Hilda C. Landers Library & Archives

My gosh. Absolutely great, addictive book, but it is looong. Usually I can read a book in a few days, but this took me two weeks. I still highly recommend it as now I’m reading the second one in the series.

The book starts off with Diana, a witch who basically tries to avoid magic as much as she can, and yet it keeps coming back to her. Soon, she’s following by a family of vampires, a haven of witches, and the occasional daemon. Find out what these “creatures” (as the book called them) are up to in this very hooking initiative to a series.

“Witch and Yale historian Diana Bishop discovers an enchanted manuscript, attracting the attention of 1,500-year-old vampire Matthew Clairmont. The orphaned daughter of two powerful witches, Bishop prefers intellect, but relies on magic when her discovery of a palimpsest documenting the origin of supernatural species releases an assortment of undead who threaten, stalk, and harass her. ” (Publisher’s Weekly)

Availability: SMCM Library and COSMOS
Review Submitted by: Matthew “Him again?!” Lachkovic
Rating: Highly Recommended with Reservations

In Every Day is for the Thief, Teju Cole explores the past decade of rapid change in his native Nigeria. After 15 years in the United States, the book’s nameless narrator returns to visit family in Lagos. He is shocked by his country’s rampant corruption, embodied by everyone he meets, beginning with the bureaucrats renewing his passport (for a bribe) in New York’s Nigerian consulate. In Lagos, the narrator navigates a home that feels alien after living in the United States. Living in America has changed him – he now has “some of the assumptions of life in a Western democracy.” Wandering the city, he is disappointed in the poor quality of the National Museum, thrilled when he spies a woman on a bus reading a Michael Ondaatje book, and generally uncomfortable with what the city has become.

Beautifully illustrated with the author’s own photos, Every Day is for the Thief is a meditation on belonging and estrangement. The photographs are a haunting representation of a Lagos that is at once global and uniquely Nigerian.

Availability:  USMAI
Review Submitted by: Kaitlyn Grigsby
Rating: Recommended

This book, Lone Survivor: The eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10 has of course been recently released as a movie, which sparked my interest to pick it up and see how the two would compare. I have not yet seen the movie, but if you are interested in a gripping, honest, and sometimes heartbreakingly real account of what transpired, this is a definite read. Marcus’ storytelling is very well done, and you get an insider’s view of some of what it takes to become a U.S. Navy SEAL, as well as his recounting of the events that left him the last surviving member of his team. The loss of his team was a devastating blow, to their families, himself, their fellow war fighters and our nation, but he honors by keeping their story alive in these pages.

Availability: USMAI and COSMOS
Review Submitted by: Tammy Cannon
Rating: Must Read

Although this book is in the young adult fiction section, and I am a bit beyond this age group, I have found this final installment of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series to be enjoyable. It continues to chronicle the happenings to the Septembers, four friends who have been together since birth. This was both a nice wrap-up for the books, but was also open ended enough that it could be continued in the future, that would be a fun twist, to follow them further. I would recommend the entire series as great summer reading, young adults on up!

Availability:  COSMOS
Review Submitted by: Tammy Cannon
Rating: Recommended

Most Americans have read John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, which chronicles the plight of the “Exo-dusters,” those who left the southern Great Plains for California during the Dust Bowl. Less well known are the stories of those who remained, weathering the Black Blizzards that lasted throughout much of the 1930s. In The Worst Hard Time, Timothy Egan builds on the personal narratives of farming families who struggled to survive these conditions in the epicenter of the Dust Bowl – including the Texas Panhandle, Oklahoma Panhandle, southwestern Nebraska, and southeastern Colorado.

The Worst Hard Time is standard historical nonfiction, but the inclusion of detailed personal narratives enlivens the book and provides a human face to one of the country’s worst environmental disasters. Egan’s descriptive and lyrical writing helps readers visualize the humbling of the once independent Plains farmer, who dug up the sod and subsequently in his poverty, became reliant on the programs of the New Deal.

These stories may be familiar to readers who have watched Ken Burn’s The Dust Bowl on PBS, which relies heavily on Egan’s interviews and research to tell a broader story about the families who stayed on the Plains and those who left for California.

Availability: USMAI
Review Submitted by: Kaitlyn Grigsby
Rating: Recommended

Kaitlyn Grigsby and Matthew Lachkovich won the monthly prize drawing for June. Matthew is also our leader in number of reviews, six posted in 2014.

Submit a review in July to be eligible for the our next drawing. Don’t forget prizes are available for all participants who submit a review between June 2 and August 15.

1. Submit one review and win a book mark.
2. Submit three reviews and win a set of postcards or a refrigerator magnet.
3. Submit five reviews and win a poster from Unshelved or a book.
4. Submit seven reviews and win a tote bag, mug or a book + postcards.
5. Submit 10 reviews and win a bag of library swag.
6. Monthly prize drawings.

This is quite a good book for learning about plants, how food is processed, and about the basis of electrochemical energy and biochemistry, however it leaves a lot to be desired. If you are planning on taking a class on biochemistry in the future, this would probably a good book to get started with. It leaves a lot of information out and is basically targeted towards middle school age students, but, again, it’s fine as an intro. If you want to get some serious learning done, go find another book, because this doesn’t teach ya a whole lot (and some of the information is incorrect, but is “correct enough” for beginners).

TL;DR: It’s okay for newbies, but don’t take it seriously.

Availability: SMCM Library
Review Submitted by: Matthew “cool shirt, bro” Lachkovic
Rating: Recommended with Reservations

Like drinking a cheap wine, afterwards you wonder why you did it. So it is with reading any Janet Evanovich books! They are a quick and silly read (great for beach reading or on travel, when you know you won’t care if you leave the paperback book behind), with cartoonish characterizations and unbelievable storylines. If you want something easy to read (think bubble gum for your eyes), then this is the author for you.

Availability: COSMOS
Review Submitted by: Jane Kostenko
Rating: Recommended with Reservations

In its totality, it’s a very enthralling book, however the traditions in the book left me confused at times. The loyalty to family (or, in some cases, lack of loyalty) and other social interactions left me confused. Some parts of the book even felt poorly written and the ending felt rushed and sloppy. To be honest, if the second half of the book was written as well as the first half, I’d be much happier.

TL;DR, good plot and character development in the first half, but becomes sloppy in the end.

Availability: SMCM Library
Review Submitted by: Matthew “Oh, THAT guy!” Lachkovic
Rating: Recommended with reservations