Staff Reviews: Books, Films, Music, and More

As the shadows grow longer, before the days of suns return, a pair of recommendations…how scary is TOO scary?  Cathy Butterfield, Collections Manager, recommends My Heart is a Chainsaw and The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water. Halloween is coming, a holiday rife with perilous contradictions.  Gifts of candy are shared with stories of ghosts.  Pre-Christian traditions tangle with All Hallow’s Eve observances.  The walls of reality thin, and bend, and rumors of … [Read more...] about Book Reviews: My Heart is a Chainsaw…

Weird Fiction, Part 1 of 2 by Nicole Lichtenberg, Director of Operations It’s spooky season! Halloween is my favorite time of year. It has it all—fun snacks, costumes, activities—for all ages. Please allow me to recommend some accompanying content. I will be focusing on Weird Fiction, a flexible subgenre of fiction that can include elements of magical realism, fantasy, horror, science fiction, speculative fiction, even western! Generally, part of the plot includes the transgression of … [Read more...] about Let’s Get Weird!

Carter Hedberg, Director of Philanthropy, recommends Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger. Summers were pretty quiet for me growing up in the village of Waldorf in rural south-central Minnesota, population 283. Every Sunday my family went to church, and a trip to the town’s tiny grocery store meant riding my bike two blocks. I have fond memories of navigating the railroad tracks on the edge of town with my cousin Debbie as we looked for the perfect agate, or going down to Little … [Read more...] about Book Review: “Ordinary Grace”

Martha Williams, Director of Programs and Education, recommends Woman Without Shame by Sandra Cisneros. In her new collection of poems—her first published in 28 years—Sandra Cisneros breathes fearless words into everyday life. The poems in this book are ripe with self-discovery and self-appreciation, but also desire and aging and death. Acknowledging where she may find shame as she ages, Cisneros instead finds joy and humor and a deep understanding of how she wants to move in … [Read more...] about Book Review: Woman Without Shame

Sara Zagorski, Gold Mine Thrift Store Retail Manager, recommends Tess of the Road by Rachel Hartman. Do you like intense character development, rebellion against the system, humanoid, sentient reptilian creatures and mystical adventures? Well, have I got the book for you.  Tess is a twin sister in an affluent family who’s resigned herself to the official title of black sheep. After spending her youth seeking out all the things women of her rank have no business being … [Read more...] about Book Review: “Tess of the Road”

Andrea Nelson, Library Assistant, recommends The Library Book by Susan Orlean. Ahh, Los Angeles in the eighties! Such a study in contrasts. At once glittering, decaying, innovative, desperate, brilliant and dark. Shining stars, black holes, and all manner of people. In the twentieth century, dreamers from every corner of the planet flocked to L.A. By the mid-eighties, the City of Angels was both a cultural mecca and its own stylized cliché, but at its heart stood one true thing, steadfast … [Read more...] about Book Review: The Library Book