Holiday Hours

Our furry ambassadors are quite excited about the holiday season, and having a little too much fun playing with the Library's decorations:

They want to make sure everyone knows the Library's holiday hours too, so you can make sure you've got all the books and movies you may need! Here's our Christmas and New Year's closings: 

Friday Ramble

Not to scare anyone, but next Friday is Christmas Eve. Are you ready? I'm not 100% ready, but I think I'm getting there ... hopefully by this time next week, I'll have gotten all the loose ends tied up and can relax and enjoy the holiday.

Piano Covers of Disney Songs
Y'all. I stumbled across this on YouTube, and it's a game changer. As a lifelong fan of Disney anthems, and - in adulthood - a deep appreciation for the scores themselves, finding a collection of these performed in simple piano instrumentals? Yes please. So soothing, so relaxing. Perfect for listening to while working. (And there's a whole selection of videos with more songs!)

Treats & Eats (aka "Recipe Surfing")
Is anyone else deep down the rabbit hole of recipe hunting? I keep going back and forth between appetizer/finger foods and sweet treats ... This time of year always makes me want to get in the kitchen and start making delicious things - maybe it's the holidays and festiveness, or maybe it's the winter-time creeping in (hibernation season!). Here's a few that have caught my eye:

• Mini Macaroni and Cheese Bites
• Butterscotch Crunchies
• Cheesy Garlic Pull-Apart Bread
• Dark Chocolate Loaf Cake with Peppermint Cream Cheese Glaze

Winter Book Bingo
Did you notice? There's a new Book Bingo board up on our Instagram and it runs through the end of February. (You can also find all the details in this blog post). The prompts are fairly open-ended, giving you lots of freedom and flexibility in your picks. If you're stumped, stay tuned: there will be a post (or few) with ideas for specific prompts.

Winter Book Bingo!

The days are getting crispy (sometimes downright cold!), the nights are longer, and it's time for a reading diversion .... Book Bingo has returned!

This time, we're doing it a little bit differently ... The holiday season can be busy, occasionally stressful, and it's easy to forget to take time to breathe and savor the moments. Then, once those moments have all passed, the winter slump hits hard. So ... Winter Book Bingo to the rescue! 

The board will be "live" from now until the end of February, and there's a mix of prompts to choose from. You can read across a row for Bingo, or you can try to knock out the whole board. The hope is that joining in our bookish fun will help you take a moment to escape - to savor - to have some quiet "me time" while reading - and add a little something special to the holiday season and beyond.

The bingo board is posted below, but it will also be on our Instagram page!

If you join in, please tag us on Instagram @ArchdaleLibrary and use #ArchdaleReads so we can cheer each other on!

Read Together

There's something about finishing a book and knowing there's a list of other books that relate to what you've just read ... Especially when you read something that opens multiple avenues for further reading discoveries. Such was the case with one of my recent selections.

The Collector's Daughter (Gill Paul, 2021)

This is the story of Eve Herbert, daughter of the Earl of Carnarvon (you may know the family seat, Highclere Castle, aka Downton Abbey), and her role in the discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb in the 1920s. The narrative takes place in multiple timelines, revealing what happened in the past as it impacts the events of the "present" (1970s, when Eve is the last remaining discoverer).
As someone who studied both Art History and History in college, I was mesmerized by the account of finding the tomb - and the later discussions about who and where the uncovered artifacts belong. 

Read Together:

A World Beneath the Sands: The Golden Age of Egyptology
(Toby Wilkinson, 2020)

The Visitors

(Sally Beauman, 2014)

Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey: The Lost Legacy of Highclere Castle
(Fiona Carnarvon, 2011)

When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt
(Kara Cooney, 2018)

The Woman Who Would be King
(Kara Cooney, 2014)

Mirage: Napoleon's Scientists and the Unveiling of Egypt
(Nina Burleigh, 2007)

Friday Ramble

Another Friday, another ramble ... Is anyone else confused by how fast time is flying this year? It seems like just yesterday it was mid-July, and now we're less than a week from Thanksgiving! It's a busy time for everyone, but here's a few rambling thoughts for you...

Festive Reading
Do you read Christmas/holiday books? If so, when do you normally start reading them? I try to wait until October 1st every year, but this year I actually started the last week of September - Susan Mallery has a new book, The Christmas Wedding Guest, and I managed to snag a copy on release day. 
Since then, I've read a few others, and have a nice sized stack waiting for me to get to ... There's something about holiday books - a special sparkle, a little extra magic (even when there's no "actual" magic involved). A friend recently asked me for a list of titles to help jumpstart her festive reading, so I'll share some here as well. [Note: some of these are newer releases and others are backlist; I tried to mix it up so not everything has a waitlist.]

