Russian spies, remote hideouts, British Secret Service, exhilarating car chases, unwitting Americans and a few twists and turns you definitely will not see coming, Our Kind of Traitor is yet another great film adaptation of a John Le Carre novel. Watching, you’ll ask yourself, who is the bad guy here?
Check It Out Category: Staff Picks
Fiction: Whatever Happened to Interracial Love? by Kathleen Collins
Kathleen Collins was an African-American playwright, filmmaker, educator, and civil rights activist who died at the age of 46 in 1988. Whatever Happened to Interracial Love? is a newly published collection of short stories she wrote in the 1970s. There are breathtaking as well as quieter stories, many with a focus on race and gender that feel just as relevant today.
Staff Pick: The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye by Sonny Liew
There are 8 more days until the end of Summer Reading! Every day during our countdown we will be featuring slices of library life, books, and topics designed to help you out as you work through 2017 Summer Reading at Mount Prospect. Read more about how you can join in on this celebration of reading and enter to win prizes!
Sonny Liew’s intricately invented graphic history traces the career of fictional comic artist Chan Hock Chye, with the sociopolitical history of Singapore cleverly mirroring the evolution of the comics medium as depicted via a dazzling series of pastiches. Spanning eight decades, The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye finds bittersweet parallels between artistic ambition and political idealism.
Read this for Summer Reading!
For the DIY Designers…
This book may be counted as a graphic novel, one everyone is talking about (it won the Eisner award), a book with a person of color as author, or a book under 150 pages.
For the Master Class Designers…
This may count as a book with a person of color as author or as a book highlighted on the MPPL website.
Staff Pick: Salt to the Sea by Ruta Septys
There are 15 more days until the end of Summer Reading! Every day during our countdown we will be featuring slices of library life, books, and topics designed to help you out as you work through 2017 Summer Reading at Mount Prospect. Read more about how you can join in on this celebration of reading and enter to win prizes!
It’s 1945, and thousands of refugees, fleeing the advancing tide of the Soviet army, stream across the freezing Prussian landscape. Fearing death if the Soviets reach them, or worse if the Nazis do, Joana, Emilia, and Florian stumble into the same barn for shelter. Soon, they are picking their way across country to the coast, their best hope for escape.
By turns heartbreaking and hopeful, Ruta Septys’ Salt to the Sea is a beautiful story of some of the lesser-known casualties of World War II, and an excellent choice for fans of Code Name Verity and The Book Thief. Grab a tissue – you’ll need it!
Read this for Summer Reading!
For the DIY Designers…
This book may be counted as a book from your favorite or a new to you genre (historical fiction).
For the Master Class Designers…
This may count as a sad book or as a book highlighted on the MPPL website.
Staff Pick: Short Fiction by Maeve Binchy and Stephen King on Audio
There are 29 more days until the end of Summer Reading! Every day during our countdown we will be featuring slices of library life, books, and topics designed to help you out as you work through 2017 Summer Reading at Mount Prospect. Read more about how you can join in on this celebration of reading and enter to win prizes!
If you are busy and can’t find time to read, try audiobooks! Many famous authors have collections of short stories that are perfect if you have only small commutes in your daily life. From Maeve Binchy’s A Few of the Girls, featuring warm stories about female friendships, to the horror fiction of Stephen King’s Everything’s Eventual: Five Dark Tales, there is something for every mood.
Read this for Summer Reading!
For the DIY Designers…
Either of these could count as a book of short stories, a book from a favorite genre, a book from a new-to-you genre, or a book with a small town setting.
For the Master Class Designers…
Either may count as a book of short stories or a book highlighted on the MPPL website. The Stephen King collection is also an option for a scary book.
Staff Pick: Harmless Like You by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan
There are 36 more days until the end of Summer Reading! Every day during our countdown we will be featuring slices of library life, books, and topics designed to help you out as you work through 2017 Summer Reading at Mount Prospect. Read more about how you can join in on this celebration of reading and enter to win prizes!
Harmless Like You is an all-consuming story in the best possible way. Rowan Hisayo Buchanan artfully unpacks mental illness, girlhood, creativity, and growing up when you are treated like an other as she jumps from the perspective of Jay, who in the present day is trying to figure out why his mother abandoned him as a baby, and thirty-three years ago to share his mother’s journey to the present state of their lives.
Read this for Summer Reading!
For the DIY Designers…
This could count as a book with a big city setting (New York), and a book with a person of color as author.
For the Master Class Designers…
This could count as a book with a big city setting (New York), a book highlighted on our MPPL website, and a book with a person of color as author.
Staff Pick: Roughneck by Jeff Lemire
There are 43 more days until the end of Summer Reading! Every day during our countdown we will be featuring slices of library life, books, and topics designed to help you out as you work through 2017 Summer Reading at Mount Prospect. Read more about how you can join in on this celebration of reading and enter to win prizes!
