Staff Reviews: Books, Films, Music, and More

Review by Gold Mine Processing Associate Eric Brown

Educated is a memoir by the American author Tara Westover. Tara recounts overcoming her survivalist Mormon family in order to go to college, and emphasizes the importance of education in enlarging her world.

She explores her struggle to reconcile her desire to learn with the world she inhabited with her father.

Tara details her journey from her isolated life in the mountains of Idaho to completing a PhD program in history at Cambridge University. She started college at the age of 17 having had no formal education. She explores her struggle to reconcile her desire to learn with the world she inhabited with her father.

Having grown up in rural southern Idaho, reading this memoir was more relatable and tangible than other memoirs I have read. Her story of resiliency, courage, and hope is inspiring for me, as well as many others.

Find it in print, ebook, eaudiobook, and CD here.

by Ali Hazelwood 

Reviewed by Sara Zagorski, Gold Mine Thrift Store Retail Manager

Now, I’m not generally one to (admit that I) like romance books or anything of the genre, but after the holidays I most definitely needed a bit of lighter fanfare than my usual sort. During the last bit of the year my stress level is generally at an all-time high and whatever book I find myself reading has no business adding to it. Queue: Love on the Brain. 

Two mortal nemeses find themselves paired together on a project for NASA that will either make or break Dr. Bee Königswasser’s career. Bee has devoted herself to neuroengineering and the simple question: What would Marie Curie do? From the very beginning the pushback from said nemesis, Levi Ward, is apparent and disheartening. The two had previously met in grad school where Ward made his feelings rather obnoxiously known—that life would be a heck of a lot easier if they stayed galaxies far, far away. (There’s a lot of Star Wars references sprinkled throughout, both a treat and an all-too-typical nerd trope. I digress.)  Bee is determined to overcome this and prove to Ward that, not only is she the best fit academically for the new technology they’re seeking to implement, but also a more than capable scientist overall.  

…life would be a heck of a lot easier if they stayed galaxies far, far away.

In addition to her workplace drama, she also finds herself the secret owner of a Twitter account that’s reached accidental fame, partially due to its questioning of the systems set into place concerning traditional testing and acceptance of new students into doctorate programs. She takes her real-life fight and that of her internet crusade on with an ardor that’s both admirable and exhausting to consider.  

My final thoughts are as follows. Entertaining? Certainly. Light-hearted? Yes, as long as you don’t actually sit and dwell on the practices and (still somehow) modern thoughts about women in science. Would I read it again? Probably, ask me around January 5^th next year. 

Find the ebook on Libby here.

Directed by Kim Bartly

Reviewed by Daniel Velasco, Gold Mine Processing Associate

Filmed over three years, Pure Grit explores the life of Sharmaine Weed, a ten-time Native American bareback horse racing champion living with her girlfriend, mother, two brothers, and paralyzed sister.

Filming took place in the Wind River reservation and in Denver, Colorado, where she and her girlfriend moved to start a life together. She never refused to let go of her dream of owning her own horse by taking jobs to raise money to buy one. She continued to become a champion in the dangerous sport that injured her brother and paralyzed her sister.

…no matter how hard life gets, you must get back on that horse and face the challenges that life gives you.

The documentary shows the difficulties of relationships, and the grief of losing a relationship and family members.

It also shows the real-life struggles of growing up within an unhealthy environment where there’s substance and physical abuse. That you sometimes must sacrifice the little good you have to start fresh and make your life better. What this film showed was that no matter how hard life gets, you must get back on that horse and face the challenges that life gives you.

This film hits a little too close to home being a part of the LGBTQ+ community in a small town as Sharmaine is in her hometown. I have great respect for her for going through all the struggles that she has been through all her entire life.

Watch the film on Kanopy here, free with your library card.

Information Systems Manager, Will Duke, recommends Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman.

I have never read a book of poetry before. Oh, I’ve read poems. Lots of poems. I’ve read poems from collections, from the Norton Anthology. I’ve read poems from the Internet. I’ve read poems from student poets.  I’ve read poems on splotchy xeroxed copies of copies. 

I have always thought of poems as standalone, self-contained things. In fact, I don’t know that I can “read” a poetry book.  I never get a poem in one pass. I study poems. I don’t start to “get it” until I’m 3 or 4 reads in, at least. The words fly by too quickly, and I start to think about rainbows and unicorns, or something else shiny, and the poem is finished and I’m reading the next one.   

