Nine Books for Home Makeovers

Whether you're a fan of Marie Kondo's Spark Joy or you're less impressed, you might be feeling the need to give your living space a bit of a makeover, and Carnegie-Stout is here to help. Our book collection includes a wide variety of design, decoration, and organization titles to fit any taste. Whether your style is modern minimalism, vintage eclectic, or something else entirely, we've got a book to keep you inspired.

We've gathered together nine of our newer books to get you started. Check them out below!

Love the Home You Have by Melissa Michaels
(747 MIC) You can love your home. Join Melissa Michaels as she shares humor, lessons learned, and encouraging advice so you can: get motivated with the 31-day Love Your Home challenge; declutter, organize, and decorate your rooms with ease; and leap from dreamer to doer with confidence.

Cut the Clutter: a simple organization plan for a clean and tidy home by Cynthia Townley Ewer
(648.5 EWE) A guide to conquering clutter and cleaning your home from one of America's leading housekeeping experts. Whether you want to organize your closet, tame your fridge, or conquer the whole house one room at a time, Cut the Clutter will inform you, entertain you, and save your sanity along the way.

The Joy of Less: a minimalist guide to declutter, organize, and simplify by Francine Jay
(648.8 JAY) Jay introduces a five-step family program that will help you downsize, declutter, and maintain a streamlined life. Her minimalist lifestyle techniques will help you maximize space, free up time and energy, and keep things organized. Start living your life!

Shabby Chic: sumptuous settings and other lovely things by Rachel Ashwell
(793.2 ASH) Provides an inexpensive approach to casual elegance, showing how to give one's home unique charm--for both everyday and special occasions--through the use of materials acquired in a local antique mall or flea market.

Monochrome Home: elegant interiors in black and white by Hilary Robertson
(747.94 ROB) Hilary Robertson celebrates the stylish simplicity of the monochromatic home - elegant interiors in black, white, and every shade of grey in between. In the first chapter, Living in Black and White, Hilary analyzes successful monochrome interiors, providing moodboards for different schemes.

Absolutely Beautiful Things: decorating inspiration for a bright and colourful life by Felix Forest
(747 SPI) Anna Spiro shows you how to create an interior that's just right for you. To her, it's all about the mix, not the match, and, with her help, you'll find beauty in unexpected places. She'll give you the confidence to put together a layered and very individual home using elements you love, and make you see your old belongings in a new light.

Habitat: the field guide to decorating by Lauren Liess
(747 LIE) Lauren invites readers to bring nature inside by mixing the textures of natural elements such as wood and stone with eclectic groupings of modern and quirky vintage pieces. Readers will be inspired by the unique style of these rooms, which include lovely framed botanical prints and Liess's own textile patterns inspired by wildflowers and weeds.

Design Mom: how to live with kids: a room-by-room guide by Gabrielle Blair
(747 BLA) Blair offers a room-by-room guide to keeping things sane, organized, creative, and stylish. She provides advice on getting the most out of even the smallest spaces; simple fixes that make it easy for little ones to help out around the house; ingenious storage solutions for the never-ending stream of kid stuff; rainy-day DIY projects; and much, much more.

Styled: secrets for arranging rooms, from tabletops to bookshelves by Emily Henderson
(747 HEN) It's easy to find your own style confidence once you know this secret: While decorating can take months and tons of money, styling often takes just minutes. Even a few little tweaks can transform the way your room feels.

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Staff Review: The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson

If you're a fan of Jane Austen and other 19th century novelists of life and love in quaint villages of long-ago England, you should not miss The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson. Although it begins in 1914, on the eve of World War I, it quickly put me in mind of those earlier authors, with its exquisite village setting, its jumble of aristocrats and commoners, and its lavish period detail about dress, food, furniture, customs, and manners.

The novel begins slowly, as a charming tale of coastal village life at "the end of England's brief Edwardian summer." The weather has rarely been so glorious. Young, pretty, free-thinking -- and penniless -- Beatrice arrives to take her controversial place as the local grammar school's new Latin master, a position that until now has always been filled by a man. Her conditional hire situates Beatrice within a large cast of characters and allows Simonson to tackle the subject of the subjugation of women in the early twentieth century, which she succeeds at doing very well without being heavy-handed.

The rumblings of war draw closer however, Belgian refugees soon arrive in the village, and before long all are swept up in the years of bloody and tumultuous fighting that will eventually claim over 17 million lives, wound 20 million more, and end forever many of the old European ways of living. Despite the chaos into which the period descends, Simonson succeeds in bringing history vividly to life and her characters and story to satisfying conclusions.

