Carol Burnett Looks Back

A recent addition to our New Adult Nonfiction, In Such Good Company, is a memoir by legendary comedienne, Carol Burnett.

To research for her book, she rewatched all 276 episodes of 'The Carol Burnett Show'.  The book covers the show from first concepts (the network was initial opposed to a female led variety show, considering that to be a male-only field and wanted her to star in a situation comedy instead) to pulling together her supporting cast, writers, stage crew and other behind-the-scenes people, such as costume designer Bob Mackie, whose curtain-gown that he created for Carol to wear as Starlett O'Hara is now part of the Smithsonian collection.

Other sections cover recurring characters/sketches such as 'As the Stomach Turns', 'Mrs. Wiggins', the Charwoman, and 'The Old Folks'.  She also covers the many movie parodies, her favorite guest stars and also pays tribute to the unscripted, embarrassing moments that happen when working in front of a live audience.

For anyone that remembers watching the show, this book is a wonderful look back at some of the best comedy moments made for television.

Joyce Carol Oates Thrills

The Doll-Master and Other Tales of Terror is a collection of short stories by Joyce Carol Oates. In the title story, a young boy becomes obsessed with his cousin’s doll when she dies from leukemia. As he gets older, he begins collecting “found dolls” from the surrounding neighborhoods. He stores his treasures in the abandoned carriage house on his family’s estate, but just what kind of dolls are these? In “Gun Accident,” a teenager is thrilled when her favorite teacher asks her to house-sit the old Colonial she lives in with her husband. When an intruder forces his way into the house, the fate of both their lives changes forever. “Equatorial” is set in the exotic Galapagos Islands where a wealthy American wife begins experiencing assaults on her knowledge of her charismatic husband. Just what are his plans for her? The last story is a biblio-mystery about the owner of a modest chain of bookstores who believes in some very unorthodox methods for business expansion. When his plan’s for the takeover of a rare bookstore in scenic New Hampshire devolves into a game of verbal to-and-fro, the consequences could be more than just business related. Joyce Carol Oates proves that she is the queen of chills and thrills with this collection.

Our Thanksgiving Holiday Hours

Our Thanksgiving Holiday hours of operation are :

Monday, November 21 - 9 AM to 7 PM
Tuesday, November 22 - 9 AM to 7 PM
Wednesday, November 23 - 9 AM to Noon
Thursday, November 24 - Sunday, November 27 - CLOSED
Monday, November 28 - Normal business hours, 9 AM to 7 PM

The staff of Warren County-Vicksburg Public Library wishes our friends and patrons a safe and happy Thanksgiving.

How About Some Chills & Thrills?

Disappearance at Devil's Rock is a novel by Paul Tremblay. Elizabeth Sanderson receives a call late one summer's night that changes everything. Her thirteen-year-old son, Tommy, has vanished from the woods of a nearby state park and the searchers aren't finding any clues. Elizabeth and her eleven-year-old daughter, Kate are feeling helpless, alone and more than a little frustrated. The two friends that Tommy was hanging with, Josh and Luis, may not be telling the whole truth about the night they were at a landmark named Devil's Rock in Borderland State Park. Elizabeth also thinks that a wraith-like apparition of Tommy has appeared in her bedroom while Kate and other locals claim they have seen a shadowy figure peering through their windows in the dead of night. When random pages begin disappearing from Tommy's journal, Elizabeth learns that her son was obsessed with the supernatural. Tommy believed that the loss of his father to a drunk driving accident, a folktale involving a demon in the woods of Borderland, and the coming zombie "pocketclips" are all connected by one horrible incident. Is Tommy simply lost or did something more sinister happen that night at Devil's Rock?

My Best Friend's Exorcism is a novel by Grady Hendrix. It's 1988 in Charleston, South Carolina and Abby and Gretchen are high school sophomores. They have been best friends since the fourth grade, but after an evening of skinny-dipping goes horribly wrong, Abby has her doubts about the strength of their friendship. Gretchen begins acting strangely—she's moody, irritable, and just not herself. There is also the fact that bizarre incidents keep happening when Gretchen is around. Abby decides she has better get to the bottom of these strange events, but the conclusion she comes to terrifies her beyond belief. She is left asking herself one important question: Is her friendship with Gretchen strong enough to beat the devil?

