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Martha Canfield Library E-news - February 2012
Welcome to the February 2012 edition of the Martha Canfield Library’s e-newsletter. If you have any suggestions, you can email them to our hotmail account or leave them in our suggestion jar on the front desk.
Events
The Martha Canfield will be hosting Ron Krupp, VPR commentator, farmer and author, on Sunday, February 12 at 2:00pm. He will be talking about his most recent book, Lifting the Yoke, and the locavore movement.
Ron has been involved with local farm and food issues in Vermont for over 49 years. He started one of the first farmers’ markets, in the early 70’s, in Brattleboro. Years later he tried to create a year-round, enclosed public market on the waterfront in Burlington. The market never got off the ground.
Thirty plus years ago Ron published the Green Mountain Farmer; a monthly Vermont newspaper dedicated to farm and food issues. For ten years he was a commercial organic/biodynamic vegetable grower. He also coordinated the 3-acre 165 plot Tommy Thompson Community Garden in the Intervale for 15 years. Ron currently teaches gardening at Heartbeet, a farm community in Hardwick for adults with disabilities.
Tax Forms
We have tax forms, both federal and state, and the 1040 instruction booklets are here! And we have reproducible copies of the less common forms. You can also access forms and information at www.irs.gov.
For Kids
The new Caldecott Award winner has been announced, and is available at the Library. It’s A Ball for Daisy, by Chris Raschka.
Daisy is a cute little dog. Her favorite toy is a red ball. She has fun playing with it, and even sleeps with it. One day she and her little girl take the ball to the park with them, but a terrible accident happens to the ball. Daisy is very sad, but all ends well, and Daisy even makes a new friend.
This wordless picture book shows a light-colored wriggly dog with a big black nose and perky black ears as she goes through her day with her ball. The ink, watercolor and gouache illustrations are very expressive, and you just want to hug Daisy. This book will become a favorite of dog lovers everywhere.
In the Canfield Gallery
Rupert artist Christopher Smith will be the featured artist at the Canfield Gallery from Feb. 2-28. As a student at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Christopher spent a year in Rome studying the art and sculpture of such masters as Da Vinci and Michelangelo. His studies at RISD revolved around painting and printmaking. Christopher's work has been exhibited in solo and group shows throughout New England and is represented by a number of area galleries. Stop in during Library hours to view a selection of his paintings.
The Russell Vermontiana Collection
By Bill Budde, Curator
The Russell Collection was fortunate to be able to scan and prepare some high resolution images of photographs take by former Arlington resident Herbert W. Congdon for the Arlington Community House. The pictures are mainly of the Sandgate, Arlington, and Sunderland area with a few from other Vermont towns and out of state. The photographs were taken about 1907 to 1914, and for the most part are very good.
In order to share the material with a wider audience we have scheduled a presentation at the library on Sunday, March 18 at 2:00 pm. Please come to learn more about the photographs and the Congdon family in Arlington.
We have also scheduled a presentation of the Introduction to Genealogy, 1 & 2, presented through the Career Development Center (CDC) in Bennington. This is not a Russell Collection sponsored event, so there is a registration fee required. Classes are scheduled from 6:00 to 8:00 pm beginning Tuesday March 20 and ending April 10. The first hour will focus on the basic genealogy skills and the second hour on internet tools. We have ten laptops for students to use, but you are welcome to bring your own laptop.
Book Sale
Our book sale in the Community House is now closed for the season, although we are still selling some books in the Library during regular hours. Please do not leave book donations outside the Community House, but you canbring them to the Library during our regular hours. But, please, we can’t use books with mold, mouse droppings, dirt or insects. Mold on books can be a health hazard for staff and for you, especially if it spreads to other books in the building. Mold is not always obvious as it often hides under the paper dust jackets. Please check any books you plan to donate, it costs the Library money to dispose of moldy books.
Also, we can’t use textbooks, Readers’ Digest Condensed Books, encyclopedias, old medical books and magazines that are not current.
Volunteer Opportunities
We need people to work at the checkout desk in the Library on Wednesdays or Friday afternoons. If you like helping people and are good with computers, we’d appreciate your help.
The Russell Collection needs a typist to help with odd jobs and someone to help with data entry. If you are interested, please see Bill in the Collection on Tuesdays.
The Mystery Corner
Ghosts & Other Things That Go Bump in the Night
By Martha Folsom
Is there a reason that we only pay attention to ghosts at Halloween? It seems like any 'dark and stormy night' is a good time to pick up a ghost mystery.
