Hygge at the Library

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian

As we wind up the month of January, some of us are starting to get tired of winter.  But if you subscribe to the Scandinavian idea of hygge, the key is to embrace winter instead of wishing it away.  Winter has its own beauty and blessings.

In that spirit, the library will be having two Hygge Saturdays in February.  On February 2 and February 16, the first and third Saturdays of the month, we’ll set up the library meeting room with board games, puzzles, coloring sheets, free books, crocheting supplies, and a hot chocolate bar.  Drop in for some low-key, cozy fun between 1 and 3 p.m. 

The Friends of the Library always has a cart of free books next to the lobby, except when it’s a book sale weekend.  If you want to find some free books to keep, or to just not have to return by a deadline, come in to browse those anytime.  These books are things that don’t sell on the book sale, but they’re still often popular when they’re on that cart -- plus that inventory turns over frequently, so you may see entirely different things by the time you visit again. A few of our patrons like to stock up from that cart in case they get snowed in and need more books to read.

If you’re looking for a book to check out to read on a winter day, of course we have many more of those.  Here are a few of our newest additions:

The Flimflam Affair is the latest Carpenter and Quincannon mystery from Bill Pronzini.  Sabina Carpenter and John Quincannon run a detective service in San Francisco at the turn of the last century.  In this installment, a medium and his assistant are swindling grieving people out of their money, and the detectives must find a way to reveal them as thieves.  Meanwhile, they’re solving a murder, a theft from a burglarproof safe, and a mystery involving a gang of counterfeiters that includes a man who’s supposed to be dead.

Pictures of Longing: Photography and the Norwegian-American Migration is a new release from University of Minnesota Press.  It was written by Sigrid Lien, a professor of art history and photography studies at the University of Bergen, Norway, and translated into English by Barbara Sjoholm.  In the 1800s and early 1900s, more than 750,000 Norwegians emigrated to America, a large percentage of Norway’s population.  The immigrants sent thousands of “America-photographs” home.  The author examines a selection of these photos and explains to the reader how to interpret them, telling stories about immigrants and photographers as she goes.  Not surprisingly, many of the photos in the book are from Minnesota and North Dakota.

The Litchfield Women’s Community Club has given the library a donation for large print books from time to time, either in memory or in honor of one of their members.  We have two new large print books from their recent donations:  Freedom’s Light by Colleen Coble and Night of Miracles by Elizabeth Berg.  

Freedom’s Light is an inspirational novel about a young widow who is tending a pair of lighthouses in Massachusetts during the Revolutionary War.  Night of Miracles is a small-town story about an older woman who is inspired to begin teaching baking classes and who looks out for people around her who need some help; it has a theme of coming together to harness the power of community. 

Come to one of our programs for some comfortable time of connecting with others (part of the definition of hygge), or check out some books to take to your own cozy home.  Either way, I hope the library helps you enjoy the rest of your winter.

Celebrating books with The Great American Read

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian

Have you heard about the new PBS show The Great American Read?  This is an eight-part television series about Americans’ favorite books.  The premiere was broadcast recently, and the final episode will air in October, when they will announce which book won first place in the voting. 

Host Meredith Vieira will introduce the 100 featured books, plus she will interview authors, celebrities, and regular people about how particular books have influenced them and our culture.  PBS is hosting a virtual book club on Facebook to discuss a couple of the books per week, and there will be some live public events, including some in select libraries across the country.  The public library in the little town of Cook, up in northern Minnesota, was the only library to receive the grant in our state. 

The list of America’s favorite 100 books was compiled by PBS and a polling service through a public survey asking people to name their most-loved novel.  Each author is represented only once, and book series are listed as one entry to increase variety in the list.  So, for example, the Harry Potter series is listed, rather than Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.  Books could be from anywhere in the world as long as they were published in English; only fiction was included.  The books span a wide range of time from the 1600s to 2016, as well as a wide range of genres and styles. 

Voting for favorite books has already opened online through the PBS website, and voting by phone will be available in the fall.  You can vote once per day.  It sounds a bit like American Idol for novels.

Our library’s adult book club has read some of the books on the list.  The Book Thief by Markus Zusak is an elegantly-written young adult novel narrated by Death.  An orphan named Liesel in Germany during World War II is taken in by the gentle Hans and his prickly wife Rosa, as is a young Jewish man named Max who needs a place to hide. Liesel becomes fast friends with Max as well as with Rudy, a scrappy, poor neighbor boy.  The friendships and the words in this book are beautiful, and it is a favorite of mine.