Zero K is a novel by Don DeLillo. Ross Lockhart is a billionaire in his sixties married to a younger wife, Artis, whose health is failing. His son, Jeffrey, has joined them at a remote and secret compound where death is controlled and the body is preserved until biomedical advances and new technologies can restore them. Jeffrey finds the mission of this compound indefensible. He firmly believes that experiencing the here and now is the most important part of living life. Ross, however, feels a deep need to enter another dimension and awake to a new world. Artis sums up the conflict between father and son when she muses, "We are born without choosing to be. Should we have to die in the same manner? Isn't it a human glory to refuse to accept a certain fate?"

New Large Type Books by Popular Authors

We have added more new titles to our Large Type collection.

Robin Carr - The Life She Wants
In the aftermath of her financier husband’s suicide, Emma Shay Compton’s dream life is shattered. Richard Compton stole his clients’ life savings to fund a lavish life in New York City and, although she was never involved in the business, Emma bears the burden of her husband’s crimes. She is left with nothing. 

Only one friend stands by her, a friend she’s known since high school, who encourages her to come home to Sonoma County. But starting over isn’t easy, and Sonoma is full of unhappy memories, too. And people she’d rather not face, especially Riley Kerrigan. 

Riley and Emma were like sisters—until Riley betrayed Emma, ending their friendship. Emma left town, planning to never look back. Now, trying to stand on her own two feet, Emma can’t escape her husband’s reputation and is forced to turn to the last person she thought she’d ever ask for help—her former best friend. It’s an uneasy reunion as both women face the mistakes they’ve made over the years. Only if they find a way to forgive each other—and themselves—can each of them find the life she wants.

W.E.B. Griffin & William E. Butterworth IV - Broken Trust (Badge of Honor series)
Having investigated his share of gruesome murders, Philadelphia Homicide Sergeant Matt Payne is beginning to think nothing can shock him – until the case of a young socialite’s death lands on his desk. The Camilla Rose Morgan he’d known as a teenager was beautiful and brilliant – how was it possible she’d jumped to her death from her own balcony? Her brother tells Payne she’d tragically been battling a lifetime of mental demons, and there is plenty of evidence of it, but still…something just doesn’t sit right. The more Payne digs, the more complications he discovers. Reputations are on the line here, and lives – and if Payne doesn’t tread carefully, one of them may be his own.






Bill O'Reilly & Martin Dugard - Killing the Rising Sun

Autumn 1944. World War II is nearly over in Europe but is escalating in the Pacific, where American soldiers face an opponent who will go to any length to avoid defeat. The Japanese army follows the samurai code of Bushido, stipulating that surrender is a form of dishonor. Killing the Rising Sun takes readers to the bloody tropical-island battlefields of Peleliu and Iwo Jima and to the embattled Philippines, where General Douglas MacArthur has made a triumphant return and is plotting a full-scale invasion of Japan.

Across the globe in Los Alamos, New Mexico, Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer and his team of scientists are preparing to test the deadliest weapon known to mankind. In Washington, DC, FDR dies in office and Harry Truman ascends to the presidency, only to face the most important political decision in history: whether to use that weapon. And in Tokyo, Emperor Hirohito, who is considered a deity by his subjects, refuses to surrender, despite a massive and mounting death toll. Told in the same page-turning style of Killing Lincoln, Killing Kennedy, Killing Jesus, Killing Patton, and Killing Reagan, this epic saga details the final moments of World War II like never before.

It's That Time of Year Again!

     Thanksgiving is just around the corner and, as always, we have plenty of cookbooks to help you with your holiday dishes.
     We also have the most recent holiday magazines to help you with new recipes for your holiday entertaining. While the newest issues cannot be checked out of the library, you can access our array of e-magazines through Zinio magazines on our website. Just type https://www.rbdigital.com/warrenms/service/zinio in your computer's web browser. You can also download the app for your iPad, iPhone, Android, and Kindle Fire device and take your E-zines wherever you go!

     The November issues of Country Living, Cooking Light, Food Network Magazine, Martha Stewart Living, Rachael Ray Every Day, and Southern Living are chocked full of delicious takes on classic recipes. Why not try the Pumpkin Cheesecake on the cover of Country Living? Tired of pumpkin flavored everything? Then, Southern Living has a German Chocolate Pecan Pie. Yum! Cooking Light has a whole spread called "Thanksgiving Cook Book" that contains updated and healthier versions of classic dishes. How about some Whole-grain Spelt and Cornmeal Biscuits or Triple Mushroom Stuffing? (I'm getting hungry just writing this!)   From appetizers to dessert--and everything in between--you can find it in these magazines or in one of the hundreds of cookbooks we have here at the library. Bon Appetit!