P. J. Alderman – Jordan Marsh was to start her life over in an old Victorian house she has purchased in Port Chatham, WA (Port Townsend, in disguise), but life gets complicated when the two ghosts that inhabit her home get her involved in murder, suspense and even romance. Light cozies with humour; the series starts with Haunting Jordan.
Mignon Ballard – Angel at Troublesome Creek is the first of Ballard's cozy series featuring Augusta Goodnight. The series is very typical of whimsical cozies, but its great redeeming feature is Augusta, a spunky Guardian Angel you'll love.
L. L. Bartlett – Jeff Resnick is a former insurance investigator living in Buffalo, NY. He was mugged and badly injured. Since the mugging he has developed psychic abilities and sees things (like murder) before they happen. Murder on the Mind is the first in a series that is slightly too edgy to call a cozy.
Mike Carey – Felix Castor has been able to talk to ghosts since he was a child, so he becomes an exorcist in London, England. He is able to form a bond with them and send them to a final peace, but after a very bad experience he'd like a job change. It's not going to happen. Felix has a dry, British sense of humour. This is a series for all the Harry Dresden fans. Great characters mark the series that begins with The Devil You Know.
Lee Driver - Driver has created a very strong series featuring Detective Chase Dagger and Sara Morningsky, who happens to be a shape-shifter. The books have a very 'real' feel to them, as opposed to having a 'fantasy' feel. They are good mysteries with lots of twists and surprise endings. Begin the series with The Good Die Twice.
Carolyn Haines – Sarah Booth Delaney, in Zinnia, Mississippi, was raised to be a good Southern "Daddy's Girl", but she has broken the rules by remaining unmarried and by being happy about it. Her house has a Southern ghost that is a bit quirky. Them Bones is the first in this cozy series.
Alice Kimberly – There are lots of ghosts in this column, but none like Jack Shepard, a hard-boiled, Manhattan gumshoe who was shot and killed 50 years ago, outside the bookshop that Penelope Thornton-McClure now owns. Penelope is everything a cozy mystery heroine should be, and Jack is everything opposite. It really works. Start with The Ghost and Mrs. McClure.
Wendy Roberts– Remains of the Dead will introduce you to Sadie Novak, who operates a cleaning company that specializes in cleaning up after violent or unattended death. She begins seeing ghosts, one of whom tells her that the police "have it all wrong". Naturally, Sadie gets involved. The concept of the series is unique and interesting and Roberts handles it very well. There are strong, multi-dimensional characters, good dialogue and while it is sometimes predictable there are also moments of surprising twists. (Some 'cleaning' scenes might be a bit graphic for a few people.)
Reader's Pick by Martha Folsom
Coal Black Horse, by Robert Olmstead
This is a story about one young man during the US Civil War, this is a book that needs to be read twice in a row.
In the first reading, the story is gripping as Robey leaves his quiet, loving home to bring his father back from the war and then encounters all the dangers, horrors and evils that were bred in war. Your chest gets so tight that it aches and you can hardly breathe as he begins to change in order to survive the dangers, both physical and mental, that he encounters along the way. He learns not to trust blindly, to steal and even to kill. He leaves home a young teen, not only in years but in understanding and returns home still a teen in years but a grown man in understanding. And even while you are in the grips of the story you are aware that you are reading a book of exceptional beauty.
And that is why you must reread: to savor, to inhale the exquisite prose of this book. I am sure that someone else could have taken this tale and written a 500 page novel that would not leave you as awe-struck as this thin book does. Each word is so carefully chosen, so perfectly placed that a masterpiece emerges and the book enters not only your mind, but also your heart.
The book is very graphic in describing the horrors of the aftermath of Gettysburg (in truth, any battle in any war). And well it should be, for the truth of the scene is horror and to tell it less is to take away the need for Robey's changes. To tell it less would also make war 'civilized' which it is not and takes away our need to understand that.
Wanted: More Reader's Picks
How about a Biography Reader's Pick for this newsletter? Or a History Reader's Pick, a Young Adult Reader's Pick -- even a Cookbook Reader's Pick? Send us short reviews of favorite books you think other like-minded readers will enjoy.
By the way, if the Library doesn't yet own the book, perhaps you'd like to purchase a copy -- at the Library's 20-45% discount -- and gift it to the collection. Talk to Phyllis.