Simonson's mastery of her material is astonishing, especially considering this is only her second novel, the first being the highly acclaimed and equally delightful Major Pettigrew's Last Stand. She's a natural born storyteller. Her characters rarely hit a false note, historical detail is fluidly rendered, and the writing is well-crafted, witty, and intelligent. There's no treacle here either; certain scenes are hard to take. People suffer atrocities, reputations are hurt, class cruelty abounds, and a few characters do not survive to the end. In constructing this intricate tale of love, class, and war, Simonson never settles for confection but hews to the genuine and authentic.  

~ Ann, Adult Services

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Book Club in a Bag

Are you in charge of picking the next book for your book club and have no idea what to choose? Why not check-out one of Carnegie-Stout's Books-in-a-Bag.  This collection has everything you need for a successful book club.  Each set has at least 10 copies of the title, usually in multiple formats (regular print, large print and CD audio).  We have 43 different titles available in a mixture of genres. Take a look at our list and if you are interested in a title contact the library at 563-589-4225 and ask for the Inter-library loan department.

Some of our recent additions to the collection are:

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

As teenagers in a Lagos secondary school, Ifemelu and Obinze fall in love. Their Nigeria is under military dictatorship, and people are leaving the country if they can. Ifemelu—beautiful, self-assured—departs for America to study. She suffers defeats and triumphs, finds and loses relationships and friendships, all the while feeling the weight of something she never thought of back home: race. Obinze—the quiet, thoughtful son of a professor—had hoped to join her, but post-9/11 America will not let him in, and he plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London.

Years later, Obinze is a wealthy man in a newly democratic Nigeria, while Ifemelu has achieved success as a writer of an eye-opening blog about race in America. But when Ifemelu returns to Nigeria, and she and Obinze reignite their shared passion—for their homeland and for each other—they will face the toughest decisions of their lives.

Fearless, gripping, at once darkly funny and tender, spanning three continents and numerous lives, Americanah is a richly told story set in today’s globalized world. --from Goodreads

Ms. Marvel, Vol. 1 by G. Willow Wilson

Kamala Khan is an ordinary girl from Jersey City — until she's suddenly empowered with extraordinary gifts. But who truly is the new Ms. Marvel? Teenager? Muslim? Inhuman? Find out as she takes the Marvel Universe by storm! When Kamala discovers the dangers of her newfound powers, she unlocks a secret behind them, as well. Is Kamala ready to wield these immense new gifts? Or will the weight of the legacy before her be too much to bear? Kamala has no idea, either. But she's comin' for you, Jersey!-- from Goodreads

****Try this one in audio. It is fantastic, fun and only 2 hours long.****
              *** Read Sarah's review of Ms. Marvel here***
                                    

Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth and Faith in the New China by Evan Osnos

From abroad, we often see China as a caricature: a nation of pragmatic plutocrats and ruthlessly dedicated students destined to rule the global economy-or an addled Goliath, riddled with corruption and on the edge of stagnation. What we don't see is how both powerful and ordinary people are remaking their lives as their country dramatically changes.
As the Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker, Evan Osnos was on the ground in China for years, witness to profound political, economic, and cultural upheaval. In Age of Ambition, he describes the greatest collision taking place in that country: the clash between the rise of the individual and the Communist Party's struggle to retain control. He asks probing questions: Why does a government with more success lifting people from poverty than any civilization in history choose to put strict restraints on freedom of expression? Why do millions of young Chinese professionals-fluent in English and devoted to Western pop culture-consider themselves "angry youth," dedicated to resisting the West's influence? How are Chinese from all strata finding meaning after two decades of the relentless pursuit of wealth? -- from Goodreads

                                             *** Read Ann's review of Age of Ambition here***


Are you looking for a book club to join? Carnegie-Stout's next book discussion for adults will be at 7:00 PM on July 12 in the First Floor Program Room. We will be discussing Five Days at Memorial by Sheri Fink.  Books are available for check-out at the circulation desk. 

The upcoming book discussion titles for the rest of 2016 are as follows:

• August 10, Girl Waits with Gun by Amy Stewart.
• September 13, Missing Pieces by Heather Gudenkauf. (Heather will be joining the discussion)
• October 11, Lila by Marilynne Robinson. (this is the All Iowa Reads selection for 2016)
• November 15, The Painter by Peter Heller.
• December 13, everyone is invited to bring their favorite book they read in 2016.  Hot chocolate, hot apple cider and cookies will be provided.

All meetings will be held at 7:00 PM in the First Floor Program Room.  Books are available for check-out approximately 6 weeks before the discussion date. 

~ Amy, Adult Services