Isn’t poetry the perfect literary medium for the modern age?  They can be read quickly, 15 seconds of attention, tik tok the time has passed and so has the poem. But maybe that’s nothing new. Led Zepplin famously didn’t release singles; the album was the work. Listen to the album, they said.   

It is at this moment I realize the secret truth of poetry: It must be read aloud. 

When I started to read Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman, I flipped through the pages, one poem after another. The poet was in a pandemic and struggling with all that meant. “It is easy to harp / harder to hope. … The glorious was not made to be piecemeal,” rises from the page and demands my attention. A quick read wasn’t going to work. I had to go back and read the whole poem again. Then I wanted to hear it. At this moment I realize the secret truth of poetry: It must be read aloud. 

I start again, supporting each poem with my voice. It slows me down. The sound of my voice resonates for me, and I start to feel the rhythm—not just of the individual words, or even the poem, but the ebb and flow of the book itself.

I turn the book sideways to read a poem shaped like a fish.  I read about people, demons’ gifts, and nature in a vase where we can “lay it down”. I find hope in the poems: “But there’s something different on this golden morning / Something magical in the sunlight, wide and warming.”   

Gorman uses any tool to make a poem work: form, meter, rhyme, figurative language, sound devices. She speaks to our conscience, our heart, our sadness, our hopes and our dreams. Her poetry is creative and huge and wonderful. 

I recommend Gorman without reservation. She deserves her title as the first National Youth Poet Laureate. Try reading this book out loud, or not, as you deem fit, but read it. And then talk about poetry. Share what you love with those you love. 

Which reminds me: Every Thursday I lead “Brown Bag Poetry” in the Library’s Learning Commons. How and why the Library IS Manager leads the poetry discussion is a collection of stories for another day.  Today, I wanted to invite you to come hang out with us on Thursdays at 11:30 a.m. right here at the library. You’re welcome to bring lunch, if you’d like. On January 19, 2023, we’ll be talking about Amanda Gorman. 

Find it in print, ebook, and eaudiobook here.

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Brown Bag Poetry

Bring your own lunch and nestle in for some great conversation, led by the Library’s information systems manager (who has the heart of a poet): Will Duke.

Thursdays at 11:30 a.m. in the Learning Commons.

In the words of C.S. Lewis: “Eating and reading are two pleasures that combine admirably.”

We couldn’t have said it better!

A Bold New Economy at the Gold Mine 

By Craig Barry, Managing Director, Gold Mine Stores

Roughly 15,000 vehicles roll through the alley behind the The Gold Mine thrift store each year donating roughly 225,000 items— from vintage ski pants to flat screen TVs to Waterford crystal goblets. We triage the donations, sort, cull, price, and put the best-of-the-best of them on the floor for sale. Purchases from the Gold Mine help support the programs, classes, and collections at The Community Library, as well as employing 17 people, and supporting an icon of the local community (est. 1955).  

When you donate something to The Gold Mine, you’re doing much more than clearing out space in your closet or garage. When you purchase something from the Gold Mine, much more than a “screaming good deal” is happening.  

You’re helping change the world, one ski hat, one coffee maker, one cashmere sweater at a time.  

Recycling is a concept or practice with which we all feel pretty comfortable. Recycling, however, is often misunderstood, and over the past several decades has increasingly shown its age. 

A new era in thinking has emerged in how we should better address consumption … Enter the circular economy.

The ubiquitous chasing arrows represented how we, as consumers, were supposed to approach the material objects in our lives. These arrows depict how we should first and foremost: 

• “reduce” the amount of materials needed; 
• “reuse” those items that find their way into our lives;  
• and finally once we’re finished with something, “recycle” what’s left. 

Yet reduction is often overlooked, reuse is often conflated with recycling and true recycling works for a limited set of items. What kicked off in the 1980s as means to interrupt a linear progression of materials – extraction, manufacturing, consumption to ultimately disposal or landfilling – is now a firmly rooted, if not somewhat weathered, vestige of a decades old perception of how to save the planet. 

That was then; this is now. A lot has changed. 

We’ve realized that recycling is actually pretty challenging—and even more so in rural areas like ours.  We’ve realized that recycling does a great job with certain materials (aluminum, cardboard, office paper) but not for all (mixed paper, plastics). Most importantly, we’ve realized that this approach to the complicated way that our society uses materials is oversimplistic and ultimately inadequate in addressing increasingly more serious climate concerns. 

