Hispanic Heritage Month

We're in the middle of National Hispanic Heritage Month and we have been posting a different spotlight on Facebook every day.

Some of the people we have already featured include :

• Antonia Novello, MD
• Oscar de la Renta
• Selena Gomez
• Antonio Banderas
• Eva Longoria
• Jorge Ramos
• Sonia Sotomayor
• Ted Cruz
• Ellen Ochoa

Hispanic Heritage Month runs through October 15 - keep watching to see who else we feature this month.  In the meantime, why not check out one of the Hispanic authors in our collection?

• Isabel Allende (Daughter of Fortune; The House of the Spirits, etc)
• Julia Alvarez (Before We Were Free; How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent; etc)
• Jorge Luis Borges (An Introduction to English Literature; Selected Poems 1923-1967)
• Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist; The Spy; Aleph; Adultery; Manuscript found in Accra)
• Zoraida Cordova (Labyrinth Lost)
• Junot Diaz (The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao; This is How You Lose Her)
• Carlos Fuentes (The Diary of Frida Kahlo; The Old Gringo; The Campaign)
• Esmeralda Santiago (Conquistadora)
• Alisa Valdes (The Feminist and the Cowboy : an Unlikely Story)

Medical Related Non-Fiction

An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take it Back is a book on the American healthcare system by Elisabeth Rosenthal. The author explains how our system of healthcare went from a caring endeavor to a convoluted and highly profitable industry in a few short decades. Rosenthal breaks down this behemoth system into its various components--hospitals, doctors, and insurance and pharmaceutical companies. She discusses how hospital systems that are managed by business executives act like predatory lenders and hound patients and seize their homes. Patients receive coded bills from doctors they never saw. Research charities get into bed with pharmaceutical companies and surreptitiously profit from the donations made by hard working people in good faith. Rosenthal offers hope by spelling out exactly how we can decode medical double speak, avoid the perils of the pharmaceutical scheme, and get the care you and your loved ones deserve.

Inferno: A Doctor's Ebola Story is by Steven Hatch, M.D. As an infectious disease specialist, Dr. Hatch came to Liberia in November 2013 to work at a hospital in Monrovia. Six months later, several of the physicians he had served with were dead or unable to work and Ebola had become an international worry. Hatch returned with the aid organization International Medical Corps to help establish and Ebola Treatment Unit. In this hastily built structure in the middle of the jungle, he witnessed the selfless care given by the unit's physicians, nurses, and other caregivers. He explores this deadly virus as well as the afflicted country of Liberia to reveal how the Ebola outbreak stoked anxieties that were exploited for political gain around the world. He discusses how generations of inequality left Liberia vulnerable to this crisis and how similar circumstances could fuel another plague elsewhere. Hatch feels that by understanding and alleviating these stressors, another outbreak in other countries could be curtailed more quickly.

A Surgeon in the Village: An American Doctor Teaches Brain Surgery in Africa is by Tony Bartelme. Dr. Dilan Ellegala goes to Tanzania and is shocked to find that there are only three brain surgeons for its population of forty-two million people. In Haydom Lutheran Hospital, even the most basic surgical tools are absent, not even a saw to open a patient's skull can be found. Here, people with head injuries or brain tumors are left to heal on their own or die. Dr. Ellegala is confronted with a villager suffering from severe head trauma, so he takes it upon himself to buy a tree saw from a farmer, sterilize it, and then uses it to save the man's life. Ellegala realizes that there are far too many neurosurgery patients for a single person to save and he will soon be leaving Tanzania. The only solution is to teach someone the skills necessary to perform these complicated and dangerous procedures. He finds his first potential student in Emmanuel Mayegga. Though he has no formal medical degree, Mayegga is a stubborn and determined medical officer who possesses the dexterity and intelligence to do brain surgery. As he guides the Tanzanians in their studies, he also challenges the Western medical establishment to do more than send vacationing doctors on short-term medical missions. He offers a solution that could potentially transform the care of more than two billion people around the world.

Don't Forget About Our Online Resources!

School is back in full swing!  Do you or your children need some homework help?  We have the following resources to help :


MAGNOLIA - An online database of scholarly journals, newspaper archives, and literary critiques.  Ask at the Reference Desk for the address and password to access this extensive collection.

World Book Online - The online version of the popular encyclopedia and more.  Ask at the Reference Desk for the ID and password to access.

