The Prayer of Love

The Prayer of Love (C 241 H233p) by Dr. Mark Hanby and Roger Roth, Sr. is a non-fiction audio book I recently listened to while driving back and forth to work.  The book is based on a little known prayer contained in a letter that the Apostle Paul wrote to the

Phillippians.  The text of this 59 word prayer, according to the New International Version of the Bible is: 

⁹ And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, ¹⁰ so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, ¹¹ filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.

The authors use this prayer to illustrate that love is not an occasional feeling but a daily experience that continually brings peace and joy.  The authors examine this prayer by breaking it down into seven parts that form "benchmarks" for understanding and maturing in love.  The tone of the book is friendly and uncomplicated and is easy to understand by persons familiar with the bible or not.  This is a great audiobook for anyone interested in increasing their own understanding of how to develop love in their lives.  The library owns this book in audio CD format as well as in a Large-Type print version.  

Martha Stewart as a Guiding Light

One of the newer additions to our collection is 'The Tao of Martha : My Year of LIVING, or Why I'm Never Getting all that Glitter off the Dog' by Jen Lancaster.

After confronting the countertop clutter that had been dumped in the kitchen gun cabinet (a story in itself) and the Drawer of Shame (where anything found on the floor that the pets might choke on gets stuffed), the author decides to see if she can take her home and herself up a notch by following the spirit of the Martha Stewart empire for a year in helping her de-clutter, decorate, revamp her storage, make crafts, throw fabulous parties and basically, get her groove back.

While her attempts occasionally fall a bit (sometimes quite a bit) short of magazine picture ready, she makes a game attempt at her Martha home make-over with a copy of Martha's 'Handmade Holiday Crafts', Martha's web site on her computer and a stack of back issues of 'Living' magazine.  Through a difficult year, she not only manages to get her groove back, but her path on the trail to getting both home and life in order might inspire a round of de-cluttering for those following her adventures through her year of living the Martha way.

     With all the blockbuster movies coming out this summer the one I have been waiting for (somewhat impatiently) is “R.I.P.D.”  It stars Jeff Bridges and Ryan Reynolds and concerns a recently deceased cop who is recruited to work for the Rest in Peace Department that try and keep law and order with the evil dead.  I ran across a new book that has some similar qualities.  The title is Reviver: Death Won’t Silence Them by Seth Patrick.  Revivers are able to wake the recently dead, and let them bear witness to their own demise.  Twelve years after the first reviver came to light, they have become accepted by an uneasy public.  The testimony of the dead is permitted in courtrooms across the world. Forensic revival is a routine part of police investigation. 
      In the United States, that responsibility falls to the Forensic Revival Service.  Despite his troubled past, Jonah Miller is one of their best.  But while reviving the victim of a brutal murder, he encounters a terrifying presence.  Something is watching and waiting.  His superiors tell him it was only in his mind, a product of stress.  Jonah isn’t so certain.  Then Daniel Harker, the first journalist to bring revival to public attention, is murdered, and Jonah finds himself dragged into the hunt for answers.  Working with Harker’s daughter, Annabel, he becomes determined to find those responsible and bring them to justice.  Soon they uncover long-hidden truths that call into doubt everything Jonah stands fork and reveal a threat that, if not stopped in time, will put all of humanity in danger.

Who Killed the Professor?

