Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Knitting Projects from Beginner to Experienced

A new addition to our craft collection of books is 'Cutest Ever Baby Toys to Knit' by Val Pierce.
Featuring twenty-one projects, there are a variety of items to make for little ones from blankets to elephants.

The introduction including suggestions for your choice of designs and yarns, tips for sewing the component parts together, tips for stuffing the toys and how to add facial and other features for the finishing touches.  Each set of instructions begins with a full list of materials needed to complete the project.

For beginners, there are instructions for the following:

  1. Halloween Booties
  2. Soft and Squishy Playbook
  3. Starry Face Ball
  4. Goody Two Shoes
  5. Little Bunny Bag
  6. Pete the Penguin
Intermediate instructions are the largest number of knitting project as follows:

  1. Daisy the Baby Dinosaur
  2. Oscar the Spotty Dog
  3. Oswald the Owl
  4. Octavia Octopus
  5. Duckling Crib Toy
  6. Petals Baby Grab Toy
  7. Sweetheart Blanket
  8. Henry the Hedgehog
  9. Sydney Snake
  10. Rosie the Rag Doll
  11. Freddy Fox
  12. Under-the-Sea Mobile
  13. Rainbow Butterfly
Finally, there are Two sets of instruction for the experienced knitter:

  1. Great Big Dinosaur
  2. Tusker the Elephant
Try your hand at making one to the colorful toys for your own little ones or even for yourself.


Wednesday, April 22, 2015

New British (and Irish) Mysteries on DVD

Anyone who knows me can be sure that I am one of the first in line for any new British mystery series that we may get on DVD. Two of our newest are Jack Taylor Set 2 and Rosemary & Thyme: the Complete Collection.
     Jack Taylor is based upon a series of books by Irish author Ken Bruen. The second set includes the episodes: "The Dramatist," "Priest," and "Shot Down." Each one is a feature-length episode. The titular character is a former member of the Irish Guards who left the job before he was kicked out, taking only his Guard coat. The stories take place in Galway, Ireland and the setting offers a sufficiently bleak and gritty backdrop for these dramas. Taylor is a completely fallible ex-cop who, in the second series, is trying to give up on drinking and is taking care of his ailing mother. In "The Dramatist," Taylor is tasked with finding the murderer of a young woman who has fallen to her death from one of the buildings at the university. The Guard believe that she has suffered from a drug overdose, but one of her professors is convinced otherwise and asks Taylor for help. After his mother succumbs to another stroke in the middle of his investigation and dies, Taylor seems to lose his way once more and returns to drinking. Taylor's young assistant goes undercover at the university to find out more information about the girl and finds out that another young woman is missing as well. In "Priest," Taylor is asked to look into the beheading of a priest. He discovers that the victim had abused two boys several years earlier and now, it seems, that the victims have taken revenge on their abuser. Taylor must wade through some pretty dark secrets in the church to find the killer. All the while, Taylor is slipping back into his bad habits and his demons are rearing their familiar heads. In "Shot Down," Jack Taylor leaves his home in Galway for Dublin, hoping to abate his grief. Once there, he gets involved in a traveler's feud and he meets a young girl named Rosie. She witnessed her mother's murder, but has suppressed the memory. Taylor must help her remember what happened before the killer strikes again. All-in-all, I love this series. It is a little darker than most of the series that I watch, but it is worth it to see Iain Glen (Game of Thrones). I also think that it's nice to see stories from Ireland that aren't all leprechauns, shamrocks, and shenanigans.
     Rosemary & Thyme is a British cozy mystery that ran for twenty-two episodes from 2003-2006. It stars Felicity Kendal as Rosemary Boxer and Pam Ferris as Laura Thyme. Laura is a housewife and former policewoman whose husband leaves her for a younger woman after more than twenty years of marriage. Her only regret is having to leave the beautiful garden she tended at their home together. She meets Rosemary, a university lecturer in horticulture, who has just lost her job and has agreed to look into the dying gardens of an acquaintance. The two women team up to find out what is going on with the garden and to find out who has killed Laura's friend. The series takes place in some very beautiful gardens all over England and Europe. There always seems to be a mystery to solve along with the tilling of the soil. These are fun, light-hearted mysteries that will have you cheering for these two strong-willed and hard-working women. Throughout the series, you meet Laura's two children along with a string of characters and villains. These two don't always get it right on the first try, but by the end, they have solved the mystery and helped many a garden to bloom.Rosemary & Thyme (2003)

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Download Audio Books to Your Personal Device or Computer.


