, and complex. Blackout, the latest Ari Thór thriller, delivers another dark mystery that is chillingly stunning with its complexity and fluidity.
On the shores of a tranquil fjord in Northern Iceland, a man is brutally beaten to death on a bright summer’s night. As the 24-hour light of the arctic summer is transformed into darkness by an ash cloud from a recent volcanic eruption, a young reporter leaves Reykajvik to investigate on her own, unaware that an innocent person’s life hangs in the balance. Ari Thor Arason and his colleagues on the tiny police force in Siglufjordur struggle with an increasingly perplexing case, while their own serious personal problems push them to the limit. What secrets does the dead man harbour, and what is the young reporter hiding? As silent, unspoken horrors from the past threaten them all, and the darkness deepens, it’s a race against time to find the killer before someone else dies.
A Day Like Any Other: The Great Hamptons Hurricane of 1938: A Novel by Genie Chipps Henderson:
A bucolic resort setting — the summer colony and locals are caught in the path of a sudden and devastating hurricane in this brilliant and prophetic fiction that is a warning of storms to come.
“For those few who still remember, the images are seared into their brains: the corpses floating down Main Street; the boats that drifted into the living rooms of flooded houses; the dead dogs and featherless chickens; the muck and fish stink; the moonscape of flattened houses; the residue of the last great hurricane to hit Long Island, the storm of 1938. “ – The New York Times
This is a story of that day – a day that began much like any other day at the ragtag end of the summer season on the eastern end of Long Island – better known as The Hamptons. The storm came without warning landing at three in the afternoon bringing with it unprecedented wind and rain and waves so high and powerful they were recorded on seismographs 5000 miles away in Alaska.
But A DAY LIKE ANY OTHER is not just a hurricane novel. The storm is a framing device for an historical tableau vivant of this near mythical place – The Hamptons – brought to life via the stories of townspeople, the wealthy summer colony, the fishing folk and the art crowd. Written by a natural tale-spinner and masterful portraitist of character and place, it does have one wild, furious storm at its center – an historic tempest that wreaked havoc on the little towns and villages that line the ocean front of the South Fork of Long Island.
Could it happen again? Yes – it will almost certainly happen again and no matter how many moguls build seaside monuments defying the odds, another hurricane like 1938 will surely be the deadliest in American history.
As the Tide Comes In: A Novel by Cindy Woodsmall & Erin Woodsmall:
A New York Times best-selling author releases her first southern novel, a Steel Magnolias-meets-Sweet Home Alabama story set on St. Simons Island.
When an unthinkable loss sends Tara Abbott’s life spiraling out of control, she journeys from North Carolina to Georgia’s St. Simons Island. Although confused and scared, she hopes to find answers about her past – her life before the years of foster care and raising her two half-brothers as a young adult. Will she find steady ground on the island, surrounded by an eccentric-but-kindhearted group of older women called The Glynn Girls and a determined firefighter? Or will the truth splinter what’s left of her identity into pieces?
Terra Incognita: Three Tales by Connie Willis:
Uncharted TerritoryL Findriddy and Carson are explorers, dispatched to a distant planet to survey its canyons, ridges, and scrub-covered hills. Teamed with a profit-hungry indigenous guide of indeterminate gender and an enthusiastic newcomer whose specialty is mating customs, the group battles hostile terrain as they set out for unexplored regions. Along the way, they face dangers, discover treasures, and soon find themselves in an alien territory of another kind: exploring the paths and precipices of sex—and love.
Remake: In the Hollywood of the future, live-action movies are a thing of the past. Old films are computerized and ruthlessly dissected, actors digitally ripped from one film and thrust into another. Humphrey Bogart and Marilyn Monroe in A Star Is Born? No problem. Hate the ending? Change it with the stroke of a key. Technology makes anything possible. But a starry-eyed young woman wants only one thing: to dance on the big screen. With a little magic and a lot of luck, she just may get her happy ending.
D.A.: Theodora Baumgarten is baffled and furious: Why was she selected to be part of a highly competitive interstellar cadet program? After all, she never even applied. But that hasn’t stopped the powers that be from whisking her onto a spaceship bound for the prestigious Academy. With her protests ignored, Theodora takes matters into her own hands, aided by her hacker best friend, to escape the Academy and return to Earth—only to uncover a conspiracy that runs deeper than she could have imagined.
Have a great week!
The catalog of physical materials, i.e. print books, DVDs, audiobooks on CD etc.
The Digital Catalog (OverDrive)
The catalog of e-books, downloadable audiobooks and a handful of streaming videos.
This music service is free to library card holders and offers the option to download, and keep, three free songs per week and to stream three hours of commercial free music each day:
Digital magazines on demand and for free! Back issues are available and you can even choose to be notified by email when the new issue of your favorite magazine is available.
You can access digital library content on PCs, Macs and mobile devices. For mobile devices simply download the OverDrive, Freegal or Zinio app from your app store to get started. If you have questions call the library at: 607-936-3713 and one of our Digital Literacy Specialists will be happy to assist you.
Tech Talk is a Southeast Steuben County Library blog.
Tagged A Day Like Any Other, As the Tide Comes In, audio books, audiobooks, Blackout by Ragnar Jónasson, Cindy Woodsmall, Connie Willis, Corning, Corning NY, Crispin Guest, Cynthia Kuhl, Digital Catalog, e-books, ebooks, Erin Woodsmall, Fantasy, Fiction, Genie Chipps Henderson, Great Library Series, Harry Potter & The Sorcerer’s Stone, J. K. Rowling, Jeri Westerson, John Larison, Maria Hummel, Non-Fiction, OverDrive, Paper And Fire, Paper And Fire: The Great Library Series, public library, public library services., Rachel Caine, Sophie Amoss, Southeast Steuben County Library, Southern Tier Library System, Still Lives, streaming videos, Terra Incognita, The Art of Vanishing, The Great Hamptons Hurricane of 1938, Veil of Lies, Veil of Lies: Crispin Guest Medieval Noir Series, Whiskey When We're Dry
Published by Linda Reimer
I am a librarian at The Southeast Steuben County Library in Corning, New York, where we love books, technology and life-long learning for patrons and ourselves too! View all posts by Linda Reimer