   

Explore Manga!

We have added several Manga titles to our library collection.  What is Manga?  Manga is a Japanese style of graphic novel, many of which are geared for adult readers.

Here are some of the titles we currently have available :

 Ceres : Celestial Legend by Yuu Watase

The protagonist of this story is sixteen-year-old high school girl Aya Mikage, who discovers on her birthday that she is the reincarnation of a celestial maiden named Ceres.








DearS by Peach-Pit

The unlikely protagonist of the series is a temperamental seventeen-year-old Japanese student, named Takeya Ikuhara, with a strong prejudice against the DearS, who are humanoid aliens that were naturalized into Japanese society after their spacecraft crash landed into Tokyo Bay while en route to their home planet of Thanatos,  Takeya's life becomes complicated when finds a young female DearS he calls Ren.

 Othello by Satomi Ikezawa

Titled after the board game rather than the Shakespeare play, this is the story of a shy, naive Japanese teenager with a split personality.  One personality, Yaya, is innocent, timid, and because of her personality, is constantly attacked and ridiculed by people who claim to be her friends. Her second personality, Nana, is tough, cunning, sarcastic, and bold - coming out whenever Yaya needs help because of her inability to stand up for herself.

Ultra Maniac by Wataru Yoshizumi

This series follows 7th grader Ayu Tateishi, a tennis club member, and her transfer student friend, Nina Sakura, who is actually a trainee witch from the magical kingdom.  

Ayu is the president of the girls' tennis club, one of the most popular girls in the school, and she works hard on keeping up her "cool, calm and collected" reputation.  Nina is a magic girl, and a failure who came to Earth as her last chance to prove that she can get things right.

Non-Fiction Titles for Your Enjoyment

With all of the turmoil raging in the Middle East and around the globe, I thought that the following selections would offer some glimmer of hope. They each feature stories of hope and survival despite the evils that persist in this world.

 The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu (and Their Race to Save the World’s Most Precious Manuscripts) is a book by Joshua Hammer. The lands in and around the Sahara Desert have long been in a state of turmoil. Dictators and despots abound. A young adventurer and collector for the government library in Mali, Abdel Kader Haidara, journeyed across the Sahara and along the Niger River in the 1980s searching for and salvaging tens of thousands of ancient Islamic and secular manuscripts he found crumbling in the trunks of desert farmers. His lofty goal was to preserve these precious pieces of ancestry for future generations. Unfortunately, Al Qaeda showed up and things began to look very grim. Haidara emerged from his role as a mild-mannered archivist and historian to become one of the world’s most brazen smugglers by saving these rare texts from certain destruction. More than 350,000 volumes were smuggled out of Timbuktu and spirited away to southern Mali. It was this group of ordinary citizens who answered a higher calling and allowed themselves to be forever changed by the experience.   

City of Thorns: Nine Lives in the World’s Largest Refugee Camp is by Ben Rawlence. Situated in a grueling desert in northern Kenya where thorn bushes are the only things that grow, Dadaab is a city like no other. Its buildings are made from mud, sticks, and plastic; its entire economy is suspect; and its half million residents survive on rations and a whole lot of luck. Rawlence, who has witnessed this strange and desperate place firsthand, tells the stories of some of the people who have come here seeking sanctuary. Guled is a former child soldier who lives for football (soccer). Nisho manages to scrape out an existence pushing a wheelbarrow while dreaming of riches. There is also Tawane, an unassailable youth leader, and Kheyro, whose future hangs upon her education at the school. The author also tries to explain the wider political forces that are keeping these refugees trapped in Dadaab.

A Different Kind of Daughter: the Girl Who Hid from the Taliban in Plain Sight is a memoir by Maria Toorpakai with Katharine Holstein. From a very young age, Maria Toorpakai knew that she wanted to play squash. Unfortunately, she hails from Pakistan’s violently oppressive northwest tribal region. The idea of women playing sports is forbidden and girls rarely leave their homes. She first tried dressing and living as a boy, but she eventually became Pakistan’s number one female squash player. For Maria it was both salvation and a death sentence. Her achievements put her and her family in the national spotlight and directly in the crosshairs of the Taliban. She soon realized that her only chance for survival would be to flee the country. Jonathon Power, the first North American to earn the title of top squash player in the world, was the only person to answer Maria’s plea for help. Jonathon recognized her tenacity and talent and invited her to train and compete internationally in Canada. Even though she had spent years living on the run from the Taliban, Maria was sad to pack up and leave the only place she had ever known and move halfway across the world to pursue her dream. Now, Maria is well on her way to becoming a world champion as well as becoming a voice for oppressed women all over the world.

