Category: For Readers

New Narrative Nonfiction Book Club Picks!

Posted on by Jessica O'Connor

Spring – Summer 2023 Book Picks

Check out the Falmouth Public Library’s new Narrative Nonfiction Book Club picks for the Spring and Summer ’23 session!  Come pick up a copy and join us to share your thoughts as we read across the genres of nonfiction, from history to adventure, memoir/biography, and beyond with books that read like a novel.

We meet on the 1st Thursday of every month from 4:00 PM to 5:00 PM. The group will meet in the Hermann meeting room and for those who wish to join us from home, you can join us via Zoom.  Registration is required and the Zoom link will be provided upon registration.

To register, click on the date you wish to attend and fill out the registration form. If you have any questions, please contact the Adult Services department at 508-457-2555 x 7, info@falmouthpubliclibrary.org or text 833-209-9922.

April 6, 2023:
The Race Underground: Boston, New York, and the Incredible Rivalry that Built America’s First Subway by Doug Most.

“When the great blizzard of 1888 crippled the entire northeast … Two brothers from one of the nation’s great families – Henry Melville Whitney of Boston and William Collins Whitney of New York – pursued the dream of his city digging America’s first subway, and the great race was on.  The competition between Boston and New York played our in an era not unlike our own, one of economic upheaval, life-changing innovations, class warfare, bitter political tensions, and the question of America’s place in the world.”

 

May 4, 2023:
Maybe You Should Talk To Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb

“One day, Lori Gottlieb is a therapist who helps patients in her Los Angeles practice.  The next, a crisis causes her world to come crashing down.  Enter Wendell, the quirky but seasoned therapist in whose office she suddenly lands.  With starling wisdom and humor, Gottlieb invites us into her world as both clinician and patient, examining the truths and fictions we tell ourselves and others as we teeter on the tightrope between love and desire, meaning and mortality, guilt and redemption, terror and courage, hope and change.”

 

June 1, 2023:
River of the Gods: Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile by Candice Millard

“In the 19th century, there was a frenzy of interest in ancient Egypt.  At the same time, European powers sent off waves of explorations intended to map the unknown corners of the globe.  Set against the backdrop of the race to exploit Africa by the colonial powers, a story of courage and adventure brings to life the rivalry between two enemies – a decorated soldier and a young aristocrat/Army officer – as they set out to find the mysterious headwaters of the Nile River.”

 

July 6, 2023:
Agent Josephine: American Beauty, French Hero, British Spy by Damien Lewis

“Agent Josephine, uncovers this little-know history of the famous singer’s life.  During the war years, as a member of the French Nurse paratroopers — a cover for her spying work — Baker participated in numerous clandestine activities and emerged as a formidable spy.  Drawing on a plethora of new historical material and rigorous research, Lewis upends the conventional story of Josephine Baker, explaining why she fully deserves her unique place in the French Pantheon.”

 

August 3, 2023:
18 Tiny Deaths: The Untold Story of Frances Glessner Lee and the Invention of Modern Forensics by Bruce Goldfarb

“Frances Glessner Lee, born a socialite to a wealthy and influential Chicago family in the 1870s, was never meant to have a career, let alone one steeped in death and depravity.  Best known for creating the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, Lee developed a system that used the Nutshells dioramas to train law enforcement officers to investigate violent crimes, and her methods are still used today.”

 

September 7, 2023:
An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong 

“The Earth teems with sights and textures, sounds and vibrations, smells and tastes, electric and magnetic fields.  But every animal is enclosed within its own unique sensory bubble, perceiving but a tiny sliver of an immense world.  In An Immense World, Ed Yong coaxes us beyond the confines of our own senses, allowing us to perceive the skeins of scent, waves of electromagnetism, and pulses of pressure that surround us.”

Virtual Mystery Book Group Winter 2023: Classics

Posted on by Library User

The Virtual Mystery Book Group is taking a hiatus for December but it’s already time to start reading the books for our winter theme. To start off 2023, we’ll delve into some classics of the genre. In January, we’ll read three short stories from the early days of mysteries, by the pioneering authors Arthur Conan Doyle, Maurice Leblanc, and G.K. Chesterton. In February, we’ll learn about bell-ringing in Kent, England as well as solving two distinct crimes when we read The Nine Tailors by Dorothy Sayers. In March, we’ll explore the historical mystery of Richard III with hospitalized Alan Grant as we read Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time.