We have also read Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, a quiet epistolary novel about generations of ministers in a small town in Iowa.  Members found it thought-provoking.  The Giver by Lois Lowry was another young adult novel we’ve read that most of the readers enjoyed; it’s an intriguing look at a supposedly utopian society.  We have also read Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, The Martian by Andy Weir, A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving, and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith.  I would say they are all worth reading.

The idea behind the series is to get people reading and talking about books.  This is a goal the library shares.  Look on the display on top of the DVD shelf to easily pick up some of the 100 books from the Great American Read. 

From Page to Screen: Movies Based on Books This Fall

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian

Books made into movies always stir up a lot of interest.  It’s amazing how much more a book will get checked out when it’s adapted into a movie.  This fall there will be a number of movies and a new television show or two based on books.  Get a start now to read the book before the movie you want to see hits theaters.

A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail is Bill Bryson’s popular book from the 1990s about his attempt to hike the trail.   Written with self-deprecating humor, this is supposed to be different than introspective travel memoirs like Wild; Bryson decided to hike the trail because it was there, with a companion even less prepared than he was.  The movie, A Walk in the Woods, stars Robert Redford and Nick Nolte and is coming out on September 2. 

Unlikely Angel: The Untold Story of the Atlanta Hostage Hero is available in the Litchfield library on CD and in other libraries in print.  Ashley Smith tells her story of being held hostage in her apartment by Brian Nichols, who had just killed several people while escaping from a courthouse.  The movie adaptation is called Captive and will be released September 18, starring Kate Mara and David Oyelowo.

Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials is the movie adaptation of the second book in the Maze Runner trilogy. In The Scorch Trials by James Dashner, the teens have another challenge to face: crossing 100 miles of desert while being attacked by zombies in order to reach a cure for the disease that will turn them into zombies, too.  This dystopian thriller will arrive in theaters September 18. 

I am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban is a bestselling book that came out in 2013.  Malala Yousafzai began fighting for girls’ rights to education when she was eleven.  At age fifteen, she was shot in the head on her bus ride home from school in an attempt to silence her.  In 2014 she became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for her continued role as a spokesperson for educating girls.  The documentary He Named Me Malala will be released October 2. 

The Martian by Andy Weir is a novel from 2014 that got great reviews.  In it, an astronaut is left behind on Mars when his crew evacuates the planet because of a dust storm.  No one even knows he’s alive, but he doesn’t give up.  A futuristic take on a castaway story, the movie starring Matt Damon opens October 2. 

The 2011 biography Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson also was praised by critics.  Now the movie by the same title is coming out on October 9.  Michael Fassbender plays Jobs, with Kate Winslet playing Joanna Hoffman and Seth Rogan playing Steve Wozniak. 

Also debuting this fall are The Last Kingdom, the BBC TV series based on Bernard Cornwell’s Warrior Chronicles series; Room, the movie adaptation of Emma Donoghue’s novel of the same name; and The 33, based on Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set Them Free by Hector Tobar. 

Get ahead of the rush now by ordering any of these books on our online catalog or speaking with a library staff member to request a copy.  

Diane Stanley: A Closer Look

By Jan Pease

Part of my job is to read book reviews written by library professionals.  Occasionally I receive a book review from a friend of mine, Raechel, who is now 17.  I have a few other young friends who will write a book review, mostly in the summer.  The reviews and the reviewers are all delightful.

Raechel reviewed “Bella at Midnight,” by Diane Stanley.  Here are Raechel’s words:

“This is one of my (many) favorite books, though it is simple.  “Bella at Midnight” is a twist between the fairytale Cinderella, and the life account of Joan of Arc, in a very clever and well-written way.  It is fiction, written in first-person, told “by” many of the different characters in the book.  Each character is well built up by the author, making the book all the easier to get into.  I love this book, and have read it numerous times, enjoying it each reading!” 

Diane Stanley both writes and illustrates children’s books.  She is famous for her picture book biographies, but she also tells her own versions of classic fairy tales.  It isn’t surprising that she includes a Joan of Arc theme because one of her beautifully illustrated biographies is that of Joan of Arc, published in 2002.  Litchfield library owns 10 books by Diane Stanley, and many more are available through Pioneerland Library System.  Ms. Stanley has won many awards, including the Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction from the National Council for Teachers of English, and she is the recipient of the Washington Post/Children's Book Guild Award for Nonfiction for the body of her work.  Her books routinely receive starred reviews in professional journals, and are nominated for, and receive, awards in many of the U.S. state book awards, from Maine to California.