Gage Cengage - Online reference books, including the Contemporary Black Biography series.  Patrons with a Google account can sign in and be able to save articles and citations to Drive as well as print and email (with any email account).  Highlighting, note-taking and audio options are also available.  Ask at the Reference Desk for details on how to access their site (GVRL has free apps for Android and IOS devices called Access My Library).

Salem Press Online - A selection of reference books specifically for high school age and up.  Patrons can set up a free account to save search information, citations, and articles.  There is also a feature to allow you to print and/or email articles and citations.  Ask at the Reference Desk for details on how to access the site.

Two Books; One Title

This week, I'm featuring two books that share the same title and both are mysteries. That is where the similarities end, however, as each is by a different author, each takes place in a different time period, and each has a very different plot.

The first book is What the Dead Leave Behind: A Gilded Age Mystery by Rosemary Simpson. Set in New York City during the Great Blizzard of 1888, this story follows heiress Prudence MacKenzie; who waits impatiently in her Fifth Avenue home for her fiance's safe return. As morning breaks, more than two hundred people are found to have died in the icy winds and freezing snowdrifts. Unfortunately for Prudence, her fiance, Charles, is one of the deceased. He is found with head crushed by a heavy branch and he is holding an ace of spades playing card in his hand. Prudence knows that the playing card was a code that Charles shared with his friend, Geoffrey Hunter, a former Pinkerton agent and attorney from the South. Convinced that Charles was murdered, Prudence turns to Geoffrey for help to find the killer and to help protect her inheritance from her shady stepmother who seems to be more interested in the money than Prudence's well-being.

The second book is What the Dead Leave Behind: A McKenzie Novel by David Housewright. Former St. Paul, Minnesota police detective Rushmore McKenzie is the unlikeliest of millionaires. He does the occasional unlicensed private investigation, mostly doing favors for friends and those in need. When his stepdaughter, Erica, asked for just such a favor to help out a college friend, Mckenzie doesn't have the heart to refuse. Her friend's father, Malcolm Harris, was murdered a year ago in New Brighton, just outside of the twin cities and the case yielded no clues and has gone cold. When McKenzie starts nosing around in the case, he turns up another case that is tangentially related to Harris's and both cases lead back to a group of friends with whom the victim was close. His case is full of odd, suspicious coincidences and nothing more, until someone decides that McKenzie is getting too close and decides to make things very personal.

August New Adult Fiction!

These are some of the new titles that we added to our New Adult Fiction section in August!

 The Baker's Secret by Stephen P. Kiernan

After her kind mentor is arrested because of his Jewish heritage, a young baker's apprentice in Normandy engages in discreet resistance activities, baking contraband loaves of bread for the hungry using surplus ingredients taken from occupying forces.

Bad Dreams and Other Stories by Tessa Hadley

In these short stories it's the ordinary things that turn out to be most extraordinary: the history of a length of fabric or a forgotten jacket. 

Indigo by Charlaine Harris

Investigative reporter Nora Hesper spends her nights cloaked in shadows. As Indigo, she's become an urban myth, a brutal vigilante who can forge darkness into weapons and travel across the city by slipping from one patch of shadow to another. Her primary focus both as Nora and as Indigo has become a murderous criminal cult called the Children of Phonos. Children are being murdered in New York, and Nora is determined to make it stop, even if that means Indigo must eliminate every member.

Love Story by Karen Kingsbury

Decades ago, John and Elizabeth Baxter lived a love story that is still playing out in the lives of their adult children and grandchildren. But few of them know the exact details of that story or the heartbreak that brought the two together.

New Chick Lit

The Shark Club by Ann Kidd Taylor takes place amid the palm trees, calypso bands and pristine ocean views of Florida. When Maeve Donnally is young, she enjoys spending time near the ocean and is fascinated by sharks. One summer, two extraordinary things happen to her. First, Daniel--the boy she has a crush on--kisses her. Then, she is bitten by a black tip shark. She decides to throw herself into her work as a marine biologist traveling the world studying and teaching others about sharks. Fifteen years later, she returns to the Hotel of the Muses where she grew up under the watchful eye of her grandmother. Maeve has a chance meeting with a young girl on the beach who is as fascinated with the ocean as Maeve had been at that age. This meeting puts her at a crossroads: does she rekindle her romance with Daniel or does she pursue a new relationship with Nicholas--a colleague who is investigating a illegal shark-finning in the area?