The embattled, soulful Roughneck by Jeff Lemire is a winter noir story that is both gritty and beautiful. Expert brushwork teases out different flavors of night sky, and the landscapes reflect the characters’ shifting degrees of serenity, menace, bleakness, and volatility. A harsh tale of family dynamic and of recovery, and one that has lived under my skin for months.
Read this for Summer Reading!
For the DIY Designers…
This could count as a book with a small town setting or as a graphic novel.
For the Master Class Designers…
This could count as a sad book or as a book highlighted on the MPPL website.
Staff Pick- Andy Warhol was a Hoarder: Inside the Minds of History’s Great Personalities by Claudia Kalb
Andy Warhol was a Hoarder: Inside the Minds of History’s Great Personalities is an account of how the possible mental illness of high-profile historical figures may have affected their lives and had an impact on their fame and success. The lives of Andy Warhol, Princess Diana, Abraham Lincoln, Betty Ford and others are reviewed from a psychological perspective revealing how their maladies may have impacted their accomplishments. With the help of experts, biographers, and historical records, Claudia Kalb has written an intriguing narrative that mixes biography and psychology, providing a fascinating perspective on creativity and the human condition.
Music: Songs That Make Us Think of High School
Do you ever hear a song and it transports you to a different time and place from your past? With high school graduations in the air, a few staff members of the Library took time to reflect on songs that reminded of them of high school, whether it be a song they listened to nonstop or one that summed up their experience. It was hard to narrow it down to just one song!
Andrea
Song: “Stand“ by R.E.M.
Cathleen
Song: “If You Leave“ by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
Donna C.
Song: “Tonight, Tonight” by Smashing Pumpkins
Evan
Song: “Hey, Suburbia” by Screeching Weasel
Jenny
Song: “Hear You Me” by Jimmy Eat World
Joyce
Song: “Teach Your Children” by Crosby, Stills and Nash
Kelda
Song:”Tainted Love” by Soft Cell
Nancy
Song: “New Sensation” by INXS
Rosemary
Song: “American Pie” by Don McLean
Now it’s your turn! Whether you just graduated or graduated decades ago, share what songs make you think of your time at high school by tweeting at us at @MPPLib or by commenting on our Facebook wall.
Staff Pick- The Barn at the End of the World: The Apprenticeship of a Quaker, Buddhist Shepherd by Mary Rose O’Reilly
Carla from Admin suggests The Barn at the End of The World: The Apprenticeship of a Quaker, Buddhist Shepherd by Mary Rose O’Reilly
The Barn at the End of The World: The Apprenticeship of a Quaker, Buddhist Shepherd, by Mary Rose O’Reilly, is a rich narrative of the author’s midlife journey into sheep barns and spirituality.
In 98 short vignettes, O’Reilly lets us into her life. She gives us a look at raising sheep in Minnesota and a glimpse of monastery life at Plum Village in France. We are introduced to some of her teachers: a young barn worker who says “Never turn your back on a buck ram” and a spiritual director who shares “It’s nice to be calm, but the real purpose of meditation if to obtain wisdom”.
Quotes from poets find their way into the book. We hear from Robert Frost, Mary Oliver, Walt Whitman and others. We learn that the author relishes the Augustinian phrase “the tranquility of order”. The Barn at the End of the World is highly recommended as an oasis for busy lives.
For more spiritual memoirs, try…
Traveling Mercies
by Anne Lamott
Combining elements of spiritual study and memoir, Anne Lamott describes her odyssey of faith, drawing on her own sometimes troubled past to explore the many ways in which faith sustains and guides one’s daily life.
by Radhanath Swami
Following Richard Slavin from the suburbs of Chicago to the caves of the Himalayas as he transforms from young seeker to renowned spiritual guide, The Journey Home is a glimpse into the heart of mystic traditions.
Following Richard Slavin from the suburbs of Chicago to the caves of the Himalayas as he transforms from young seeker to renowned spiritual guide, The Journey Home is a glimpse into the heart of mystic traditions.
The Sound of Gravelby Ruth Wariner
An account of the author’s coming-of-age in a polygamist Mormon Doomsday cult describes her childhood as one of her father’s more than 40 welfare-dependent children, the extreme religious beliefs that haunted her daily life and her escape in the aftermath of a devastating tragedy.
Seeking Enlightenment– Hat by Hat: A Skeptic’s Path to Religionby Nevada Barr
Nevada Barr recounts her spiritual quest for meaning in her life, describing her experiences as an actor, writer, and adventure-seeker, and sharing her transition from atheism toward a sense of being part of something greater than herself.
Autobiography of a Yogiby Paramahansa Yogananda
An autobiographical account of an early nineteenth-century yogi as he reaches self-realization, identification with his larger self, mankind, and union with his God.