Ms. Stanley is an example of a wonderful, hard-working artist and author who hasn’t won the “big” awards, but is recognized for the excellence of her work.   I can’t understand why she hasn’t won the Newbery for one of her novels, or the Caldecott for illustrations in a picture book. 

Visit her website, dianestanley.com.   Her website shows what an artistic author can do with animation and information.  Her story is interesting.  She began her professional life as a medical illustrator, illustrated many children’s books, and now writes novels for children and young adults. She says of writing, “It’s as if I entered the field of children’s books through the art door but ended up in the writing room.  I’m very comfortable there.”  

I’m glad that Raechel re-introduced me to Diane Stanley’s works.  My goal now is to make her a household name.  See you at the library!

How I Spent My Summer Vacation!

Shoreline in Front of Outpost Motel, Grand Marais, MN

borrowed from their website

By Jan Pease

Everyone agrees that summer has gone incredibly fast, but why, when you have a week off in a beautiful location, does time go even faster?   Dave, Becca and I just returned from a week on the North Shore, so this is our annual “what’s in the book bag” confessional.

My husband Dave is reading the “Sharpe’s Rifle” series by Bernard Cornwall, and also the series, “Game of Thrones,” by George R.R. Martin.  He brought three books plus his Bible, which goes everywhere he does.  We celebrated his birthday by adding to his book pile.

Becca brought her usual selection of geology, botany, and natural history books.  To celebrate a friendly fresh water otter that visited “our” shoreline, she bought a copy of Stan Teikala’s “Mammals of Minnesota Field Guide.”  Her other reading selections are on her notebook, because she downloads novels from various sources.  She’s an avid Pioneerland ebook fan and often is on waiting lists for popular ebooks from Pioneerland and from Hennepin County Library. 

And as for me, I brought my Nook, which has now 60 books including two Bibles, a cookbook, and too many other choices to choose from.  I started reading the best-selling “In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin,” by Erik Larson and “The Sleepwalkers,” by Paul Grossman.  Both were recommended to me by a patron, and it is interesting to read both a non-fiction account and a novel set during the rise of Hitler’s Germany in the early 1930’s.  I’m reading “Dug Down Deep,” by Joshua Harris, recommended by Raechel (see Litchfield Independent Review August 25^th edition). I wish this had been the book we used in theology classes instead of the tomes I struggled through in college.   I can’t leave out “The Name of the Wind,” by Patrick Rothfuss.  This is simply a great fantasy read.  I can’t wait to get through this one, so I can read his second book, “Wise Man’s Fear,” which was published in March of this year. I’m also re-reading the “Girl Who Played With Fire,” by Stieg Larsson.  I read it last year but can’t remember a lot of it. 

Every day I watched Lake Superior in its (her?) many moods.  One day waves crashed on the rocks, the next it was quiet; cool one day, warm the next.   We watched spindly fingers of fog stretch toward the pine trees on the shore and then suddenly evaporate in warm sunshine.   One day a bank of fog made an interesting shade of gray/pink/lavender against the blue water that made me wish I was an artist who could capture colors with paint.

A highlight of this trip was visiting the studio of a real artist, Betsy Bowen.  She is famous for her woodcuts, and her gallery also features other local artists.  Betsy was there the day we visited, friendly and gracious about my star-struck state.  We have her books in the children’s collection, and I purchased an autographed copy of “Great Wolf and the Good Woodsman” to replace our worn edition.

Our hosts, Jim and Jennifer Plahuta of the Outpost Motel, were accommodating as always.  They provided everything we needed to be very comfortable without hovering.  As I talked to other guests at this family-owned motel, I discovered that many of us make a yearly visit, bringing along books and dogs, kids and grandchildren.  To our little dog Harley’s dismay, there were several canine guests with their owners.  He tends to think of it as his place, and after several visits, I feel the same way. 

See you at the library!

Are You Interested in American History?

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian

This week, I should first let you know that the library is open for business, even though the state government is shut down as I write this.  The regional library systems aren’t state agencies, and most of our funding comes from our counties and cities.  Perhaps by the time you read this, everything will be resolved and back to normal; we can hope.

Since the 4^th of July was this week and the sesquicentennial of the beginning of the Civil War is this year, I thought we could take a look at American history resources in this week’s column.  We have some interesting new books, and I’d also like to share an online resource that’s great if you enjoy history.