Far from the “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” paradigm that kicked off in the 1980s, a new era in thinking has emerged in how we should better address consumption. Instead of trying to moderate a linear system, it wants to entirely shift this paradigm to a circular system.  

Enter the circular economy. 

This shift seeks to meld the world of finite material resources with the world of renewables such as energy and biodegradable items including compost and food waste. 

Conceptually, the circular economy looks to repudiate longstanding linear models. These linear models all relied on an assumption that there was always somewhere else materials could go (just throw it away) and that there would always be an amount of finite materials to feed our economy. Neither of those assumptions are true and, as the years advance, seem more and more absurd. Whether it’s water, oil, clean air, or lithium, it’s clear that we have been increasingly taxing our resources and that this trend shows no sign of abating. 

The circular economy seeks to change all that by introducing a new way of thinking for renewables and materials. It is based upon three basic principles that are rooted in “smart design”:  

1. Elimination of waste and pollution by breaking the “take-make-waste” system 

2. Preserve products and materials at their highest value by fostering greater circulation 

3. Regenerate nature by designing products to return to a natural or biodegradable state 

It’s much more than “keeping items out of the landfill.” It’s about acknowledging that these items possess intrinsic value that are worth much more than they would have been if they were disassembled and recycled or landfilled.

So what might all this have to do with our community? Thrifts, such as the Gold Mine, the Attic, Barkin, and the Building Thrift, are all squarely aimed at principle #2 – preserving products at their highest value. It’s much more than “keeping items out of the landfill.” It’s about acknowledging that these items possess intrinsic value that are worth much more than they would have been if they were disassembled and recycled or landfilled. Moreover, our secondhand stores are not only reusing items but they are reusing items that come from the community itself. It is not unusual for items to circulate through the Gold Mine several times, renewing its value at each cycle. Ideally, these items would also be manufactured here (think Jytte hat) but by recirculating items locally we help bolster this circular economy.  

Could we do more? Sure. In addition to promoting more reuse, we can also look towards prolonging the usefulness of items by properly maintaining and repairing them. Why buy a new vacuum when you could repair this one? We could also look at strengthening our sharing economy. Why own a drill that sits idle 95% of the time when you can borrow one? These are all areas in which we could expand our services and areas that would help strengthen our circular economy.  

So next time you’re looking to “recycle” clothes, gear, housewares, etc. at the Gold Mine, remember that you are doing so much more than “recycling.” You are recognizing that your items possess more value in their present form than they could ever have being recycled or landfilled. Just as our donors help stock our store, our customers help complete that circle with their purchases. They not only provide much needed funds to support worthy causes, but they are also helping to shift our economy in more sustainable and circular directions. 

Children’s and Young Adult Library Director, Deann Campbell, recommends Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices by Paul Fleischman.

Before reading Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices by Paul Fleischman, I had enjoyed poetry—loved it even. But I had mostly read poetry. This is not a collection to be read, it is a collection to be performed… with someone else. After all, these are poems for two voices.  

The first poem of the collection may have given me goosebumps. Mostly, I remember how clever it was: Grasshoppers hopping, hatching out, into spring, hopping, leapfrogging, longjumping grasshoppers. Plus, there was the back and forth of the readers voices and rhythm and cadence that I’d never heard with poetry. These poems have a sing-songy element melded with the characteristics of insects and the rhythm of words, and hopping, striding, flying insects. The poems all focus on insects: Moths, Mayflies, Cicadas, Water Striders, Fireflies, Bumblebees.  

There is a click clackety and a back and forth-ness to the poems. A joy in reading and reciting. Together, these poems for two voices make a joyful noise.  

The poems are clever, funny, spry, and sometimes somber. The illustrations, too, are wonderful. In them Eric Beddows gives life, whimsey and accuracy to the starring characters. On the cover is a beautiful and accurately drawn butterfly who, upon closer inspection, taps a tambourine.  

The true joy, however, is in reading the poem with a partner or friend. While not difficult, it may take a little practice before the poems are performance worthy. There is a knack to time the lines that you say alone and the lines that are spoken in chorus. There is a click clackety and a back and forth-ness to the poems. A joy in reading and reciting. Together, these poems for two voices make a joyful noise.  

Note: This book was the recipient of the 1989 Newbery Medal. The Newbery Medal recognizes “The most distinguished contribution to American literature for children.” The Newbery Award and Caldecott, the two most prestigious awards in Children’s Literature each year, will be announced in January.