Category: For Readers

Detectives on The Point

Posted on by Library User

I had the pleasure of discussing detectives in fiction this morning on The Point on WCAI, which usually is hosted by Mindy Todd, but today we were joined by the delightful Kathryn Eident. Returning to the book show this morning was Nelson Ritschel, Author and Professor in the Humanities Department at Mass Maritime Academy. Many, many thanks for all of your calls and emails! We are already thinking we might need a part two to this show, as Nelson and I both arrived with big piles of books, and only got to a handful. Below you will find what we DID have time for, including all the spectacular suggestions made by our listeners! Miss the show? You can listen online!

 

Nelson’s Picks

The Art of the English Murder by Lucy Worsley

Father Brown: the essential tales by G. K. Chesterton

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

Appointment with Death by Agatha Christie

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

Miss Marple: the complete short stories by Agatha Christie

Silent Voices by Ann Cleeves

 

Jill’s Picks

A Beautiful Blue Death by Charles Finch

A Great Deliverance by Elizabeth George

Blanche on the Lam by Barbara Neely

Great Reference Books on Mysteries:

Make Mine a Mystery: a reader’s guide to mystery and detective fiction by Gary Warren Niebuhr

Make Mine a Mystery II: a reader’s guide to mystery and detective fiction by Gary Warren Niebuhr

Listener Picks

Maisie Dobbs, first in series Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear

Harry Bosch, first in series The Black Echo by Michael Connelly

Ian Rutledge, first in series A Test of Wills by Charles Todd (pseud. of Caroline Todd & Charles Todd)

Ruth Galloway, first in series The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths

Maggie Hope, first in series Mr. Churchill’s Secretary by Susan Elia MacNeal

Evan Evans, first in series Evans Above by Rhys Bowen

Flavia de Luce, first in series The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

Chet and Bernie, first in series Dog On It by Spencer Quinn

 

 

Irish Literature on The Point with Mindy Todd

Posted on by Library User

This morning we decided to get an early start on St. Patrick’s Day by discussing books by Irish writers. It was our pleasure to welcome Nelson Ritschel to the book show this morning. Nelson is a Professor in the Department of Humanities at Massachusetts Maritime Academy. Below are our lists of books, although it was a case of too many books, not enough time! We could easily do another show on Irish writers, with a completely different reading list. Many thanks to all the listeners who called or emailed their suggestions to the show. If you want to add a title to the list, send us a comment!

If you missed the show you can always listen to the show at 7:00 PM the day of the broadcast, or online, anytime.

Nelson’s Picks

The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats
Dubliners by James Joyce
Ulysses by James Joyce
John Bull’s Other Island by George Bernard Shaw
The Playboy of the Western World by J. M. Synge
Charming Billy by Alice McDermott
The Aran Islands by J. M. Synge

Jill’s Picks

New Irish Poets: representative selections from the work of 37 contemporaries edited by Devin A. Garrity (Poem read was “Diamond Cut Diamond” by Ewart Milne
Milkman by Anna Burns
Spill simmer falter wither by Sara Baume
Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney Her new novel Normal People will be out in April. There were two articles about her books in THE NEW YORKER. “A New Kind of Adultery Novel” and “Sally Rooney Gets In Your Head” … both well worth reading.
Star of the Sea by Joseph O’Connor (Also recommended by a listener.)

Listener Picks

The Trick of the Ga Bolga by Patrick McGinley
Tiernan’s Wake by Richard T. Rook
The Star of the Sea by Joseph O’Connor
The Ginger Man by J. P. Donleavy
A Singular Country by J. P. Donleavy
Sebastian Barry
The Country Girls Trilogy by Edna O’Brien
A Pagan Place by Edna O’Brien
Colum McCann

The American West on The Point

Posted on by Library User

This morning on WCAI we talked books about the American West. Clearly we could do an entire year of books about the American West! So many books, so little time, as they say. Author Peter Abrahams joined us and Kathryn Eident sat in for Mindy Todd. If you missed the show, you can listen online anytime!

Kathryn’s Pick

The Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Peter’s Picks

Chet and Bernie mystery series by Spencer Quinn (aka Peter Abrahams!)