Join us to read and discuss one of the books below, or all three!

Register to receive the Zoom link and discussion questions before each session. We have print copies of each title waiting at the Reference Desk about a month before each meeting, or you are welcome to find your own copy – digital or even audio! – in CLAMS using the links below.

Wednesday January 11, 2023, 4:30pm: Three Short Stories. Register.

All of these stories are out of copyright and thus available online, directly linked above. They are also collected in various anthologies; please let us know if we can help you find a print copy!

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) wrote the first Sherlock Homes novel in 1886, and is given almost single credit for the wild popularity of crime fiction which persists to this day. In addition to writing fiction he was a physician and spiritualist and wrote widely on a variety of topics. Leblanc (1864-1941), Doyle’s contemporary, began his career as a journalist and novelist but found true success writing the adventures of the thief, Arsene Lupin, who was his main character. Chesterton (1874-1936) also wrote widely, but is best known for his Christian apologetics, so it is fitting that his detective is a Roman Catholic priest.

Descriptions: Is there any need to describe Sherlock Holmes? “A Scandal in Bohemia” was the first short story featuring Holmes, and one of the author’s favorites. It also includes his most notable female character, Irene Adler. “The Arrest of Arsene Lupin” introduces the ‘gentleman thief’ whose exploits, while illegal, are perhaps not of entirely dubious morality. “The Hammer of God” is classic Chesterton, with a cryptic Father Brown turning the mystery upon its head and quietly walking away after determining the true story.

 

Wednesday February 8, 2023, 4:30pm: The Nine Tailors, by Dorothy Sayers. Register.

Available in CLAMS.

Dorothy Sayers (1893-1957) was ranked with Christie (and Margery Allingham and Ngaio Marsh) as top mystery authors of the Golden Age, although she also had a career as an essayist and published an English translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy. The Nine Tailors (1934) is the ninth of her novels featuring Lord Peter Wimsey, a British aristocrat who solves crimes as a hobby.

Description: The nine tellerstrokes from the belfry of an ancient country church toll out the death of an unknown man and call the famous Lord Peter Wimsey to investigate the good and evil that lurks in every person. Steeped in the atmosphere of a quiet parish in the strange, flat fen-country of East Anglia, this is a tale of suspense, character, and mood by an author critics and readers rate as one of the great masters of the mystery novel.

 

Wednesday March 8, 2023, 4:30pm: The Daughter of Time, by Josephine Tey. Register.

Available in CLAMS.

Josephine Tey was the pseudonym of the Scottish author Elizabeth MacKintosh (1896-1952), who wrote plays as well as eight mystery novels. Six of them featured police detective Alan Grant, but The Daughter of Time (1951) is unusual in that the detective is flat on his back in a hospital bed, the crime took place five hundred years earlier, and the sources are historical documents.

Description: In The Daughter of Time, Tey focuses on the legend of Richard III, the evil hunchback of British history accused of murdering his young nephews. While at a London hospital recuperating from a fall, Inspector Alan Grant becomes fascinated by a portrait of King Richard. A student of human faces, Grant cannot believe that the man in the picture would kill his own nephews. With an American researcher’s help, Grant delves into his country’s history to discover just what kind of man Richard Plantagenet was and who really killed the little princes.

 

Lethal Tides with Catherine Musemeche

Posted on by Jessica O'Connor

Join us on Wednesday, November 9th at 6:30pm in the Hermann meeting room as we welcome author Catherine Musemeche.  She will be speaking about her latest book Lethal Tides: Mary Sears and the Marine Scientists Who Helped Win World War II.  To register for this author talk and book signing, click here. 

“Weaving together science, biography, and military history, Lethal Tides is a powerful, revelatory history essential to our understanding of oceanography and naval strategy, and – more importantly – chronicles the gripping story of an unsung woman who was pivotal to the U.S.’s success against Japan in WWII.”  

Catherine Musemeche is a graduate of the University of Texas McGovern Medical School in Houston, Texas and the University of Texas School of Law.  She has been a pediatric surgeon for more than three decades.  Catherine’s first book, Small, was longlisted for the E.O. Wilson/Pen American Literary Science Award and was awarded the Texas Writer’s League Discovery Prize for Nonfiction in 2015.  Her second book, Hurt, was named one of the top ten EMS books of the decade.  She has also contributed to Smithsonian Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, New York Times’ “Motherlode” blog, KevinMD.com, Creative Nonfiction magazine and EMS World.

