Library Blog

Gold Mine Processing Associate Eric Brown recommends Lying Awake by Mark Salzman.

Lying Awake is ultimately a story about faith.

It’s a present day tale of a nun, Sister John of the Cross, in a Carmelite monastery near Los Angeles. She discovers that she has epilepsy but is troubled that the remedy for her illness will interfere with her spirituality.

Mark Salzman wrote the story with a simple narrative and with an emphasis on prayer. He describes Sister John’s dilemma with sensitivity and with flashbacks of religious life. This story is a poignant reminder of the connection between religion, faith, love, and healthcare.

This book transported me back in time to when my father was in the hospital shortly before his passing. It reminded that healthcare workers are caring and supporting their patient’s families as much as they are the patient.

Find it in print and eaudiobook here.

All Decked Out. Now Where Do I Go..?

Kyla Merwin, Communications Manager, recommends The Hiker’s Guide to Sun Valley & Ketchum by Scott Marchant.

Just another gorgeous day in the Wood River Valley…Yeah baby! Adventure is calling my name, so I’m gearing up:

• Boots = ✓
• Sunscreen = ✓
• Water = ✓
• Snacks (lots) = ✓
• New Camera = ✓­­­­­
• Three-day Holiday = Check check check!

Now all I need is a place to go. Hmmm. . .I’m new to this area, having arrived last autumn from the sea-level metropolis of Portland, Oregon. Now that I’ve figured out how to breathe at this altitude, I’m ready to get a move on and do some exploring.

Enter the Hiker’s Guide to Sun Valley & Ketchum by Scott Marchant.

Scott has taken the traditional guidebook to a whole new level, with stunning images, topo maps, directions, and massive detail, including his favorite picks, season and family-friendly trails, and local information on flora, fauna and recent wildfires.

You might think the subject of “etiquette” belongs in the Library’s catalog under Emily Post or Miss Manners, but Scott has included the important rules of wilderness etiquette, as well as advice on personal safety and wilderness conservation. Pinky-extended, elbows-off-the-table, and punctuality NOT included. But you may be interested in his section on – er – waste removal (as in “pack in in; pack it out”).

Scott’s brand new and updated edition of 50 Hikes within 30 Miles of Sun Valley – hot off the press in June – raises the bar even higher. Scott personally hikes each of these trails and delivers the most up-to-date trail information available.

 “Go out, go out I beg of you, and taste the beauty of the wild.”

Edna Jaques

Scott has also published Hiker’s Guides to Sawtooth Country, McCall & Cascade, Stanley, and Greater Boise (including an edition for Best Easy Hikes), all of which you can find at the Community Library or through our Interlibrary Loan system. Many of his titles are also available as e-books.

More than a guidebook, Scott’s Hiker’s Guides become your personal companion on outdoor adventures. The detail he provides not only informs. It inspires.

You’ll find this quote from poet Edna Jaques on Scott’s Hiking Idaho website: “Go out, go out I beg of you, and taste the beauty of the wild.”

Aaah! I’ve finally found the final element – and the hinge pin – to my checklist:

• Inspiration = ✓

See you on the trails!

Find The Hiker’s Guide to Sun Valley & Ketchum here.

by Don Miguel Ruiz

Josi Manturano, Gold Mine Processing Associate, recommends The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz.

In The Four Agreements Don Miguel Ruiz reveals the source of self-limiting beliefs that rob us of joy and create needless suffering. Based on ancient Toltec wisdom, The Four Agreements offer a powerful code of conduct that can rapidly transform our lives to a new experience of freedom, true happiness, and love.

 It is a wonderful book for stress management and personal growth. It can help you bring sweeping changes to your life. This always will be a great little book with some weighty ideas. Focusing on any one of these agreements can greatly improve your life and decrease stress in life that we have to confront every day.

The book The Four Agreements was a highly influential book. It was first published in 1997. It has been an popular book. The book has since been translated into 46 languages.

Find it in print, eBook and eAudiobook.

Cathy Butterfield, Collections Manager, recommends Guards! Guards! A Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett

The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.

Sir Terry Pratchett (OBE)

Here there be dragons. Of course, this is Discworld, supported by four elephants, traveling on the back of a giant tortoise swimming through space, where million-to-one odds come true rather more often than they ought. Particularly in the gritty streets of Anhk-Morpork, patrolled by the thin muddy line of the Night Watch.  Dragons are above their pay scale, but they do what they can. Mainly, run. Or hide.  As Captain Vimes ponders:

“It’s a metaphor of human bloody existence, a dragon. And if that wasn’t bad enough, it’s also a bloody great hot flying thing.”

I revisited some of my favorite characters in Guards! this month, and it made me laugh, and think, which is sadly rare these days. The book (released in 1989 as Sir Terry was coming into the height of his powers) is also subversively relevant to current events. Politicians bewitched by the taste for power call up a force beyond their control and take the reins of government…reins which do not stand up to dragon fire. There are eerie portents in the text about inequity, supremacy, charismatic leaders, and the powerful magic of books.

Terry Pratchett wrote 41 books in Discworld from 1983-2015, spawning several major tracks for young people and adults. Guards! Guards! is the entry point for Watch cycle; the discerning young reader with a taste for skewed sword and sorcery will revisit the novels often for the pointed philosophy and comforting satire. Pratchett’s humor taps the same well waters as Monty Python, Douglas Adams and Robert Sheckley, but with deeper characters, finer storytelling, and more kindness. 

Homer would welcome Sir Terry to his campfire to trade yarns. Like The Iliad and The Odyssey, Discworld stories are littered with borrowed metaphors, knowing winks to popular culture and history, and stolen scenes and phrases. Luckily, Sir Terry also wrote in an explanation for all the pseudo anachronisms that litter his books: L-space. The events in our universe and the Discworld are separated by just the width of a turning page.

“The relevant equation is Knowledge = Power = Energy = Matter = Mass; a good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read. Mass distorts space into polyfractal L-space, in which Everywhere is also Everywhere Else. All libraries are connected in L-space by the bookwormholes created by the strong space-time distortion in any large collection of book.” ~Terry Pratchett, The Discworld Companion

Pratchett is the kind of writer that makes a person want to be a better person and help the people around them be better. He doesn’t say it outright. He’s sneaky that way. (“Person” in this instance being all-inclusive–whether dwarf, or vampire, or dragon, or werewolf, or magical ant. Or tourist.)

There is a Terry Pratchett book for everyone, though the arcs do tend to bend back on themselves, making the reading guide below an invaluable resource for librarians as well as readers. Fans of the books keep his spirit alive on archived websites dating back to the dawn of the internet, usenet and alt net listserves. 

The best way to enjoy L-space is to dive in.

Find it in our Axis360 and Overdrive eAudiobook downloadable collections.

The Discworld Reading Order Guide