The Journals of Lewis and Clark edited by Bernard DeVoto

Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee by Dee Brown

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

The Money and the Power: the making of Las Vegas and its hold on America by Sally Denton and Roger Morris

My First Summer in the Sierra by John Muir

Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey

The Indifferent Stars Above by Daniel James Brown

Print the Legend: the life and times of John Ford by Scott Eyman

Jill’s Picks

The Frontier in American History by Frederick Jackson Turner

The Library Book by Susan Orlean

When Women Were Birds: fifty-four variations on voice by Terry Tempest Williams

River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the technological wild west by Rebecca Solnit

My Faraway One: selected letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz

Sorrow of the Earth: Buffalo Bill, Sitting Bull and the Tragedy of Show Business by Éric Vuillard

The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather

When Esther Morris Headed West, Women, Wyoming, and the Right to Vote by Connie Nordhielm Wooldrige, illustrated by Jacqueline Rogers

Where I Was From by Joan Didion

“John Wayne: a love song” in Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion

No time for, but you should really read! The Meadow by James Glavin, West by Carys Davies, and Cowboys Are My Weakness: stories by Pam Houston.

Listener Picks

News of the World by Paulette Jiles (Recommended by Steve Junker before we went on the air!)

Old Jules by Mari Sandoz

O Pioneers! by Willa Cather

This House of Sky by Ivan Doig

Last Bus to Wisdom by Ivan Doig

Scary Stories for Halloween as Heard on The Point

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If you missed today’s Halloween scary story edition of the book show on THE POINT, have no fear … you can listen online! And if you enjoyed Dan Tritle’s choice of spooky sounds, you too can have spooky sounds by checking out Martha Stewart’s CD Spooky Scary Sounds for Halloween!

Mindy’s Pick

Communion: a true story by Whitley Streiber

Mary Fran’s Picks

The Shining by Stephen King

In a Dark Dark Wood by Ruth Ware

The Woman in the Window by A. J. Finn

The Taker of Morrows by Stephen Sayers

Scream and Scream Again presented by R. L. Stine

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

Quicksand by Malin Giolito

Not Enough Time For:

The Haunting of Cape Cod and the Islands by Barbara Sillery

Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson

Jill’s Picks

Collected Stories by Roald Dahl. Particularly “Taste”, “Lamb to the Slaughter”, and “Pig”.

The So Blue Marble by Dorothy B. Hughes

American Fantastic Tales: terror and the uncanny from Poe to the Pulps, edited by Peter Straub

American Fantastic Tales: terror and the uncanny from the 1940s to now, edited by Peter Straub. And Dan Tritle’s favorite story from this collection is “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” by Harlan Ellison.

The New Annotated H. P. Lovecraft edited with a foreword and notes by Leslie S. Klinger, and it includes the character Cthulhu, who made his first appearance in “The Call of Cthulhu” … also a favorite of Dan Tritle!

Scream: chilling adventures in the science of fear by Margee Kerr

Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” the authorized graphic adaptation by Miles Hyman

The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton (and you can pair this with Edith Wharton A to Z, in which there are many mentions of her ghost stories.)

Listener Picks

“The Colour out of Space” a story by H. P. Lovecraft, which can be found in The Classic Horror Stories by H. P. Lovecraft, Necronomicon: the best weird tales of H. P. Lovecraft, and Tales by H. P. Lovecraft. And, of course, The New Annotated H.P. Lovecraft, if you want all the annotations.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

A Rose for Emily … a story in Collected Stories by William Faulkner

Food Glorious Food on The Point with Mindy Todd

Posted on by Library User

This morning on The Point our book topic was food. Here are our picks.

Kellie’s Picks

Dinner in an Instant by Melissa Clark
Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Art of Eating by M.F.K. Fisher
Jill’s Picks
The Popcorn Astronauts and Other Biteable Rhymes by Deborah Ruddell, illustrated by Joan Rankin

Scrambled Eggs Super! by Dr. Seuss

Adventures in Slow Cooking by Sarah DiGregorio

Homer Price by Robert McCloskey “The Doughnuts” chapter

The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book with a foreword by M. F. K. Fisher

Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder & Christmas Cake Murder by Joanne Fluke

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, which includes the character Thurston, the cook

Stories From the Kitchen edited by Diana Secker Tesdell

Cod by Mark Kurlansky

Boogaloo on 2nd Avenue: a novel of pastry, guilt, and music by Mark Kurlansky

Voracious: a hungry reader cooks her way through great books by Cara Nicoletti

The Food Activist Handbook by Ali Berlow

Not Enough Time For

Much Depends on Dinner by Margaret Visser

The Man Who Ate Everything by Jeffrey Steingarten

Cake by Maira Kalman with recipes by Barbara Scott-Goodman

The Kitchen Book/The Cook Book by Nicolas Freeling

Blood, Bones & Butter: the inadvertent education of a reluctant chef by Gabrielle Hamilton

