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What are you reading? What should I read next?

Not sure what to read next? Here's what the TPL staff have been reading recently!

 In Don't Lick the Minivan, Shirtliffe captures the bizarre aspects of parenting in her edgy, honest voice. She explores the hazards of everyday life with children such as: The birthday party where neighborhood kids took home skin rashes from the second-hand face paint she applied, the time she discovered her twins carving their names into her minivan's paint with rocks, the funeral she officiated for "Stripper Barbie," the horror of glitter, and much more!
 

Evie O'Neill has been exiled from her boring old hometown and shipped off to the bustling streets of New York City--and she is pos-i-toot-ly thrilled. New York is the city of speakeasies, shopping, and movie palaces! Soon enough, Evie is running with glamorous Ziegfield girls and rakish pickpockets. The only catch is Evie has to live with her Uncle Will, curator of The Museum of American Folklore, Superstition, and the Occult--also known as "The Museum of the Creepy Crawlies."

When a rash of occult-based murders comes to light, Evie and her uncle are right in the thick of the investigation. And through it all, Evie has a secret: a mysterious power that could help catch the killer--if he doesn't catch her first.

After his December 2003 arrest, registered nurse Charlie Cullen was quickly dubbed "The Angel of Death" by the media. But Cullen was no mercy killer, nor was he a simple monster. He was a favorite son, husband, beloved father, best friend, and celebrated caregiver. Implicated in the deaths of as many as 300 patients, he was also perhaps the most prolific serial killer in American history. In the tradition of In Cold Blood, THE GOOD NURSE does more than chronicle Cullen's deadly career and the breathless efforts to stop him; it paints an incredibly vivid portrait of madness and offers a penetrating look inside America's medical system. Harrowing and irresistibly paced, this book will make you look at medicine, hospitals, and the people who work in them, in an entirely different way.

 Set in a small-town North Carolina amusement park in 1973, Joyland tells the story of the summer in which college student Devin Jones comes to work as a carny and confronts the legacy of a vicious murder, the fate of a dying child, and the ways both will change his life forever.






 Sookie has a murder investigation on her hands.

A young girl has died at a vampire party - and it looks as though her lover, Eric, might be responsible. Eric swears he didn't do it, the police don't believe him, and even Sookie isn't so sure. Nor is she inclined to take his word for it, not having caught him enjoying the victim's blood minutes before she was killed.



 A modern classic of personal journalism, The Orchid Thief is Susan Orlean’s wickedly funny, elegant, and captivating tale of an amazing obsession.

From Florida’s swamps to its courtrooms, the New Yorker writer follows one deeply eccentric and oddly attractive man’s possibly criminal pursuit of an endangered flower. Determined to clone the rare ghost orchid, Polyrrhiza lindenii, John Laroche leads Orlean on an unforgettable tour of America’s strange flower-selling subculture, along with the Seminole Indians who help him and the forces of justice who fight him. In the end, Orlean–and the reader–will have more respect for underdog determination and a powerful new definition of passion.

Nature Journaling

Interested in Nature Journaling? Monique Marchilli-Barker has been leading a series of nature journaling here at the library. The next one is on Saturday, June 15 at 1pm. She also blogs on other sites including our TPL Garden blog and Playful Learning.

Review from Linda! Her Royal Spyness by Rhys Bowen

Cute! Perky! Charming! are the words I would use to describe this mystery series by Rhys Bowen. Meet Lady Georgiana, 34^th in line for the British throne. Georgie, as her friends call her, is not interested in an arranged marriage to a foreign prince so she leaves the family castle in Scotland to make her own way in the world. Alone in the family home in London it’s not too long before she finds trouble, in the form of a body in her bath.  Light and easy to read, these books are the perfect companion for a day at the beach or an evening on the couch.

 

What are you reading? What should I read next?

Not sure what to read next? Here's what the TPL staff have been reading recently!

 

Rejecting an unwanted suitor and opening the family's Devonshire estate to her fashionable cousins after the death of her father, Valentine is seduced by the intrigues and scandals of Regency London.

 

 

 After a layoff during the Great Recession sidelines his tech career, Clay Jannon takes a job at the titular bookstore in San Francisco, and soon realizes that the establishment is a facade for a strange secret.

When literature student Anastasia Steele is drafted to interview Christian Grey for her campus magazine, she finds him attractive, enigmatic and intimidating. Convinced their meeting went badly, she tries to put Grey out of her mind -- until he happens to turn up at the out-of-town hardware store where she works part-time.





Lisabeth Lewis has a black steed, a set of scales, and a new job: she’s been appointed Famine. How will an anorexic seventeen-year-old girl from the suburbs fare as one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?











While working on a farm during the summer, Megan falls in love with her unstable best friend's crush, with frightening consequences.







A collection of sixteen stories introduces a host of strange, wondrous beings that have never existed anywhere but in the imagination, with stories from Neil Gaiman, Diana Wynne Jones, and E. Nesbit.








