Upcoming programs:
Sat 7/27 @ 3pm – 80s Adventure Film Series: Romancing the Stone
Tue 8/6 @ 5pm – Great Short Stories Film Series: Smoke Signals
Fri 8/9 @ 9am-6pm – World Cross Stitch Day
Sat 8/10 @ 9am-noon – Crafterday
Tue 8/20 @ 6:30pm – 80s Adventure Film Series: The Princess Bride
Tue 8/27 @ 6:30pm – Books & Beyond: Dinosaurs, Fossils, and Paleontology
Last night, the Books & Beyond discussion group met to
talk about adventure!
The Train to Impossible Places by P.G. Bell
The Impossible Postal Express is no ordinary train. It’s a
troll-operated delivery service that runs everywhere from ocean-bottom
shipwrecks, to Trollville, to space. But when this impossible train comes
roaring through Suzy’s living room, her world turns upside down. After sneaking
on board, Suzy suddenly finds herself Deputy Post Master aboard the train, and
faced with her first delivery―to the evil Lady Crepuscula. Then, the
package itself begs Suzy not to deliver him. A talking snow globe, Frederick
has information Crepuscula could use to take over the entire Union of
Impossible Places. But when protecting Frederick means putting her friends in
danger, Suzy has to make a difficult choice―with the fate of the entire Union
at stake. The other books in the series are The Great Brain Robbery and Delivery to the Lost City.
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by
Siddhartha Mukherjee
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, adapted as a documentary from Ken Burns on PBS, this New York Times bestseller is “an extraordinary
achievement” (The New Yorker)—a magnificent, profoundly humane “biography” of
cancer.
The Black Bird Oracle by Deborah Harkness
Deborah Harkness first introduced the world to Diana Bishop,
an Oxford scholar and witch, and vampire geneticist Matthew de Clermont
in A Discovery of Witches. Drawn to each other despite long-standing
taboos, these two otherworldly beings found themselves at the center of a
battle for a lost, enchanted manuscript known as Ashmole 782. Since then, they
have fallen in love, traveled to Elizabethan England, dissolved the Covenant
between the three species, and awoken the dark powers within Diana’s family
line.
Now, Diana and Matthew receive a formal demand from the Congregation: They must
test the magic of their seven-year-old twins, Pip and Rebecca. Concerned with
their safety and desperate to avoid the same fate that led her parents to
spellbind her, Diana decides to forge a different path for her family’s future
and answers a message from a great-aunt she never knew existed, Gwyneth
Proctor, whose invitation simply reads: It’s time you came home, Diana.
The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey by Rinker Buck
A major bestseller that has been hailed as a “quintessential
American story” (Christian Science Monitor), Rinker Buck’s The Oregon
Trail is an epic account of traveling the 2,000-mile length of the Oregon
Trail the old-fashioned way—in a covered wagon with a team of mules—that has
captivated readers, critics, and booksellers from coast to coast.
Simultaneously a majestic journey across the West, a significant work of
history, and a moving personal saga, Buck’s chronicle is a “laugh-out-loud
masterpiece” (Willamette Week) that “so ensnares the emotions it becomes a
tear-jerker at its close” (Star Tribune, Minneapolis) and “will leave you
daydreaming and hungry to see this land” (The Boston Globe).
Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident by Donnie Eicher
In February 1959, a group of nine experienced hikers in the
Russian Ural Mountains died mysteriously on an elevation known as Dead
Mountain. Eerie aspects of the mountain climbing incident—unexplained violent
injuries, signs that they cut open and fled the tent without proper clothing or
shoes, a strange final photograph taken by one of the hikers, and elevated
levels of radiation found on some of their clothes—have led to decades of
speculation over the true stories and what really happened.
Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident delves
into the untold story through unprecedented access to the hikers' own journals
and photographs, rarely seen government records, dozens of interviews, and
author Donnie Eichar's retracing of the hikers' fateful journey in the Russian
winter.
Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton
It is 922 A.D. The refined Arab courtier Ibn Fadlan is
accompanying a party of Viking warriors back to their home. He is appalled by
their customs—the gratuitous sexuality of their women, their disregard for
cleanliness, and their cold-blooded sacrifices. As they enter the frozen,
forbidden landscape of the North—where the day’s length does not equal the
night’s, where after sunset the sky burns in streaks of color—Fadlan soon
discovers that he has been unwillingly enlisted to combat the terrors in the night
that come to slaughter the Vikings, the monsters of the mist that devour human
flesh. But just how he will do it, Fadlan has no idea.
The Anomaly by Herve Le Tellier
In their own way, they were all living double lives when
they boarded the plane:
-Blake, a respectable family man who works as a
contract killer.
-Slimboy, a Nigerian pop star who uses his womanizing
image to hide that he’s gay.
-Joanna, a Black American lawyer pressured to play the
good old boys’ game to succeed with her Big Pharma client.
-Victor Miesel, a critically acclaimed yet largely
obscure writer suddenly on the precipice of global fame.
About to start their descent to JFK, they hit a shockingly
violent patch of turbulence, emerging on the other side to a reality both
perfectly familiar and utterly strange. As it charts the fallout of this
logic-defying event, The Anomaly takes us on a journey from Lagos and
Mumbai to the White House and a top-secret hangar.
In Hervé Le Tellier’s most ambitious work yet, high
literature follows the lead of a bingeable Netflix series, drawing on the best
of genre fiction from “chick lit” to mystery, while also playfully critiquing
their hallmarks. An ingenious, timely variation on the doppelgänger theme, it
taps into the parts of ourselves that elude us most.
The Games: A Global History of the Olympics by David
Goldblatt
The Games is best-selling sportswriter David
Goldblatt’s sweeping, definitive history of the modern Olympics. Goldblatt
brilliantly traces their history from the reinvention of the Games in Athens in
1896 to Rio in 2016, revealing how the Olympics developed into a global
colossus and highlighting how they have been buffeted by (and affected by)
domestic and international conflicts. Along the way, Goldblatt reveals the
origins of beloved Olympic traditions (winners’ medals, the torch relay, the
eternal flame) and popular events (gymnastics, alpine skiing, the marathon).
And he delivers memorable portraits of Olympic icons from Jesse Owens to Nadia
Comaneci, the Dream Team to Usain Bolt.
On Borrowed Time: North America's Next Big Quake by Gregor
Craigie (digital only, ebook on Hoopla)
Mention the word earthquake and most people think
of California. But while the Golden State shakes on a regular basis, Washington
State, Oregon, and British Columbia are located in a zone that can produce the
world’s biggest earthquakes and tsunamis. In the eastern part of the continent,
small cities and large, from Ottawa to Montréal to New York City, sit in active
earthquake zones. In fact, more than 100-million North Americans live in active
seismic zones, many of whom do not realize the risk to their community.
For more than a decade, Gregor Craigie interviewed
scientists, engineers, and emergency planners about earthquakes, disaster
response, and resilience. He has also collected vivid first-hand accounts from
people who have survived deadly earthquakes. His fascinating and deeply
researched book dives headfirst into explaining the science behind The Big One
— and asks what we can do now to prepare ourselves for events geologists say
aren't a matter of if, but when.
Following Caesar: From Rome to Constantinople, the Pathways That Planted the Seeds of Empire by John Keahey
In 66 b.c., young, ambitious Julius Caesar, seeking
recognition and authority, became the curator of the Via Appia, a road
stretching from Rome to Brindisi. To gain popularity with Roman citizens along
the way, he borrowed significant sums to restore the ancient
highway. Other armies followed these two roads that eventually connected
Rome to Constantinople, today’s Istanbul. Both Octavian and, later, his
friend-turned enemy Mark Antony traveled portions of these roads to defeat
Caesar’s murderers, Brutus and Cassius. The great Roman statesman Cicero, the
Roman poet Homer, the historian Virgil, and many other notables also journeyed
on them. In the early second century a.d., the emperor Trajan charted a new,
faster, coastal route between Benevento and Brindisi, later called the Via
Traiana.