Listener Picks

Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel

On Rue Tatin: living and cooking in a French town by SusanHerrmann

La Cucina: a novel of rapture by Lily Prior

Chocolat by Joanne Harris

Guns, Germs and Steel: the fates of human societies by Jared Diamond

Smitten Kitchen Every Day by Deb Perelman

Tender at the Bone by Ruth Reichl

Babette’s Feast, which is both a film and a short story by Isak Dinesen

Pirates on the Point with Amy Vince & Peter Abrahams

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Today’s book show on The Point was all about pirates. Amy Vince sat in for Mindy Todd to talk books with Peter Abrahams and Jill Erickson. Below you will find the books we had a chance to talk about, and a few extras that we did not have a chance to talk about. If you have a favorite book about pirates, let us know and we will add it to our list. Miss the show? Don’t worry, you can listen tonight at 7:00 PM on WCAI or listen online!

Peter’s Picks

The Republic of Pirates: being the true and surprising story of the Caribbean pirates and the man who brought them down by Colin Woodard

Under the Black Flag: the romance and the reality of life among the pirates by David Condingly

The Whydah: a pirate ship feared, wrecked, and found by Martin W. Sandler

Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates: the forgotten war that changed American history by Brian Kilmeade and Don Yeager

The Pirates of Somalia: inside their hidden world by Jay Bahadur

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

The Wine-Dark Sea by Patrick O’Brian

No time for:

Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie

Delusion by Peter Abrahams

Jill’s Picks

Books of the Sea: an introduction to nautical literature by Charles Lee Lewis

Wondrous Strange: the Wyeth tradition: Howard Pyle, N. C. Wyeth, Andrew Wyeth, James Wyeth

The Pirates of the New England Coast 1630 – 1730 by George Francis Dow and John Henry Edmonds

Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth by R. Buckminster Fuller

Race to the Bottom of the Sea by Lindsay Eagar

Seafaring Women by Linda Grant De Pauw

The Golden Age of Piracy: the rise, fall, and enduring popularity of pirates edited by David Head

The Desert and the Sea: 977 days captive on the Somali pirate coast by Michael Scott Moore

No time for picture books:

The Ballad of the Pirate Queens by Jane Yolen, illustrated by David Shannon

Captain Jack and the Pirates by Peter Bently & Hlene Oxenbury

Swap by Steve Light

Listener Pick

Ireland’s Pirate Queen: the true story of Grace O’Malley, 1530 – 1603 by Anne Chambers

28 #BlackJoy Middle Grade Novels

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Back in March, I posted about 28 #BlackJoy Picture Books because #weneeddiversebooks that feature Black protagonists just living their lives. The post was inspired by my frustration with the book lists faithfully trotted out every February for Black History Month. They were all full of books about Black trauma. So I decided to make a list which turned out to be much more popular than I expected—a big thank you to everyone who commented to let me know the recommendations were useful!

I didn’t want to leave out the older kids (sorry it’s taken so long), so here are 28 #BlackJoy Middle Grade Novels. In order to highlight authors who are writing right now, the list features predominately newer titles (most published within the last five years). Most titles are #ownvoices.

As I said in my previous post books about slavery are important. Books about Jim Crow America are important. Books about the Civil Rights Era are important. Books that feature Black characters experiencing joy are also important. These #BlackJoy books are great reads for Black History Month and all year long!

Enjoy,

~Stephanie

Children’s Room & North Branch

P.S. Click on images to enlarge. When you click the “Click here to request!” link a new tab will open. In the new tab, click on the title of the book you’re interested in to check availability/request it.

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Library’s Historical Documents are Digitized

Posted on by K.C. DeWall

The preservation of the Falmouth Public Library’s historical documents is now complete.

Through a grant by the Falmouth Community Preservation Fund in 2010 , the Library was enabled to rebind documents and records dating back to 1792.

Recently, the collection was digitized by the Digital Commonwealth, a non-profit collaborative organization that helps Massachusetts libraries create, manage, and disseminate  cultural heritage materials.

The collection may be viewed in full on the Internet Archives.

Books to Inspire Travel on The Point with Mindy Todd

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This weeks book show on WCAI was pre-recorded, and if you listened in the morning (during the pledge drive) you would have heard a shortened version of the show, but the evening version will be the full show. You can also, as always, listen online! Our topic was books having to do with travel. Because the show was not live, we also could not take any of your calls or read any of your e-mails. However, if you have a favorite travel book that you would like to add to our list, just send us a comment via this post.

We were delighted that Kellie Porter, a librarian at the Woods Hole Library, joined us for the very first time! We definitely hope she returns for another show in the near future. Looking forward to our August show, we’ll be talking books about pirates with author Peter Abrahams. Every month the book show is broadcast on the last Wednesday of the month, and if you happen to have missed a show, you can listen to them all online at the WCAI web page.