In a post-apocalyptic world, Pressia, a sixteen-year-old survivor with a doll's head fused onto her left hand meets Partridge, a "Pure" dome-dweller who is searching for his mother, sure that she has survived the cataclysm.




 Author Erik Larson imbues the incredible events surrounding the 1893 Chicago World's Fair with such drama that readers may find themselves checking the book's categorization to be sure that 'The Devil in the White City' is not, in fact, a highly imaginative novel. Larson tells the stories of two men: Daniel H. Burnham, the architect responsible for the fair's construction, and H.H. Holmes, a serial killer masquerading as a charming doctor. 



 
Qhuinn, son of no one, is used to being on his own. Disavowed from his bloodline, shunned by the aristocracy, he has finally found an identity as one of the most brutal fighters in the war against the Lessening Society. But his life is not complete.

Set in the near future world where all bees are extinct when 5 unconnected people from varying parts of world are each stung. Their experience unites them in ways they could not have imagined.

 Once there was a Postman who fell in love with a Raven.
So begins the tale of a postman who encounters a fledgling raven while on the edge of his route and decides to bring her home. The unlikely couple falls in love and conceives a child—an extraordinary raven girl trapped in a human body.  One of the world’s most beloved storytellers has crafted a dark fairy tale full of wonderment and longing. Complete with Audrey Niffenegger’s bewitching etchings and paintings, Raven Girl explores the bounds of transformation and possibility.

New York Times Best Sellers for May

May 5: Fiction and Nonfiction
May 12: Fiction and Nonfiction
May 19: Fiction and Nonfiction
May 26: Fiction and Nonfiction

What are you reading? What should I read next?

Not sure what your next book will be? Take a look at what the TPL staff are reading for ideas!

What are you reading? April 2013

New York Times Best Sellers for April

April 7: Fiction and Nonfiction
April 14: Fiction and Nonfiction
April 21: Fiction and Nonfiction
April 28: Fiction and Nonfiction

New York Times Best Sellers for March

March 3: Fiction and Nonfiction
March 10: Fiction and Nonfiction
March 17: Fiction and Nonfiction
March 24: Fiction and Nonfiction
March 31: Fiction and Nonfiction

Topsham Public Library Board of Trustees seeks Interested Community Members!

The Governance Committee of the Topsham Public Library Board of Trustees seeks interested community members to fill two open Board seats beginning July, 2013.

The twelve member Board of Trustees is the governing body responsible for setting policy and overseeing overall operation of the library as implemented by the Library Director, Susan M. Preece.  The Library’s mission, to provide residents of all ages with books, informational resources, technology and services to stimulate personal growth and enrichment while serving as a center of study and community activities, guides the Board as it fulfills these duties. 

Trustees serve three year terms, meeting once monthly, currently on the third Wednesday of each month, with additional time devoted to committee participation (trustees may serve two consecutive, three-year terms). Applications for the Board of Trustees are available at the library and on our website, and are due by May 25, 2013.  Candidate interviews will be held by appointment on June 5, 2013.

For more information about applying to be a member of the library Board of Trustees, contact us at 725-1727, visit our website at www.topshamlibrary.org or email director@topshamlibrary.org. The Topsham Public Library is located at 25 Foreside Road in Topsham.

New York Times Best Sellers for February

February 3: Fiction and Nonfiction
February 10: Fiction and Nonfiction
February 17: Fiction and Nonfiction
February 24: Fiction and Nonfiction

New York Times Best Sellers for January

January 6: Fiction and Nonfiction
January 13: Fiction and Nonfiction
January 20: Fiction and Nonfiction
January 27: Fiction and Nonfiction

Helen's Top 5 of 2012

1. New York by Edward Rutherfurd

2. The Wolf Gift by Anne Rice

3. The Yard by Alex Grecian

4. The Unholy by Heather Graham

5. Cold Vengeance by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

Mariah's Top 5 of 2012

1.  The Night Circus –  Erin Morgenstern
I couldn’t read this fast enough!  When I was finished, it became the book by which I judged every other book I read throughout the rest of the year.  If you haven’t read it, read it!  It’s amazing!

2. Dead End in Norvelt – Jack Gantos
The well-deserved winner of last year’s Newbury Medal.  For an extra treat, listen to the audiobook, read by Mr. Jack Gantos himself!

3. Dragons Love Tacos – by Adam Rubin
Dragons love tacos and parties, but not salsa!  Seriously, any book that can use a line like “Pantloads of tacos” is a winner.  I laughed through this entire book, then cornered anyone else I could find and made them read it as well.

4. The Man Who Ate Everything – Jeffrey Steingarten
A series of essays about food, one of the most notable being dedicated entirely to ketchup.  Who knew ketchup was so fascinating?!

5. House of Leaves – Mark Z. Danielewski
Definitely the strangest book I’ve ever read.  Beware: it may make you afraid of your house…