Today, the remains of these roads are preserved as
archaeological wonders, and can be seen through the countryside near, and
sometimes under, modern highways in the ruins of ancient Roman cities. Some of
the earliest villages have disappeared, while others have grown into modern
towns with the ancient roads hidden beneath latter-day pavements.
In this sojourn across Roman history, John Keahey delves into encounters with
diverse peoples in these towns in Italy, North Macedonia, Greece, and Turkey,
who warmly embrace travelers following in the footsteps of their ancestors.
They shared knowledge of historical sites, meals, and a wealth of local lore.
Keahey’s unparalleled storytelling breathes life into the prominent figures,
pivotal events, and ancient roads that paved the way for the rise and endurance
of the Roman empire. It is a journey full of adventure, discovery, and
friendship.
Taste of Empire: How Britain's Quest for Food Shaped the Modern World by Lizzie Collingham
In The Taste of Empire, acclaimed historian Lizzie
Collingham tells the story of how the British Empire's quest for food shaped
the modern world. Told through twenty meals over the course of 450 years, from
the Far East to the New World, Collingham explains how Africans taught
Americans how to grow rice, how the East India Company turned opium into tea,
and how Americans became the best-fed people in the world.
Collingham masterfully shows that only by
examining the history of Great Britain's global food system, from
sixteenth-century Newfoundland fisheries to our present-day eating habits, can
we fully understand our capitalist economy and its role in making our modern
diets.
Architects of Memory by Karen Osborne
Terminally ill salvage pilot Ash Jackson lost everything in
the war with the alien Vai, but she'll be damned if she loses her future. Her
plan: to buy, beg, or lie her way out of corporate indenture and find a cure.
When her crew salvages a genocidal weapon from a ravaged starship above a dead
colony, Ash uncovers a conspiracy of corporate intrigue and betrayal that
threatens to turn her into a living weapon.
GENERAL DISCUSSION:
The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race by Walter Isaacson
Should we use our new evolution-hacking powers to make us
less susceptible to viruses? What a wonderful boon that would be! And what
about preventing depression? Hmmm…Should we allow parents, if they can afford
it, to enhance the height or muscles or IQ of their kids?
After helping to discover CRISPR, Doudna became a leader in wrestling with
these moral issues and, with her collaborator Emmanuelle Charpentier, won the
Nobel Prize in 2020. Her story is an “enthralling detective story” (Oprah Daily)
that involves the most profound wonders of nature, from the origins of life to
the future of our species.
Life on the Mississippi: An Epic American Adventure by
Rinker Buck
The eagerly awaited return of master American storyteller
Rinker Buck, Life on the Mississippi is an epic, enchanting blend of
history and adventure in which Buck builds a wooden flatboat from the grand
“flatboat era” of the 1800s and sails it down the Mississippi River,
illuminating the forgotten past of America’s first western frontier.
Flight of Passage: A True Story by Rinker Buck
Writer Rinker Buck looks back more than 30 years to a summer
when he and his brother, at ages 15 and 17 respectively, became the youngest
duo to fly across America, from New Jersey to California. Having grown up in an
aviation family, the two boys bought an old Piper Cub, restored it themselves,
and set out on the grand journey.
Devil’s Pass (digital only, streaming on Kanopy)
To determine what happened to some Russian hikers, five U.S.
college students go back to where the hikers were found dead. The students
don't return from the expedition, either, and the recovered footage is deemed
too disturbing for public viewing.
True Detective: Night Country
Tsalal is an Arctic research base outside the town of Ennis,
Alaska. It is now close to the winter solstice, resulting in days with 24 hours
of darkness. When the entire research team disappears there appears to be a
link to a murder that occurred several years before. On the case is the Ennis
Chief of Police, Liz Danvers, and Evangaline Navarro, a Police trooper who has
a personal interest in the murder being solved.