Kellie’s Picks

Time Out in Palestine by Glynnis Fawkes

The Ultimate Interplanetary Travel Guide by Jim Bell

My Paris Kitchen by David Lebovitz

The Odyssey of Homer translated by Emily Wilson

Around the World in 50 Ways by Lonely Planet Kids

The Solo Travel Handbook by Lonely Planet

The Airport Book by Lisa Brown

Leave Me Alone! by Vera Brosgol

The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton

Old Ways by Robert Macfarlane

Jill’s Picks

The Novel Cure: from abandonment to zestlessness: 751 books to
cure what ails you by Ella Berthoud and Susan Elderkin. “The Ten
Best Novels to Read on a Train” page 67. “The Ten Best Novels to
Read in a Hammock” page 375.

Atlas Obscura by Joshua Foer, Dylan Thuras & Ella Morton. Interested in the Atlas Obscura web page? Here is the link!

Unfathomable City: a New Orleans Atlas by Rebecca Solnit and
Rebecca Snedeker. You might also be interested in Nonstop Metropolis: a New York City Atlas and  Infinite City: a San Francisco Atlas.

The Old Ways: a journey on foot by Robert Macfarlane

Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie

Le Road Trip: a traveler’s journal of love and France by Vivian Swift

Gardens of Awe and Folly: a traveler’s journal on the meaning of life
and gardening by Vivian Swift

Explorers’ Sketchbooks: the art of discovery & adventure by Huw Lewis-Jones & Kari Herbert with a foreword by Robert MacFarlane

The Best Women’s Travel Writing, Volume 11, published in 2017, edited by Lavinia
Spalding

Travel Books to Share with Children

The Penny Whistle Traveling With Kids Book by Meredith Brokaw
and Annie Gilbar, illustrated by Jill Weber

Storybook Travels: from Eloise’s New York to Harry Potter’s London,
visits to 30 of the best-loved landmarks in children’s literature by
Colleen Dunn Bates and Susan LaTempa

All Aboard: a traveling alphabet by Bill Mayer

No time for this, but GRANTA: the magazine of new writing did a great travel issue. It is the “Journeys” issue number 138, Winter 2017. It includes many meditations on the question “Is Travel Writing Dead?” and Falmouth Public Library subscribes so you can request this issue via CLAMS!

Summer Reading on The Point with Mindy Todd

Posted on by Library User

Today’s show was pre-recorded, so if you have some great suggestions for summer reading just let us know, and we’ll add them to this list. It was a joy to have Mary Fran Buckley, co-owner of Eight Cousins Bookshop, join us for this show, and we look forward to having her return. You can read the summer reading article from the Falmouth Enterprise here.

Mary Fran’s Picks

The Shell Seekers by Rosamund Pilcher

A Town Like Alice by Neville Schute

Death at La Fenice by Donna Leon

Bruno, Chief of Police by Martin Walker

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson

In the Garden of Beasts:love, terror, and an American family in Hitler’s Berlin by Erik Larson

Jill’s Picks

Florine Stettheimer: Painting Poetry by Stephen Brown and Georgiana Uhlyarik. The autobiography of Virgil Thomson first introduced me to the Stettheimer sisters. Head to page 308 in the Library of America volume The State of Music & other writings for a great introduction to these astonishing sisters. The autobiography itself is a great read. As Thomson writes: “The sisters were three — Ettie, Florine, and Carrie — all of uncertain age; and they lived with their invalid mother in the most ornate apartment house I have ever seen — a florid Gothic structure called Alwyn Court, at Fifty-eighth Street and Seventh Avenue.”

The House at Lobster Cove by Jane Goodrich. Background on this novel courtesy of Fine Books & Collections Magazine.

Cape Cod Notebook: an alternative guidebook to the beaches of Cape Cod by Betsy Medvedovsky

A Cape Cod Notebook by Robert Finch

A Cape Cod Notebook 2 by Robert Finch

The Pisces by Melissa Broder. List of ten mermaid books perfect for the beach by Matt Staggs.

Collected Millar: the master at her zenith by Margaret Millar. (Includes her novel Beast in View.) While you are waiting for a CLAMS library to order the Collected Millar, try Women Crime Writers: four suspense novels of the 1950s which also includes Beast in View!

Murder in the Manuscript Room by Con Lehane

Widow’s Wreath by Cynthia Riggs

The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt

Bellewether by Susanna Kearsley

Look at the photo on this page closely, and you’ll find some books that we didn’t have time for! It does seem that I always bring more books than we need out of an abundant fear of dead radio air!