This event is free to the public and copies of her book will be available from Eight Cousins for purchase at the event.

Below the Edge of Darkness Book Discussion with Allan Adams: A WHOI & FPL Community Read Event!

Posted on by Jessica O'Connor

Join us on Wednesday, May 25th from 7pm-8pm via Zoom to discuss the 2022 WHOI & FPL Community Read, Below the Edge of Darkness: A Memoir of Exploring Light and Life in the Deep Sea by Dr. Edith Widder, in a group setting!  We will have a special guest, Allan Adams, joining us.  Allan is an Adjunct Oceanographer at WHOI in the Applies Ocean Physics and Engineering Department. 

This event is free to the public and registration is required.  Register online by clicking here or by calling the library at 508-457-2555 x7.  

Below the Edge of Darkness: A Memoir of Exploring Light and Life in the Deep Sea  takes readers deep into our planet’s oceans as Widder pursues her questions about one of the most important and widely used forms of communication in nature.  In the process, she reveals hidden worlds and a dazzling menagerie of behaviors and animals, from microbes to leviathans, many never before seen or, like the legendary giant squid, never before filmed in their deep-sea lairs.  Alongside Widder, we experience life-and-death equipment malfunctions and witness breakthroughs in technology and understanding, all set against a growing awareness of the deteriorating health of our largest and least understood ecosystem.   

Come pick up a copy today at the library!  Below the Edge of Darkness is also available for purchase at Eight Cousins and the WHOI Bookstore!  The 2022 WHOI & FPL Community Read is part of Dispatches from an Ocean Planet: A Celebration of Film and Literature presented by the Yawkey Foundation and WHOI.

Learn Libby From The Experts!

Posted on by Jessica O'Connor

The Falmouth Public Library is hosting a free, online Libby webinar by the experts at OverDrive on Wednesday, May 11th at 10am!  With the Libby app, you can access the entire CLAMS digital library collection to read and listen to eBooks, eAudiobooks, and eMagazines all for free with your library card!

Register today to learn how to sign into Libby, navigate around, browse and search for titles, borrow titles and place holds, manage notifications, and much much more!

Can’t make this webinar but are interested in learning more about Libby?  Register and a recording of the webinar will be sent to you for you to watch whenever it is best for you!

To register, just click this link: https://bit.ly/falmoutlibby

Books About Radio on The Point With Mindy Todd

Posted on by Library User

(written by Jill Erickson)

This morning was the last regular WCAI radio show that I will be doing-you can listen to it here! As of October 30th I retired from the Falmouth Public Library. You can take a look at two blogs I wrote about this departure. One is about my being a reference librarian and one is about my time on WCAI. It has been an absolute pleasure to spend time every month with Mindy Todd and whichever book talker happens to be there that month. When Mindy asked me last month what book topic I would like to talk about for my last show, I immediately came up with RADIO! How it is possible that we had never done this topic, I’m not quite sure, but it was the perfect topic for the last show. 

Here is the article that includes the Jack Binns Tribute song we mentioned! Scroll to the very bottom to hear it. 
 

Peter’s Picks

Hello, Everybody: the dawn of American radio by Anthony Rudel

On the Air: the encyclopedia of old-time radio by John Dunning

Thunderstruck by Erik Larson

Raised on Radio: in quest of the Lone Ranger, Jack Benny….by Gerald Nachman

Howard Stern Comes Again by Howard Stern

Listening In: radio and the American imagination by Susan J. Douglas

Something in the Air: Radio, Rock and the Revolution…by Marc Fisher

Jill’s Picks

Radio On: A Listener’s Diary by Sarah Vowell (available via the Commonwealth Catalog)
Invasion From Mars: a study in the psychology of panic by Hadley Cantril
Broadcast Hysteria: Orson Welles’s “War of the Worlds” and the art of fake news by A. Brad Schwartz
Marconi: the man who networked the world by Marc Raboy
Out On the Wire: the storytelling secrets of the new masters of radio by Jessica Abel
The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice; Or, Solving a Wireless Mystery by Allen Chapman

Listener Picks

The Great American Broadcast: a celebration of radio’s golden age by Leonard Matlin

 

A Farewell to Falmouth Public Library, Part Two

Posted on by Library User

 

          In part one of my farewell to FPL I wrote about the beginning of my career at Falmouth Public Library, but now I’d like to mention a completely unexpected joy that arrived in my library life. That joy began when WCAI called the library one day and wanted to know if Kathy Mortenson, a FPL reference librarian, would like to talk about books for half an hour on The Point with Mindy Todd. As it turned out Kathy did not want to talk on the radio, so she asked me if I would be willing to talk about books on the radio. I said sure.