The Library of Congress has a wonderful digital library called American Memory.  You can find it at http://memory.loc.gov.  This online library has a large collection of digitized photos, maps, sound recordings, videos, print documents, and sheet music, from the collections of the Library of Congress and other institutions.  It’s a free way for anyone to view these primary historical documents that otherwise are tucked away in archives around the country. 

You can browse the collection by topic, such as advertising, cities & towns, and war/military, by time period, by type of material (maps, manuscripts, motion pictures, etc.) or by region of the U.S.  I think it’s fascinating to browse through the George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, or Abraham Lincoln papers, viewing scans of letters and other documents in their own handwriting.  You can browse a collection of over 1000 Civil War photographs.  Many, many resources are available for you to explore.

The digital library works best when you browse it by topic or collection, but it is possible to search it, as well.  If you search “Litchfield Minnesota”, you will find several photos from the 1940s and text from various Congressional publications from the 1800s that mention Litchfield.  Unfortunately, the text searching in the “Century of Lawmaking” collection does also bring up documents about Litchfield, Connecticut, when the Senate report or House bill also includes the word “Minnesota”.  The photos are classified by subject, United States—Minnesota—Litchfield, so the photo results are accurate.

If you’d like to find some good books on American history, we have some new ones in our library that you may want to check out.  The Union War, by Gary W. Gallagher, has been described as a revisionist history of the Civil War.  One review I read described it as “the Civil War: Northern edition”.  Gallagher, a professor at the University of Virginia, draws upon original documents from the time to present the viewpoint that the North fought the war with massive numbers of volunteer soldiers primarily in order to preserve the union, and that they also happened to free the slaves. 

The book Lincoln on War is an edited collection of the writings and comments of Abraham Lincoln on the topic of war from his days as an officer to his years as the commander-in-chief.  Lincoln’s speeches, letters, memos, orders, and spoken remarks are presented in chronological order, so that the development of his ideas on war through the years can be seen. 

The Civil War: A Visual History is published by DK Publishing in association with the Smithsonian Institution.  It’s a large, comprehensive book filled with photos and illustrations from the Smithsonian’s collections.  Timelines, first-person accounts, and examinations of broader issues in the war all add to the very thorough coverage of the war.  Reviewers from School Library Journal to the Wall Street Journal have praised this book.

Going back to the beginning of the United States, the book Was America Founded as a Christian Nation? A Historical Introduction looks at the history of a controversial issue of today.  The author, John Fea, holds a Ph.D. and is the chair of the history department at Messiah College in Pennsylvania.  Reviewers say that the book is a very balanced view of the debate, providing no easy answers and allowing the reader to decide for him or herself.  Fea draws upon primary sources from throughout America’s history, tracing the development of the idea of America as a Christian nation, examining the effects of religion on the American Revolution, and studying the beliefs of the founding fathers.

If you need some help finding books or websites on American history, come and talk to us at the library. 

Minnesota Book Awards 2011

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian

The Friends of the St. Paul Public Library announced the winners of the 2011 Minnesota Book Awards on April 17th. We have many of them available to check out at the Litchfield Public Library.

My Heart is Like a Zoo by Michael Hall won the award for children’s literature. This is a brightly-colored picture book in which the animals are made from heart shapes. It covers emotions, shapes, and colors, in addition to animals. We have this book in our picture book section.

The award for genre fiction went to Wendy Webb for her novel The Tale of Halcyon Crane. It’s been praised as a creepy, modern gothic novel that readers can’t put down. A copy has been ordered for our library, and it’s currently available to order from another library in Pioneerland.

Another winner we’ve ordered is Carrier: Untangling the Danger in My DNA by Bonnie J. Rough. It won in the memoir and creative non-fiction category. Rough writes about her experience as a carrier of a rare genetic condition as she and her husband consider having a baby and as she researches her family’s experience with the disease. The “creative” part of her non-fiction comes in writing in the voices of her mother and her late grandfather, one a carrier and one a sufferer of hypohidrotic ectodermal dysplasia.

The Minnesota Award goes to a non-fiction book on Minnesota history, nature, social customs or nostalgia. This year’s winner is North County: The Making of Minnesota, by Mary Lethert Wingerd. It’s described as a comprehensive look at how this area became the state of Minnesota. We have this book in the collection, but it’s frequently checked out. We can help you request it if you don’t find it on the shelf when you stop in.