Compound Murder is the latest Dan Rhodes Mystery by Bill Crider; and I have to tell you it was such a pleasant and easy read, that I finished it in just a couple of hours. Small town Texas sheriff, Dan Rhodes, just wishes the local Dr. Pepper manufacturer would go back to using real cane sugar in their formula, so that he could enjoy his daily caffeine. While musing over his boycott of the beverage, and staring at the Mr. Pibb bottle in front of him, the phone rings. Police dispatcher, Hack, tells him that the local beauty shop has been burgled and the thief made off with the hair! When sheriff Rhodes arrives, he finds that someone has broken in through the bathroom window and stolen all of the wigs and hair extensions made of natural hair--a pretty expensive bounty. Just as he is telling the owner to leave everything as it is and to cancel all of his appointments for the morning, Hack calls Rhodes again and tells him to get over to the local community college; there's a dead body. Math professor Seepy Benton, a graduate of the Citizens' Sheriff's Academy, is trying to keep all of the students and faculty away from the crime scene, but he's having little luck. The sheriff helps herd the students and professors inside and takes a look at the body, but before he can get into any real police work, a car peels out of the parking lot and Rhodes give chase, leaving Seepy to guard the area. A high speed chase ensues that winds up with the suspect's car smashed into a tree with its trunk wide open and Rhodes' windshield cracked and sagging. Turns out, the driver is 19 year-old Ike Terrell, son of the local doomsday prepper, Able Terrell. Rhodes finds the missing hair in the open trunk of Ike's car. The Terrells are thought to be gun-toting, survivalists that have fenced themselves inside the family property. Ike is unwilling to talk, so Rhodes has no choice, but to book him. This is all just the first couple of chapters. Sheriff Rhodes also has to deal with copper thieves, wrestle a pot-bellied pig, calm trigger-happy deputies, all the while trying to find out who murdered English professor Earl Wellington. By all accounts, Wellington was not liked. He was a picky when it came to his students attendance and work and he lacked the social skills necessary to make friends. Rhodes' investigation is fraught with red herrings and the diversions of small-town America and peppered with the humor and frailty of the human condition. I can't reveal anymore without giving away the story, so you'll just have to give it a go!

Remembering September 11, 2011

On this day, the Warren County-Vicksburg Public Library invites you to remember the lives that were lost and celebrate the heroes of this day.  May we never forget their sacrifices.

Girl in Progress

I was working the library's audiovisual desk this week and I stumbled across the cutest movie!  Girl in Progress stars Eva Mendes, a carefree waitress with a teenage girl named Ansiedad who desperately wants to grow up and be an adult.  Ani is very disappointed in her mom 's behavior, because her mom acts more like a teenager than she does.  Ani decides to create her own "coming-of-age story" by becoming a nerd, attracting the attention of her teachers, then having an abrupt spiral downwards into "bad girl mode" by partying, suddenly making bad grades, shirking her chores and other duties and getting involved with the popular girls in school and dating the "baddest" boy in school.  What follows is a hilarious romp through the life of a teen.  The story is set in Seattle and features some of the famous landmarks in the town.  The movie is rated PG-13 and is perfect to watch with your own teenage girl!

Beat the Heat with a Cool Summer Salad

In the steamy Mississippi summer time, I often do not feel like cooking a huge, hot meal for myself.  What better way to enjoy your supper, and celebrate the lovely abundance of summer gardens, than by making yourself a beautiful salad for dinner!  50 Spectacular Salads by Steven Wheeler is a Step-By-Step book that shows the reader how to make fifty wonderful salads, from main courses to special occasion dinners and sweet salads for dessert.  Each recipe is on the left side of the page with a full color picture of the finished product on the right-hand side.  Each recipe step is numbered and clearly marked and includes tips on how to arrange the salad prettily on a plate.  Especially handy is a small set of pictures on the left-hand side of the recipe page, that show what the recipe items look like, in case the reader does not know what arugula, etc. is.  The book opens with sections on salad leaves, dressings, equipment and how to grow a kitchen herb garden.  This is a great book for the beginning chef or an experienced one and it is great for helping you plan your next salad adventure!