          And so I went to the WCAI studio in Woods Hole and I met Mindy, and Melanie Lauwers, who was at the time the Book Editor for the Cape Cod Times. Something sparked between us, and before long we became regulars on the show. When Melanie retired to Florida in 2014, I became the regular book talker on what had become an hour long live broadcast. It has been such a treat to have an hour of live radio every month just to talk about books! As far as we can recall, that first show was in February 2005. Also, as far as we can recall, next weeks show on October 27th will be the 166th book show! There were, of course, some shows that were repeated, but let’s just say … I’ve done a surprising number of book shows, considering it was supposed to be a one-time event!

          One of the great joys of the show is, of course, our listeners, who call in or email the station with their picks on whatever book topic we are discussing. There have been many, many topics. Here are a few … books that changed your life, LabLit (novels with scientists as characters), politics, Cape Cod authors, humor, cats & dogs, travel,  movies, April in Paris, baseball, banned books, planes trains & automobiles, fairy tales, survival stories, maps, whales, birds, dreaming, pirates, fish, letters, detectives, insects, romance, sisters, colors, cookbooks, magic, water, and stories of the sea. When the pandemic hit in March of 2020 we began to do the show from our homes. The library was closed to the public at that point, and so author Peter Abrahams and I did two shows on the books from our home bookshelves! Many of these shows you can find archived on the CAI web page.

          It has been such a gift to share books with the CAI audience. After one show on trees where I mentioned how much I loved winter trees, a listener called in and told us about a book they adored which was all about trees in winter, with beautiful illustrations. Next thing I knew, they had sent me a copy of the book! Another time I was talking about how my mother loved Josephine Tey mysteries, but I had never read them. Within a few hours, a listener delivered a bag of paperback Josephine Tey mysteries to me! What a gift our listeners have been!

          The time has come, however, for me to hang up my monthly radio book chats, which is not to say that the book show itself won’t continue. I have no doubt that Mindy and Amy and Dan will soon find someone else who enjoys spending as much time talking about books on CAI as I have. Mindy has made me promise that I will return from time to time as a guest, and I have assured her that I will. In the meantime, there will be one more live show on Wednesday, October 27th at 9:00 AM on CAI where Mindy and I will talk about books featuring radio! Joining us this month will be a brand new booktalker … Jessica Rudden-Dube, Director of the Cotuit Library. I hope you’ll be listening! And as one last little radio treat, here is a link to the many, many photos I have taken for the monthly book show.

Climate Change on Cape Cod

Posted on by Jessica O'Connor

Climate Change on Cape Cod: What’s at Stake and What Can We Do

Please join us on Tuesday, November 9th from 4pm to 5pm via Zoom as Dr. Heather Goldstone from the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Woods Hole presents a lecture on climate change on Cape Cod.

Two recent UN reports indicate that we are now committed to hitting 1.5C of warming by early next decade, and are on track to hit 2.7C this century. With the damaging impacts of climate change already apparent and increasing, it’s critical for communities to understand the risks they face—those that are inevitable and require adaptation, and those that we can still avert. This Climate Change on Cape Cod: What’s at Stake and What Can We Do lecture brings the risks, opportunities, and choices presented by the global challenge of climate change down to the local level.  A Q&A will follow the lecture.

To register to attend this virtual climate change lecture, click here. 