It's 1952, but the post-war boom seems to be passing Hooper's Crossing, New York by in Dorothy Garlock's The Nearness of You. Lonely, sheltered librarian Lily Denton longs for adventure and the hustle and bustle of New York City, but, ever since her mother died, her father hasn't let her out of his sight. So, Lily spends her days in the library and her nights hoping that life won't pass her by. The cool, crisp air of autumn brings in tourists for the fall festival as well as a photographer with a knack for finding trouble. But when Boone Tatum snaps a photo of Lily, suddenly he isn't in a hurry to make his way out of town. When danger blows into town and marks Lily as its own, it will take all of her strength and courage to stand up for herself and the man she only just met, but can't live without.

The saga of the Crystal women is the focus of Mary B. Morrison's The One I've Waited For. Mercedes, Devereaux, Alexis, Sandara, and matriarch Blake have had their share of drama, but what happens next will push their bond to its limits and beyond. Mercedes forgave her philandering husband's last ego-boosting affair, but his new tryst, Arizona Remington, is proving to be a challenge. Arizona is determined to keep her wealthy husband as her own, but Mercedes buckles down and unleashes a take-no-prisoners campaign that inspires her sisters to do the same. Devereaux's show is the hottest thing on television and it takes up most of her time. She has been patient with her financially challenged fiance, but when Mercedes convinces Devereaux to do a background check on her man before walking down the aisle, it will take all of Devereaux's strength to let him go and not take him back. Alexis has her own troubles now that her lies are catching up to her; Sandara's babies' daddy is demanding part of her newfound fortune; and Momma Blake is struggling to get and keep her own happy ending.

In Secrets of the Tulip Sisters by Susan Mallery, sisters Kelly and Olivia Murphy have been estranged for ten long years; ever since their father sent Olivia away because of her affair with the town's bad boy. Kelly has lived by herself, tending the tulip farm and getting stuck in a rut of sorts. Now that Olivia is back and newcomer Griffith Burnett has caught her eye, Kelly is finding it hard to keep her secrets to herself. Which is much easier to do when you are alone. Olivia is determined not to let Kelly stand in the way of her homecoming and her mission to rekindle the flame with her man. When secrets start coming to light from both girls, will there be reconciliation or resentment?

Mama Cass before The Mamas and The Papas

California Dreamin' from Pénélope Bagieu depicts Mama Cass as you've never known her, in this poignant graphic novel about the remarkable vocalist who rocketed The Mamas & the Papas to stardom.

Before she was the legendary Mama Cass of the folk group The Mamas and the Papas, Ellen Cohen was a teen girl from Baltimore with an incredible voice, incredible confidence, and incredible dreams. She dreamed of being not just a singer but a star. Not just a star―a superstar. So, at the age of nineteen, at the dawn of the sixties, Ellen left her hometown and became Cass Elliot.

At her size, Cass was never going to be the kind of girl that record producers wanted on album covers. But she found an unlikely group of co-conspirators, and in their short time together this bizarre and dysfunctional band recorded some of the most memorable songs of their era. Through the whirlwind of drugs, war, love, and music, Cass struggled to keep sight of her dreams, of who she loved, and―most importantly―who she was.

Legal Thrillers for Your Enjoyment

The Most Dangerous Place is a Jack Swytek novel by James Grippando. According to the FBI, the most dangerous place for a woman between the ages of twenty and thirty is in a relationship with a man. Miami lawyer Jack Swytek is waiting at the airport for his old high school buddy, Keith Ingraham. The high powered banker and his wife Isabelle are based in Hong Kong, but they are coming to Miami so Keith's young daughter can have surgery. No sooner do they arrive than the police arrest Isabelle for conspiracy to murder the man who sexually assaulted her in college. Jack agrees to take her case, but the seasoned attorney doesn't know exactly what he has gotten himself into as he begins sifting through the secrets and half-truths surrounding the case.

Testimony by Scott Turow sees former prosecutor Bill ten Boom--now fifty--reflecting on all the things he loves: his law career, his wife, Kindle County, and his country. Bill is soon tapped to work on a case in front of the International Criminal Court based in Holland. It seems that more than ten years ago, in the chaos of the Bosnian war, an entire Roma refugee camp disappeared. Ferko Rincic has come forward as a witness claiming that a group of armed men marched the entire camp to a nearby cave during the night and blew the opening with a grenade burying 400 Gypsies alive. Ferko was the only survivor. Bill is now charged with finding out if Ferko's testimony is true and reliable. Bill sorts through a host of suspects including Serb paramilitaries, organized crime gangs, and even the U.S. government. He can't shake the feeling that Ferko knows a whole lot more than he is telling.

