Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Nine Books for Plant Lovers with Black Thumbs

It's the time of year that even the blackest of thumbs start thinking about gardening. We here at Carnegie-Stout are getting in the gardening spirit too with a Tin Can Planter workshop on Saturday, May 28. Attendees will decorate a recycled tin can into an attractive planter. Registration is required for this program. You can register online on our Program Calendar, or you can call the Reference Desk at 563-589-4225.

To help you brainstorm what you might grow in your tin can planter, we've put together a container gardening reading list in our catalog.

And for anyone who thinks they might prefer to put cut flowers or even artificial flowers in their tin can planter, or who would rather read about gardeners than garden themselves, we've put together a reading list of Nine Books for Plant Lovers with Black Thumbs:

The flower chef: a modern guide to do-it-yourself floral arrangements by Carly Cylinder
A modern, comprehensive guide to floral design that caters to all readers--from beginners who have never worked with flowers before and are looking for a new creative outlet, to decorators, party planners and photographers looking to liven up their spaces.

My first ladies: twenty-five years as the White House chief floral designer by Nancy Clarke
For six administrations, Clarke designed the flowers and decorations for state dinners and planned the floral arrangements for the first family's private living quarters and weddings. She describes the inside story of her remarkable life at the White House, working with each first lady to help her find her own personal style for state dinners and holiday festivities.

The flower workshop: lessons in arranging blooms, branches, fruits, and foraged materials by Ariella Chezar
A master floral designer who has appeared in numerous magazines and is known for her hands-on flower workshops at FlowerSchool New York presents this lavishly illustrated guide to creating a vast array of floral projects, for all skill levels, that will enhance any surrounding with abundant beauty.

Japanese fabric flowers: 65 decorative kanzashi flowers to make by Sylvie Blondeau
Sylvie Blondeau shows you how to make 65 of these simply stunning designs. The projects are so easy and fun to make that you will soon be making them for every occasion.

Origami ikebana: create lifelike floral sculptures from paper by Benjamin John Coleman
The Japanese art of flower arranging is an age-old practice that honors nature and creates beauty through harmony and balance. This brand new book, Origami Ikebana, shows you how to create unique ikebana-inspired paper flower arrangements any time of the year.

Bloom and Doom by Beverly Allen
As the co-owner of the Rose in Bloom, Audrey Bloom creates magnificent flower arrangements for brides to be. Though helping to plan a wedding can be stressful, it's nothing compared to the groom turning up dead.

The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
A mesmerizing, moving, and elegantly written debut novel, The Language of Flowers beautifully weaves past and present, creating a vivid portrait of an unforgettable woman whose gift for flowers helps her change the lives of others even as she struggles to overcome her own troubled past.

Thyme of Death by Susan Wittig Albert
Eager to open up an herb shop and get closer to the earth, China Bayles leaves behind her career in corporate law and moves to Pecan Springs, Texas, but a close friend's tragic death could end her happy plans.

Backyard by Norman Draper
When a local nursery introduces a gardening contest, the gardeners of Livia jump into the competition with a vengeance, including a middle-aged couple who risk their retirement savings, a garden witch, and a self-styled gardening expert.

Tuesday, May 10, 2016

New Item Tuesday


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Tuesday, May 3, 2016

New Item Tuesday


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Sunday, May 1, 2016

Staff Review: My Name Is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout

My Name Is Lucy Barton is the third novel I've read by Elizabeth Strout. I began reading her in 2008 when she published Olive Kitteridge, which won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and became an HBO four-part mini-series starring Frances McDormand.

I'm always a little puzzled by my relationship with this author. Her characters sometimes put me off with their razor-sharp tongues, relentless sarcasm, and the cloying dysfunction within which they live, and yet there is also something so compelling about her novels that I find myself reading her again.

So, what is it? In part it's her intelligence and in part her settings -- I love stories that unfold in New England. She's also a wonderful wordsmith. Her novels revolve around families, their interactions, traumas, and flaws.