• The Christmas Bookshop (Jenny Colgan)
• Christmas by the Book (Anne Marie Ryan)
• Twelve Dates of Christmas (Jenny Bayliss)
• Dashing Through the Snow (Debbie Macomber)
• Bonus: there's a Hallmark movie of this one!
• The Santa Suit (Mary Kay Andrews)
• In a Holidaze (Christina Lauren)
• The Mistletoe Promise (Richard Paul Evans)

The Olympics
It seems a little strange to be thinking about the Olympics already, since we just had the [delayed] Summer Games a few months ago, but ... I'm excited. The Winter Games are my favorite, and it's nice to have something exciting to look forward to in the wintry months post-holidays.

Book Bingo
Yes, Book Bingo is coming back! Our Winter board will go live after Thanksgiving and run through the end of February ... because adding a little spice to our reading makes hibernating more fun!

Personal Reading
I've read more so far this year than I did in all of 2020, and I am very pleased with that fact. I may be behind on my official Goodreads goal, but the most important thing is the reading mojo is returning, and I'm enjoying more books again ... Besides, there's still a month and a half left - who knows what I might manage to read in that time?

Read Together

Today's Read Together feature is a little bit different ... I have not read any of the books I'm including in this list (yet!), but I was recently intrigued by the number of titles published recently dealing with a similar topic. And so ... I share with you. Since I can't offer personal feedback, I'm including the blurbs from Goodreads for each title, so you can get an idea beyond the cover. {Sidenote: They say to never judge a book by it's cover, but it's hard not to when they are so good}.

Read Together:

The Giver of Stars (Jojo Moyes, 2019) 

    Alice Wright marries handsome American Bennett Van Cleve hoping to escape her stifling life in England. But small-town Kentucky quickly proves equally claustrophobic, especially living alongside her overbearing father-in-law. So when a call goes out for a team of women to deliver books as part of Eleanor Roosevelt’s new traveling library, Alice signs on enthusiastically.
    The leader, and soon Alice’s greatest ally, is Margery, a smart-talking, self-sufficient woman who’s never asked a man’s permission for anything. They will be joined by three other singular women who become known as the Packhorse Librarians of Kentucky.
    What happens to them–and to the men they love–becomes an unforgettable drama of loyalty, justice, humanity and passion. These heroic women refuse to be cowed by men or by convention. And though they face all kinds of dangers in a landscape that is at times breathtakingly beautiful, at others brutal, they’re committed to their job: bringing books to people who have never had any, arming them with facts that will change their lives.
    Based on a true story rooted in America’s past, The Giver of Stars is unparalleled in its scope and epic in its storytelling. Funny, heartbreaking, enthralling, it is destined to become a modern classic–a richly rewarding novel of women’s friendship, of true love, and of what happens when we reach beyond our grasp for the great beyond.

 The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek (Kim Michele Richardson, 2019) 

    In 1936, tucked deep into the woods of Troublesome Creek, KY, lives blue-skinned 19-year-old Cussy Carter, the last living female of the rare Blue People ancestry.
    The lonely young Appalachian woman joins the historical Pack Horse Library Project of Kentucky and becomes a librarian, riding across slippery creek beds and up treacherous mountains on her faithful mule to deliver books and other reading material to the impoverished hill people of Eastern Kentucky.
    Along her dangerous route, Cussy, known to the mountain folk as Bluet, confronts those suspicious of her damselfly-blue skin and the government's new book program. She befriends hardscrabble and complex fellow Kentuckians, and is fiercely determined to bring comfort and joy, instill literacy, and give to those who have nothing, a bookly respite, a fleeting retreat to faraway lands. 

The Librarian of Boone's Hollow (Kim Vogel Sawyer, 2020) 

    During the Great Depression, Addie Cowherd dreams of being a novelist and offering readers the escape that books gave her during her tragic childhood. When her adoptive father loses his job, she is forced to leave college and take the only employment she can find--delivering books on horseback to poor coal mining families in the hills of Kentucky.
    The small community of Boone's Hollow is suspicious of outsiders and steeped in superstitions that leave Addie feeling rejected and indignant. Although she finds an unexpected friend in an elderly outcast, the other horseback librarians scorn her determination to befriend Nanny Fay.
    Emmett Tharp grew up in the tiny mountain hamlet where most men either work in the coal mine or run moonshine. He's the first in the community to earn a college degree, and he has big dreams, but witnesses the Depression robbing many young men of their future.
    Then someone sets out to sabotage the library program, going so far as to destroy Addie's novel in progress. Will the saboteur chase Addie and the other librarians away, or will knowledge emerge victorious over prejudice? Is Emmett the local ally that Addie needs--and might their friendship lead to something more?
    Inspired by the real WPA program that sent librarians on horseback to deliver books to hill families in Kentucky, Kim Vogel Sawyer immersed herself in Appalachian history to tell this captivating story.