Things aren't going so well for Grayson Hernandez in The Outsider by Anthony Franze. Gray has just graduated from a fourth tier law school and he's drowning in debt. The only job he can get is as a messenger at the Supreme Court; which makes Gray sad because all he can do is watch the elite law graduates clerk for the justices of the nations highest court. One day, Gray comes to the aid of a man who is being violently mugged. Turns out the victim is none other than the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, so Gray finds himself as the newest--and unlikeliest--clerk at the court. Soon, the FBI approaches Gray and asks him to keep his eyes and ears open inside the court. It seems that a serial killer is connected to the court somehow. Eventually, Gray becomes a suspect; and he will stop at nothing to clear his name.

 August is Romance Awareness Month and we will be featuring a difference romance author everyday on our Facebook page including both old favorites and newcomers to our shelves.

Pick one up to enjoy today!

National Romance Awareness Month

According to www.NationalDayCalendar.com,  August is National Romance Awareness Month. Most people take this time to do something extra special for their partner or spouse--romantic getaways, couples massages, and candlelit dinners. It is also the time to indulge in reading some good ol' romance novels. To that end, we would like to highlight some of the new romance novels we offer here at the library.

First up is This is Our Song from the Shaughnessy Brothers series by Samantha Chase. Riley Shaughnessy knew that distinguishing himself from the rest of his large family would require him to do something big. He worked hard to make a name for himself as a musician and he's now a bona fide rock star. Unfortunately, he is in a bit of a slump and the relentless demands of his fans are not helping his creativity any. Savannah Daly is a hardline entertainment reporter who knows all about Riley's reputation. She is just there to get her interview so she can write her story, but she is spending an entire month with the Shaughnessy's and anything can happen--like falling for the guy behind the rock star persona.

Next, we have Talk Cowboy to Me by Carolyn Brown. The Fourth of July is coming up and there are definitely fireworks between Adele O'Donnell and Remington Luckadeau. These two are locked in a battle to buy the Double Deuce Ranch; and neither one is backing down. Adele is ready for a fresh start for herself--and her children--since her divorce. She fell in love with the Double Deuce the second she walked onto the property. Remington has decided to shed his carefree playboy persona and step-up to raise his orphaned nephews. He thinks the Double Deuce is just the place to raise two boys, but Adele is as determined as Remington to buy this ranch. Who knows what will happen when the sparks fly between these two.

The Most Dangerous Duke in London is a period romance by Madeline Hunter. Adam Penrose, Duke of Stratton is a dark and brooding member of London's elite Society of Decadent Dukes. He is said to have a thirst for vengeance and has set his romantic sites on Clara Cheswick, the beautiful daughter of his family's sworn enemy. There is a problem, however; Clara is more interested in publishing her women's journal than getting married--especially to a man said to be dead-set on revenge. Her reporter's instinct tell her there may be a story behind this supposed quest for justice, but Adam's persistence with a proposal of marriage seems to be unnerving the usually collected Clara. Could these two be courting danger?

Finally, we have an anthology by Julia Quinn, Elizabeth Boyle, Laura Lee Guhrke, and Stefanie Sloane called Four Weddings and a Sixpence. Four friends from Madame Rochambeaux's Gentle School for Girls find an old sixpence in their bedchamber and decide that this will be the lucky coin for each of their weddings. "Something Old" introduces Beatrice Heywood as well as the premise for the book. In "Something New," Anne Brabourne's ever-vigilant guardian decrees that she must marry by her twenty-first birthday, but love comes in the most unexpected of ways. Cordelia Padley has invented a betrothed to keep her family from constantly pestering her in "Something Borrowed." When they call her on her bluff, she will have to borrow a fiance that will convince them she is truly in love. "Something Blue" sees the sixpence stolen by a rake just before Lady Elinor Daventry has a chance to walk down the aisle. It will take all of her charms to convince the thief to give it back before her wedding. In "...and a Sixpence in Her Shoe," Beatrice Heywood never really believed in the power of the coin, but it seems to have worked for her friends, so she is willing to try to believe--if only it would stop sending her to the wrong man!