In Strout's newest novel, Lucy Barton comes from a poverty-stricken, emotionally-crippled family, a family that frequently goes hungry and lives without benefit of heat, books, television, decent clothes, and any normal displays of affection. When her parents go out, they lock little Lucy in a truck at home, one time, inadvertently, with a snake.

Lucy manages to break away from her unlovely kin via college and an interest in writing. Years later, as a young wife and mother, she finds herself stuck in a hospital for weeks with an unspecified infection. To her great surprise, her estranged mother shows up and camps out in Lucy's room, and the two spend hours talking, gossipy talk mostly, about people from the past. Her mother then leaves and the uncharacteristic bonding's over. While it lasts though, Lucy's in deep mother-love and happy.

Strout's achievement in this short novel is her very human understanding, her compassion for Lucy's badly flawed family members, who made her childhood such a misery, and her realistic offering of an alternate way of life. As a Boston Globe reviewer notes in her glowing review: The "psychic wounds of her childhood are part of Lucy, but they do not define her. We see this as we watch her find her place in the world, learn how to be ruthless for her art, and come to understand that while humiliation is unacceptable, humility is essential."

~Ann, Adult Services

Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Nine Books for Bike to Work Week

The annual celebration of the average bicyclist is coming! Are you ready for Bike to Work Week (May 16-20)? The Dubuque Bike Coop is coming to Carnegie-Stout Public Library to answer your questions about biking and give you the basics on bike care. We hope to see you there on Monday, May 9 at 6 p.m.

In the meantime, we've put together a short reading list for cycling enthusiasts:

Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen
(YA Fiction Dessen) When Auden impulsively goes to stay with her father, stepmother, and new baby sister the summer before she starts college, all the trauma of her parents' divorce is revived, even as she is making new friends and having new experiences such as learning to ride a bike and dating.

Around the World on Two Wheels by Peter Zheutlin
(Biog Londonderry) For more than a century, the story of the audacious and charismatic Annie Kopchovsky and her attempt to circle the world by wheel has been lost to history. Who was this mysterious young woman on a bike? How did she manage, in the 1890s, to make a trip around the world by bicycle?

(796.64 BYR) Since the early 1980s, renowned musician and visual artist David Byrne has been riding a bike as his principal means of transportation in New York City. Byrne's choice was initially made out of convenience rather than political motivation, but the more cities he saw from his bicycle, the more he became hooked on this mode of transport and the sense of liberation, exhilaration, and connection it provided.

(Fiction Cleave) Cyclists Zoe and Kate are friends and athletic rivals for Olympic gold, while Kate and her husband Jack, also a world-class cyclist, must contend with the recurrence of their young daughter's leukemia.

A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar by Suzanne Joinson
(Fiction Joinson) In 1923, devout Eva English and her not-so-religious sister Lizzie embark on a journey to be missionaries in the ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar.

Lanterne Rouge by Max Leonard
(796.62 LEO) Shares the lesser-known stories of last-place finishers in the Tour de France, recounting the inspirational and occasionally absurd events that shaped their efforts.

Life is a Wheel by Bruce Weber
(917.3 WEB) Riding a bicycle across the United States is one of those bucket-list goals that many dream about but few fulfill. In 2011 at the age of fifty-seven, New York Times obituary writer Bruce Weber made the trip alone and wrote about it as it unfolded mile by mile.

The Lost Cyclist by David Herlihy
(Biog Lenz) Herlihy's gripping narrative captures the soaring joys and constant dangers accompanying renowned high-wheel racer and long-distance tourist Frank Lenz in the days before paved roads and automobiles.

Shift by Jennifer Bradbury
(YA Fiction Bradbury) When best friends Chris and Win go on a cross country bicycle trek the summer after graduating and only one returns, the FBI wants to know what happened.

Tuesday, April 26, 2016

New Item Tuesday


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