New Books
Fiction
Zero Day, by David Baldacci
The Drop, by Michael Connelly
Save Me, by Lisa Scottoline
Lionheart, by Sharon Kay Penman
Only the River Runs Free, by Bodie and Brock Thoene
The Spies of Warsaw, by Alan Furst
The Twelfth Imam, by Joel C. Rosenberg
A Changed Man, by Francine Prose
Earthbound, by Joe Haldeman
The Fifth Witness, by Michael Connelly
The White Garden: a Novel of Virginia Woolf, by Stephanie Barron
The Year of Fog, by Michelle Richmond
Home for the Holidays, by Rebecca Kelly
Mystery
Gun Games, by Faye Kellerman
The Informant, by Thomas Perry
Ratking, by Michael Dibdin
Swan Peak, by James Lee Burke
The Tale of Holly How, by Susan Wittig Albert
The Crocodile’s Last Embrace, by Suzanne Arruda
Hasty Retreat, by Kate Gallison
Well-Offed in Vermont, by Amy Patricia Meade
Wined and Died, by Cricket McRae
Non-fiction
Young of the Year: Poetry, by Sydney Lea
Hypoglycemia for Dummies, by Cheryl Chow
Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman, by Robert K. Massie
And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut, a Life, by Charles J. Shields
How to Live, or, A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer, by Sarah Bakewell
The Poets Laureate Anthology, edited and with introductions by Elizabeth Hun Schmidt
The Better Way to Breastfeed, by Robin Elise Weiss
Dr. Susan Love’s Breast Book, 5th ed., by Susan M. Love with Karen Lindsey
It’s Probably Nothing: More Adventures of a Vermont Country Doctor, by Beach Conger (VT author)
Scout, Atticus and Boo: a Celebration of To Kill a Mockingbird, by Mary McDonagh Murphy
Top Screwups Doctors Make and How to Avoid Them, by Joe Graedon and Teresa Graedon
God, Creation and Tools for Life, by Sylvia Browne
Vermont Voices III: an Anthology
Audiobook CDs
I Am Half-sick of Shadows, by Alan Bradley
A Mercy, by Toni Morrison
Private, by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
Bog Child, by Siobhan Dowd
Dark Justice, by Jack Higgins
Music CDs
Handel’s Messiah: a Soulful Celebration
Stompin’at the Savoy
Symphony No. 4 in A major, Op. 90 “Italian”; Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Op. 56 “Scottish”, by Mendelssohn
Young Adult
The Necromancer, by Michael Scott
The Scorpio Races, by Maggie Stiefvater
The Fire, by James Patterson and Jill Dembowski
Legend, by Marie Lu
Children
Fiction
Racing Home, by Adele Dueck
A King’s Ransom, by Jude Watson (39 Clues)
Brave New Pond, by Jennifer L. Holm and Matthew Holm
Anna the Moonbeam Fairy, by Daisy Meadows
Sabrina the Sweet Dreams Fairy, by Daisy Meadows
Doggy Day Care, by A. J. Stern
Funny Business, by A. J. Stern
Principal for the Day, by A. J. Stern
Non-Fiction
Charles Dickens: Scenes from an Extraordinary Life, by Mick Manning
Irena Sendler and the Children of the Warsaw Ghetto, by Susan Goldman Rubin
How Long Is a Day?, by Claire Clark
How Long Is a Month?, by Claire Clark
How Long Is a Week?, by Claire Clark
How Long Is a Year?, by Claire Clark
Make Your Own Action Thriller, by Jonathan Quijano
Peyton Manning: Superstar Quarterback, by Marty Gitlin
Stonehenge, by Cynthia Kennedy Henzel
The Great Wall of China, by Cynthia Kennedy Henzel
Israel, by Claire Throp
Russia, by Jilly Hunt
United States of America, by Michael Hurley
Vietnam, by Charlotte Guillain
Drew Brees: Superbowl Champ, by Marty Gitlin
Fighting Fires, by Nick Hunter
Mountain Rescue, by Chris Oxlade
Easy Readers
Patrick in a Teddy Bear’s Picnic and Other Stories: a Toon Book, by Geoffrey Hayes
Mud Soup, by Judith Head
Nate the Great and the Hungry Book Club, by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat and Mitchell Sharmat
Tales of Oliver Pig, by Jean Van Leeuwen
Tiny’s Bath, by Cari Meister
Picture Books
Llama Llama Red Pajama, by Anna Dewdney
What Are You Doing?, by Elisa Amado
Levi Strauss Gets a Bright Idea, by Tony Johnston
The Night Night Book, by Marianne Richmond
The Pigeon Wants a Puppy, by Mo Willems
The Princess and the Potty, by Wendy Cheyette Lewison
Lights Out, Night’s Out, by William Boniface
Audio CDs
Thunder over Kandahar, by Sharon E. McKay
Countdown, by Deborah Wiles
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