Maleability of Memory

I just finished Neil Gaiman's newest work, The Ocean at the End of the Lane and I must say that I was blown away by this short, but lyrically beautiful tale for adults. Neil Gaiman is a wonderful writer and he excels in creating modern fairy tales. When our story opens, the narrator (who is never named) is visiting his boyhood home in Sussex, England after attending a funeral. Fiftyish and looking for something he cannot pinpoint, he travels down to the end of the lane where he used to live. There he visits the Hempstock farm he thinks he remembers from when he was seven years old. It was there that he met his friend Lettie Hempstock, who, along with her mother and grandmother, tend the farm and its animals. The boy and his father walk down their lane to look for the family car that seems to have gone missing. In so doing, they find the body of their lodger slumped in the seat; an apparent suicide. So, the boy is shuffled off to the Hempstock farm so that the police can do their duty. Lettie shows the boy her "ocean"; a small duck pond behind the house. The boy cannot understand why Lettie calls it this, nor can he understand why she talks in riddles and seems to be wise beyond her years. The reason is that Gaiman has interwoven magic into this seemingly innocuous story about a young boy finding more adventure than he wants. Lettie and her family are not really human; they are ancient beings who look out for the world and raise cows and chickens and help little boys who get into trouble with monsters. Although the boy has great adventures and survives darkness and death, thanks to his friend Lettie, he doesn't remember any of it until he returns to contemplate his life beside the "ocean". And that is what this book is really about; how we alter our own memory as we age to gloss over painful and tragic times and to punctuate those glowing victories. If this all sounds a little confusing, it is. To tell you more would give away the ending and I wouldn't want to deprive you of the joy of reading this short, sweet tome.

Deeply Odd

Deeply Odd is the newest book in the Odd Thomas series, written by Dean Koontz.  Odd Thomas has the ability to communicate with restless spirits and help them find their own peace.  In this novel, Odd meets a sadistic truck driver and receives a vision of three innocent children burning as the truck driver sets them on fire.  Odd must intervene and save them, by figuring out who the children are and where they are being held, before the truck driver acts out his crime. When the help of Alfred Hitchcock's ghost and a few kind strangers, Odd rushes down the Interstate, using his psychic abilities to pursue the truck driver and his innocent quarry.  What Odd eventually finds is a world running parallet to his own, and a place so sinister, he may not return.  Odd Thomas is a strong character, a hero who is a "regular joe," and has had his own share of troubles.  Odd is sincere and humorous and he is in touch with the darker side of humanity.  I thoroughly enjoy reading about Odd Thomas' character and his books are always entertaining to me.  These books must be read in order, as the sequence of actions in each book builds upon the last one.  The first one is Odd Thomas.

New British Mysteries

I've just spent my weekend watching two of our newest British mystery series. First was Set 22 of the Midsomer Murders series. I love this series, but, as loyal watchers know, two seasons ago, the beloved Tom Barnaby was replaced by his cousin John Barnaby. I enjoy the second Barnaby, but no one can replace the wonderful performance of John Nettles as Tom. This newest series was very good and like the others, features the plethora of quirky small town personalities that have made this series so popular. There is no guts and gore here, so die-hard CSI fans may not like what they see, but if you can stand just a little blood, then this show may be for you. If you have never seen this series before, I would suggest starting at or near the beginning of the show, so that you can get a feel of how the dynamic between the senior detective and his plodding side-kick works. The library has just about all of the show starting with the "Killing at Badger's Drift".
The second show I watched was Series 6 of Inspector Lewis. For those of you who aren't familiar, this series is a spin-off of the Inspector Morse series based on the books by Colin Dexter. Lewis also features the wise lead detective and his long suffering sergeant, but instead of the Midsomer counties, these two muddle around the area of Oxford University. Unlike the sergeant in Midsomer, Sergeant James Hathaway is well educated and a bit brooding, but extremely wise for someone so young. Detective Inspector Lewis, himself, is a streetwise old-school copper who favors common sense and opera. From the way this series ended, I think it may be the last, or next-to-last for Inspector Lewis; which is quite sad, because I love the dynamic of these two characters and the wonderful characterization of the supporting cast. (It also helps that the young man who plays DS Hathaway is a cutie!)
We have several more different British series that our regular patrons adore, so if you want a good old murder mystery without the guts and gore, pick up one of these and give them a try.