The Eagle Has Flown by Jack Higgins
IRA assassin Liam Devlin returns to Britain in an attempt to
effect the escape of German soldier Kurt Steiner from the Tower of London and
return with him to Berlin.
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
A breathtaking tour de force, and Neal Stephenson's most
accomplished and affecting work to date, Cryptonomicon is profound
and prophetic, hypnotic and hyper-driven, as it leaps forward and back between
World War II and the World Wide Web, hinting all the while at a dark
day-after-tomorrow. It is a work of great art, thought and creative daring; the
product of a truly iconoclastic imagination working with white-hot intensity.
Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton
A landslide has closed the Korowai Pass on New Zealand’s
South Island, cutting off
the town of Thorndike and leaving a sizable farm abandoned. The disaster
presents an opportunity for Birnam Wood, an undeclared, unregulated,
sometimes-criminal, sometimes-philanthropic guerrilla gardening collective that
plants crops wherever no one will notice. For years, the group has struggled to
break even. To occupy the farm at Thorndike would mean a shot at solvency at
last.
But the enigmatic American billionaire Robert Lemoine also has an interest in
the place: he has snatched it up to build his end-times bunker, or so he tells
Birnam’s founder, Mira, when he catches her on the property. He’s intrigued by
Mira, and by Birnam Wood; although they’re poles apart politically, it seems
Lemoine and the group might have enemies in common. But can Birnam trust him?
And, as their ideals and ideologies are tested, can they trust one another?
The Games 1970 British film (not available in the JCLC)
An American (Ryan O'Neal), a Briton (Michael Crawford), a
Czech (Charles Aznavour) and an Aboriginal Australian train for the Rome
Olympics marathon. Adapted from a 1968 novel by Hugh Atkinson.
The Games by Hugh Atkinson (not available in the JCLC, request from Interlibrary Loan)
It is four years since Tokyo and once again the Games are
obsessing the minds and determining the actions of hundreds of men and women
whose ambitions, careers and reputations will depend on ten days in Santa Anna
where the next Olympics will be staged. But not only the athletes are planning
their lives for a heartbreaking attempt at glory.
Mr. Tornado (not available in the JCLC, streaming for PBS Passport subscribers)
This PBS American Experience details the work of meteorologist Tetsuya Theodore "Ted" Fujita. The Super Outbreak of 1974 was the most intense tornado
outbreak on record, tearing a vicious path of destruction across thirteen
states, generating 148 tornadoes from Alabama to Ontario, damaging thousands of
homes, and killing more than 300 people. Fujita spent ten months studying the outbreak’s aftermath in the most extensive
aerial tornado study ever conducted, and through detailed mapping and leaps of
scientific imagination, made a series of meteorological breakthroughs.
His discovery of “microbursts,” sudden high wind patterns
that could cause airplanes to drop from the sky without warning, transformed
aviation safety and saved untold numbers of lives. Mr. Tornado is the
remarkable story of the man whose groundbreaking work in research and applied
science saved thousands of lives and helped Americans prepare for and respond
to dangerous weather phenomena.
The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng
The year is 1921. Lesley Hamlyn and her husband, Robert, a
lawyer and war veteran, are living at Cassowary House on the Straits Settlement
of Penang. When “Willie” Somerset Maugham, a famed writer and old friend of
Robert's, arrives for an extended visit with his secretary Gerald, the pair
threatens a rift that could alter more lives than one.
Alaskan Dinosaurs (not available in the JCLC, streaming for PBS Passport subscribers)
A team of intrepid paleontologists discovers dinosaurs that
thrived in the unlikeliest of places—the cold and dark of winter in the Arctic
Circle. How did they survive year-round and raise their young in frigid and
dark winter conditions? A dinosaur expedition explores a remote, treacherous,
and stormy terrain where the team knows that every bone they find there will
likely be a first, adding up to a unique picture of a lost northern world.
Several of Michael Crichton’s books came up in conversation, both for adventure AND for our August topic, dinosaurs!
Book and film descriptions pulled from Amazon and Rotten Tomatoes. Photo by Justin Luebke on Unsplash.
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