Our library patrons can now download audio books to their personal devices and computers through OneClickdigital. The OneClickdigital app can be found for both Apple and Android devices.

Just click on the link and sign up for your account using your library card number for access to thousands of books, both new and classics - http://warrenms.oneclickdigital.com/

Need help getting started? There is as step-by-step tutorial at http://warrenms.oneclickdigital.com/#help

Once in, you can choose titles from twenty-seven different genres, listed below :

  1. Arts and Entertainment
  2. Biographies, Autobiographies and Memoirs
  3. Business and Economics
  4. Classics
  5. Comics and Graphic Novels
  6. Fantasy
  7. General Fiction
  8. General Non-Fiction
  9. Historical Fiction
  10. History
  11. Humor
  12. Juvenile Fiction
  13. Language
  14. Literary Fiction
  15. Mystery
  16. Poetry
  17. Politics and Current Events
  18. Religion
  19. Romanace
  20. Science
  21. Sci-Fi
  22. Self-Help
  23. Short Stories
  24. Sports
  25. Suspense and Thrillers
  26. Western
  27. Women's Fiction

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Death of a Liar: a Hamish Macbeth Mystery

With all the usual twists, turns, and red herrings, M.C. Beaton has created another completely readable cozy featuring my favorite ginger-haired Highland police sergeant. While this volume does seem to slow down in a few places, series fans will be delighted and newcomers will find it absolutely charming.
Long-suffering police sergeant Hamish Macbeth winds up with multiple murders on his hands in the latest installment of this cozy mystery series. Hamish and his partner Dick Fraser are called to the small village of Cromish in the Scottish Highlands. A middle-aged woman named Liz Bentley has called claiming that she has been raped. When Hamish and Dick arrive, they convince her to have the local doctor to examine her for the sake of evidence. The doctor pulls Hamish aside and tells him that Liz is a virgin and that there is absolutely no sign of her being raped. The doc also informs him that Liz is know to be a compulsive liar. Upset with having his time wasted by the attention-seeker, Hamish gives Liz a stern warning that she not call him again. In the meantime, the unfriendly couple who claim to be from London and have purchased the recently vacated local elementary school, are found murdered. The wife is half buried in the front garden and the husband is found some miles away stuffed in the trunk of his car. Such a high profile crime brings Inspector Blair and Superintendent Daviot up from Strathbane. Hamish is relegated to house-to-house inquiries.
After a long day of knocking on doors, Hamish gets another call from Liz Bentley in Cromish. She claims that someone is in her home and the call is interrupted before she can finish. Thinking that Liz is up to her old lying ways, Hamish ignores the immediacy and turns in for the night. The next day, he and Dick head back to Cromish. The pair find Liz dead in her back garden. A terrible storm the night before seems to have prevented anyone from hearing anything. Blair convinces Daviot to assign Hamish to the murder in Cromish; which is just fine with Hamish.
Both murder scenes are pristine and there is very little forensic evidence found. Hamish becomes convinced that these two murders are connected, but he can't seem to make the connection. Perhaps, if he would stop crushing on the polish baker, he'd actually get some work done. These two cases stall and Hamish becomes worried that they may never get solved, which doesn't sit well with him.
I won't give away the ending, but I will say that this book will keep you guessing and even give you a chuckle when the climax of the story rolls around. Hamish puts up with a lot to keep his little police station, but as he puts it, "who will look after the folks who live in all the little crofts and out-of-the-way places?" Hamish may not be lucky in love, but he knows how to take care of his Highland neighbors.

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

New Series in the Easy Reader Section

New to our library are two books series that are beginner books to understanding basic science concepts for young readers.

The first is a five books series called Why Living Things Need . . . by Daniel Nunn.  Each of the books covers one basic need that living things need to survive.

The five books in the series are :

                • Air
                • Food
                • Homes 
                • Light
                • Water


The second set is a seven part series called Exploring Materials by Abby Colich.  Each book centers on one of the different materials we use to make things,

The seven books in this series are:
  • Glass
  • Metal
  • Paper
  • Plastic
  • Rock
  • Rubber
  • Wood