Along a Storied Trail (Ann H. Gabhart, 2021) 

    Kentucky packhorse librarian Tansy Calhoun doesn't mind the rough trails and long hours as she serves her Appalachian mountain community during the Great Depression. Yet she longs to find love like the heroines in her books. When a charming writer comes to town, she thinks she might have found it--or is the perfect man actually closer than she thinks?
    Perdita Sweet has called these mountains home for so long she's nearly as rocky as the soil around her small cabin. Long ago she thought she could love, but when the object of her affection up and married someone else, she stopped giving too much of herself away to others.
    As is so often the case, it's easier to see what's best for others than to see what's best for oneself, and Perdita knows who Tansy should choose. But why would anyone listen to the romantic advice of an old spinster?
    Saddle up for a heartfelt story of love--love of family, love of place, and the love of a lifetime--from bestselling author Ann H. Gabhart.

Friday Ramble

It's FriYAY! Time for another rambling visit about all the things ...

Retellings
Why do I always forget how much I love retellings? Or rather, it's not that I forget but more ... okay, yeah, I forget how much I love retellings. I've read several lately, and they are giving me new reading joy. 

• Incense & Sensibility (Sonali Dev) ⭐⭐⭐⭐💫 (4 1/2 stars)
  This is the third of Dev's Jane Austen's retellings, and I love this series. This installment tackles Sense and Sensibility, and I think it handles modernizing some of the elements beautifully. Because there are definitely some unique challenges to modernizing that story. I'm hoping for more books/one for each of Jane's original six novels!
• Of Princes and Promises (Sandhya Menon) ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4 stars)
  Fairy tales are my weakness. In general I rank "The Frog Prince" somewhere toward the lower middle of my favorites, but this retelling is delightful. A direct follow-up to Of Curses and Kisses {aka: definitely read that one first; bonus: it's basically "Beauty and the Beast"}, this has a touch of magical realism to make the prep school rich kid scene even more spectacular.
  
• The Beast of Beswick (Amalie Howard) ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4 stars)
  This was actually TWO retellings in one book: "Beauty and the Beast" mashed up with The Taming of the Shrew ... because of course things get better if you mix Shakespeare with your fairy tale - why did I never think of that before?!
  ***Note: this one does get rather steamy, so if open door romances {aka: detailed romantic scenes} are not your thing - beware.
• If the Shoe Fits (Julie Murphy) ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4 stars)
  The first in a new series reimagining classic Disney movies for adults, and I devoured this take on Cinderella. This is the update and modernization we have been waiting for - with a really fun reality dating show spin and so much in the way of body positivity and women supporting women.
• The Lady in the Coppergate Tower (Nancy Campbell Allen) ⭐⭐⭐⭐💫 (4 1/2 stars)
  Another series I've thoroughly enjoyed is Allen's steampunk take on fairy tales. These are "proper romances" {meaning they're very chaste; nothing steamy to worry about}, but still pack a punch when it comes to the relationships between characters. This, the third installment, is a spin on "Rapunzel" 

The Most Bizarre Book I've Read in a Long Time
Okay, I read this book for a book club on Instagram and immediately pushed it into a friend's hand and said "read this!" I'm not going to give you any kind of plot details or in-depth review, except to say this is so bizarre but also so hilarious and it was exactly what I needed the week I read it. There's a sequel coming out in the spring, and I cannot wait!

To DNF or Not to DNF
If you're not familiar with the term, "DNF" stands for Do Not Finish - a fancy way to say you stopped reading a book before the end. I usually don't have many DNF books {mostly because I try to only start books I'm really interested in/feel certain I'll like enough to finish}, but I marked my first 2021 DNF title this week. It took me a few days to make the decision official, in part because I really wanted to like the book - the premise was interesting, it was a retelling (and you know I like those!), and I'd already read 40% of the book ... but ... it was going so slow; I was having a hard time staying focused on the reading; and several holds I'm very excited about came ready. So. I did it. I officially have a DNF title on my list for the year ... although I may still go back to it someday, because it did sound so good.

Do you like retellings? How do you feel about not finishing a book?