The Lovers: Afghanistan’s Romeo and Juliet is by Rod Norland. Growing up on adjacent potato farms in the remote mountain area of Bamiyan, Afghanistan, Zakia and Ali became close friends. The two were separated according to the laws and customs of the area when they reached puberty. Zakia, a beautiful and strongly opinionated young woman, and Ali, a soft-spoken, handsome young man still managed to fall in love and court one another, remotely at first, then, in Zakia's garden. In order to be with Ali, Zakia defied her family and Islamic law by leaving home to be with him, but she ended up in a women's shelter pursued by her father and other family members who were set to kill her to preserve the family "honor." The shelter saved her life, but she was unable to see Ali there, so the couple eloped and went into hiding. When Norland wrote about the couple for an article in the New York Times, he unwittingly exposed them and thus felt obligated to help them get to safety. With help from Norland as well as foreign donations, the couple made a disastrous attempt to flee to Tajikistan, however, they were forced to return to Kabul where they were closely tracked by Zakia's family. Ali and Zakia's story is used to illustrate the common cultural practices such as stoning, child marriage, and legalized rape that serve to strip women like Zakia of their basic human rights.

Help Childhood Literacy - Read a Book to a Child

Anna Dewdney, the author of the best-selling children's picture book series, 'Llama Llama', passed away on September 3, 2016 at the age of 50.  Through her publisher, Penguin Group, she requested that in lieu of a funeral service that people read to a child instead.

The following are her books that are in our collection.

The Book Or The Movie?

While movies and television allow the beloved characters from literature to come alive and flourish if put into the hands of the right actors, writers, directors, and producers; the opposite is true if the wrong sort of people get their hands on our favorite stories. Ever since the advent of motion pictures, there has been a heated debate. Is the book or the movie better? The following books have been made into motion pictures that are currently available in theaters. I'll let you decide which is better, but you'll have to read the books to make your choice.

"Middle School: the Worst Years of My Life" is a series of juvenile books by the ever-popular James Patterson (Alex Cross novels). Rafe Katchadorian has enough problems at home without having to worry about the oppressive rules laid down by the principal of his middle school. With the help and encouragement of his best friend, Leonardo the Silent, Rafe has decided it will be his mission to break as many of the school rules as he can. The two have even made a game of it: Chewing gum in class, 5,000 points! Running in the hallway, 10,000 points! Pull the fire alarm, 50,000 points! When all of this rule-breaking begins to catch up with him, Rafe must decide whether or not he can face up to the rules, the bullies, and what is really bothering him.

"Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children" is the first book in a Young Adult series by Ransom Riggs. Haunting photographs help tell the story of sixteen-year-old Jacob who has suffered a terrible tragedy. His beloved grandfather was attacked and Jacob finds him barely alive. With his dying breath, his grandfather compels him to seek out the orphanage where he spent his childhood. Jacob manages to convince his parents to let him go, but what he finds there he doesn't fully understand. As he explores the rooms and hallways, Jacob comes to believe that these children may have been quarantined on this island because of their peculiar abilities; and even, perhaps, because they were dangerous. Local history says that the children were killed when the Nazis dropped a bomb on the house, but what Jacob finds leads him to think otherwise. Are the peculiars still alive? You'll have to read it to find out!

Finally, for the adults, we have "The Girl on the Train" by Paula Hawkins. Rachel's life now is full of monotony. She takes the same train everyday with the same people who have the same conversations. Her only bit of respite is the young couple she sees having breakfast every morning--she calls them Jess and Jason. They remind her of how her life used to be before her divorce. One morning however, she witnesses something shocking. It is only a split second before the train moves on. Rachel doesn't know what to do, but she goes to the authorities anyway. Soon, the authorities begin to question her sanity as well as her motives while Rachel becomes more and more entangled in the lives of those involved. Has she done more harm than good? You decide.