The award for young adult fiction went to Blank Confession by Pete Hautman. This realistic fiction novel covers bullying and drug dealing with what has been described by reviewers as a simple but gripping story with good character development. Hautman is a past winner of the National Book Award. You’ll find this book in our young adult hardcover section.

We have some of the other nominees for the Minnesota Book Awards available in our library, as well. A Night on the Range by Aaron Frisch was nominated for the children’s literature award. This picture book shows the imaginative cowboy adventures of a little boy and his dog when they camp out in the back yard.

The Assassination of Hole in the Day by Anton Treuer is a non-fiction book for adults on Ojibwe culture and tradition and the events leading up to the 1868 killing of an Ojibwe leader by his own people. Treuer is a professor of Ojibwe at Bemidji State University.

Silencing Sam is a mystery by Julie Kramer. It’s the third book in the series which includes Stalking Susan and Missing Mark. Television reporter Riley Spartz is a suspect in the murder of a gossip columnist in the Twin Cities and secretly investigates the case. Kramer is a past Minnesota Book Award winner and freelance news producer who made an appearance at the Dassel Library as part of our Pioneerland authors tour last year.

If you’d like to check out these honored books written and/or illustrated by Minnesotans, stop in at our library and we’ll be glad to help you find them.

New critically-acclaimed books

4/7/11
by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian

The Litchfield Library has just gotten some new books that reviewers have ranked as some of the best of the past year.   They run the gamut from philosophy to historical fiction to cookbooks.

How to Live: Or a Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer, by Sarah Bakewell,  was the winner of the 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography and received glowing reviews from the New York Times Book Review and many regional newspapers.   This biography of the philosopher and writer is approached as a list of twenty ways to live well, addressing issues that are still relevant today:  Don’t worry about death.  Pay attention.  Question everything.   In fact, the book’s writer describes Michel de Montaigne as a 16^th-century blogger: a skeptical, curious, and playful thinker and essayist.

On the fiction side, The Irresistible Henry House by Lisa Grunwald was another well-reviewed book of the year.  The character Henry House has been compared to Forrest Gump for the ways in which he goes through significant moments in mid-20^th-century history.  He begins life as a “practice baby” in a college home economics program in the 1940s, an experience that teaches him how to charm women but avoid becoming attached.  The book follows Henry’s life through the changes of the 1950s and ‘60s.

Tasting Freedom: Octavius Catto and the Battle for Equality in Civil War America is a nonfiction book about a civil rights activist who lived long before the civil rights era of the twentieth century.  Catto was well-known in his time as a teacher, as an orator who worked with Frederick Douglass, and as a second-baseman for Philadelphia’s black baseball team.  This well-written book covers the largely-forgotten early efforts to gain basic rights for African-Americans. 

Another nonfiction book, Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages, by linguist Guy Deutscher, addresses the question of whether culture and language affect each other.   Can different languages lead a person to think in different ways?  This book has been described as entertaining and easy to read, even while being an intellectual look at language.

Rock musician Patti Smith’s memoir Just Kids won the 2010 National Book Award for nonfiction.  Smith is known as a poetic songwriter, and she applied her writing talent to this description of her long-time relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe and the chaotic, creative world of artists they lived among from the late 1960s through the ‘70s. 

The Twelfth Imam, by best-selling author Joel Rosenberg, is a Christian political thriller about an Iranian-American CIA operative working to infiltrate the Iranian government and avoid an apocalyptic war.  Reviewers call the novel gripping and fast-paced, with well-crafted characters.

The Killing Storm is Kathryn Casey’s third Sarah Armstrong thriller.  Texas Ranger Armstrong investigates ritual killings of cattle and the kidnapping of a 4-year-old boy, while a hurricane approaches Houston.  The main character faces complex personal issues throughout this suspenseful mystery.  Library Journal recommends it for fans of J.A. Jance.

Readers of epic fantasy may want to check out Mark Charan Newton’s debut novel Nights of Villjamur.  The first installment in the Legends of the Red Sun series incorporates murder mystery, making this a genre-crossing novel, described as having unusual characters and compelling writing.

On the more practical side, one of the best how-to books of the year was The Gourmet Cookie Book: The Single Best Recipe from Each Year 1941-2009.  This cookbook is full of artful photographs and 68 cookie recipes of all types, reflecting the kinds that were popular in each decade.

You can find these and a wide variety of other fiction and non-fiction books on the new-books shelf at our library.