“Dr. Heather Goldstone oversees Woodwell Climate Research Center’s communications activities, bringing the rich stories of Woodwell scientists to diverse public audiences. Dr. Goldstone has extensive experience as both a scientist and a journalist, and she is passionate about melding data and narrative in climate change stories that build awareness and inspire action.” – Woodwell Climate Research Center

Climate Change and Global Warming Reading List:

How To Avoid A Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have And The Breakthroughs We Need  by Bill Gates (2021)

How To Prepare For Climate Change: A Practical Guide To Surviving The Chaos by David Pogue (2021)

Hurricane Lizards And Plastic Squid: The Fraught And Fascinating Biology of Climate Change by Thor Hanson (2021)

The New Climate War: The Fight To Take Back Our Planet by Michael E. Mann (2021)

Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case For Hope And Healing In A Divided World by Katherine Hayhoe (2021) 

Warmth: Coming Of Age At The End Of The World by Daniel Sherrell (2021)

Angry Weather: Heat Waves, Floods, Storms, And The New Science of Climate Change by Friederike Otto with Benjamin von Brackel (2020)

Disposable City: Miami’s Future On The Shores Of Climate Catastrophe by Mario Alejandro Ariza (2020)

The Fragile Earth: Writing From The New Yorker On Climate Change (2020)

The Future We Choose: Surviving The Climate Crisis by Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac (2020) 

Solved: How The World’s Great Cities Are Fixing The Climate Crisis by David Miller (2020) 

The Story Of More: How We Got To Climate Change And Where To Go From Here by Hope Jahren (2020)

All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon’s Perspective On Climate Change by Michael T. Klare (2019)

Climate Change Politics And Policies In America: Historical And Modern Documents In Context (2019)

Rising: Dispatches From The New American Shore by Elizabeth Rush (2019)

The Ice At The End Of The World: An Epic Journey Into Greenland’s Buried Past And Our Perilous Future by Jon Gertner (2019)

The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming by David Wallace-Wells (2019)

No Immediate Danger: Carbon Ideologies by William T. Vollmann (2018)

Climate Change: An Encyclopedia Of Science, Society, And Solutions (2017)

Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed To Reverse Global Warming by Paul Hawken (2017)

Books About the Sea on The Point with Steve Junker

Posted on by Library User

This morning on The Point book show, we had a visiting host, and a new book talker! You can listen to it here! Steve Junker, Managing Editor of  News at WCAI, sat in for Mindy Todd and Jayne Iafrate joined us for the first, but I am sure not the last, book talk. Our topic was nautical books. Below is the list of all the titles we mentioned, and if you want to add your favorite to the list, just send us an email at info@falmouthpubliclibrary.org. 

 

Jayne’s Picks

 

Jill’s Picks

Adventurers Afloat: a nautical bibliography by Ernest W. Toy, Jr.  The sub-title is: “A Comprehensive Guide to Books in English Recounting the Adventures of Amateur Sailors upon the Waters of the World in Yachts, Boats, and Other Devices and Including Works on the Arts and Sciences of Cruising, Racing, Seamanship, Navigation, Design, Building, etc. from the Earliest Writings Through 1986.” While this is a reference book, and usually non-circulating, I have made it circulating for the time being should anyone want to take a closer look.

The Riddle of the Sands: a record of secret service recently achieved by Erskine Childers

Moby-Dick In Pictures: one drawing for every page by Matt Kish

Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian. Article from the New York Times: “An Author I’d Walk the Plank For” by Richard Snow

Lobscouse & Spotted Dog by Anne Chotzinoff Grossman and Lisa Grossman Thomas. And the Paris Review article “Cooking with Patrick O’Brian” by Valerie Stivers

“The Fog Horn” by Ray Bradbury in Stories of the Sea.

The Voyage of the Narwhal by Andrea Barrett

“The Sea and the Wind that Blows” in Essays of E.B. White

Stuart Little by E. B. White

Little Pig Saves the Ship by David Hyde Costello

Dare the Wind by Tracey Fern. Pictures by Emily Arnold McCully

 

Listener Picks

Thomas Kydd novels by Julian Stockwin

Green Shadows, White Whale by Ray Bradbury

 

 

 

 

 

Learn Libby From The Experts

Posted on by Jessica O'Connor

The Falmouth Public Library is hosting a free virtual Libby webinar by the experts at OverDrive on Wednesday, September 1st at 10am!  With the Libby app, you can access the entire CLAMS digital library collection to read and listen to eBooks, eAudiobooks, and eMagazines all for free with your library card!

Register today to learn how to sign into Libby, navigate around, browse and search for titles, borrow titles and place holds, manage notifications, and much much more!

Can’t make this webinar but are interested in learning more about Libby?  Register and a recording of the webinar will be sent to you for you to watch whenever it is best for you!

To register, just click this link:  https://overdrive.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_G2S1_GJNSYmZNPDhmMtu4A